This volume proposes that the work of community colleges has expanded beyond equity into providing a true barrier-free learning environment for students, one that is attuned to justice. The essays included here serve as evidence and examples of the productive ways in which educators may bring theory and practice to bear on each other, which in turn may allow community college faculty, staff, and administrators to reexamine the role of a community college as a space for justice. Topics explored with this volume include liberatory educational practices in and out of the classroom, transforming classrooms into the site of collaboration and contestation, and unique visions of how to promote opportunity for marginalized students. Ultimately, the goal of this edited volume is to explore and encourage community college educators to understand the integral role they play in bringing transformative justice to their students and their communities.
What do equity-oriented practices look like in different community college contexts? Given the increasing role of the community college in realizing equitable outcomes for students, examples of what practitioners are doing to move forward an equity agenda are urgently needed. The diverse perspectives and issues in these chapters explicitly advance an equity agenda and offer: Conceptual and empirical rationales to support equity-oriented practices, Examples of programming and practice that support the lives and livelihoods of underserved student populations, and Examples of policy, programming, and thinking that emphasize the role of the community college in expanding educational opportunity for underserved students. Driven by a change in thinking and imagination, these examples show how practitioners can—and should—tailor programming in light of larger patterns of inequality. This is the 172nd volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Essential to the professional libraries of presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other leaders in today's open-door institutions, New Directions for Community Colleges provides expert guidance in meeting the challenges of their distinctive and expanding educational mission.
It is difficult to find justice-centered books geared specifically for community college practi-tioners interested in achieving campus wide educational equity. It is even more difficult to find a book in this vein written, exclusively, by community college practitioners. Minding the Obligation Gap in Community Colleges and Beyondis just that: a concerted effort by a cross-representational group of community college practitioners working to catalyze conversations and eventually practices that attend to the most pressing equity gaps in and on our campuses. By illuminating the constitutive parts of the ever-increasing obligation gap, this book offers both theory and practice in reforming community colleges so that they function as disruptive technologies. It is our position that equity-centered community colleges hold the potential to call out, impede, and even disrupt institutionalized polices, pedagogies, and practices that negatively impact poor, ethno-racially minoritized students of color. If you and your college is interested in striving for educational equity campus-wide please join us in this ongoing conversation on how to work for equity for all of the students that we serve.
Winner of the 2007 Outstanding Publication Award given by the American Educational Research Association Division J. Community colleges enroll almost half of all undergraduates in the United States. These two-year colleges manifest the American commitment to accessible and affordable higher education. With about 1,200 institutions nationwide, community colleges have made significant progress over the past decade in opening access and have become the critical entry point to higher education for many Americans who traditionally have been left out of educational and economic opportunity. Yet economic, political, and social developments have increased the challenges community colleges face in pursuing an “equity agenda.” Some of these include falling state budgets combined with growing enrollments, a greater emphasis on outcome-based accountability, competition from for-profit institutions, and growing immigrant student populations. These trials come at a time when community colleges confront crucial economic and workforce development pressures that may impact their mission. How can community colleges continue to maintain their open-door policies, support underprepared students, and struggle to help enrolled students complete degrees and certificates that prepare them for success in the workplace? Building on case studies of colleges in six states—New York, Texas, Florida, California, Washington, and Illinois—this volume offers a fresh examination of the issues currently facing American community colleges. Drawing on their fieldwork supplemented by national data, the authors analyze how these challenges impact the community college mission of educational opportunity—especially for low-income students, students of color, and other underserved groups—and how colleges are responding to a drastically different environment. They then propose a set of strategies to strengthen the role of community colleges in providing both access and opportunities for achievement for all students.
Beyond Free College outlines an audacious national agenda—consistent with, but far more comprehensive than, the current “free college” movement—that builds on the best of US higher education’s populist history such as the G.I. Bill and the community college transfer function. The authors align a wide constellation of higher education trends—online learning, prior learning assessment, competency-based learning, high school college-credit— with a rapidly shifting student transfer environment that privileges college credit as the pivotal educational catalyst to boost access and completion. The book’s agenda seeks greater productive investment in postsecondary education by privileging a single metric—lower-cost-per-degree-granted—as the animating driver of a transfer pathway that will fulfill the potential of its historical, progressive innovators. Beyond Free College’s goal is as simple as it is urgent: To galvanize higher education advocates in an effort to reorganize, reorient, and reignite the transfer function to serve the needs of a neotraditional student population that now constitutes the majority of college-goers in America; and in ways that advance completion, not just access to higher education.
The White Educator's Guide to Equity argues that community colleges, as some of the most racially diverse institutions of higher education, are uniquely positioned to function as disruptive technologies for interrupting educational inequity.
