Community College Leaders Research Articles

Beacons of democratic ideals: How critical community college leaders can promote civic discourse and engage for the public good

AbstractThis chapter explores the ways in which critical community college leaders leveraged their leadership position in order to promote civic discourse and engagement in their institutions and respective communities. Five community college presidents from diverse communities across the United States were interviewed using a narrative inquiry approach to excavate the factors that enhance and promote civic discourse and engagement. The findings reveal that indeed community college presidents held a unique position within both their communities and institutions. The navigation of the power, the politics among differing relationships, and the ability to remain humble within their roles were themes that emerged as central to what it means to be a community (college) leader with trust constituting the overarching requirement.

The application of a racial equity and social justice framework to examine community college leadership

AbstractThe national demand for social justice, racial equality, and criminal justice reform rightfully and painfully continues to sweep the consciousness of this nation. Community colleges were founded on educational excellence, opportunity, and access and should reflect principles of equity, justice, and community. This mission calls upon us, the most egalitarian institutions, to lead by example by making structural and permanent changes to root out the ill effects of racism and bias from our classrooms, curriculum, and workplace. In this paper, we examined equity‐minded leadership, culture, and climate at the Los Angeles Community College District, the nation's largest, and their efforts to transform their institutions, guided by their Framework for Racial Equity and Social Justice. The Framework speaks to the values of the District and directs specific action steps and commitments that will allow the colleges and District to actively build anti‐racist organizational capacity and resilience and move forward towards a more socially and racially‐just academic community.

Community college discourses of sustainability in an academic and professional corpus

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify discourses of sustainability of community colleges and how they related to sustainability imaginaries.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a combination of research strategies associated with corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. Data included 57 issues of Community College Journal, a professional magazine published by the American Association of Community Colleges, and 2,972 abstracts of dissertations about community colleges. Publication dates ranged from 2010 to 2020.FindingsCommunity college discourse of sustainability coheres around six themes: careers and fields of study; curriculum and credentialing; campus ecological sustainability; administrative roles and processes; external organizations, partnerships and processes; and fiscal sustainability. There is little evidence of a sustainable living imaginary found.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is limited to a specific set of professional and academic texts about community colleges. Future researchers should explore discourses of sustainability in other contexts.Originality/valueThere has been no research associated with critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to explore community college discourses of sustainability, specifically in the field of community college leadership. The findings of this study situate the community college within contests over sustainability competencies in the practice of community college leadership development.

Theories supporting board reform

AbstractThis chapter reviews social and organizational theories that influence governance to contextualize new ways to think about the roles of boards of trustees. This chapter discusses how various organizational theories help define the roles of boards of trustees, the CEO, and other stakeholders with respect to governance. Using this backdrop, reforms to advance thinking about board operations that advance the mission of community colleges are presented. For example, student success and equity are at the forefront of challenges facing community college leaders and their boards. Understanding more fully how board actions and relationships can help advance this work is critical, and more research on governance and trustees is needed.

Changing Definitions of Leadership or Same old “Hero” Leader?

Objective/Research Question: The urgency to replace retiring community college leaders has been a topic of research and discussion for the past two decades. Concurrently, expansive definitions of leadership and collaborative approaches to leading have emerged. The central research question for this study was: How do sitting community college leaders define leadership? The sub-questions included: Do definitions of leadership differ by gender? Do definitions of leadership differ by position? Methods: Coding of survey data from approximately 770 sitting leaders occurred based on responses to the prompt: How do you define leadership? Descriptive statistical analysis occurred based on demographics and on position related to the coded responses. Results: This study found three prevalent ways of defining leadership: leader-focused (leader’s abilities mentioned); other-focused (leader included others, collaboration mentioned); institution-focused (leader focused on institutional needs/mission). About half of both women and men used leader-focused definitions, with slightly more men than women in the tallies. More women than men used other-focused definitions, whereas men used definitions more institutionally focused compared to women (not statistically significant). Leader-focused definitions were also most prevalent by position, with mid-level leaders using this definition slightly more than top-level leaders. Top-level leaders used a combination of institution-focused definitions more so than mid-level leaders, however (not statistically significant). Conclusions: A shift to more other-focused ways of leading is emerging. Those in mid-level positions hold onto leader-focused definitions of leadership, and this points to the need to reconceptualize mid-level leadership and ideas of leading that include others and connect to institutional missions and initiatives. The complex nature of today’s organizations requires broader conceptions of leadership.

