DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 352 092 JC 930 013

AUTHOR Doucette, Don, Ed.TITLE Leadership Abstracts; Volume 4, 1991.INSTITUTION League for Innovation in the Community Coll., Laguna

Hills, CA.; Texas Univ., Austin. Community Coll.Leadership Program.

SPONS AGENCY Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek, Mich.PUB DATE 91

NOTE 34p.

PUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022) Viewpoints(Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120)

JOURNAL CIT Leadership Abstracts; v4 n1-15 1991

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Administrator Effectiveness; Administrator

Responsibility; *Administrator Role; ChangeStrategies; *College Administration; College Faculty;*College Presidents; Community Colleges; DecisionMaking; Educational Change; Educational Innovation;Educational Trends; Futures (of Society);*Leadership; *Leadership Responsibility; ProgramDescriptions; Teacher Administrator Relationship;Teacher Student Relationship; Two Year Colleges; TwoYear College Students

ABSTRACT"Leadership Abstracts" is published bimonthly and

distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year collegein the United States and Canada. This document consists of the 15one-page abstracts published in 1991. Addressing a variety of topicsof interest to the community college administrators, this volumeincludes: (1) "Delivering the Promises of Technology Today" (BernardR. Gifford); (2) " Leadership in Governance" (Thomas W. Fryer, Jr. andJohn C. Lovas); (3) "Presidential Mentoring: Preparing Leaders forCritical Times" (Marchelle S. Fox); (4) "Responding to the Needs ofReal Students" (Norm Nielsen); (5) "Pipeline to the Community CollegePresidency at the Millennium" (George B. Vaughan); (6) "A Code ofEthics for Community College Leaders" (Daniel F. Moriarty) (a copy ofthe American Association of Community Colleges' "Recommended Code ofEthics for Community, Technical, and Junior College Chief ExecutiveOffices" is attached); (7) "Technology in Education in the Nineties"(Terrel H. Bell); (8) "The Community College as Community Activist: ACampus of and for the Community" (Tessa Tagle); (9) "LearningCommunities: Needed Educational Restructuring" (Ron L. Hamberg); (10)

"Total Quality Management (TQM): An Overview" (Robbie Lee Needham);(11) "Beyond Wellness: Solutions for the 1990's" (William F.Waechter); (12) "Increasing Student Involvement in Learning" (JackFriedlander and Peter MacDougall); (13) "Arguments with Which ToCombat Elitism and Ignorance about Community Colleges" (Don Doucetteand John E. Roueche); (14) "Faculty E::ternships: Catalysts for TQM(Roger P. Bober); and (15) "Life after Being a Community College CEO(Chief Executive Officer)" (William E. Piland and John McCuen).(,1AB)

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Volume 4, Numbers 1-15, 1991

S

C.4'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

D. Doucette

Indexof1991LeadershipAbstracts

v4n1: Delivering the Promise of Technology Today,Bernard R. Gifford

v4n2: Leader ;iip in Governance, Thomas W. Fryer,Jr. an John C. Lovas

v4n3: Presidential Mentoring: Preparing Leadersfor Critical Times, Marchelle S. Fox

v4n4: Responding to the Needs of Real Students,Norm Nielsen

v4n5: Pipeline to the Community College Presidencyat the Millenium, George B. Vaughan

v4n6: A Code of Ethics for Community CollegeLeaders, Daniel F. Moriarty

v4n7: Technology in Education in the Nineties,Terrel H. Bell

v4n8: The Community College as CommunityActivist: A Campus Of and For theCommunity, Tessa (Martinez) Tagle

v4n9: Learning Communities: Needed EducationalRestructuring, Ron L. Hamberg

v4n10: Total Quality Management: An Overview,Robbie Lee Needham

v4n11: Beyond Wellness: Solutions for the 1990s,William F. Waechter

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOnce of Educational Research and improvement

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

This dOCument has been reproduced asreceived from the PerSon or orgamial.onoriginating it

C Miner Changes have been made to improvereproduction ouahly

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERICI

Po.nts of new or Opinions stated .n this docu.meat do not necessarily represent othc.atOERI pomoon or polity

v41112: Increasing Student Involvement in Learning,Jack Friedlander and Peter MacDougall

(10

v4n13: Arguments with Which to Combat Elitismand Ignorance about Community Colleges,Don Doucette and John E. Roueche

0 v4n14: Faculty Externships: Catalyst for TQM,Roger P. Bober

0 v4n15: Life after Being a Community College CEO,William E. Piland and John McCuen

Don Doucette. editor Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.

University of Texas at Austin with support from the WK. Kellogg Foundation.

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a b s r 'a c t s

DELIVERING THE PROMISES OF TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Bernard R. Gifford

Community college leaders, as well as leaders of anymodern organization, must justify their investment ofscarce resources in technologyboth to themselves andto their major constituents. The question is often posedas a challenge: With all of the money this college hasinvested in personal computer technology, has it becomemore productive?

Unfortunately, this question is seldom satisfactorilyanswered, both'beca use data are not readily available toprove the impact of technology and because there hasbeen little conclusive evidence to demonstrate that tech-nology increases productivityat the institutional level.This failure to document the positive impact of technol-ogy on organizational productivity forces a careful con-sideration of why it seems to take so long for technologyto produce the benefits that its ad vocates have promised.

Analogies from History

Fortunately, history provides very useful analogies.The Book. In many ways, the current situation par-

allels the Gutenberg Revolution, when students' faithfultranscriptions of professors' lectures were replaced byprinted notes. Though the book was hailed as a greatboon to productivity, it was actually just a direct map-ping of a teaching function from one medium to another.The real revolution in learning took a long time to unfold.Only gradually did writers grasp how the written wordcould free them from the linear constraints of faithfultranscription. They began exploring the multidimen-sionality of thinking on paper. Printed arguments gaineddepth and complexity with digressions, footnotes, com-mentaries, retrospective observations, and summaries.

Once they realized that this was a new technology,professors changed their methods of communication.They abandoned the notion that the book was merely ameans for archiving what they had done before theprinting press. Old models of learning, passive andimitative, gradually gave way to new models, interactiveand generative. So, there was roughly a 100-year delayin the development of the book, the primary technologyof the university, from a collection of lectures to themodern text book.

The Dynamo. The same kind of productivity time-lag accompanied most other technological revolutions.A second case in point is the dynamo, invented in the1870s. Despite its obvious potential, it took nearly 30years for this new technology to light up American cities.

Some people have argued that the reason why it took solong was because wed id not understand how to networkdynamos. Tney did not understand the need to developstandards for linking them, nor the need to developcentralized electric utilities capable of distributing elec-tricity over wide areas.

Paul David, a Stanford University economics pro-fessor, explains that there were a number of factors, notthe least of which were the existing investments in steamand mechanical technology and the lack of trained tech-nicians who understood the dynamo. People were un-aware that the dynamo would produce extra benefits,and since few technicians or policy makers had theunderstanding or imagination to anticipate the d ynamo'ssocial and economic benefits, there was little incentivefor early investment in this new technology.

Increasing Organizational Productivity

The lessons of the book and the dynamo offer somehelp in answering the concern of college leaders thatinvestment in technology results in increased organiza-tional productivity. There is ample evidence that tech-nology can improve individual productivitythat it canhelp students to write faster and better, that it can helpfaculty to gain access to information more quickly, andanalyze and present it in new ways more efficiently.However, indicators of corresponding increases in orga-nizational productivity are generally unavailable.

To realize the promise of increased productivityfrom personal computer technology, colleges need todevise new systems and methods, build new institu-tions, change individual and organizational behaviors,and think hard about what needs to be _lone on theorganizational level to achieve the increases of produc-tivity that are obvious at the individual level.

Empowering Individuals. Fundamental to all effortsis a necessary shift from a focus on serving institutionalneeds to one concerned with empowering the individu-als who constitute the organization. Real productivitygains can only be achieved by assisting individuals tochange the way they do things, to change the way theywork, by providing them with better tools. To changeindividuals' behavior, computer technology must bemade both accessible and appealing. Users expect tohave easy-to-use computers at their d isposal; they expectfull functionality with little or no concern for how this isaccomplished technically.

Published by the Leaguy for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.University of Texas at Austin with support from the V.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Providing Access to Information. One strategy formotivating individuals is to use technology to provideaccess not only to key institutional but also to immensestores of digitized information and other resources con-tained in networks and data banks worldwide. There area number of good data access models that colleges arebeginning to develop that hold promise for involvingmore and more individuals in using technological toolsto increase their personal productivity. Master/slaverelationships commonly used b,. terminals interactingwith host computers are fast being replaced with peer-to-peer interactions between personal computers. Withadvances in networking, it is now possible to provideconvenient computer access to data resources locally,nationally, and internationally.

Building a Learning Society. An initial, and stillpowerful, motivation for experimenting with the use ofpersonal computers in higher edu ca tion was the promiseof the opportunity to build a learning society. Such asociety would use personal computing-based instruc-tional technology to create an environment in whichstudents, faculty, and all others could learn at any timefree from the responsibility of university calendars; inany placefree the teaching event from place restrictions;on any topic and in any sequence. While the potentialremains, it is clear that colleges and universities are stillfar from accomplishing such a transformation of theirlearning environments. Many are in process, passingthrough various stages of the transformational process.

Stages in Technological Transformation

Some generalizations can be made about the stagesthat colleges go through in using technology to trans-form themselves and to become more productive.

1. Awareness. Most have already negotiated thegeneral awareness stage. The computer is no longer thenew-kid-on-campus. Yet, colleges have also learned thattransforming learning will not take place simply byflooding their institutions with new machines.

2. Targeting. Colleges then progress to the targetingstage when users learned how to use technology toaccomplish traditional tasks faster and better. Account-ing faculty have learned that spreadsheets can greatlyimprove or replace traditional lessons. Teachers at everylevel have demonstrated that assignments can be betterwritten and revised using word processors. These aresimply faster ways to handle old problems, facilitatinglearning but not really transforming it.

3. Customizing. Some colleges have moved the stagewhere they are attacking old problems in new ways withcustomized applications. Sophisticated software helpsteachers and scholars model physiological and bio-chemical reactions, simulate complex ecological pro-cesses, and recreate political and historical scenarios.Custom teaching applications can greatly enhance thelearning processand begin to approach the transfor-mations needed to increase organizational productivity.

4. Transforming. Few colleges have vet to achieve acomprehensive transformation of their learning envi-ronments, yet several have demonstrated what is possible

in selected disciplines. The technology to support col-laborative writing has provided the opportunity to trulytransform writing instruction, and multimedia applica-tions in numerous disciplines call into focus the enor-mous variation in the styles with which people learn.

A transformational approach needs to take a freshlook at college instruction and ask How can technologybe exploited to improve learning? Perhaps not only thesolutions but the problems need to be redefined.

Transforming Learning Institutions

The increases in organizational productivity thatcolleges seek from investment in technology requiretransformation of the learning environment. Collegesmust go beyond awareness, beyond targeting, and evento leap beyond customizing, in order to realize the ben-efits of technology in increased student learning.

Colleges can begin by providing models of change.They need to develop new ways to operate and thenapply these micro models to the entire educationalcommunity. If colleges and universities do not modelthis transformation, it is difficult to envision who will.

College leaders need to create a community of em-powered individuals. Despite the fact that technologyhas given individuals access to information and theability to make decisions in real time, most colleges stilloperate in old ways. They will not be able to exploit newtechnologies fully so long as they cling to hierarchicalstructuresgiving users the power to access informa-tion, but not to act on it.

Finally, colleges and forward-looking corporationsneed to invent and realize new organizational forms thattake advantage of the availability of decision-makinginformation at the grass roots level in a distributedsystem. They need to arrange new networks a nd developnew, transformational partnerships. There are currentlyfew examples of people working together to transformlearning organizations. A structure in which a group ofcommitted instructors can pull themselves together toredefine mathematics instruction and work on transfor-mational solutions has not vet been created.

Like the hook and the dynamo, the power of per-sonal computer technology Nvill not be unleashed untilwe figure out how to do things differently, how totransform our organizations to take advantage of net-works of informed individuals committed to the task ofcreating the best possible learning environment that tapsthe full range of human potential.

Bernard R. Gifford is vice president for educatiorrat AppleComputer and former dean of the Graduate School of Edi tea-thm, L iversit y of California, Berkeley. Th is abStraCtS11111111d-

riZeS his keynote remarks delivered at the League forInnovation's 1990 confertice on computing in communitycolleges. A call for preseiita tioirs for the 1991 con ference, to beheld in San Die". November .3-6, has just been issued. Formore information, call the League office, (714) 855-0710.

Volume 4, number 1January 1991

Don Doucette editor

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Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College.25431 Cabot Road. Suite 201. Laguna Hills. California 92653, 17141855-0710. It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution. Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College.

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abstractsLEADERSHIP IN GOVERNANCE

Thomas W. Fryer, Jr. and John C. Lovas

Governance is not an end in itself. It is the means bywhich organizations attempt to achieve their missions.Leadership in governance has as its purpose creating theconditions, through institutional processes for decisionmaking and communication, in which organizationalparticipants want to contribute more than the bareminimum required of them in the service of theinstitution's purposes, where the organization's mul-tiple leaders are roughly aligned in service of its mission.

The processes of governance in community collegesare enormously complex and characterized by ambigu-ity and paradox which effective institutional leadersmust recognize and negotiate. While there is consider-able scholarship on organizational dynamics pertinentto these concerns, a study to describe the essentialelements of good governance in community collegeswas undertaken by practitioners for practitioners.

Definitions of Key Terms

The purpose of the study was to learn if models ofeffective governance exist in community colleges, and, ifso, to identify and describe them. The investigation wasgradually narrowed to focus on nine institutions thatappeared to model good governance practice. Thesecase studies provided the data upon which the descriptionof effective practice is based. The following definitionswere used in the study.

Leadership. For the purposes of the study, leadershipis defined as the art of getting others to want to dosomething that leaders are convinced ought to be donein service of an institution's mission. This definitionembraces essential concepts of leadership as an art, aswell as the roles of leaders to motivate and articulatevision. However, a key understanding is that there aremany leaders at most institutions, and they operate atmany levels and among many constituencies.

Governance. As defined here, governance comprisesan institution's processes for decision making and thecommunication related to them. Decision making,thousands of discrete acts by individuals and groups,permeates all institutional activity. How decisions aremade; who makes them; the time, place, and manner inwhich they are made; and how they are communicatedessentially determines how effectively institutionsachieve their missions. Governance establishes the orga-nizational structures and processes in which decisionmaking occurs and decisions communicated.

Qualities of the Best Governance Practice

The most effective governance in communitycolleges includes the widely shared perception thatdecision-making and communication processes possessthree characteristics: clarity, openness, and fairness.This perception develops most fully in the college in thepresence of two key attributes: competence and stability.All of these qualities both create and are created by trust,and the entire apparatus for governance operates underinstitutional conditions of widely shared personalcommitment, civility, caring, hard work, and good times.These eleven terms, then, constitute the central core ofbest institutional governance.

Clarity. Clarity refers to widely shared knowledgeamong organizational participants of what decision-making structures and processes are. There is littleconfusion on how things work, and everyone sharesessentially the same working understandings. Thepresident does not describe the time, place, and mannerof decision making in one way while administrative staffor faculty describe it in another. Everyone knows thegovernance mechanisms, and there is general congruityamong the college's constituencies that these mechanismswork in commonly understood ways.

Openness. People can be very clear on the waygovernance works in their institution and at the sametime feel that it is characterized by secrets and deceit.Openness means a perception on the part of organiza-tional participants both that they have access to decision-making processes and that the information available tothem for use in these processes constitutes the truth, thewhole truth, and nothing but the truth. Openness requireshonesty in information, full and timely disclosure, anabsence of manipulation, and access, either in person orthrough representation, to the arenas in which decisionsare made.

