Globalizing the Community College: Strategies for Change in the Twenty-First Century

264 Pages·2001·28.098 MB·English

by  John S. Levin (auth.)

GLOBALIZINGTHE
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
GLOBALIZING THE
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE INTHE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
John S. Levin
palgrave
*
GLOBALIZING THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
© John S. Levin, 2001
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 200 I
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published 2001 by
PALGRAVE'M
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.I00I0 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAV E is the new global publishing imprint of St. Martin's Press LLC
Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly
Macmillan Press Ltd).
ISBN 978-1-349-38679-6 ISBN 978-0-312-29283-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780312292836
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levin,John S.
Globalizing the community college: strategies for change in the twenty
first century / John S. Levin.-lst ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-23906-8
1. Community colleges-United States. 2. Community colleges
Canada. l. Title.
LB2328.15.U6 L48 2001
378. 1 '543-dc21
2001018509
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Letra Libre, Inc.
First edition: April 2001
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface IX
Introduction XVll
1. Globalization and the Community College
2. The Cases:Seven CollegesinTwo Nations 19
3. The Domains ofGlobalization:TheEconomic Domain 39
4. The CulturalDomain 63
5. The InformationDomain 81
6. The Domain ofPolitics 99
7. The ProcessofGlobalization 121
8. What Remains Behind:
The Community College in theTwenty-First Century 159
Appendix 183
Notes 195
Bibliography 229
Index 245
Ofallthe paths...there is,atanygiven moment,a bestpath...to
find thispath and walkinit,isthe one needfulthing.
-ThomasCarlyle,PastandPresent
Education-comprehensive liberal education-is the one thing
needful andthe one effectiveend.
-CharlesDickens,SpeechesifCharlesDickens
Successasmeasuredbyeconomic outputbearsno closerelationship
tohumanachievement.Themostardentartisticeffortisnow devoted
not to the artsbut to promotingthe sale ofgoods andservices.And
so also most ofour scientific effort.Darwin's successors now con
centrateheavilyon gettingnew productsforthemarket.
-JohnK.Galbraith,"ForRicher,forPoorer"
PREFACE
Myconnectionto communitycollegesbegan in 1970,when Iwasen
ticed awayfrom a youthful ambition for life asa university profes
sor ofEnglish. Ibegan to teach literature atacommunitycollege,Douglas
College,inBritishColumbia,Canada,andsoon forgot the universitytrack,
choosing instead to immerse myself in curriculum and instruction, and
later in administration,at community colleges.I wasafounding member
oftwo community colleges and a participant at a third when it was un
dergoing aradical changefrom afocus upon distance education and open
learningto traditional,classroom-based education.Iwaspresent at two of
these colleges when they formalized collective bargainingand when gov
ernmentlegislation altered these institutionsfrom community-to govern
ment-funded.Ilived through asevere recession in the 1980sand through
changes in the governmentin power.Iobservedcountlessstudentswhose
parents had never seen beyondthe twelfth grade and whosehomeshad no
books.Iencounteredhundreds ofstudentswho had left high schoolyears
earlier,returningto schoolin their thirties or forties or fifties,or even six
tiesand seventies.Iwatchedthesestudentsasthey finished reading Wuther
ing Heights, completed a biology lab on the cell, or walked out of a
philosophy classdisturbed by the ethical implications ofcapital punish
ment.They were, in the exclamation ofDickens's Joe Gargery, "aston
ished."Their teachers were largely enthusiasts, not hidebound pedants as
Carlyle claims his teachers were. Others at the institution-librarians,
counselors,administrators,and supportstaff--seemedto be true believers:
they acted asifthe institution and what occurred within it mattered.For
over two decades,thisenvironmentwasmyprofessional home.We used to
saywe were married to the college,so I assume ourassociation was more
than aprofessional one.
Now, asI addressthe topic ofthe community college, this connection
sits,so to speak, on my shoulder asI write. My relationship to the com
munitycollege ispersonal,and Ihave,in reflectinguponandwritingabout
the institution, endeavored to maintain verisimilitude, based upon both
x GLOBALIZING THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
empirical evidence and some collective understanding ofthe institution
held bypractitioners.Istriveto be faithful to the pastaswellasto the em
pirically validated present.
Yet,it isunlikely that many,ifany,within the communitycollege read
ily think oftheir institution as enmeshed with globalization, one ofthe
principal threads and themes ofthis book.Globalization as I present the
phenomenon isa scholarly concern.Asa scholarly matter, globalization is
bothaconceptandaprocess.Conceptually,globalization suggeststhe draw
ing together of disparate locations and the compression of time.As a
process, globalization intensifies social and political relationships and
heightens economic competition. Unlike earlier forms of globalization,
such as nineteenth-century imperialism, the form ofglobalization in the
past two decades has been propelled by electronic technology and the
movement ofpeople, specificallymigration.The concept and the process
provide me with achannel to followin myexaminationofthe community
collegeasit hasdeveloped over the pastdecade.Thus, in one sense,global
ization isaheuristic, an avenue for uncovering organizational behaviors:it
isan amalgam ofa processthat blends external pressuresupon the institu
tion andinstitutionalresponsesto thesepressures.Globalizationleadsto the
waysin whichorganizational playersreactto forcesgreater than themselves
and the waysin which these forcesplayGutin their organization.
My scholarly interest in community colleges over the past decade and
a halfhas emphasized organizational behaviors, with the goal ofunder
standing the actions and interactions oforganizational members. In the
firstpart ofthis period,I addressed the waysin which key organizational
members, particularly institutional leaders, acted and brought about or
contributed to organizational change. In the latter part ofthis period, I
turned to examinethose influences upon organizationalbehaviors,such as