“Coalition of the Willing”: Promoting Antiracism Through Empowering Community College Campus Members

Objective/Research Question: Critical race theory (CRT) was used with a basic qualitative study to interrogate how racism unfolds at community colleges and how Black community college presidents enact antiracism. The purpose of this study is to enhance understandings about how community college presidents of African descent construct antiracism, how those definitions are communicated, and the rationale for creating opportunities to disrupt racism within predominantly White campus environments. Methods: Six presidents participated in three semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 75-minutes each. The sample included three men and three women. Interviews focused on institutional communications about racial tensions concerning how presidents’ identities (e.g., race and gender) influenced decision making with campus stakeholders and presidential roles in defining and enacting antiracism. Results: Three themes emerged including how Accountability matters, the need for Space creators, and importance of developing Student “critical” mass. Participants discussed how they created spaces and utilized cultural capital networks to advance campus diversity agendas to benefit their institutions. Presidents posited that although community college leaders were likely motivated to participate in anti-racist practices due to the bettering of institutional image, decisive work needed to be done despite knowing endemic racism occurs in perpetuity. Conclusions/Contributions: This study highlights the need for enhanced training of presidents about how to conceptualize and engage campus racism. Additionally, presidents posited that the majority of students on their campuses were ready to engage in antiracism leadership activism, but they needed training to be empowered to develop anti-racist programs and practices. Finally, institutions need to develop stronger and more systematic ways to call out racism and promote anti-racist programing and practices.

Postsecondary access without a high school diploma: Lessons from Louisiana's Five for Six Scholarship

AbstractThis article provides an overview of community colleges as an access point to higher education, specifically for individuals without a high school diploma. The article highlights how one community college system is addressing both postsecondary access and workforce demands through policy and practice change. The Louisiana Community and Technical College System's (LCTCS) Five for Six Scholarship provides individuals without a high school diploma a path towards college and a credential that can lead to a high‐wage, high‐demand career. Ultimately, other community college leaders and practitioners can learn from the positive findings of this unique policy and practice in Louisiana, which is proving that educational pathways are not always linear.

Expanding access to international education: The case of North Carolina community colleges

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to provide an overview of US community college international education programs along with specific examples that can be implemented at community colleges wishing to establish similar offerings. This article explores especially how community colleges incorporate international education into the fabric of their institutions, providing access to global opportunities to students and members of the communities they serve. We focus our analysis on recent survey data, collected from 42 of North Carolina's 58 community colleges. These data provide insight into how community colleges are expanding educational opportunities and providing access to the multiple populations that they serve. Key international opportunities offered to students at community colleges include on‐campus international events, study abroad, internationalized curricula, North Carolina's Scholars of Global Distinction Program, and international student services. This article closes with specific recommendations for community college leaders aiming to establish or grow international programming on their campuses.

Institutional change to support online learners: A case study for student success

AbstractThe article presents a case study on institutional change within the context of an online improvement initiative. As part of its quality enhancement plan (QEP) improvement process in support of accreditation reaffirmation, Wake Technical Community College (Raleigh, NC) implemented a multistage change process to engage the college in data‐driven change resulting in the eLearning preparedness initiative (EPIC). EPIC targeted student success in online courses by improving both student and faculty preparedness for online learning and teaching. The article first describes the need for change, provides an overview of the change initiative, then describes the transformational change process and lessons learned. The article closes with guiding questions for community college leaders and online learning change‐agents to consider when planning for and implementing strategies for improving the student experience and supporting online student success.