Fairness. A shared sense that fairness characterizesdecision making means that people at every level in theorganization feel their needs and views are being heard,listened to, and taken into account. People feel thatnonsqueaky wheels get grease, too, and that processesare not dominated by those who choose to show up andspeak. It also means that the organization's resourcesand rewards are distributed in such a way that favoritesdo not get more and that everyone feels he or she receivesan equitable share, or at least an equal opportunity toplead his or her case and be fairly considered.

Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.University of Texas at Austin with support from the WK. Kellogg Foundation.

Competence. Excellent leaders can be tall or short,physically attractive or unattractive, quiet or gal rulous,urbane or folksy, but they are all fundamentally compe-tent, proficient in the work they do. An institutioncannot achieve its missions effectively with an incom-petent board of trustees or chief executive officer, or withincompetents serving in any of its key leadership roles inthe faculty, administration, or support staff.

Stability. Stability is equally essential. When faculty,administrators, and staff of long tenure in institutionssee persons at the top come and go, they may concludethat their "leaders" are merely passing through, presum-ably on their way to bigger and better things, and losefaith that they have the institution's best interest at heart.If there is confusion created by frequent turnover at thetop, either in the governing board o. the top ranks ofadministration, the underpinnings that excellence mustbe built upon fail.

Trust. A widely shared sense of mutual trust isessential for excellence governance. All the partiesmust feel that the others telling the truth, that they arenot manipulative or motivated by hidden agendas andcan be depended upon to keep their wordthat theparties are, in a word, honest. Trust can exist only wherepeople are trustworthy. Trust also requires that allparties respect the legitimate standing of others andacknowledge that everyone possesses rights derivingfrom being a stakeholder in the enterprise. The basicfoundation for trust is also created at the top, vet trusteesand CEOs are as susceptible as anyone else to servingnarrow personal interests. When these officials use theirpositions to further those interests, a great deal is at riskin the institution.

Personal Commitment. The best institutions arecharacterized by large numbers of people who exhibit ahigh degree of personal commitment to the mission ofthe enterprise. Such persons understand the institution'smission, accept and value it, have at least a latentunderstanding of the organization as a means to achievethe mission, and do not draw hard lines around theminimum requirements of their jobthey want to domore than the minimum. Inspiring people with a sells.-of the institution's possibilities and granting people powerto do their part in realizing those possibilities create inthem commitment to the enterprise, and they will shareresponsibility for its failures as well as its successes.

Civility. In some organizations common courtesycivilityis not so common. Interaction among the partiesin such places includes name calling and mean-si, itedpersonal attacks. People openly display a lack of respectfor one another. They seem not to like each other. Insonic of the worst situations loud, angry, public (andprivate) arguments take place aimed at individuals ratherthan issues. Such conditions, without exception, drainthe organizations of the intellectual and emotionalenergy necessary to achieve maximum and, in somecases, even minimum effectiveness. The disc jockey inthe 1988 film Talk Radio wisecracks, "Sticks and stonescan break your bones, but words cause permanentdamage." Words cause wounds that may heal, but scar

6

tissue remains forever. In the best institutions, culturalnorms reinforce courtesy and civility as dominant quali-ties in interpersonal relations.

Caring. Caring is related to commitment and civilityboth as a cause and an effect. The dominant character-istics of commitment are intellectual. The dominantqualities of caring are emotional, but the emotions andthe intellect are intertwined in both. The study foundlarge numbers of individuals who were deeply interestedin their institutions, who were concerned with theirfunctioning and well-being, who profoundly cared abouttheir colleges and their colleagues.

Hard Work. Such caring is an essential prerequisiteto another of the conditions which characterizes the bestin governance: hard work, everywhere, at every level, bymany people. In the best institutions, enormous amountsof time and energy are freely given by many individuals.Once, in a discussion in Foothill-De Anza of how muchtime was consumed in the hard work of the Budgetand Policy Development Group, one of the membersreminded the assembly of Mae West's marvelous line:"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." Suchcaring and commitment reflect a sense of pride and joy inpeople, and a willingness to make processes for decisionmaking and communication effectively serve thepurposes of the institution.

Good Times. Finally, in the best governanceprocesses, the people involved are having a good time. Asense of playfulness and camaraderie arises out of theother ten qualities; a good humor pervades events andrelationships. People do not take themselves too seri-ously. There is a lot of good-natured kidding around.Participants have fun, seeing the lighter side, even whenmatters are of great import and seriousness. Such aquality among the players creates the clear perceptionthat their role in the institutional drama is a joy to play.

What creates these conditions in an institution? Thestudy does not claim to have found the complete answer.The investigation identifies some important factors, butthere is much to be learned about the complex interplayof leadership and governance. All eleven of the qualities,are not fully developed in any of the nine colleges exam-ined in the study, but the most effective institutions havea richer mix of these qualities than others. The influencethat makes the greatest difference in achieving theirfullest realization is leadership in governance.

Thomas W. Fryer, Jr. is chancellor, Foothill-De AnzaCommunity College District. John C. Lovas has been amember of the English pcult y at Foothill-De Aria since 1965.This abstract highlights some of the major insiOts of theauthors' recently published book, Leadership In Goz,ernance:Creating Conditions for Successful Decision Making in theCommunity College, now available front Josses -Bass, Inc.,Publishers, 350 Sansone St , San Francisco, CA 94104, (415)4.33-1740. All royalties will be contributed to the Footlnll-De Aitza Col leges Foundation to support st talent scholarships.

Volume 4, number 2February 1991

Don DknIcetk editor Leader AbsItads t. puhli,,hed at the off ice of the f vague for Innmat ion in the Community Co .ge2', f t I Cabot Road Suite 2(11 1 aguna Hill-, California t1 0 VI (71 f I ;k55-071 It us is..ued vice

monthly and dmributed to the chief etecutive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada Leaderqup Alisfrai 61,-. Intended lor duplication and further distribution Copyright held by

the League fur Innovation in the Community College.

PRESIDENTIAL MENTORING: PREPARING LEADERS FOR CRITICAL TIMES

Marchelle S. Fox

Pundits, researchers, and commentators of all kindsand persuasions agree that leadership makes a differ-ence. So, the call has gone out for a new generation of1aders to guide organizations through the challengestacing them in the fast-changing twilight of the twentiethcentury. It is no secret that the public education system,buffeted by demographic, technological, fiscal, and socialforces generally beyond its control, needs a new genera-tion of effective leaders to meet the demands placedupon it. Nowhere is this need more acute than in thenation's community colleges.

Community colleges need leaders not only to func-tion as agents of change and to implement innovativesolutions to persistent problems, but also to reflect andto model the diversity of the students they serve. Com-munity colleges must cope with the retirements of the"first wave" of leaders who founded, shaped, and nur-tured these institutions, for as many as half of all currentadministrators will retire in the next 10 years. Whileconcerns for effective leadership generally focus on thepresidential level, in fact, leaders are needed throughoutthe organizational structures of community colleges.

Clearly, university graduate programs can produceonly a limited number of the thousands of talentedindividuals needed to transform community collegeswhile maintaining their founding ideals and funda-mental commitment to access with excellence. Rather,current community college presidents hold the key topreparing the next generation of leaders: mentorship oftalented faculty and professional staff with the skills andinclinations to become educational leaders. Not only arethe ranks of community college faculty and staff filledwith committed and resourceful educators steeped inthe ideals and culture of their distinctive organizations,but their racial and ethnic composition provide anexcellent pool from which to achieve the culturaldiversity needed in the next generation of leaders.

The President's Intern Program

The President's Intern Program was established atSan Diego City College in 1988. Its initial successsuggests that it has the potential to serve as a model forinstitutional efforts to supplement externally operatedleadership development programs. The purpose of theprogram is to assist the development of leaders fromamong the ranks of college faculty and professional staffto help ensure the continuity and high quality of leader-ship throughout the institution.

The format of the program is straightforward: eachyear, the president identifies projects that are importantfor institutional advancement, yet have not been assignedto an individual or office. Such projects often cut acrossinstitutional lines of responsibility and are strategic ratherthan tactical in nature. In the three years San Diego CityCollege has operated the intern program, the projectshave included developing and implementing a strategicplanning process, a collegewide progra reviewprocess, and a student tracking system.

Then, with the assistance of her cabinet, thepresident initiates a search for individuals who haveboth the interest and capabilities necessary for tacklingone of the selected special projects. There are alternativeways to identify prospective interns, including solicitingapplications for the position or initiating other similarcompetitive processes. The nature of the project caninfluence how the president decides to seek interns.However, at San Diego City College, the selectionprocess has been rather informal and has resulted inselecting veteran faculty members in the first two yearsand the college's director of Extended OpportunityPrograms and Services in the third year.

Once selected, the intern and the president establisha mutual set of expectations for the year of collaborativeeffort. Usually, 80 percent of the intern's time isreassigned to participate in the program, and an office isprovided in the president's complex.

The Mentoring Relationship

At the heart of the program is the mentorship rela-tionship that is developed between the president andthe intern. The program seeks to institutionalize theotherwise rare opportunity for the president to assistpersonally in the professional development of a poten-tial college leader. Yet, ultimately, the success of theexperience is related directly to the success of the rela-tionship established between the intern and president.

Readiness. The intern's readiness for leadershiproles is critical to the success of the relationship. Since thementoring process is time and energy intensive for bothparticipants, it is important to assess informally andearly on the readiness of the intern to undertake theassignment, and this assessment should inchmie anopportunity for the intern to collaborate in the design ofthe internship. At the same time, the intern must infor-mally assess the readiness of the college president toprovide a meaningfA1 mentoring experience. To be an

Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.

University of Texas at Austin with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

effective mentor, a president must make the relationshipa priority that can withstand the competition of otherpriorities for his or her time. The president must alsovalue team building while being an effective motivator.Finally, the president needs to model beha vior a nd valuesthat are congruent with those of the intern.

Trust. A successful mentoring relationship dependsupon the trust that develops between the president andintern. Mutual trust is a prerequisite to leader-followersynergy, to the exposure to new opportunities for theintern, and to the eventual empowerment and effective-ness of the intern in collegewide roles. If the presidentor the intern loses this trust, their effectiveness as a teamwill be severely degraded. This is not so different fromthe trust that must exist between president and topadministrative staff; its absence is crippling.

Support and Challenge. The intern also looks to thecollege president to provide support and challenge.Support is provided by listening, by providing structureto tasks, by stating expectations positively, and bysharing oneself as a person. Challenge appears throughthe assignment of tasks, through the maintenance of highstandards, and through brainstorming together. Thesuccess of the mentoring relationship depends on theintern's ability to communicate his or her needs and thecollege president's ability to provide the developmen-tally appropriate response.

Benefits to the Participants

The benefits of the President's Intern Prograni at SanDiego City Collegea re both obvious and subtle, and theyaccrue to all those involved in the experience.

Benefits to the Intern. The most apparent benefits ofthe program are those experienced by the intern. First, heor she benefits enormously by being accorded the oppor-tun, Iv to learn and apply new skills in new contexts andto exercise new responsibi lities associated with the specialproject around which the mentoring relationship is built.For an experienced faculty member, the opportunity totake on major administrative responsibilities can beboth broadening and empowering. For a staff member,assignment to a different area of responsibility canprovide a different perspective on too-familiar tasks.

Shadowing the president and members of the senioradministrative team provides an opportunity for theintern to experienr a variety of leadership and manage-ment styles, interact with a broad range of constituen-cies, acquire new cognitive skills, and to view the orga-nization from several different perspectives. A potentialinstructional dean has much to learn about budgetdevelopment, apportionment, and college operations,while a future student services dean can profit from timespent in class schedule development, facility evaluation,and design of new programs and courses. Also, anintern's preparation for any position can only be enhancedby observing how the vision that a president has for aninstitution is formed and articulated, and how it affectsday-to-day decision making.

Benefits to the College. The intern program pro-vides direct benefits to the college of two major kinds:1) the accomplishment of a special project of importanceto institutional advancement and 2) the preparation of areservoir of leadership talent from which the institution 8

might draw in the future. The program can also providesubstantial indirect benefits by simply signaling to allcollege constituencies that the president is serious aboutassisting individuals to advance their careers. Howadroitly the president manages both the fact and thesymbol of the internship can determine the ultimatebenefit of the program to the college.

Benefits to the President. Perhaps the least obviousbenefits of the program are those that can accrue to thepresident, the mentor. The conventional wisdom haslong observed that the best. way to learn a subject is toteach it. The president who tries to teach leadership andmanagement skills is constantly forced to reevaluate thevalidity of what he or she knows about each. Similarly,the president who can see the leadership experiencethrough the eves of the intern gains grea ter knowledge ofhis or her own strengths and weaknesses, as well asinsight into the organization that might otherwise havegone unnoticed.

Also, as a mentor, the president stays in touch withthe daily experiences of the faculty whose teaching is thecore and substance of the purpose of the institution. Theconnection can be vital to maintaining a clear perspectiveand sense of priority amid the everpresent diversions offund raising, lobbying, negotiating, and othernoneducational tasks that are unavoidably critical to thecollege. Of course, there is also great satisfaction inwatching the development of the skills and abilities ofthe intern, and in time, the emergence of the intern as aneducational leader. The president cannot help but benourished and rejuvenated by observing the establish-men t of a lasting legacy of new leaders for the college andthe profession.

Programs like the Presidents Intern Program arekey to assisting in the development of the next genera-tion of leaders required by community colleges. Theyare not intended to replace national leadership develop-ment programs with formal internship such as thoseoperated so successfully by the American Council onEducation, the Commun ity College Leadership Programat The University of Texas at Austin, or the League forInnovation. Rather, these internal programs can learnmuch from the experiences of these programs, whileaddressing on individual campuses across the nation theneed for a new generation of leaders.

Marchelle S. Fox is dean, Extended Studies andInstitutional Development, at San Diego City College. 51wserved on the .faculty for ten years prior to serving as the firstintern in the President's intern Program initiated in 1988 byJeanne L. Atherton, president of San Diego City College.

"Expanding Leadership Diversity in CommunityColleges" is a leadership development program conducted bythe League for Innovation to assist mid-level managers andfaculty leaders who are minorities to qualify for senior-leveladministrative positions. A maim component of the programis a mentorship relationship, -,with a sponsoring CEO.Completed applicqions for; the 1991-92 program are dueMarch 31. Applicalionlnaterials may be obtained from theLeague office, (714) 855-0710,

Volume 4, number 3February 1991

Don Doucette editor Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College:25.131 Cabot Road Suite 201. Laguna Hills California 02s5 t 171.1) 855-0710 It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief eyecutive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution Copy right held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College

leader'shipabstractsRESPONDING TO THE NEEDS OF REAL STUDENTS

Norm Nielsen

The recent focus on institutional effectiveness iswelcomed by community college leaders who havelong felt the frustration of trying to juggle the missionof access with an insistence on quality. The ques-tions have shifted from How many? to How well?The answers, however, require colleges to know farmore about their students than ever before.

The focus on effectiveness has resulted in re-gional accrediting agencies requiring institutions todocument the intended outcomes of their programs.Many colleges have scrambled to collect whateverdata are available and have attempted to use themboth to document outcomes and to indicate areasfor improvement wherever possible. The need fora meaningful method for describing student char-acteristics and prescribing programs and servicesto meet their needs has become evident. The meth-odology of choice is one which provides the abilityto match programs and services with the character-istics and needs of individual students. Given thediversity represented by the students of most com-munity colleges, this has not been an easy task.