governmentactions in legislation that affectcommunity colleges.Global
ization asa topic developed from my earlier explorations into the North
America FreeTrade Agreement (NAFTA) and itsimplications for higher
educationin Canada, Mexico,and the United States.Iwasfortunate to be
a participant in severaltrilateral meetings on higher education,and I was
nc.
awarded aresearchgrant from the CanadianEmbassyinWashington,
tostudy NAFTAand itseffectsuponcommunitycolleges.Isoon began to
see NAFTA aspart ofamuch larger phenomenon. I wasalsoinfluenced
by the work ofmy colleagues, Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie,whose
early drafts oftheir book,Academic Capitalism, I read and to whom I of
fered limited advice on their treatment ofCanadian higher education. I
wascurious asto whether the concept ofacademic capitalism,applied by
Sheila and Larry to research universities, had applicability to community
PREFACE XI
colleges.Eventually,Iconcludedthat while similarforceswere atworkfor
both research universities and community colleges,such asa relative de
crease in resource allocations from the state to institutions and a relative
rise in user costs(forexample, tuition fees),there were severalfundamen
taldifferences between these institutions.These differences suggested that
academic capitalism did not apply to community colleges.Some ofthese
differences have to do with the research mission ofuniversities and the
connection ofresearch to industry and government.Some ofthe distinc
tions between community collegesand research universities pertain to the
relativeautonomyofuniversity professorscomparedto communitycollege
faculty,and some concern governance and management ofthese institu
tions, particularly regarding the legal basis of institutional authority.
Nonetheless, I was stimulated to locate a concept that corresponded to
academic capitalism for community colleges.
One ofthe distinctions between Slaughter and Leslie'sanalysisofre
search universities and mine for community colleges concerns their em
phasis upon economics-upon finances specifically.While they seem to
characterize institutional behaviors in universities aseconomically deter
mined,Iseeinstitutionalbehaviors incommunitycollegesaslesssingularly
propelled.While Slaughterand Leslieview globalization,which to themis
alsoapowerfulexternalforce,assolelyeconomicin nature, Iview global
ization asmore multifaceted,including culture and technology aswell as
economics.
Globalizationwithitsmultiple meanings anditsmultidimensionalchar
acteristics,includingthe altering oftemporal and spatialrelations,became
a useful tool as I first applied the concept to organizational behaviors
within community colleges.Itsutility asamultifaceted concept paralleled
the multipurpose nature ofthe community college and the complex and
unclearidentity ofthe institution.
All too often,the community college isviewed entirely asan educa
tional institution,partofthe educationstructure and hierarchy.Although
this is not altogether an inaccurate perception,it is a diminution ofthe
functions and actions ofcommunity colleges. Community colleges are
more than educational institutions; yet, they are defined as such and
compared to other postsecondary educational institutions. The enor
mous power ofthe perception and practice ofstratification in the U.S.
hashad an identifying effect upon community colleges asthe least pres
tigious and the lowest-quality postsecondary institution. Stratification
employed in this way hasbeen deleterious to the historical development
ofthe institution and has likely biased actions directed toward students
from community colleges, such as outcomes of their performance as
XII GLOBALIZING THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
transfer students at universities. For example, at my university, transfer
students are unequally treated in the distribution offinancial awards,in
part because many ofthese awards are distributed well before the uni
versity admits the transfer student to the institution. Many ofthe com
munity college transfer students are doubly disadvantaged:first, because
oftheir economic backgrounds, which are inferior to those ofnative
university students;and second,because they are often unable to secure
appropriate financial assistance,eitherbecause they are at the back ofthe
line for scholarships and bursaries or because they are part-time students
and do not qualify for assistance.
Comparisons between universities and community colleges belie the
complex identity ofthe community college asamultipurpose inst~tution
fulfillinganumberofcultural,economic,political,andsocialgoals.Insmall
communities,the community college servesasacultural and socialcenter
aswell asthe only postsecondary institution within commuting distance.
For many students in either large or small communities, the community
college isthe only public educational institution that will accept themfor
college-level studies given their high school academic performance. Fur
thermore, ofthe many types ofpostsecondary institutions facing students
whoareunpreparedfor college-levelstudies,the communitycollege isthe
only institution whose legal and social mandate isremedial education.In
acting upon aplethoraofintendedgoalsand in respondingto the cultural,
economic, educational, political, and social needs of its community or
communities, the community college is highly susceptible to economic,
political, and socialforces.
The multipurpose character ofcommunity colleges aside,they have as
educational institutions received both unequal and misunderstood atten
tion, again diminishing their acknowledged impact on postsecondary ed
ucation and training.First,the size oftheir student populations is ifnot
misperceived then ignored.In the United Statesin the period from 1993
to 1994,communitycollegestudentenrollmentsconstituted35percentof
allcollege and university enrollments and 39 percent ofallundergraduate
enrollments.Similarlyin Canada,the figure was38.5percentofallenroll
ments and 42 percent ofundergraduate enrollments.Second,community
colleges are viewed disparagingly,particularly in the United States,asju
niorcollegesor vocationalinstitutions,suggesting aninferiorinstitutionto
colleges and universities,which areperceived asseniorand academic.
Toview the communitycollege asonly an educationalinstitutionisto
missor misunderstand the interactions and relationships between the in
stitution and its milieu; its environment, such asstate government, social
agencies, cultural and political institutions;and the economy, locally,na-