Community College Leadership Discourses in Dissertation Abstracts, 1980 to 2020

ABSTRACT Researchers have criticized the professional and academic literature on community colleges for its gendered construals of leaders and leadership. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods associated with corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS), I identified discourses of leaders and leadership in abstracts of 9,863 dissertations about community colleges. All abstracts were published between 1980 and 2020. Findings suggest that discourses of community college leadership have evolved across five dimensions: (a) leadership models, (b) socially constructed categories, (c) roles and hierarchies, (d) leadership development, and (e) leadership crisis. Discourses related to the first three dimensions appear consistently throughout the 40-year period. Discourses related to the latter two dimensions emerge in the mid-2000s. I hypothesize a leadership imaginary in which the survival of the community college depends on a mythical, hero-president whose outstanding competencies and undivided commitment uniquely qualify him to defy organizational norms and lead transformation. The article concludes with a critique of this gendered imaginary and a call to reimagine the structure of leadership work.

Partnering for a Promise: Institutional Logics and a Community College District’s Response to a Promise Program Partnership

ABSTRACT The college promise – or free college – movement is rapidly expanding throughout the United States; however, there is much to learn about community colleges’ organizational responses to promise programs and corresponding partnerships with nonprofit organizations that are involved in some programs. Using institutional logics to frame this qualitative case study, I explored one community college district’s relationship with a nonprofit promise program partner, and revealed the ways in which this community college district preserved and blended their dominant logics with that of their nonprofit partner. The findings from this study shed light on community college professionals’ perceptions of promise programs, their organization’s response, and the college’s relationship with their nonprofit partner. Findings revealed that individual community college actors used dominant community college logic to make meaning of their partnership and maintain their commitment to the community college mission despite blending logics through incorporation of practices associated with dominant nonprofit logics. These findings have implications for the roles of community colleges and nonprofit partners in the implementation of college promise programs, as well as considerations for community college leaders.

Community College Presidential Leadership: How Presidents Think and Act to Support the Holistic Needs of Their Students

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore how public community college presidents draw upon data, their core values, and lived experiences to make decisions about how they can best respond to the holistic needs of their students. Method: Utilizing secondary elite focus group data with 15 community college presidents in Texas, we employed a general qualitative approach to analyze the data through a conceptual framework that integrates community college leadership and holistic student development theory. Results: Our findings revealed that community college presidents make decisions primarily through select data sources such as external survey organizations and their own core belief systems. Although community college presidents agreed on the most pressing day-to-day issues affecting community college students today, the way in which they framed their decisions and perceptions varied across individuals and institutional contexts. As such, common strategies for addressing holistic student support are presented in this study. Contributions: The residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to impact community colleges in the short and long term. As a result, community college presidents are pressed to develop leadership competencies to enhance their decision-making process. This study offers timely implications closely tied to community college leadership and student development theory to inform how community college leaders can enact relevant, data-driven policies, and practices to support their students holistically.

Black Women’s Resiliency in Community College Leadership

Black women leaders in higher education face a double bind of gender and racial disparity and biases within the education workforce and their institutions. The literature does not fully articulate Black women’s considerations when pursuing community college presidencies and the strategies they use to overcome the hurdles and discrimination they encounter. This research expands the literature by using critical race and Black feminist thought as theoretical frameworks to examine the ascension and succession of eight Black women leading community colleges and how they circumvented barriers associated with the male-dominated position. Findings reveal how three elements of resiliency—emotional intelligence, authenticity, and agility—contest and challenge the oppressive nature of White male privilege in gendered organizations. This newfound perspective has implications for the recruitment, retention, and persistence of faculty and administrators, leadership development programs, and succession planning at community colleges across the United States.

Expanding advocacy for community college success

AbstractCommunity colleges serve the largest percentage of under‐represented, under‐prepared, and under‐resourced students yet they are often underfunded in state budgets. This article demonstrates challenges and opportunities for community college leaders in state and federal political advocacy from the perspective of a community college state system leader, a national community college trustee leader, a Washington, DC attorney advocating for community college consortium initiatives, and a university researcher. Drawing from the American Association for Community Colleges (AACC) third edition of the Competencies for Community College Leaders, the article frames discussion of advocacy within leadership development. The purpose of the article is to equip community college leaders with strategic knowledge for advocacy in local, state, and federal political contexts to expand fiscal resources. The article details recent developments in community college consortium building for targeted federal funding and a recent shift in federal policy allowing earmarks in federal appropriations.