Fortunately, there has been a gradual conver-gence in the thinking and methodology of theinstitutional researchers and information officerswho "run the stats" and the academic leaders whoare supposed to understand numbers and takeappropriate actions. Instead of categorizing studentsaccording to academic percentiles, these researcher-practitioners are electing to group students in moredescriptive categories that reflect academic ability,value orientation, socio-economic and culturalbackgrounds, and a host of cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics. In some cases, collegeshave been able to develop useful typologies ofstudents to guide the development and prescriptionof programs and the delivery of services.

Using a Descriptive Typology of Students

One such typology was articulated by RichardC. Richardson, Jr. in an earlier issue of this abstractseries (May 1990, v3n8). He proposed four catego-

9

ries of student preparation: 1) well prepared withhigh opportunity orientation; 2) marginally under-prepared with high opportunity orientation;3) marginally underprepared (or worse) with lowopportunity orientation; and 4) well prepared withlow opportunity orientation.

In the fall of 1990, Kirkwood faculty and staffwere presented with a slightly modified version ofthis typology and asked to reflect on ways in whichthe college might most effectively serve students ineach group. Strategiessome new, others ongoingwere identified to address barriers to the successof each.

For the Well Prepared and Highly Motivated

For students identified as well prepared andhighly motivatedRichardson's first group, thecollege reassessed the function and content of theHonors Program, as well as the range of studentleadership opportunities. Encouraged by thefaculty and administration, Kirkwood's StudentExecutive Board implemented Operation Snow-fh.ke, a major campaign to renovate a large butdeteriorating motel into a comfortable, safe, andprofessionally staffed home for disenfranchisedwomen and children. This type of project, whichwell reflects the national swing toward greater civicresponsibility, has proven to be highly effective inmeeting the hid,' .er order needs of students who arenot themselves deprived, academically deficient,or lacking in motivation.

For the Less Prepared But Highly Motivated

Strategies directed toward the group ofstudents who are less prepared but highly motivatedinvolve a variety of service sectors. At Kirkwood,this group is growing larger, due primarily to theincreasing numbers of single parents and adultsreturning for retraining. One program recentlyimplemented is PACE (Program for Adult Cen-tered Education). Designed by counselors who are

Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program,University of Texas at Austin with support from the WK. Kellogg Foundation.

familiar with the demands placed on adults withsmall children, such as frequently inoperative cars,and changing employment status, the PACEprogram staff take an advocacy role for students toresolve issues which might keep them fromachieving their academic goals. The success storiesof people falling into this category are impressiveand have served the college exceptionally well astestimonials to the value of open access.

For the Reasonably Prepared Who Lack Motivation

Reasonably prepared students who lackmotivation constitute the smallest percentage ofstudents at Kirkwood, but are among the mostdifficult to retain. When such students are identi-fied, faculty and staff counsel and encourage themto set some specific career goals. Research studieshave demonstrated that the selection of such goalsis highly correlated with student success. Sincevocational majors have a higher completion ratethan students in a general education curriculum orno clear academic goals, it is not uncommon tocounsel a student who is tentative about or strug-gling with a career decision into one of the college'seleven career option programs. These are designedto bridge the gaps between transfer and terminaldegree programs by providing enough job-specifictraining for an entry position, and enough generaleducation to assure foundational skills if and whena student decides to pursue a baccalaureate.

For the Underprepared with Low Expectations

At Kirkwood, students who are underpreparedand have low expectations are served by a variety ofstrategies. These are the students for whom thecommunity college is likely the last opportunity foracademic success.

Because they require so much care and atten-tion, Kirkwood determined to go the extra step forat least one hundred students each year through aspecial program entitled START (Supported Train-ing and Retraining). Funded in part by a privatefoundation's contribution of $1,000,000 over fiveyears, this program accepts students on a referralbasis from area agencies. Program staff work as ateam to co, nplete comprehensive assessments forall students and then to place them in classes appro-priate to their levels of skill and interest. Tutorialand special counseling assistance is readily available.If necessary, their tuition, fees, books, child care,and transportation costs are paid for the first year of

i 0

attendance. Financial aid staff work with them tosecure other sources of assistance thereafter.

Community colleges have long been cognizantof the special (and expensive) needs of this group.However, only recently have business leaders, leg-islators, and others begun to recognize the impor-tance of recruiting and retaining this last group ofstudentsa group which will cost them far more insocial service benefits than in educational expenses.Creating partnerships with local businesses to helpmake productive members of society out of thosewho have previously contributed little due to theirlack of basic skills and opportunity orientationsmay be a key for community colleges to address theissue of serving such underprepared students.

To better serve students in all four groups,Kirkwood's objectives included the creation of anInstructional Technologies Center where facultycan learn how to use state-of-the-art instructionalequipment (as well as update the old tried-and-truematerials). Student orientation and student lifeprograms have also been given a higher priorityin the wake of evidence that there is a positiverelationship between social integration andacademic success.

Promoting institutional effectiveness becomesmuch less problematic when it is translated intoserving the needs of identifiable groups of students.At Kirkwood, it has become much less difficult toexplain the liversity of the student population andjustify neede support to constituent taxpayers,business and industry leaders, and foundations byusing an easy-to-understand typology than bypresenting pages of statistics which both bore andconfuse.

Through the identification of needs, theprograms can be built which will ensure thatcommunity colleges can and will continue toprovide both quality and access. Maintaining anopen door to a diverse student audience remains thecommunity college missionand remains essentialto making the American dream achievable by allmembers of society.

Norm Nielsen is president of Kirkwood CommunityCollege in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1989, lw zoos electedto the Board of Directors of the American Associationof Community and Junior Colleges, where lie servesas chair of the Committee on Public Relations andPublications.

Volume 4, number 4March 1991

Don Doucette. editor Leadership Absfrads is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College:25.131 Cabot Road. Suite 204. Laguna Hills California 92053.1714i 855-0710. It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief usecutive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution. Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College.

IPIPELINE TO THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE PRESIDENCY AT THE MILLENIUM

George B. Vaughan

What will the profile of community college presi-dents look like in the year 2000? Will future chiefexecutive officers include greater proportions of womenand minorities, thus mirroring the diverse backgroundsof community college students? Will presidents guidingcommunity colleges into the 21st century bring differentpersonal and professional perspectives to the job?

These and other questions about the future cannot beanswered with certainty. But a rough picture of the nextgeneration of college leaders can be projected by exam-ining those who are waiting in the pipeline: communitycollege deans of instruction. Indeed, the last compre-hensive study of community college presidents, TheCommunity College Presidency, published in 1986 byACE/Macmillan, found that 38 percent of sitting presi-dents had served as a dean of instruction immediatelyprior to assuming the presidency and that an additional12 percent hiid served as vice president, a position thatusually has academics under its purview. While somecome to the presidency via service in another post, suchas dean of student services, the pathway to the presi-dency most often leads from the academic dean's office.

The following draws upon a national survey ofcommunity college deans of instruction, conducted in1988-89, to speculate on the characteristics of the nextgeneration of community college presidents. The find-ings suggest that there will be few changes in institu-tional leadership in the near future because those pro-ceeding through the pipeline to the presidency are inmost cases a mirror image of today's presidents, both interms of demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Demographic Profile of Deans

Just over half (53 percent) of all deans of instructionat public community, technical, and junior collegesresponded to the survey, which revealed that whitemales are still the predominant group. The vast majority(79 percent) of the 619 responding deans was male andan even larger proportion (93 percent) was white; only3.2 percent of the deans were black, 1.8 percent wereHispanic, and 2.0 percent were from other ethnic groups.This demographic profile is quite similar to the profile of

presidents that emerged in the 1986 study, with oneexception: women constituted a significantly lowerproportion of the presidents (8 percent) than of the deans(21 percent).

Despite the larger proportion of women, the profileof the deans does not bode well for the future diversity ofthose in presidential positions. Of the responding deans,55 percent have the community college presidency astheir career goal. Assuming that the responding deansare representative of all 1,169 deans nationwide, andassuming further that all deans who aspire to the presi-dency will be successful (a likely supposition given the127 presidential vacancies that are available each year atcommunity colleges), it can be estimated that approxi-mately 630 of today's academic deans will at some pointbecome presidents. But by applying knowledge of thedemographic composition of current deans, it can beprojected that of these 630 new presidents, only 135 willbe female, 20 will be black, 11 will be Hispanic, and 13will come from other minority groups.

Clearly, oft-stated intentions of bringing moreminorities and women into leadership positions have ahollow ring in light of what is known about those whoare in the leadership pipeline. If racial and ethnic diver-sity in the presidency is a goal, the future is less thanbright; if providing diverse role models for diverse stu-dents is a goal, the fu ire is less than bright; if bringingmore women into the presidency is a goal, the future issomewhat more encouraging, but still falls short ofdiversifying the position to a degree that would evencome close to reflecting the community college's studentbody. Unless changes are made identifying, recruit-ing, and employing future presidents, the conclusionmust be that white males will continue to be overlyrepresented in college leadership ranks.

Socioeconomic Background

There will also be few changes in the personal back-grounds of those who lead our colleges. It is noteworthythat the deans mirror the presidents in terms of socioeco-nomic levels, educational background, and other keyindicators. For example, the educational level of the

iiPublished by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.

University of Texas at Austin with support from the WK. Kellogg Foundation.

mothers and fathers of deans and presidents is essen-tially the same for both groups; the jobs held by theirparents are essentially the same, although more mothers

`presidents are homemakers than are mothers of deans;the attitude of both groups toward scholarship is thesame; and tl,o educational level and background ofcurrent deans are almost the same as president!. Thespouses of the dea ns and presidents are similar, althoughmore spouses of deans work outside the home tha,i dospouses of presidents. Current deans even take on theaverage 13 days of vacation each year, exactly the samenumber of days that presidents take; this is in spite of thefact that both deans and presidents earn over 20 days ofvacation each. The average ages (50.7 years for presi-dents and 48.3 years for deans) of the occupants of thepositions are much closer to each other than might beexpected, considering that the "junior" of the two posi-tions is a likely heir to the "senior" position.

If further evidence is needed regarding who willhead the nation's community colleges in the future, onecan ponder what it means that over 90 percent of thecurrent community college presidents came from withinthe community college ranks, a percentage that will notdiminish over the next two decades. The personal andprofessional backgrounds of those waiting in the pipe-line to take leadership positions at community collegesare striking in their similarity, suggesting that tomorrow'sleaders will view the institution and the presidency inmuch the same way that current leaders do. Unless theapplicant pool for future presidents is e7 pandee: beyondthe base of current deans, the presidency will not benefitfrom the experiences of a broader spectrum of leaders,including educators, business executives, and others.

Recommendations for Increasing Diversity

Promoting more women and minorities to theacademic deanship (and thus placing more women andminorities in the pipeline to the presidency) is a key todiversifying tomorrow's community college leadership.Community college leaders and hoard members shouldconsider the following recommendations:

1. Female and minority deans should view thepresidency as being within their grasp. They should beencouraged to view themselves as highly desirablecandidates and to make the position a career goal.

2. More women and minority faculty must berecruited and, after having gained teaching experience,encouraged to move into the administrative pipeline.

3. Graduate programs in higher education shouldplace more emphasis on recruiting minorities and womenand placing them in positions of leadership. The Univer-sity of Texas at Austin's program is a good example ofwhat should be done in this regard.

4. Vacant division chair positions and academic

12

deanships should be filled with women and minorities,whenever feasible,

5. Current deans and presidents must work todiminish the image and reality of the all-white, all-male,"old boys club" and welcomes women and minor;:iesinto all college activities.

(1. Minorities and women need mentors and rolemodels; until such time as there are enough minorityand females mentors, white males, especially presidents,must volunteer to fill this role.

7. Women should continue to expand their effortsat providing professional networks for other womer

8. Minorities should strengthen their peer networksand use these networks.

9. The American Association of Community andJunior Colleges must begin to collect data on race,ethnicity, and gender of community college' leaders.

10. Governing boards must seek qualified candi-dates. But they should reject the belief that they mustalways employ "the best qualified candidate" if "bestqualified" just means more experience, greater seniority,and more time in grade.

11. Finally, governing boards, current presidents,and others should realize that there are many pathwaysto the presidency other than the academic deanship andrecruit candidates from these alternate pathways toincrease diversity. With this in mind, qualified womenand minorities should be identified from both inside(student service's, dministrative service's, communityservices) and 01.1 tsio the community college field.

The iversity represented by the community college'sstudents is a reflection of the nation's population andparticularly of a work force that increasingly is made upof more minorities and women. Will the communitycollege presidency reflect the diversity of the studentsattending these institutions? Will the presidency reflectthe composition of the work force? The answer is no, notunless some actions are taken to change the existingsituation, for those individuals waiting in the presiden-tial pipeline will continue to resemble current presidentsin more ways than might be desirable as the nation'scommunity colleges approach the millennium.

George Vaughan is director of the Center for CommunityCollege Education, George Mason University, Fairfax,Virginia. This essay is abstracted frown his latest book,Pathway to the Presidency: Community College Deans ofInstruction, published in 1990 by the American Association ofCommunity and Junior College's.

Volume 4, number 5April 1991

Jim Palmer, guest editor

Don Doucette editor Leadership Abstracts published at the off ice of the League for Innovation in the Community College:2 , 1 3 1 Cabot Road Suite 20.1. Laguna Hills. California 92651. i 71.0 8,5-0710. It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College.

AI

A CODE OF ETHICS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE LEADERS

Daniel F. Moriarty

Recently, the heightened importance attachedto the moral dimension of leadership and the highpublic expectations of leaders have resulted in arenewed interest in organizational value statementsand codes of ethics for institutional leaders. Over 75percent of the fortune 500 companies have adoptedvalue statements, and in universities across thecountry, institutes and courses in ethics have sprungup. Codes of ethics, once the preserve of doctorsand lawyers, have also received renewed attentionas a way of setting forth the standards to whichleaders hold themselves.

In her 1979 work, Lying, Sissela Bok argues thatscholars must consider the development of a codeof ethics: "Scholars in many fields have had noreason in the past to adopt a code of ethics. Butsome are now exerting so much influence on socialchoice and human welfare that they should berequired to work out codes similar to those thathave long existed in professions like medicine orlaw." (p. xvii) As chief executives of their institu-tions, presidents of community colleges clearlyexert as much influence and have, in many cases,significantly more impact on the public welfaretitan scholars. It seems appropriate to ask, there-fore, that presidents of community colleges alsomake a strong professional statement on theimportance of ethical values and moral leadershipthrough a code of ethics which would set forthstandards for their own behavior.

Purposes of a Code of Ethics

In addition to Bok's straightforward argumentthat educators need to be up front about their moralprinciples, there are other reasons to consider acode of ethics for community college presidents.

Representing Professiona! Ideals. A code neednot be a listing of petty regulations. It can be a granddesign, expressing a dearly and passionately heldcore of values that represents the ideals of the

profession. As such, a code can foster pride, estab-lish professional identity, and build communityamong presidents who daily face difficult issues,anxious stakeholders, and needful communities.

Serving as a Guide for Behavior. In ambiguoussituations, a code can also serve as a guide and afoundation for ethical behavior even if it will neverpunch out the answer. When presidents, forexample, face political pressures for the awardingof contracts and jobs whether from board membersor their shadows in the community, principles ofconduct related to objectivity, fairness, and the bestinterests of the institution might be more helpfulthan simply assessing the immediate politicalpay-off of acquiescence to pressure.

Not surprisingly, chief executives around thecountry find themselves in highly fluid and highlyambiguous situations for which there are noobvious responses. Indeed, it is entirely possiblethat two executives facing the same quandary mayeach decide to go down a different path. For apresident making that decision, however, a carefullycrafted code can provide basic principles on whicha decision can be based. Presidents should not haveto make their way in the dark of a totally relativistic,subjective world.

