The Evolving Mission of the American Community College

Kenneth P. Walker, Ph.D.

Council for the Study of Community CollegesAACC Annual Convention

April 13, 2007

“The revolution in American education, in which the two-year college played a leading role, is almost over. Two years of post-secondary education are within the reach — financially, geographically, practically — of virtually every American.”

Revolution: Almost over

Evolution: Continues in full force

Education in America

Baccalaureate degrees awarded by some community colleges will continue the democratizing process for access to the bachelor’s degree.

New movement…new revolution

Joliet Junior CollegeAmerica's oldest public community college

Why Baccalaureate Degrees at Community Colleges?

Globalization of the economy

Demands of business and industry

Increased job competition

Exporting of jobs

Increasing demand by students

Limited university access

Rising costs

Benefits of Baccalaureate Degrees at Community Colleges

Maintains family and employment relationships

Increases access to higher education

Promotes cost efficiencies

Maximizes human resources

Supports success of non-traditional students

Promotes articulation and upward mobility

Provides cooperative facility use for work-based learning

Expands commitment to economic development

Responds to local need for specialized programs

Capitalizes on facilities, faculty, staff and programs

Community College Mission:Responsive, Adaptive, Growing

“The institution must be able to change as communities change with new conditions, demands, or circumstances. Any time we can describe the community college in definitive, specific terms, we will destroy it. It has to change. It has to be different in different areas.”

Ed Gleazer, Jr.The Community College: Values, Vision & Vitality

“Responding to the Crisis in College Opportunity”

National Council for Public Policy and Higher Education

“ The nation should provide a space for every eligible student to enroll in higher education.”

YET…

48% of college-qualified low-income high school graduates from attending a four-year college, and 22% from attending any college at all

43% of college-qualified middle-income high school graduates from attending a four-year college, and 16% from attending any college at all.

Study by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance

Financial barriers prevent…

Why Baccalaureate Degrees at Community Colleges?

Present Next decade

Unable to attend a four-year college

400,000college-qualified

students

Attend no college at all

170,000college-qualified

students

4.4 million

2 million

Why Baccalaureate Degrees at Community Colleges?

“The vibrancy of our democracy and our knowledge-based economy is dependent upon ensuring access to college for high school graduates.”

--Empty Promises, 2002

Access to the Baccalaureate Degree

“Access to the baccalaureate degree must be expanded so that future generations will be equipped to cope with the magnitude of change instigated by technology, industry, finance, commerce, and government.”

“Changes in the marketplace for higher education are … producing a new vision for the delivery of higher education that has not yet become fully understood.”

Frank Newman

Access to the Baccalaureate Degree

Vision for four-year colleges becoming universities not understood at the turn of the century

Vision for community colleges offering baccalaureate degrees not currently understood

Higher education mission …

…always has and always will adapt and conform to the changing needs and demands of society.

Graphic: National Conference on Teacher Quality

75 Years of the University Transformation Era

“The most prominent element in the transformation was the emergence of the university.”

– Arthur M. Cohen

Slow introduction of universities

Colleges had to modify concepts adhered to since colonial days including expanding the educational experience from four years to a greater length of time by organizing graduate schools and awarding advanced degrees.

Mission Creep Mission Adaptation

Idea: Converting colleges to universities

Attributed to men familiar with German higher education

Idea: Offering baccalaureate degrees at community colleges

Began in Canada over a decade ago

University evolutionAdded master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, postdoctoral studies, new majors:

Adding baccalaureate degrees in areas of need

Community College evolution

Business Journalism Engineering

Architecture Pharmacology Dentistry

Agriculture Mining Forestry

Psychology Sociology Education

Same factors which are driving baccalaureate degrees as community colleges

Restructuring driven by “a potent combination of social, political, cultural, and economic factors”

“Unless the old rural colleges revive themselves, it was argued, they stood in danger of slipping into oblivion.”

--Christopher J. Lucas

Today, no clear understanding of what constitutes a four-year community college

“Ultimately, the outcome of decades of ferment and turmoil…, would be the supplanting of the ‘old-time’ college as a dominate institutional model by that of the modern university. Existing colleges—some of them at least—would be transformed in succeeding years to entirely different kinds of academic institutions. The rise of the American university, marked though it was by false starts and much trial and error, was to prove itself a momentous phenomenon of almost revolutionary proportions.”

“American higher education would never be the same again.”

--Christopher J. Lucas

Baccalaureate degrees at community colleges now authorized in 15 states!

Tremendous opportunity for university faculty and graduate students to study, research and write about this new type of institution, still in its infancyGraphic: ASHFoundation

“Continuing democratization of access to the bachelor’s degree will result in a higher standard of living and a higher quality of life.”

--Kenneth P. Walker