Critical assessment of initiatives in community college international education

AbstractIn the 1947 Truman Commission, Zook noted a validation of international education for US community colleges and specified two recommendations for the internationalization of US community colleges. The first recommendation was to embrace internationalization in the curriculum, and the second was to create an educational context in which students could gain an international understanding. This article critically assesses the extent to which US community colleges have met Zook's (1947) recommendations. The findings show that internationalization practices are supported by US community college leadership over time, are found in American Association of Community Colleges policies, are the subject of graduate student dissertations, and are the subject of research since the 1960s. The article concludes with a comprehensive set of recommendations for community colleges to support future actionable international agendas intended to serve the next generation of community colleges and their students.

Building community college federal advocacy

AbstractThis chapter describes and documents anticipated areas of federal community college advocacy. Changes in Congressional behavior are described with specific illustrations of federal legislation, specifically the Higher Education Act. Discussion on the role of the college president and CEO in advocacy focuses on the role of the president and the necessity to be vocal in federal relations. The article offers anticipated issues community college leaders need to be aware of including federal student aid, outcomes and return‐on‐investment, workforce education, innovation and institutional regulation, and the role of community colleges in civic education and cultural awareness. The chapter serves as a capstone for the volume and call to action for community college federal advocacy.

Smoothing the path for transfer: Implementing interstate passport at community colleges

AbstractThis article examines how states and community colleges can streamline the transfer process through an innovative national program known as Interstate Passport. The program enables block transfer of lower‐division general education attainment based on a set of learning outcomes rather than on individual courses and credits. The article shows how common transfer is for students in community colleges. It also outlines the challenges students face when they transfer including credit loss and the negative consequences including loss of time and money. These challenges are often exacerbated when students move between states. The article also presents an implementation case study of Interstate Passport at a rural community college and the implications of this program for the community college and its students. Finally, the article provides thoughts and recommendations for community college leaders on transfer policy and practice.

Community Colleges Evolve during the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Worked, What Did Not Work, and Lessons Learned

ABSTRACT In 2021, community college practitioners, scholars, researchers, and leaders accepted a challenge to document what worked, what did not work, and lessons learned during the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article summarizes the works of 39 authors who collectively wrote 14 peer reviewed papers in areas of leadership, curriculum, funding, social and racial tension, technology and digital access, self, family and community, and health and safety. Readers are challenged to embrace this era with innovative zeal and to continue to document community colleges’ evolutionary changes during this pandemic era.

A Call for Action to Strengthen the Commitment to Equitable Student Success: A Case Study of North Carolina Community College Strategic Plans

ABSTRACT Strategic plans are valuable tools for colleges seeking to cast vision and provide focused guidance for leadership and faculty, but it is not clear how these plans address student success. This study analyzed plans from 55 of the 58 community colleges in North Carolina. First, we analyzed the plans using a 10-step strategic planning framework to determine how well each aligned with this planning process. Then, we analyzed the plans to see how they aligned with a framework for student success that includes four elements: completion, learning, labor market outcomes and equity. Additionally, we examined the plans with an interest in understanding how they reflected the influence of neoliberalism ideals. We found that all 55 strategic plans identified goals, and most of the plans also provided strategies corresponding with these goals. Less attention, however, was given to implementation. A close look at the identified goals within the plans highlighted predominance of labor market objectives (36%), followed by attention to transfer/completion (31%) and learning (25%), with minimal attention to equity (9%), which suggests that neoliberal ideals – that gauge success by accountability measures of completion – have placed pressure on colleges in the strategic planning process. Our document analysis suggests that community college leaders are missing an opportunity to leverage the strategic planning process to support organizational learning and change by not focusing campus attention on shared goals prioritizing student success and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Neglecting to provide publicly-available planning documents also misses the benefit of stakeholder engagement.

Community college competencies for student educational leadership development and degree pathways.

This article highlights the gap in formal credit-based community college student leadership development opportunities. The authors offer eight leadership competencies to guide the development of a stackable community college leadership development certificate. This certificate serves to enhance equitable workplace development skills for the large demographic of racially minoritized students who access postsecondary education through the community college system.