Establishing Principles of Performance. A codeof ethics can also serve as a guide and incentive tothose who interact with the president. Employ-ment contracts, for example, between presidentsand boards are now incorporating ethical principlesto serve as a basis for the board's expectations andthe president's obligations. Ethical values containedand publicized in a code can have the salutary effectof putting all stakeholders on notice that their presi-dent stands for certain principles which should notbe assailed and will not be compromi,ed. In anydiscourse or controversy, these principles can bereferenced and can provide a meaningful guide fordecision. making. That these principles are alsosubscribed to by the American Association of

13Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Co t munity College Leadership Program.

University of Texas at Austin with support from the W.K Kellogg Foundation.

Community and Junior Colleges adds weight totheir importance.

The other side of the coin, however, is that sucha public statement also provides a convenientevaluation instrument to measure the effectivenessof the president. Presidents have questionedwhether their various publics might have one more"weapon" to turn against them. The fact is thatpresidents are always being evaluated on the basisof their moral leadership and integrity; principleshave just never been explicitly laid out. A code ofethics does that. In addition, the principlescontained in a code should not be seen as specificrules or regulations whose violation can besimplistically determined. Ethical principles shouldclearly reflect values and obligations, but theseprinciples must always be applied to specific situa-tions where responsible people can reasonablydisagree, especially in complex situations.

Finally, presidents need to accept once and forall their accountability, not only on technicalgrounds, but on moral grounds. Frankel makes thispoint in his 1989 article, published in the Journal ofBusiness Ethics: "Because the profession affects theinterest and well-being of individuals who dependon professional services and also exert influence onkey social institutions that pursue the commongood, society has every right to evaluate profes-sional performance in the light of a moral as well asa technical dimension (p. 110) If a code of ethics iswell crafted, presidents should be eager to take astand even if they have to take the heat.

A Community College Code of Ethics

In an effort to draft such a code, the PresidentsAcademy of the American Association of Commu-nity and Junior Colleges two years ago began adevelopment process that resulted in the approvalby the academy of a code of ethics specificallydesigned for community college presidents. At itsApril 1991 meeting, the AACJC Board of Directorsrecommended adoption of the code to all of itsmember presidents.

The outline of the code includes a preamble, astatement of values, and a set of principles. In thepreamble, the president's primary role as the moralleader of the institution is explicitly set forth. At thesame time, there is a clear recognition of the limita-tion of the code and of its basic heuristic value.

The second section of the code describes the

values that inform and underlie the principles. Inturn, the values tend to cluster around the twinmandates of justice and liberty. All the valuesdescribed, honesty, fairness, respect for individualpeople and excellence, for example, constitute ashared core of values that must first be accepted ifthe principles of conduct are to hold up.

The principles of ethical conduct logically followthis statement of values. In this case, principleshave to be understood as standards from whichaction flows. The principles are set as responsibili-ties toward the major stakeholders who include theboard, faculty and staff, students, and the largercommunity. Importantly, the code is a call to actionin relation to the constituent members of the com-munity. The code is not a call to passive, privatevirtue related to being and not doing. While integ-rity requires that the president be in fact a person ofvirtue, that is, to possess a certain quality of charac-ter, the code requires doing, acting, and it requiresthat the president urge others in the college com-munity to assume their ethical responsibilities andthen to acknowledge publicly their contributions.

Despite the benefits inherent in a code of ethicsfor community college presidents, the limitation ofsuch a code in promoting ethical behavior andethical leadership is obvious. The life and force theproposed code of ethics will have will be the life andforce given to it by community college presidents.Obviously, presidents need to read and discuss thesubstance of the code. More importantly, presi-dents need to think ethically and to engage inethical discourse.

Portions of this article are excerpted fromchapter that will be included in Ethical Dimensions ofCommunity College Leadership, edited by George B.Vaughan, to be published by Jossey-Bass Inc. in thespring of 1992. Used with permission.

Daniel F. Moriarty is president of Portland Commu-nity College in Portland, Oregon. He chaired the Presi-dents Academy when it undertook the development of the"'Code of Ethics for Community, Technical, and JuniorCollege Chief Executive Officers" described in thisabstract, a copy of which has been included. Additionalcopies may be obtained from Carrole Wolin at AACJC.

Volume 4, number 6April 1991

14Don Doucette editor Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College.

24431 Cabot Road. Suite 201. Laguna Hills. California 92653. 171.11855-0710. It is issued twicemonthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United States

and Canada Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution. Copyright held bythe League for Innovation in the Community College.

American Association ofCommunity and Junior CollegesNational Center for Higher EducationOne Dupont Circle, N.W., Suite 410, Washington, D.C. 20036

POLICY STATEMENT

RECOMMENDED CODE OF ETHICSFOR COMMUNITY, TECHNICAL, AND

JUNIOR COLLEGE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

PREAMBLE

The chief executive officers (CEOs) of community, technical, and junior colleges set the ethical tone fvr their institutionsthrough both their personal conduct and their institutional leadership.

Therefore, each CEO should adhere to the highest ethical standards and promote the moral development of the collegecommunity.

To achieve these goals, CEOs should support active moral reflection, dialogue, and principled conduct amongthemselves, their boards of directors, administrators, faculty, staff, students, and the community at large.

While no code of ethics alone can guarantee ethical behavior, the values set forth in this code are intended to guideCEOs in carrying out these duties.

VALUES

To promote individual development and the common good, CEOs should strive to promote basic values about howpeople should conduct themselves when dealing with others in an academic institution serving the educational needs of thecommunity. These values should represent a shared ideal which should permeate the institution and become for CEOs aprimary responsibility to uphold and honor.

These values should include:

I. Trust and respect for all persons within and without the college.2. Honesty in actions and utterances.3. Fairness and justice in the treatment of all.4. ti pervasive sense of integrity and promise keeping.5. A commitment:

a. to intellectual and moral developmentb. to q.ialityc. to individual empowermentd. to the community college philosophye. to college above self.

6. Openness in communication.7. Belief in diversity within an environment of collegiality and professionalism.

RESPONSIBILITIES TO BOARD MEMBERS

1. To insure that all board members have equal access to complete information in a timely manner.2. To avoid not only conflict of interest, but also the appearance of it.3. To represent accurately positions of the board in public statements.4. To foster teamwork and common purpose.5. To carry out board policies in a conscientious and timely manner.

Opportunity With ExcellenceOne Dupont Circle, Suit* 410,.WashInglon.D.O. 20036 (202) 728.0200

RESPONSIBILITIES TO ADMINISTRATION, FACULTY, AND STAFF

1. To encourage the highest standards of excellence in teaching and in the advancement and application of knowledge.2. To respect both the personal integrity and professionalism of administrators, faculty, and staff.3. To promote a college environment that fosters mutual support and open communication among all administrators,

faculty, and staff.4. To raise consciousness concerning ethical responsibilities and encourage acceptance of these responsibilities.5. To seek and respect the advice of administration, faculty, and staff in matters pertaining to college life and

governance.6. To treat all employees fairly and equitably, to preserve confidentiality, to provide appropriate due process, and to

allow adequate time for corrective actions.

RESPONSIBILITIES TO STUDENTS

1. To ensure that all students are treated with respect and to promote acceptance of diversity within. the collegecommunity.

2. To provide quality education and equal access to educational opportunities for all students.3. To provide accurate and complete descriptions of available academic programs and to provide sufficient resources

to ensure viable programs.4. To seek and respect contributions of students to college decisions.3. To ensure that there is no unlawful discrimination, harassment, or exploitation in any aspect of student life.

RESPONSIBILITIES TO OTHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

1. To keep informed about developments at all levels of education, particularly with respect to community, technical,and junior colleges.

2 To be honest in reporting college operations and needs.3. To honor agreements and to maintain confidential information.4. To respect the integrity of programs offered by other institutions and to promote collaboration.

RESPONSIBILITIES TO BUSINESS, CIVIC GROUPS, AND THE COMMUNITY AT LARGE

1. To ensure that the college responsibly meets changing needs in its state and communities.2. To promise only what is realistic and keep promises that have been made.3. To ensure that all interested parties have an opportunity to express their views regarding college policies.4. To ensure equal opportunities for all groups to take part in college programs.5. To avoid conflict of interest in contracts, services, and sharing of information.6. To honor all laws pertaining to the college.

RIGHTS OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

A CEO should have the right:

1. To work in a professional and supportive environment.2. To a clear, written statement of the philosophy and goals of the college; to participate fully in setting subsequent goals

and policies.3. To a clear, written statement of conditions of employment, board procedures for professional review, and a job

description outlining duties and responsibilities.4. Within the scope of authority and policy, to exercise judgment and perform duties without disruption or harassment.

5. To freedom of conscience and the right to refuse to engage in actions which violate professional standards of ethical

or legal conduct.

Adopted April 1991

b s

TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION IN THE NINETIES

Terrel H. Bell

Education is a labor-intensive industry. Whileother industries have made great strides towardincreased gains in productivity and efficiency intheir work by using machines, power tools, andcomputers, educators have made only slightprogress.

In the face of constant outcry that our schoolsare not educating students to meet today's chal-lenges, those responsible for making changes mustpush to bring to our classrooms the enormouspotential of technological advances of recent years.We now have the capacity to revolutionize thework of teachers and learners.

What is needed is a broader vision of teaching.Classroom technology greatly enhances the powersof each teacher to teach and each learner to learn byutilizing computers, networks, educationalsoftware and multimedia tools. We simply mustrecognize how outdated our current teachingpractices are.

Today's educational software is far more ad-vanced than even the best offerings of just two yearsago. We do not have to wait for effective programsto be developed. These programs are on the markettoday, but many educators are not aware of them.

After we have convinced decision makers thatthey must bring more technology into the teachingand learning scene, we must begin by teaching ourteachers. When we adequately train our teachers,the end result is evident in the students.

More Time for Teachers

Teachers have always been burdened with toomuch paperwork. But this task of record keepingand administrative duties can be carried by tech-

17

nology. Every teacher in America should have anduse computer software to make reports and moni-tor student progress. They must be taught to use thecomputer to save time. Computer technology caneven aid a teacher in knowing each student's learn-ing deficiencies. From grading tests and recordingscores to daily communication with parents, tech-nology should replace the antiquated and tedioushandwritten work that currently wastes so muchprecious teacher timetime that should be devotedto interaction with and motivation of students.

At least one-third of each student's day at schoolshould consist of individualized learning supportedby some aspect of electronic technology. Studentsspend far too much time listening to teacher lecturesand working in a group situation that often concen-trates on the learning problems of others. Studentsin these situations are passive observers and notactive participants. All learning takes place, ofcourse, in the mind of each individual. As eachstudent's mind begins to respond actively to thesubject matter of the school's curriculum, he or shebegins to learn more.

When involved with a well-written computervideodisc learning program, students are motivatedto respond. They cannot sit passively and observe.Each student is actively engaged in learning atevery step of the way in a computer program,whether or not his or her response is correct. Theprogram gives immediate feedback and reinforcesthe student with knowledge that the response iscorrect or provides additional stimulus and infor-mation to the learner if his or her previous responseis wrong. Many educators familiar with technologyin the classroom believe this type of learningexperience promotes self-esteem.

Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.University of Texas at Austin with support from the WK. Kellogg Foundation.

Personalized Instruction for Students

Perhaps the most important advantage to bothteachers and learners is the ability of the software topersonalize instruction based upon the capabilitiesof each student. Specifically, teaching software cantake the student who has encountered difficulty ina particular subject through a much more detailedexplanation and illustration than the student who isbetter acquainted with the concept needs. Onlyindividualized learning of the type offered bytoday's technological wonders can provide thistype of differentiation. This support and assistanceto the teacher is indispensable and makes almostzero-defect teaching a realistic possibility.

To make this level of learning efficiency pos-sible today, we must have a ratio of at least onecomputer for every three students in each class-room. Moreover, the teacher must be thoroughlyfamiliar with the content of software programs,which is where thorough, aggressive technologytraining plays an important role. This familiaritymust be just as comprehensive as is the teacher'sknowledge of a textbook's content. Unfortunately,we are only beginning to attain this capability in afew schools.

The use of computers and software to helpmaster the curriculum should be a natural andspontaneous action on the part of the teacher. It

should take less effort than it takes to turn the pagesof a textbook or to turn to the chalkboard to presentsubject matter to learners.

Computers in the Classroom

We must integrate the use of technology withinthe regular classroom routine. Too many schoolsseparate computers from the classroom, marchstudents down the corridor to the computer labo-ratory, and require them to study what is presentedby computer out of the context of their daily learn-ing environment. This approach does not takemaximum advantage of the impact educationaltechnology can have on students. And the teachermay never become committed to the use of tech-

18

nology if we continue to foster a separation of theclassroom environment and educational technology.

Technology in the classroom provides moreindividualized learning for each student and lesstotal classroom concentration on one concept at atime. It also provides the teacher freedom to meetthe unique needs of each learnerto spend moretime in small groups and in one-on-one situationsand less time with the entire class concentrating onthe same idea. Through the power of technology,the classroom becomes the ultimate educationalenvironment.

When we consider the enormous advantage toteachers and students, and when we bring intoperspective the urgent need to make today's schoolsmore efficient, we begin to realize the great poten-tial of electronic technology to enhance learningand actually revolutionize American education.

Education is the key to solving many of theproblems in our society; from the need for moreproductivity in the economy, to the demand toreduce the shockingly high dropout rate that feedsunemployment and other ills. We must be moreaggressive in bringing to the vast Americaneducation enterprise all that can be providedthrough optimum use of technology in teachingand learning.

This ed itorial first appeared in the Winter 90/91Special Issue of T.H.E. JOURNAL. It is reprintedwith permission.

Terre! H. Bell served as U.S. Secretary of Educationfrom 1981 to1985 and was author of the landmark reporton American education, A Nation at Risk. He also servedas U.S. Commissioner of Education during the Nixonand Ford administrations.

He will he the keynote speaker at "Leadership 2000,"an international professional development conference forcommunity college leadership teams sponsored by theLeague for Innovation in the Community College andThe University of Texas at Austin, to he held July 7-10in Chicago.

Volume 4, number 7May 1991

()on 1)oucette editor I cadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the community College2', 1 31 Cabot Road Suite 20,1 Laguna Hills California 92053. 171 11 855-0- 10 It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year cohere in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Afrtrads is intended for duplication and further distribu. ion. Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College.

THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE AS COMMUNITY ACTIVIST:A CAMPUS OF AND FOR THE COMMUNITY

Tessa (Martinez) Tagle

Communitiesthebasic cell structure of the nationare disintegrating from neglect, dependency, and despair.The causes are primarily social: poverty; the absence ofindividual and collective self-estc.:m; the lack ofknowledge, education, even basic mforma tion; andgenerally, speaking, poor coordination in the use ofAmerica's resources to help people in need.

The effects are pathological. Youth gangs, onceconfined to the inner city, are forming in the most exclu-sive suburbs. Premature death begins in the womb fornewborns who, addicted at birth, pose extraordinaryand long-term health and intellectual costs. Housing,the place in which family and values for learning arenested, remains woefully out of reach or inadequate.How community colleges fit a broader social agenda intotheir already overburdened intellectual mission mustbegin with their decision to treat the most vulnerable insociety as whole human beings.

College as Community Activist

On the one hand, in the midst of federal and localcutbacks, this is not the best time to propose yet anotherrole for the community collegeespecially when therole of community activist sounds like a return to the 60srather than a leap forward to the year 2000. On the otherhand, it is precisely to preserve economic resourcestheir own and the nation's that colleges can helpcommunities set new patterns of behavior in the 90s toachieve a more equitable yet fiscally attainable quality oflife for all in the twenty-first century.