Community colleges serve as a critical gateway to English-language instruction, higher education, workforce training, and civic engagement for many immigrants and refugees looking to gain an economic foothold in the labor market and integrate into the social fabric of their communities. Coming from various walks of life with different goals and aspirations, immigrants and refugees have turned to community colleges to help them further their education, prepare for citizenship, or launch new careers. At a time when our nation is facing bitter political divides over its immigration policies and gridlock at the federal level, this book tells a different story: It showcases the exemplary initiatives of community colleges and their partners working together at local and state levels to integrate immigrants and refugees into the economic, social, and cultural fabric of our communities and our country, and it illustrates the various ways immigrant and refugee students enrich campus life, strengthen communities, and benefit our economy. This book shares the perspectives of community college CEOs and examines the role of leadership in adopting institution-wide strategies and allocating resources that have advanced immigrant and refugee integration on campus and in the community. We also learn how front-line practitioners make those strategies work through educational and career pathways that have enabled immigrants and refugees to pursue their academic and career goals and contribute to the economic prosperity and cultural vibrancy of their communities.
From the foreword by Walter G. Bumphus, President & CEO of AACC: “Becoming an Equity-Centered Higher Education Institution is a significant contribution to the on-going struggle to find practical approaches to implementing an equity agenda in higher education.” The authors had three main goals for this text: Relevance: This book is the result of many years of teaching, leading, researching, and coaching individuals and institutions about equity inside higher education. The authors place a clear emphasis on awareness and teaching skills first, but also ensure that those skills are based on practical application in the field. Practical Application: To describe and explain equity and transformational change concepts, this book provides step-by-step implementation approaches that can be used to integrate equity-centered principles into practices and policies to implement or improve equity work into the organizational culture. A Purposeful Approach: The authors defined the act of becoming an equity-centered institution in terms of a transformational change approach using Kotter’s Eight-Stage Process. Kotter’s Model and AACC’s Leadership Competencies for Community College Leaders are introduced in Chapter 1 and integrated throughout the book. This integrated framework allows practitioners to place the intersectionality of equity, transformational change, and requisite leadership competencies into the larger context of higher education. While using Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, the authors emphasize that operations and situations inside higher educational institutions are not linear as implied in Kotter’s model. They show how the stages of change may occur at different times and different situations at different institutions, and demonstrate what leadership competencies are recommended for each stage in the change process.
Anticipate, manage, and overcome the complex issues facing community colleges Practical Leadership in Community Colleges offers a path forward through the challenges community colleges face every day. Through field observations, reports, news coverage, and interviews with leaders and policy makers, this book digs deep into the issues confronting college leaders and provides clear direction for managing through the storm. With close examination of both emerging trends and perennial problems, the discussion delves into issues brought about by changing demographics, federal and state mandates, public demand, economic cycles, student unrest, employee groups, trustees, college supporters, and more to provide practical guidance toward optimal outcomes for all stakeholders. Written by former presidents, including a past president of the American Association of Community Colleges, this book provides expert guidance on anticipating and managing the critical issues that affect the entire institution. Both authors serve as consultants, executive coaches, and advisors to top leaders, higher education institutions, and leadership development programs throughout the United States. Community colleges are facing increasingly complex issues from both without and within. Some can be avoided, others only mitigated—but all must be managed, and college leaders must be fully prepared or risk failing the students and the community. This book provides real-world guidance for current and emerging leaders and trustees seeking more effective management methods, with practical insight and expert perspective. Tackle the college completion challenge and performance-based funding initiatives Manage through economic cycles, declining support, and calls for accountability Delve into the issues of privatization and employee unionization Execute strategies to align institutional goals and mission Manage organizational change and new ways of thinking that are essential in today's competitive environment Manage issues involving diversity, inclusiveness, and equity Prepare adequately for campus emergencies Community colleges are the heartbeat of the nation's higher education system, and bear the tremendous responsibility of serving the needs of a vast and varied student body. Every day may bring new issues, but effective management allows institutions to rise to the challenge rather than falter under pressure. Practical Leadership in Community Colleges goes beyond theory to provide the practical guidance leadership needs to more effectively lead institutions to achieve results and serve the students and the community.
Faculty across disciplines want to provide equitable and inclusive classrooms to support all students, but they are overwhelmed by the content they must cover and have no time to address equity and inclusion in their teaching. Equity and inclusion need not be seen as extra work but as important objectives that guide curriculum development. This book provides strategies to create a more purposeful, intentional curriculum that addresses equity and inclusion across disciplines without compromising content. We bring together practical lesson plans and instructional options that faculty can use and adapt to deliver content in a way that is mindful of inclusion and equity.