Communities and community-oriented collegesshare several important characteristics. One of thoserelates to their delivery of infrastructural support to thepeople they serve. Imagine living in a community whichprovides excellent fire and police protection but anundependable water supply. In the same way, commu-nity colleges cannot provide only educational solutionsin building self-sufficiency when students' problems areinextricably tied to family, housing, personal health,work, and life in the neighborhood.

Taking on the role of community activist meanstaking on dual allegiancesdemonstrating as muchfidelity to what is outside the campus door where oneworks as to what is outside the kitchen door where onelives. It means advocating for the pockets of poverty inthe community where descendants of the same familycan remain trapped for generation after generation evenas others are enhanced by the edge that education provides.

The problem is that the poor still do not make thethoughtful connection between education and a betterquality of life. In their neighborhoods, the motivation towant and to act to improve has ceasednot because ofsome cultural or racial characteristic, but because ofrepeated broken promises, severed funding, or frag-mented and politicized social services which haveencouraged dependency. The bootstrap which had beenavailable to others to pull is gone. The will for aneducation is not going to come from within these neigh-borhoods. It has to be infused from without through thesensible packaging of community resources, which, ratherthan working independently on clients and case loads,act in unison on each human being. Community collegeshave an important responsibility to assist this infusion.

A Campus Of and For the Community

Recently, the Medical Center Campus at Miami-Dade Community College completed its strategic planhand-in-hand with its twenty-one-member CommunityAdvisory Council for Strategic Planning. The plan ishinged on a clear philosophyto be a campus of and forthe community. Underlying this philosophy is a sit .plebut powerful set of convictions. The first is to valuepeople as individuals; the second is to pursue bothqualitative and quantitative growth; and the third is toprovide service to the community. The following is asample of programs which translate this philosophy andvalues into concrete acts in the community.

Health Careers for People in Public Housing. Thisprogram aims at moving individuals and families livingin public housingusually with incomes of $8,000 peryear or lessinto high-demand health care jobs thatbegin at $19,000 per year or more. The immediate goal isto place graduates in jobs; the distant goal is to enablethem to move out of public housing into low-mortgagehome ownership as family income increases.

Each student who successfully completes the pro-gram begins a generation's break away from "theprojects." Children get a chance at a change in environ-ment as a parent becomes financially self-reliant. Gradu-ates of the program acquire more than just a job; they arepositioned for a career ladder in health care.

Medical School for Kids. Another program givestwelve and thirteen year-old, at-risk students an orienta-tiona la Mr. Rogersto things that boil and bubble incampus science laboratories. The Medical School forKids is a six-week experience offering learning activities

Published by the League fol- lNovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.The University of Texas at Austin with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

which create an early interest in the health and medicalprofessions. The program includes an orientation tonursing and allied health programs, science instruction,laboratory experiments, CPR training, and field trips tohospitals, EPCOT center, and other places which createan incentive to stay in school and to claim the materialrewards that are so important to adolescents.

The Dade County Public Schools declared the pilotprogram to have achieved the highest-ever retentionrates for at-risk youths. Thirty-two students began theprogram, and thirty-two students finished with thedesire to be a nurse, an obstetrician, a pediatrician, or aneurosurgeon. All left with a Latin-based vocabularythat would put most to shame.

Partnerships with High Schools. Recently, theMedical School Campus has struck an alliance with analternative high school that serves teenage pregnantwomen. Too often, these young women are on a nine-month countdown to dependency on public assistance.In some communities, this plague is epidemic. Follow-ing behind them are eleven and twelve year-olds in thesame circumstances. In the partnership, older studentswho are about to exit the alternative high school aredually enrolled in college programs, given financial aidcounseling, and assisted in preparing for life and alivelihood as very young single parents.

Comprehensive Neighborhood Quality of Life Program.The most exciting project is just getting underway. Ifsuccessful, the Comprehensive Neighborhood Qualityof Life Program ha: the potential to establish a nationalmodel for how community colleges deal with the pooramong them. The program will help a neighborhoodidentify a set of quality of life indiceswhat the neigh-borhood perceives to be healthy. The campus, then, willcoordinate an infusion of community resources to helpthe neighborhood to become healthy according to theindices. The college will coordinate strategies and ser-vices by all agencies, community groups, and studentvolunteers to deal with individuals as whole humanbeings with all-at-once needs for educational health, joband economic health, physical health, and environmen-tal health in the form of housing. The idea is to promotethe complete recovery of one neighborhood at a time,rather than to scatter and squander resources.

Strategies for Community-Based Programming

These ventures are not easy. They are intensivelabors of community activism that must overcomeincompatible infrastructures of collaborating institutions;general ambiguity about the best way to meet the verycomplex needs of program participants; and the egos,personalities, and turf battles that get in the way. Oddlyenough, what makes joint projects like those suggestedhere work is that no one knows all the answers when theprogram begins. Program planners learn together whatworks and what does not. Typically, the programs thatdo work at the Medical Center Campus are those that dothe following:

Build upon College Programs. Successful programsoften combine education or field applications of cur-rently existing campus programs with a fundament4

()

community problem. Faculty incorporate research andanalysis of key community issues in their courses anduse their communities as laboratories for subjects rang-ing from history and economics to language and nutrition.

Focus on Whole People. Perhaps the key character-istic of successful programs is that they focus on wholes,not parts of people. They take into consideration all oftile physical, intellectual, occupational, and psychosocialneeds and wants of the people they serve. It is inconceiv-able to expect a single parent living in public housingto attend class regularly without also tending to needsfor childcare, transportation, meals, tutors, uniforms,malpractice insurance, and seventy-five dollar text-books- -for which, by the way, most Private IndustryCouncils will pay.

Match Program Characteristics to Specific ClientCharacteristics. Successful programs are also those thatacknowledge that the poor are not a homogeneous group.Rather, specific programs need to target specific charac-teristics of subgroups, for instance, black males betweenthe ages of seven and eight, pregnant teenagers, parentsof preadolescents, and extended families.

Incubate Programs with Small Groups. The wis-dom that it is easier to move a mountain in small pailsthan in one big push applies here. Small programs giveparticipants the attention that they never get in bureau-racies. Small initial efforts also reduce the costs of errors

and allow mid-course adjustments to he made more easily.Collaborate Across Organizations. Successful pro-

grams use multi-institutional resources in process, de-sign, and implementation. They recognize that no oneperson or organization can fix the ills of society alone.They build upon each other's strengths, and they col-laborate freely, always keeping in mind that the interestsof the clients they share come ahead of other concerns.

Fixing at-risk communities might seem just too big aburden to assume. Community colleges have alreadytaken on the toughest job in higher education, and to takeon more seems overextending their present mission. Yet,these institutions are clearly positioned to connect class-room to the community in ways that can help bothstudents succeed and neighborhoods prosper. If notmmunity colleges, then whom?

Attempting to solve all community problems simplycxceeds the present configuration of resources withinthe college and community. However, by repositioningcollege resources and assisting the convergence of thehuman resources residing in their faculty, staff, andstudents, community college leaders can begin forginglong-term solutions to heal and restore the communitiesin which they workand live.

Tessa (Martinez) Tagle has been president of the MedicalCenter Campus of Miami-Dade Community College Miami,Florida, since 1988. Previously, she served colleges andcommunities in Texas. She will speak on the topic of commit-nity colleges as commun tv activists at "Leadership 2000," theupcoming protessimal development conference for commu-nity college leadership teams in Chicago, Illinois, July 7-10.

Volume 4, number 8May 1991

Don Doucette. editor

g 1{14 yi II11 .11

Leadership Afstrads is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community. CollegeII Cabot Road Suite 20.1 1 aguna Hills California 92651 171.11 8`6-07I0 It is issued mit e

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution Copy right held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College

I

LEARNING COMMUNITIES: NEEDED EDUCE. :IONAL RESTRUCTURING

Ron L. Hamberg

There is general agreement that undergraduate edu-cation is in crisis. Its fundamental ills include the lack ofcoherence in course work, the lack of connectednessamong the disciplines, and the lack of intellectual inter-action between faculty and students.

In contrast, imagine a learning environment wherestudents and instructors eagerly work together towardunderstanding concepts, solving practical and intellec-tual problems, debating philosophical positions, andtrying to synthesize aspects of different disciplines.Imagine students and faculty reluctant to quit theiractivity at the appointed hour, and imagine that ninetypercent of tne students complete their classes and receivecredit. This almost sounds too good to be true, but it istrue for learning communities which restructure th..curriculum in order to achieve linking and coordinationof content and learners in an environment based uponexperiential learning.

A Definition of Learning Communities

Learning communities describes a pedagogicalapproach which places emphasis on the student and theinstructor as members of a commu_lity engaged in thelearning process. Courses and course work are joinedtogether or restructured during a quarter or semester sothat students and instructors can experience the coher-ence of content spread over two or more disciplines. Theexperience at Seattle Central and other communitycolleges in Washington State suggests that almost anydisciplines can be linked: economics with history; musicwith English and political science; art history withgeography. Discovering the interconnectedness amongthe disciplines becomes an essential part of the learningprocess.

A learning community entitled, "The Renaissance:Italy and Harlem," provides a good example. The disci-plines linked in this program are English composition,art, music, and history. Instead of separate, isolatedcourses, the students and the faculty study relationshipsamong disciplines and across time. Instead of facultylecturing students about content, students and facultyread original source materials, in translation if neces-sary, and discuss and debate concepts of humanism and

free will, love and romanticism, and individualism andcommunity, as reflected in the art and music of the era.Students work together in small groups designing pre-sentations which represent various positions on ethicaland philosophical questions. Faculty collaborativelyplan and team-teach the program. They meet regularlyand discuss issues before the collective body of students,who observe their mentors engaged in spirited debate.

The Pedagogy of Learning Communities

The following elements characterize the pedagogy oflearning communities:

Integration of Skills and Content. This is not anunusual element of education; indeed, most educationaltheories recommend integrating skills acquisitionactivities with content. In practice, however, there isoften little emphasis on skills acquisition. Students dotoo little writing, and teachers require too lit le analysis.Lectures followed by multiple-choice examinationsoften pass for the learning process itself. Learning throughexperienceby doingis the epistemological corner-stonc r learning communities,

Interdisciplinary Study. While linking and synthe-sizing disciplines is increasingly recognized as importantto understand the complexity of contemporary issues,current educational practice divides subject matter intodisciplines and subdisciplines, resulting in isolated andfragmented views of the universe. Learning communi-ties attempt to achieve a more comprehensive under-standing of the world.

Active Approaches to Learning. Although mostlearning communities use lectures to some extent, theirpedagogy tends to be more diverse, and seminars anddiscussion groups are critical elements of programdesign. Seminars are key to learning communities sincethey provide a format that encourages collaboration,discovery, learning to work in groups, and developingan ability to express a personal point of viewall ofwhich are reinforced by using primary source materials.

Restructuring. Learning communities overcome thefragmentation of typical teaching and learning envi-ronments by restructuring time and space so that facultyand students spend more class time together.

ei 1fPublished by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.

The University of Texa,-, at Austin with support from the WK. Kellogg Foundation.

The Organization of Learning Communities

Learning communities are usually organizedaccording to three basic models:

Interest Groups. Triads of courses form interestgroups, usually offered at the freshman level. Eachinterest group has a peer advisor who convenes thegroup weekly to form study groups, to learn aboutcampus resources, and to plan social gatherings. Forexample, an interest group in pre-law might be createdby courses in American government, introduction tophilosophy, and fundamentals of public speaking. Thestudents are a cohort who register in the three interest-group courses.

Linked and Clustered Courses. This organizationalstructure is the least intrusive with respect to the curricu-lum found in most colleges and universities today. Itconsists of two or more courses taken in common by acohort of students. At the simplest, or linked, structure,the faculty agree to run their classes with an awarenessof the content of the other courses. The clustered struc-ture adds a common theme, such as "culture, myth andfolklore," which connects the courses. A more coordi-nated approach, called a federated learning community,uses a master teacher who attends the linked courses andalso teaches a theme seminar for the students connectingthe disciplines.

Coordinated Studies. This model, developed at theEvergreen State College, is comprehensive in structureand content. Faculty teams plan and teach together inblocks of time which allow opportunities for discus-sions, workshops, field trips, lectures, and other suchactivities. In addition, this model uses book seminars,which involve the reading of primary material and guidedsmall-group discussion. This structur,? involves con-siderable coordination of course and faculty scheduleshence the name. It is also the most expensive modelbecause the student/faculty ratio must be near 20:1 sothat seminars and small-group work are possible.

The Case For and Against Learning Communities

The case against learning communities is usuallybased upon objections to their curricular intrusivenessand high cost. In fact, these objections are inextricablylinked. Learning communities explicitly challenge thepredominant methodology of the current undergradu-ate curriculumthe lecture. In fact, the principal reasonfor herding students into lecture halls is that this peda-gogy is cheap, and thus, the major resistance to learningcommunities is their higher costs relative to the lecture.

The cost-efficiency of the lecture is such that it hasdominated undergraduate education, with the result ofencouraging memorization of other people's ideas with-out much discussion, debate, or discovery. At least forpublic education in the United States, it has been thecustom not to introduce these three Ds until graduate

school, and in most instances, not a great deal untildoctorate studies. This practice is certainly not basedupon educational theory, but rather on its efficiency inprocessing large numbers of students cheaply. In thelong run, however, the lecture approach is not cost-effective, because students dc not learn as effectively.Attrition is high and skills accuisition uncertain.

Curricular innovation always carries the burden ofdemonstrating that it is better than the current structure.Thecliallenge for learning communities is to demonstratethat while they are a more expensive methodology, theyare more effective. The experience in Washington Statesuggests that learning communities can deliver impres-sive results in terms of student academic achievement,student intellectual development, retention. transfer, andstudent motivation. Studies at Seattle Central suggestmeasurably enhanced intellectual development resultsfrom the learning communities approach. Further,learning communities programs have experienced greatlyimproved rates of student retention and persistence.Longitudinal studies are currently being conducted todetermine the long-term effects of participation i

learning communities on subsequent academic perfo:mance, degree achievement, and goal accomplishment.

Anecdotal evidence provided by students andfaculty contend that learning communities offera superiorstructure for education. While not as cost-efficient as thelecture, learning communities may be more cost-effective,result in better education, and provide a more satisfyingand renewing experience for both students and instruc-tors. It has been suggested that the learning communityexperience is probably long-lasting and may actually actas a kind of learning virus: one or two doses may infectthe learner forever. If current research bears out theseclaims, it would seem wise to consider modifyingeducational structures so that students may encounterlearning communities in one or more forms at least for asemester or two prior to graduate school. Involvementin learning communities may be some part of thesolution to the crisis in undergraduate education that isuniversally lamented. The lecture probably is not.

Ron L. Hallberg is Dean of Instruction at Seattle CentralCommunity College in Seattle, Washington. He isa found lgmember of the Washington Center for the Improvement ofUndergraduate Education, and has collaborated closely withits director, Barbara Leigh Smith, to propagate the integrationof learning communit ies into the curriculum of the minim, i tycolleges in Washington State. in conjunction with the 1991annual meeting of the Association of General and LiberalStudies in Bellevue, Washington, staff from the Seattle Com-munity Colleges will organize a preconference workshop onlearning commtm itics for community colleges, October 16 -17.Contact Julie Hilmar for more information, (2061587-3873.

Volume 4, number 9June 1991 G r

Don Doucette. editor

®1'r1111,11 "I I 1 ol v, R.c

Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College25131 Cabot Road. Suite 201. Laguna Hills California 92b5 i 171.111355 -0710 It is issued tv.ic e

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution Copy right held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College

abstract IsTOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT: AN OVERVIEW

Robbie Lee Needham

Management systems are usually implemented inresponse to current conditions. Such systems and theterms to describe them change with time and use in newcontexts. Much of the current management literature, ineducation and other industries, focuses on systems thatcan be described under the umbrella term, Total QualityManagement, or TQM. TQM contains a mix of originalideas and those with historical antecedents. The follow-ing is a brief overview of TQM and how it is beingapplied in community colleges.

Background and Sources

TQM is a management systema philosophy, set oftools, and organizational models. It is known by namesother than Total Quality Management, including: theDeming Management Method; in the United StatesTotal Quality Improvement and Total Quality Commit-ment; in JapanTotal Quality Control, Company-WideQuality Control, and kaizen, which in Japanese meansgradual, unending improvement, doing little things bet-ter, setting and achieving ever higher standards.

The components of TQM are a blend of ideas devel-oped by three major theorists. W. Edwards Demingapplied statistical thinking to the control of variation ofwork processes. He is best known for his fourteen points(Out of the Crisis, 1986). J. M. Juran added insight intomanaging for quality and describing the quality trilogy:quality planning, quality control, and quality improve-ment (Juran on Leadership for Quality, 1989). Philip B.Crosby developed ways to motivate and organize forquality. His less technical approach is based on the ideasof "zero defects" and "conformance to requirements"(Quality is Free, 1979). Most quality improvement pro-grams follow the ideas of one or more of these theorists.

basic Concepts

While there are significant differences among thetheorists and their approaches to implementation, theyshare basic concepts that are the foundation of TQM.

Continuous Improvement of Quality. Fundamentalto all TQM systems is improting the quality of the

prod ucts and services provided by an organization. Suchquality improvement results in greater productivity andenhances the ability of an organization to remain vital,employ people, and serve customers. A focus on con-tinuous quality improvement helps an organization dothings right.

Central Focus on the Customer. Also central to allTQM is a focus on the customer, the internal and externalrecipients of an organization's products. Their needsand desires define quality for the producer whose job itis to meet or exceed the customer's needs and expecta-tions. A focus on customers helps an organization to dothe right things.

Systematic Improvement of Operations. All workoccurs in processes that begin and end somewhere.These work processes account for 80-85 percent of thequality of work and productivity of employees. Man-agement is responsible for systems within an organiza-tion; therefore, managers, not employees, must shoulderblame when something goes wrong with the system.

TQM calls for studying work processes quantita-tively, using individuals or teams, to find places thatbreakdowns or unnecessary complexities occur in pro-cesses, and then to identify solutions that prevent themin the future. Study of work processes helps to reducecosts while ensuring that quality is built into a service orproduct since quality cannot be inspected into it at theend of the processes.

Open Work Environments. Continuous quality im-provement requires an atmosphere for innovation wheresuggestions for improvement are solicited and respectedand where supervisors and managers are open to dis-agreement, conflict, and challenge. Activities for theimprovement of work processes, especially when teamsare involved, help to break down barriers that occurbetween departments or between supervisors and thosesupervised.

Long-Term Thinking. TQM is also characterized bylong-term thinking which helps mold the future byunderstanding the consequences of current actions. Suchthinking requires decision making that is based on data,both hard and soft, and related to real problems, notsymptoms. It requires time. It shies away from quick-

3Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.

The University of Texas at Austin with support from the \VK Kellogg Foundation.

fixes arrived at by discussion and intuition. Long-termthinking works best in organizations where managersplan to stay, and thus have a stake in the consequences oftheir decisions.

Development of Human Resources. Organizationsthat follow TQM principles are organized to help peopledo their jobs; they are seriously committed to employeelearning and development. Such development beginswith a thorough orientation to the organization, includ-ing its mission, values, and information al,out where thejob fits into the organization. It involves educatingpeople to perform to the quality standards of a specificjob before requiring them to work independentl .

TQM expects managers to respect the ability of well -trained employees to know the work they do better thananyone, and therefore, to be the best at improving it.Human resource development includes providing thetraining to learn the communication, quantitative, andteam-participation skills required in an open, quality-improvement work environment. Development pro-grams provide extensive education to help individualskeep up-to-date on their jobs and to prepare themselvesfor new responsibilities.

Management Responsibility for TQM Leadership.Managers need to lead the transformation of the organi-zation to the new culture of continuous quality im-provement. They must accept personal responsibilityfor continuous quality i mprovemei it and be dedicated toem powering others in the orga ni za t ion to accept personalresponsibility for it, too. This approach taps the collec-tive genius of the organization to identify and solveproblems. The leader's focus is on policy, structure, andsystems to sustain continuous quality improvement.Within this context, quality is the first among equals ofthe co: :;anization's functions. Quality is at the top of theagenda for every meeting, every communication. Theleader's goal is to help people, things, and machines doa better job; the leader's role is that of facilitator, catalyst,and coach.

Implementing Quality Management Concepts

Since World War 11, the Japanese have been verysuccessful using the American ideas for total qualityimprovement they learned from Deming and Juran. Inthe late 1970s America ns beca me interested in the successof Japanese firms and discovered that their managementprocesses were the cornerstone of that success. SomeAmerican companies adopted TQM and applied it suc-cessfully, notably Ford Motor Company, HewlettPackard, Campbell Sou p Compa ny, nd The Paul RevereInsurance Company. Others were less successful, largelyit seems, because they were unable to accomplish thecultural and organizational changes required to imple-ment TQM principles.

TQM in Community College Administration

Community colleges, too, have adopted TQM, pri-marily to improve their management processes. Whilethe number of colleges that has implemented TQM sys-tems is not large, an increasing number are experiment-ing with various elements of it. They have approachedimplementation in a variety of ways.

Perhaps the most common model is for senior lead-ership to become interested in TQM, to study variousapplications, and then, to initiate TQM practices fromthe top-down. At most of these colleges, TQM is firstapplied to leadership team processes or related adminis-trative functions. Incorporation of TQM principles intothe curriculum and academic administration may followadministrative application.

TQM has also been introduced to comm unity collegesby mid-level managers who have come in contact withits principles through a curriculum designed and pro-vided by the college for local business and industry.These managers begin to introduceTQM practices '.vi thintheir own areas. This grassroots approach often spreadslaterally before upward. Other colleges have actuallybecome involved in TQM along with a consortium ofbusinesses in their service area. Business and collegeparticipants learn both TQM and about the challengesthey have in common. The consortium then becomes acritical link with the community, as well as a source ofproblem solving, support, and encouragement for TQM.

It is legitimate to question why any leader would beattracted to TQM since the model demands basic changesin established management practices. 1 lowever, a ratio-nale for experimenting with TQM is not difficult toarticulate. At its best, TQM can provide a focus andstructure for institutional effectiveness that includes thedimensions of quality and accountability andoperationalizes them throughout the college. TQM canprovide a structure for involving faculty and staff incollege problem solving and decision making in waysthat are meaningful to them and to the college. TQM canalso provide a model for transforming a stagnant collegeorganization to a new level of fitness.

Even more fundamental is the fact that the valuesespoused by TQM are the values of community colleges:commitment to quality, respect for people, focus onprocess, and the expectation of continuous learning.

Robbie Lee Needham, a lolly filth comniunity colhweeducator, is executive director of ADVANCE SMF, Inc.,Tacoma, Washington, -onsulting fOcuses oil planningand evaluation, and ['QM, which site has studiedsince 1989.

Volume 4, number 10July 1991 r

Don Doucette. editor

PrInied o,, RPt.V,IPCIPaigr

Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College25431 Cabot Road. Suite 204. Laguna Hills. California 92653.17141855-0710. It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution. Copy right held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College.

I

S

BEYOND WELLNESS: SOLUTIONS FOR THE 1990s

William F. Waechter

Wellness, a craze of the vital 1980s, has reemerged asa solution for the cash-starved 1990s. That wonderfulmonster, rather than a dying fad, appears more geneti-cally sound than ever as organizations of all kinds,including community colleges, struggle to increasehuman productivity in response to declining resources.Wellness of the eighties is giving way to a much broaderconcept; it has become a critical component of broad-based institutional strategies to utilize human resources,which constitute the overwhelming share of allorganization's budgets, more effectively and efficiently.

Among the major challenges facing communitycollege leaders in a time when they are asked to do morewith less are providing effective educational deliverysystems, controlling constantly escalating benefit costs,and recruiting and retaining qualified staff. At least partof the solution to all these problems can be addressed bya comprehensive, integrated, and institu tionwid ewellness program. Rather than considering wellnessprograms a frill of the prosperous 1980s, managers in allindustries have seized upon well-designed efforts asindispensable tools for increasing productivityandthus improving the bottom linein tight financial times.

Comprehensive, Coordinated Programs

It is clear that to he effective, wellness efforts cannotbe segregated into "one time only," disjointed, orunconnected activities. This does not mean that eferyinstitution must have a "wellness czar," or worse, a chiefof the wellness police." However, in order to achievetangible institutional benefits, such activities need to bepart of a carefully considered and well-designed programto give coordinated direction to such seemingly diversecomponents as child care, flex time, crisis counseling,laughter and humor programs, fitness activities, sick-leave policies, family counseling, education about AIDSand other contagious disease, elder care, medical plandesign, case management, management training, deathand dying, grief and loss, medical self-care programs,wellness letters, leaves of absence, transfers and reas-signments, cholesterol screening, weight management,retirement counseling, risk management, safetyprograms, incentive rebates, nutrition programs, stressmanagement, tobacco-free workplace issues, substanceabuse programs, wellness across the curriculum, healthscreening, employee recognition programs, grievance

procedures, health fairs, and blood pressure screens.Any institution in which these activities are coordi-

nated and well managed will be able to documei posi-tive change in its organizational culture. Wellnessbecomes both ubiquitous and spontaneous. It is morethan a cliche to claim that physically, emotionally, andspiritually "well" employees deliver higher quality ser-vices. Studies indicate that dollars spent on wellness arewell invested and repay organizations many times over.

Recruiting and Retaining Employees

It only stands to reason that a well institution is morelikely to attract and retain the highest quality employees.It is no secret that the recruitment of qualified employ-ees, especially from racial and ethnic minority groups,has become a difficult challenge for community colleges.While most college leaders understand the importanceof celebrating diversity and attracting diverse staff, fewerassociate providing an optimal work environment withattracting individuals of high caliber who are also in highdemand. Organizations which foster and support thespiritual, emotional, and physical well being of theiremployees are bound to compete effectively in attractingquality staff.

Improving Productivity

Wellness is a multifaceted condition that permeatesevery nook and cranny of an organization. Work rela-tionships improve and the environment changes from oneof competition to one of cooperation. Employees becomegenuinely concerned about the success of fellowemployees. In fact, old-fashioned wellness producessimilar results to those sought by total quality manage-ment programs that are currently in vogue.

Once wellness takes hold, it becomes an unrehearsedand spontaneous response mechanism for individualsand the organization. Problems are met with differentapproaches; resolution rather than conflict is the order ofthe day. Food banks are established. Healthy environ-ment committees appear from nowhere. Giving to UnitedWay increases. Managers assist employees in identify-ing problems and referring them to appropriate agenciesfor help rather than recommending them for termina-tion. The workplace becomes more flexible. Exceptionsbecome the rule, and individuals feel valued. A new and

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higher level of corporate citizenship evolves. Productiv-ity gains at all levels are achieved.

Stu, Its deserve the highest quality instructiondeli Yen., by faculty who are motivated, caring,concerned, and are performing in an environment wherethey feel safe, comfortable, appreciated, and recognizedfor their contributions. An environment where corpo-rate and individual wellness is the standard rather thanthe exception will result in increased student success.

A Successful Wellness Program

The Maricopa Community Colleges have operated acomprehensive wellness program since 1985. Theirexperierxe seems to demonstrate the claim that invest-ment in the wellness of employees produces benefits thatfar exceed the cost. Specific elements of the program maysuggest those that are critical to its success.

Commitment of Leaders. The district's governingboard and senior administration employs a full-timeorganizational psychologist/manager of wellness toprovide coordinated direction for wellness activities.The psychologist assists in providing programs for bothemployees and students that include seminars on weightreduction, stress management, smoking cessation,supervisor training, and use of the district's EmployeeAssistance Program.

Employee Assistance Program. The MaricopaCommunity Colleges provide at no cost to individualemployees an assistance program to which they andtheir families can turn in times of trouble. The EAPprovides up to ten prepaid sessions of individual orfamily counseling, with assistance in areas includingmarital and family problems, substance abuse, and stressreduction. The specific employee assistance programwith which the district contracts is selected by represen-tatives of all district employee groups.

Coordinated Efforts. A major role for the organiza-tional psychologist is to assist the wellness and fitnesscoordinators on each of the district s ten campuses, in-cluding assistance with referrals to appropriate agenciesand the EAP. Every employee of the Maricopa Commu-nity Colleges receives a monthly subscription to VitalityMagazine, which was selected because of its format forproviding hundreds of brief tips dealing with individualand family wellness, happiness, and well being.

Policy. The board and administration also attend topolicy that can have important effects on employeewellness. Policies related to infectious disease controlhave ensured that the district's experience with severalAIDS-related deaths have brought an outpouring ofcaring and concern rather than panic. The district hasestablished flexible work schedules; reimbursementaccounts, which permit employees to pay for child careand elder care with pretax dollars; and liberal leavepolicies, ranging from paid professional leaves basedupon years of service to unpaid leaves to allow empa-ees to deal with pressing personal matters.

Roadblocks and Rewards

There are obstacles to achieving the commitmentnecessary to implement a broad-based wellness program.In an era of financial restraint, even the relatively modestfunding requirements of such programs are both targetsfor cuts and excuses for not investing in wellness.

However, the most important stumbling blockappears to he the philosophy and experience of frontlinemanagers. Most over the age of forty-five probably wereraised in a culture where it was not acceptable to carepublicly. They grew up in a generation where time andmotion studies were important management tools andthoughts regarding employee productivity probablynever once strayed into family problems or those relatedto substance abuse. Many see their roles as strictly tosupervise on the job activity and believe that beingprofessional excludes being personal.

Managers were also raised in an era where the bestmedical insurance program was the one that providedthe most for the least cost. Yet, in the contemporaryenvironment, where there are many one-parent families,or where both parents often have to work to make endsmeet, the priorities for benefit packages change for thebulk of employees. Employee input into the design oftheir own benefit plans assures that each can be besttailored to meet the personal. psychological, and medi-cal needs of individuals.

So, a massive retraining program for persons whodeal directly with employees in a management or super-visory role is a prerequisite to success. Only whensupervisors understand the kind of corporate culturethat promoies excellence and leads to better teaching andlearning can wellness take hold. Some will have to bebrainwashed and educated to understand how philoso-phies, beliefs, and work and family circumstances havechanged; why it is okay to care; why it is acceptable toprovide flexible working schedules and to allow parentsto take phone calls from their kids. They will have to beencouraged to support activities such as wellness daysand weeks, as well as humor and laughter workshops.They must all come to believe that wellness is a processwhich moves individuals and organizations towardhigher levels of health.

If "writing across the curriculum" is key to studentsuccess, some parallel "wellness across the organization"may be the prescription which helps community collegesto do more with less and achieve the high levels ofproductivity required for them to succeed in challengingtimes.

William F. Wacchter isvice chancellor for human resourcesof the Maricopa Community Colleges, a district which servesnearly 90,000 students each year on its ten major campuses inmetropolitan Phoenix, Arizona.

Volume 4, number 11August 1991

Don Doucette. editor

@Pm ItP(1 on its, Yt 1,1 ':1101 't

Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College25.111 Cabot Road. Suite 204. Laguna Hills. California 02653.171-11855-07I0 It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is interded for duplication and further distribution Copyright held by

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4

INCREASING STUDENT INVOLVEMENT IN LEARNING

Jack Friedlander and Peter MacDougall

There is no question that student outcomes are at theheart of the calls for accountability that have become apermanent fixture on the national education agenda. Inthis context, research on what works in increasing stu-dent success and academic achievement becomes criticalinformation to virtually all community colleges.

An extensive body of evidence demonstrates thestrong relationship between student involvement andstudent achievement. Studies have shown that personalgrowth, academic achievement, and satisfaction withthe college experience increase with the amount of timestudents invest in their course work and in the life of thecollege generally. While most research in this area hasbeen conducted at four-year institutions, the findingsalso apply to community colleges.

Research Results at Santa Barbara City College

In the fall of 1989, Santa Barbara City College admin-istered the Community College Student ExperienceQuestionnaire to 1,765 students enrolled in a cross-section of classes. The results revealed substantial differ-ences among respondents in the degree to which theytake advantage of the learning opportunities. Findingsalso confirmed that the greater the level of studentinvolvement, the greater the degree of progress studentsfelt they had made toward related educational objec-tives. Specific results included the followed:

Those who use the library as a resource andresearch tool are more likely to report progressin developing the ability to learn independently,pursue ideas, and find information than thosewho do not.The more time students devote to writing, thegreater the progress they report in learning howto write clearly and effectively.The more contacts students have with fellowstudents of differing backgrounds and philoso-phies, the more likely they are to indicate progressin becoming aware of different cultures andlearning to appreciate and get along with peoplefrom different walks of life.

27

Clearly the amount and quality of participation inlearning activities are more important determinants ofstudent achievement than age, ethnicity, number of hoursemployed, and other personal characteristics.

Responding to Results with Policies and Programs

The challenge for most community colleges whichenroll large numbers of part-time students with substan-tial family and job commitments, is to develop policiesand programs that maximize this student participation.At Santa Barbara City College, policies have beendeveloped and implemented that encourage 1) studentinvolvement in the classroom, 2) faculty-student interac-tion outside of class, and 3) student participation inout-of-class campus activities.

Involvement in the Classroom. Colleges canencourage involvement in learning by expecting stu-dents to become active rather than passive participantsin the classroom. SBCC faculty experiment with instruc-tional strategies, such as small group projects, that requiresuch involvement. For example, at SBCC, English-as-a-second-language classes are often held jointly withSpanish classes that meet during the same time period.In the first half of these joint class sessions, students in theSpanish class might be asked to practice their Spanish byinviting the students in the ESL class to a movie. In thesecond half of the class period, the students reverse rolesand the ESL students are asked to use the English theyhave learned to invite the American students to themovies. This exercise requires students in both ESL andSpanish classes to integrate and apply the vocabularyand grammar that they have been studying.

Instructional technologies can also be used to increasethe amount of time students devote to learning. Studiesconducted at SBCC on the effectiveness of videodiscprograms in music appreciation and history show thatstudents learn more when they are asked to respond toquestions embedded in a videodisc than when they areasked to passively view the videodisc without having torespond to questions. In addition, students indicate thatthey learn more through interactive videodisc instruction

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when they use this technology in joint projects with otherstudents. Faculty can thus increase the benefits of in-structional technology by designing learning experiencesthat require interaction with these technologies and withpeers in the classroom.

Student Contacts with Faculty and Other Students.At a commuter campus, students often do not have anopportunity to interact with faculty or other studentsoutside of class. SBCC has tried to address this problemthrough an emphasis on faculty advising and through aneffort to provide students with on-campus jobs.

The advising program at SBCC is designed to increasethe out-of-class contacts students have with faculty intheir major fields of study. Each year the college desig-nates twelve instructors as faculty advisers, each with acase load of 50 students majoring in areas related to hisor her teaching discipline. The faculty advisors aretrained by the college's counseling staff and meet witheach student advisee at least once per semester to planthe student's class Lchedule and discuss the student'seducational and career aspirations. To ensure greaterstudent-faculty contact, student advisees are required tomeet with their faculty advisers before registering forclasses. An evaluation of this program showed that, onaverage, students met with their faculty advisers fourtimes a year; 13 percent of the students surveyed duringthe evaluation noted that the conferences held withfaculty advisers significantly influenced their decision toremain in college.

On-campus jobs also increase the contacts studentshave with faculty and fellow students. In addition toemploying students as tutors, SBCC has createdapproximately 100 positions in which students work asinstructional aids, peer advisers, or interns in academicdepartments that are related to their fields of study or incampus operations (such as the bookstore or businessdevelopment center) that utilize the skills and knowledgerequired in these fields. For example, the ComputerInformation Systems Department employs several of itsstudents as interns who help faculty and staff usecomputer application programs. As another example,student aids in the Political Science Department assistfaculty in such activities as organizing the Political ScienceClub, the International Studies Club, the Model UnitedNations Program, and the department's video library.These on-campus jobs allow students who wouldotherwise work off campus to become more involved inthe college community and in scholarly activities thatpromote learning.

Increasing Involvement in Out-of-Class Activities.One way of increasing student participation in out-of-class learning activities is to link those activities tospecific courses. For example: SBCC students enrolled

Don Doucette. editor

®Ploorel,..Riq yt

in English 1 (college-level reading and comp°, il',)n) arerequired to study a play produced by the Thea cr ArtsDepartment. Students in the English 1 classes discuss theplay with the director and the cast, attend a performanceof the play in the college's theater, and participate in adiscussion held immediately after the performance.Through this interdepartmental project, in place for threeyears, over a thousand students have been exposed to thetheater. Many of these students might not otherwisehave attended college theatrical productions. Similarefforts have been undertaken by other faculty who linktheir courses to such campus-based events as the college'sNoon-Hour Lecture Series, the Political Science Club'sCandidates Forum and the college's Cinco de Mayoactivities.

Educational achievement is directly linked to theamount and quality of effort invested by students in thelearning opportunities provided by the college. On thesurface, this is an obvious conclusion. Less obvious,however, are the steps community college educators cantake to influence the extent to which students will par-ticipate in activities that contribute to learning anddevelopment.

If community colleges are to increase studentinvolvement in learning, they must develop policieswith that involvement in mind. For example, facultyhiring and evaluation procedures should require currentor prospective instructors to discuss the use of instruc-tional strategies that promote active learning. Studentservices programs should be established with the over-riding goal of involving students as active participants indeveloping their own programs of study rather thantreating them as passive recipients of information pro-vided by college staff. Applying the principle of studentinvolvement to policy development does not requirecolleges to invest additional resources. It simply requirescolleges to rethink the ways in which educational oppor-tunities for students are organized and delivered.

Jack Friedlander is dean of academic affairs, and PeterMacDougall is president at Santa Barbara City College, Cali-fornia. This abstract is based on an article, "AchievingStudent Success Through Student Involvement," that willappear in a forthcoming issue of The Community CollegeReview.

Volume 4, number 12September 1991

Guest editor, Jim Palmer, is associate director of theCenter for Community College Education at GeorgeMason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College25431 Cabot Road. Suite 204. Laguna Hills. California 92653.17141855-0710 It is issued mice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution. Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College

I

ARGUMENTS WITH WHICH TO COMBAT ELITISM AND IGNORANCEABOUT COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Don Doucette and John E. Roueche

Community colleges are still struggling for under-standing, support, and respect in a society that t oo oftenprovides only lip service to the democratic ideals ofaccess and egalitarianism that these institutions repre-sent. The evidence of this abounds, including the egre-gious example of elitist bias found in a June 3,1991, issueof U. S. News and World Report which observed that policydecisions in several states were "pushing many eco-nomically disadvantaged students into the weakest fouryear state schools and into community colleges, whereit's often difficult to get a decent education." (p. 50)

While long-suffering community college practitio-ners are probably not surprised by such slights, the ironyis that the case for community colleges has never beenstronger. Community colleges have entered the 1990s asmature and sophisticated institutions that are makingimportant contributions to an economy and educationalsystem struggling to cope with changes brought aboutby the dawning of the information age.

Yet, the potential of community colleges remainslargely untapped, in no small part due to a persistentelitism among leaders in the media, business, and gov-ernment that is fueled by their relative ignorance aboutthese institutions. The following arguments are offeredas a succinct case for community colleges. They are in-tended for use in educating those unfamiliar with them.It is a case that, unfortunately, needs to be repeated anddemonstrated over and over again if attitudes are to bechanged and community colleges accorded the respectand support they need to contribute effectively to theAmerican economy and educational system.

Growth and Emergence

Business and political leaders respect growth as ameasure of success in nearly all areas of endeavor, andthere are few more dramatic examples of successfulgrowth than the development of community colleges.While the first junior college was established in Joliet,Illinois, in 1901, in fact, most community colleges are lessthan three decades old. The 1,211 community colleges inthe United States enroll almost six million creditstudents, about 45 percent of all students in highereducation, and nearly 55 percent of all first-time freshmeneach fall term. In market terms seldom used by educa-tors but familiar to business and political leaders, in lessthan 30 years, community colleges have captured overhalf of the 350-year old higher education market.

Other facts support the contention that community

colleges have become a financially prudent and sociallyacceptable higher education alternative for mainstreamcollege students who continue to enroll in recordnumbers. Some two-year colleges continue to experiencefive percent annual growth rates at a time when enroll-ments in many four-year colleges and universities haveremained steady or declined, and the number of eighteenyear olds has remained constant. Community collegescontinue to open, not close, new campuses. They alsocontinue to attract new, nontraditional students intohigher education, while providing for the lifelong learn-ing needs of adult students in countless communities.The fact that there is a community college withincommuting distance of over 90 percent of the UnitedStates populationand in every congressional districtis usually not lost on key leaders.

Succeeding with Traditional Missions

Negative impressions with which community col-leges must invariably deal include narrow typecasting asproviders of limited vocational training and claims offailure of the transfer mission. However, the bulk of theevidence compiled by colleges at the local level, as wellas studies at the state and national level, make the casethat community colleges have performed their tradi-tional missions effectively.

The percentage of community college studentstransferring to four-year colleges and universities hasbeen calculated by national studies to be about 30percent. This should be evaluated i't light of a nationalsurvey by the American Associatioi t of Community andJunior Colleges that shows that about 36 percent ofstudents say that they entered community colleges withthe intention to transfer. In several states, especiallythose with policies that assist smooth transitions fromcommunity colleges to four-year state universities, asmany as 50 percent of the juniors and seniors in four-yearstate universities are transfers from community colleges.More importantly, studies from several states indicatethat the academic performance, persistence, and degreeachievement of community college transfers are compa-rable to those for native university students after theirfirst semester of enrollment.

Community colleges across the nation report that80-90 percent of their students completing career train-ing programs are employed in jobs related to their trainingsix months after completing their programs. Thissuccess in preparing students for entry-level positions in

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fields as diverse as business services, allied health, andtechnical occupations is particularly important in light ofestimates that 80-90 percent of all new jobs created in theU. S. by the year 2000 will require a minimum of twoyears of postsecondary education. Such training hasbeen demonstrated to benefit students: associate degreerecipients earn 29 percent more than those with only ahigh school education, and 15 percent more than thosewho have had some postsecondary education but notearned a credential. Black associate degree recipientsearn 51 percent more than those with only a high schooldiploma; women with an associate's degree earn 40percent more than those with only high school.

Assisting Economic Development

More recently, community colleges have assumedkey roles in assisting the economic development ofcommunities, primarily by providing job training neededto attract and serve business and industry. The role hasexpanded and garnered increasing support from thebusiness community as these colleges have become oneof the principal providers of training and retraining fora work force being buffeted by changing demands.Community colleges have shown their flexibility byadapting the content and delivery of training to meet thespecific needs of local employers, and business andindustry has responded with both political support andgrowing contracts with community colleges to providemore and more employee training.

There has been a growing recognition that the grow-ing gap between the decreasing skill levels of thoseentering the work force and the increasing skill levelsrequired to compete in a global economy represents oneof the most pressing problems facing the nation. Com-munity colleges have historically taken on the task ofteaching basic skills to underprepared adult students,often risking the ire of taxpayers who do not want to "paytwice" for such instruction. However, with the recogni-tion that such instruction, including adult literacy andEnglish as a second language, is key to national prioritiesfor maintaining economic competitiveness, the case forthe community college role has become even stronger.

Modeling Education for an Information Age

As community colleges have matured and becomerecognized as capable and pragmatic institutions, theyhave increasiry;ly assisted in the solution of communityproblems. They have convened, coordinated, brokered,and facilitated the efforts of community groups, localagencies, and service providers to serve their commonclientele. The importance of this role has increaseddramatically in proportion to the seeming lack ofcapacity of national and state government to assist localcommunities to solve their own problems.

Community colleges are uniquely positioned asbridging institutions with strong links to all educationalproviders in a communityK-12 schools, four-yearcolleges and universities, business and industry train-ing, and community-based education. As a result, theyare best positioned to assist communities to address the

most urgent problem they face: increasing the effective-ness of schools to prepare students to contribute to andsucceed in an information-based economy.

A spate of recent reports and the major federalinitiative in education "America 2000: New AmericanSchools," explicitly recognize the urgency of improvingthe outcomes of K-12 schools. There is an explicit recog-nition that nothing less than a transformation of currentschool systems is likely to achieve the needed results andthat this transformation is likely to involve a massiveinfusion of information technology into the schools withinthe context of well-developed, community-based part-nerships between the public and private sectors.

Alone among institutions of higher education,community colleges are focused on teaching and learn-ingperhaps the premier teaching institutions in theworld. Recently, they have made major strides in apply-ing technology to improve teaching and learning andhave moved ahead in the widespread implementation ofinstructional technology. It has become clear thatcommunity colleges, more than most institutions, arepositioned to contribute greatly to the solution of notonly the nation's economic problems but also its relatededucational problems. They are increasingly capable ofproviding models for education in the information age.

Perhaps the very best argument for communitycolleges is that they are uniquely American institutionst'-lt best represent the democratic principles of thefounding fathers. Community colleges were founded onprinciples of universal access to higher education, andthey have remained true to that commitment, taking onnew tasks, serving new clientele, and meeting newcommunity needs, even when criticized for spreadingthemselves too thin by attempting to serve all who canbenefit. Today, community colleges are a major force inassimilating new waves of immigrants; accommodatingthe increasing diversity of American society; andproviding education to assist all participate in the politicalprocess and share in the economic rewards of the Ameri-can dream. They can be a primary tool in ensuring U. S.competitiveness in the global economy and can play akey role in helping to build healthy communities intowns and cities throughout the nation.

World events have emphatically demonstrated thatdemocracy is an unfinished experiment. The same canbe said of community colleges, which remain the mostdemocratic of American institutions and the most flex-ible and responsive to meeting the challenges of the newworld political and economic order. The best evidence ofthis is the resurgent interest among both developing andestablished democracies in this higher education model.While "uniquely American," community colleges havebecome both a national treasure and a leading export.

Don Doucette is associate director of the League forInnovation in the Community College and John E. Roueche isprofessor and Sid W. Richardson Regents Chair and directorof the Commit n ity College Leadership Program at The Univer-sity of Texas at Austin. r,

kiVolume 4, number 13October 1991

Don Doucette. editor

,1 y 1,11 f'.11.1.1

Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College25431 Cabot Road. Suite 20.1. Laguna Hills. California 92653. (71.11 855 -0710 It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution. Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College

f

FACULTY EXTERNSHIPS: CATALYSTS FOR TQM

Roger P. Bober

Educational leaders at all levels are continually re-minded of their responsibility to produce employeeswith skills to make them capable of competing in a globaleconomy. Two-year colleges, especially those with amission commitment to provide state-of-the-art careerpreparation, have long acknowledged their roles intraining a skilled work force and assisting the economicdevelopment of their comm. tnities.

More recently, solutions proposed to address declin-ing U. S. competitiveness have focused on education-business partnerships to close the skills gap and producea better work force. Once again, two-year colleges havea tradition of working with local business and industry,with company representatives sitting on college advi-sory committees and colleges providing customizedtraining for employees, including at the work site.

Other programs can also serve to forge productivelinks between colleges and the businesses and industriesthey serve. In particular, faculty externship programsthrough which college faculty are provided leaves towork in the private sector have proven very effective infurthering close relationships between business andeducation. Not only can faculty externship programshave a positive influence on career preparation programs,but they can also have unexpected benefits for the collegeas a whole. At Terra Technical College, the facultyexternship program is helping prepare the college toutilize total quality management techniques throughoutthe organization.

The Faculty Externship Program

In 1988, Terra Technical College, a small two-yearcollege of approximately 2,500 students in Fremont,Ohio, received a grant from the Ohio Board of Regent'sSelective Excellence Program to establish a facultyexternship program. Since the summer of 1989, nearlyone-third of all full-time faculty and department headshas participated in the program involving eighteen busi-nesses and five governmental agencies. By mutualagreement between Terra Technical College and localbusiness and indust externs are loaned for a predeter-mined period of time to engage in "hands-on" workexperiences typical of the business and relevant to theextern's teaching field.

31

The Work Experience. Externs reported that in theirwork experiences they were primarily charged withrecognizing and defining problems; inventing andimplementing solutions; and tracking and evaluatingresults. They also reported that creative problem solvingoften took place in groups which required listening andspeaking skills where meaningful feedback was impor-tant to the maintenance and improvement of standards.All externs reported that their basic academic skills werein demand daily through such activities as studying,analyzing, testing, creating, recommending, updating,practicing, and coordinating.

TQM Awareness. Through their daily contacts withcompany employees, externs were exposed to training,time management, discipline, and communication ac-tivities. A number of externs found themselves con-fronted with two challenges. The first was focusing ontheir current skills and coping with change, disciplineand stres The second was helping others recognize theimportance of improving workgroup performance. Theseexterns experienced a supervisory atmosphere of main-tenance-related administration and improvement-relatedmanagement; that is, some externs experienced the totalquality movement in various stages of implementationin participating businesses.

Impact of the Faculty Externship Program

On Faculty Externs. By participating in the workenvironment, externs reported learning and updatingacademic and technical skills needed for current and

. future jobs. They improved their skills working withcurrent technology, became familiar with improved pro-cesses and advanced features of current technology, andworked with new technology and processes whichgraduates are likely to experience. The externs broughtthese newly acquired skills back into the classroom anddepartment and incorporated them into relevant learn-ing and management experiences.

On Students. Students benefitted from newly ener-gized faculty incorporating their new skills and currentknowledge of business practices and trends into theclassroom. Students were reported to have gained anincreased interest in and appreciation for theory, forinstance, because faculty were better able to explain how

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theory was applied on the job. Former externs were alsobetter able to convince students of the importance ofbeing able to write clearly and concisely about technicalsubjects, as well as to use new hardware and softwaretools to make communication easier and more effective.

The faculty externship program also led to revisedcurricula giving students an opportunity to choose froman improved mix of programs and courses. Students,emulating the faculty externship program, established a"job shadowing" program for students with local busi-nesses and industry through their student organization,the Terra Business Club. This program, in modifiedform, has subsequently been adopted by the FremontChamber of Commerce and incorporated into theFremont City schools for high school juniors and seniors.

Perhaps most important, another result of theexternship program has been the many contacts made byfaculty and department heads that have opened thedoors for graduates and increased opportunities forstudents to participate in cooperative education.

On Business and Industry. The Faculty ExternshipProgram has benefitted participating businesses by im-proving processes, practices, materials, and productiv-ity. For example, one employer indicated that the facultyextern was the first to make color chips that could be usedat a later date for installation on a color computer. Inanother example, the college and a local business haveagreed to share their research and development efforts inelectronic document interchange using nationalstandards. In fact, all participating businesses andgovernmental agencies rated the externship programpositively and agreed to accept more externs. All twenty-three employers agreed that the externship program hada positive impact on their own employees.

From a customer point of view, employers benefittedby the assurance that training provided by the collegewas grounded in the practical aspects of the field. Thisconfidence building is key to the development of addi-tional contacts between local businesses and the college,including the expansion of customized training providedby the college on a contract basis for employees.

Assisting Continuous Improvement of the College

While the faculty externship program was plannedand implemented to achieve important benefits for fac-ulty, students, and local business and industry, perhapsits most significant benefits have accrued to the collegeitself. Although not specifically intended, the facultyexternship program has become a major catalyst for theimplementation of total quality management at TerraTechnical College. As a large number of the college'stenured faculty have participated in the program, severalhave returned from their externships in business withnot only new skills but with an interest and some expe-rience in TQM. Testifying to the trend, the Industrial

3' 2

Management Technology Program was renamed theTotal Quality Management Program incorporating totalquality control management practices and procedures.The college hosted a total quality management aware-ness seminar for local business and industry, and severalefforts have been made internally to promote awarenessof TQM, including the goal of continuous improvementof all aspects of college operations.

While returning faculty externs have fueled theinterest in TQM at the college, a variety of initiatives inthe student services and general studies divisions of thecollege were also inspired by the ideal of continuousimprovement. In order to support such broad-basedapplication, the college established a continuousimprovement fund for all employees. For example,full-time instructional staff and faculty have access to$1,500 mini-grants in addition to their individualprofessional development fund distributed through theirrespective divisions. Part-time faculty also have access to$500 mini-grants to support their professional develop-ment needs. The college has planned to continue TQMawareness and training during 1992 within the college,and faculty externs will beencouraged to seek placementin companies that have adopted TQM practices.

Proponents have argued that how well corporationsare able to adjust their internal environments towardstotal quality management relates to their fur re competi-tiveness. The same argument applies that communitycolleges which adopt a total quality managementphilosophy with a continuous improvement culture willbe better prepared to meet the challenge of preparing awork force capable of competing in the global economicmarketplace. In fact, the principal challenges facingbusiness and education are the same: producing higher-quality, lower-cost products and services that respond tocustomer needs; both can benefit from the same remedy.

The Faculty FLxternship Program has been a startlingsuccess for Terra Technical College. It resulted in directbenefits to students and business and industry. It hasrevitalized and retooled faculty, and it has reassured thelocal community about its investment in postsecondaryeducation. At the same time, the program has provenitself an effective strategy for introducing TQM conceptsto both the core curriculum and administrative practicesof the college. It is a value-added program, which isconsistent with TQM principles and which has thepotential to assist community colleges nationwide toplay an ever more vital role in the nation's economicdevelopment.

Roger P. Bober is dean of instruction at Terra TechnicalCollege in Fremont, Ohio. He is also president of the SanduskyCounty Economic Development Corporation.

Volume 4, number 14November, 1991

Don Doucette. editor

®Prtrited Ur Iler yr led

Leadership Abstracts is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College25431 Cabot Road. Suite 204. Laguna Hills. California 92651 17141855-021() It is issued twice

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada. Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College

Alb I S

abs ractsLIFE AFTER BEING A COMMUNITY COLLEGE CEO

William E. Piland and John McCuen

The concept of retirement conjures different imagesfor different people. Some may see it as a golden periodwhen they can pursue cherished activities too longneglected. Others may fear retirement as a period ofaging, stagnation, and decline. Research in the privatesector has documented that some retiring chief executiveofficers cling to their positions late in life while otherseagerly leave. Some are content with the impact theyhave had in their lives; others seek greater impact andprolonged reassurance of their significance. Communitycollege CEOs probably exhibit behaviors more similar tothese business executives than to workers in routine andrepetitive jobs who, research reports, are generally eagerto retire from their jobs.

Little has been known about how community collegeleaders think about retirement, how well they areprepared for the change, and how well they adjust to lifeafter leaving jobs with which many have developedstrong identifications. Yet, a large cohort of communitycollege leaders has already begun to retire, and hundredsmore are likely to retire in the next decade. Added tothese are CEOs who are either terminated or encouragedto resign from the increasingly difficult position, mediantenure for which has declined to just over five years. Asa result, it has become increasingly important for CEOsto learn from the experiences of their counterparts and toprepare for life after the presidency.

A Study of Former California CEOs

A study was initiated in November 1990 of formerCEOs of California community colleges. A sample of 118former CEOs who had retired, resigned, or been termi-nated, but were not employed as CEOs at other com-munity colleges at the time of the study, was identified.A mail survey was sent to 106 of these, and 77 responded,and a telephone interview was constructed and admin-istered to 12 responding CEOs, selected to represent thelarger sample in terms of their reasons for leaving, theirnumber of years in the position, and the number of yearssince leaving.

The study was designed to answer questions, suchas: What happens to community college CEOs whenthey close the office door for the last time? How wellprepared were they for this major life event? And whatare their lives like one, five, and ten yearsafter descendingfrom the mountaintop?

3

Results of the Study

Of the 77 respondents, two-thirds had retired fromtheir last CEO position, and the remaining third hadresigned or were terminated. The average tenure for allrespondents was eleven years, ranging from one to 35years. They had worked in community colleges an ave-rage of 25 years, and their average age upon leaving theCEO position was 60, with a range of 42 to 69 years of age.

Preparation. Fully 73 percent of the respondentsbegan preparing for retirement within their final fiveyears in the position. Twenty-one percent did not beginpreparing until the final year before leaving. As mightbeexpected, CEOs who retired gave more thought andpreparation to their retirement than those who resignedor were terminated, and 74 percentof the retirees reportedthat their tenures ended as they expected it would, whilefewer than half of those resigning or being terminatedsaid their careers ended as they expected it would.

Overall, former CEOs reported that they were either"very well-prepared" or "well-prepared" in seven dif-ferent areas of preparation: living arrangements, personalhealth and fitness, financial security, social life, familyrelationships, professional life, and constructive use offree time. However, only about a third reported that theywere "very well-prepared" with respect to financialsecurity and subsequent professional life. One in tenwere unprepared to use free time constructively. Asmight be expected, those who resigned or were termi-nated reported significantly lower preparation in six ofseven areas, especially with regard to financial security.

Post-Retirement Lives. Nearly 40 percent of therespondents indicated that their post-CEO lives wereeither "very different" or "somewhat different" thanthey had anticipated. These responses did not varymuch by the number of years since leaving the position.Thirty-eight percent were employed full-time withinfive years of leaving the CEO position; 32 percent wereconsulting, and another 32 percent were not employed.About one-quarter reported continuing to read commu-nity college literature and keeping in touch with peopleand developments in their former field. However, veryfew, less than 10 percent, reported looking for full orpart-time positions in the private sector.

Former CEOs were most likely to travel, read forpleasure, pursue old habits, or visit family and friends inthe first years after leaving their positions. Only about 20

Published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Community College Leadership Program.

The University of Texas at Austin with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

percent reported developing new habits, and only 40percent volunteered in their communities; fewer thanfive percent took college courses in new areas of interest.

Summary. For the most part, CEOs who retired wereprepared for that marker event in their lives. They beganpreparing years before the actual event and did consid-erable thinking about retirement in their last year in theposition. Family relationships and living arrangementswere well established for post-CEO life, while financialsecurity and the constructive use of free time were areasin which retirees could be somewhat better prepared.

Most retiring CEOs had positive feelings about theirpositions and their relationships with their boards at thetime of retirement, though a rather large number reportedbeing relievedhinting that stress might have been afactor in the decision to retire. While some former CEOscontinued to look for work and continued to consult andto keep in touch with community college contacts, for themost part, their post-CEO professional lives were verymuch like other retirees.

The study suggests that post-CEO life appears to bean active and positive one for both CEOs who retire andthose who resigned or were terminated. There weresome exceptions to these generally positive results thatsupported the conventional wisdom that CEOs whoseself-worth are defined by their jobs are not good candi-dates for retirement. However, a large majority ofrespondents would not have done anything different intheir community college positions. They were pleasedwith their careers and the timing of their retirements.Contrary responses seemed to focus on the choice of thespecific CEO position held, especially among those whoresigned or were terminated. In retrospect, former CEOsoverwhelmingly see their careers in a positive light.

Recommendations

Most of the recommendations suggested by the studyaddress areas where CEOs were not as well prepared asthey might have been for retirement. Retired CEOsshould organize into a formal group (parallel to theprivate sector group SCOREService Core of RetiredExecutives) to make good use of their time and talent.They could offer boards of trustees their experience andcoy Ise' on difficult institutional issues. They couldassist current CEOs with retirement planning and aspir-ing leaders with mentoring opportunities, either on apaid or volunteer basis. Retiring CEOs would do well toinvestigate other avenues for employment, travel, andeducation, while also developing new hobbies and per-sonal health and fitness regimes.

Current CEOs should prepare for retirement now bybalancing career, family, recreation, personal health,civic duties, church, and personal development in theirlives. They should also develop realistic two-part post-CEO life plans. One plan should be for retirement: whento retire and what to do after retirement. The second planshould be for termination or resignation, and it should beas well developed as the first. While still in the position,CEOs should arrange for a sabbatical from work withinthree years of retirement and use the time to plan and

practice for retirement. They should develop a pattern ofvolunteering in the community, for volunteerism seemsto provide a substitute environment to use and berecognized for CEO-like skills for those with such needs.

Prospective CEOs should follow many of thesesamerecommendations, preparing for an orderly successionof career and life activities even before reaching thezenith of their professional careers.

William E. Piland is professor of education at San DiegoState University. John McCuen is a retired com mu nity collegeCEO and a consultant to boards of trustees for CEO searcheswho lives in Auburn, California.

Volume 4, number 15December 1991

Index of 1991 Leadership Abstracts

v4n1: Delivering the Promise of Technology Today,Bernard R. Gifford

v4n2: Leadership in Governance, Thomas W. Fryer,Jr. and John C. Lovas

v4n3: Presidential Men toring: Preparing Leadersfor Critical Time.: Marchelle S. Fox

v4n4: Responding to the Needs of Real Students,Norm Nielsen

v4n5: Pipeline to the Community College Presidencyat the Millenium, George B. Vaughan

A Code of Ethics for Community CollegeLeaders, Daniel F. Moriarty

v4n7: Technology in Education in the Nineties,Terrel H. Bell

v4n8: The Community College as CommunityActivist: A Campus Of and For theCommunity, Tessa (Martinez) Tagle

v4n9: Learning Communities: Needed EducationalRestructuring, Ron L. Hamberg

v4n10: Total Quality Management: An Overview,Robbie Lee Needham

v4n11: Beyond Wellness: Solutions for the 1990s,William F. Waechtcr

v4n12: Increasing Student Involvement in Learning,Jack Friedlander and Peter MacDougall

v4n13: Arguments with Which to Combat Elitismand Ignorance about Community Colleges,Don Doucette and John E. Roueche

v4n14: Faculty Externships: Catalyst for TQM,Roger P. Bober

v4n15: Life after Being a Community College CEO,William E. Piland and John McCuen

LJ 4

Don Doucette editor

® l't ir 01 I,, 1..,

Leadership Abstiad5 is published at the office of the League for Innovation in the Community College25.1.11 Cabot Road Suite 201 Laguna Hills California g2O--, i.171.1) 551-0710. It is issued twit e

monthly and distributed to the chief executive officer of every two-year college in the United Statesand Canada Leadership Abstracts is intended for duplication and further distribution Copyright held by

the League for Innovation in the Community College