from Inquiry, Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1997, 20-30
© Copyright 1997 Virginia Community College System
Brief Abstract
In a workshop session, the 1995-96 VCCS Administrative Leadership Seminar participants accepted a challenge to come up with a theoretical framework to reinvent the community college for the 21st Century. They formed groups under five major areas for restructuring, and pooled their knowledge to tackle this project.
“We are living in one of those rare times in history when the two crucial elements for social change are present — new values and economic necessity. . . .[So] if you want to change the world, there is no time like the present.” This is the advice promoted by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene in their 1985 book, Re-inventing the Corporation. These authors advocated transforming jobs and companies for the new information society. Not only did they coin the now popular term of “reinventing,” but they also identified ten considerations for reinventing the corporation. Not surprisingly, education is one of their main concerns.
In a workshop session entitled “Reinventing Our Community College,” Dr. Barbara Wyles, Provost of the Alexandria Campus of Northern Virginia Community College, challenged the 1995-96 VCCS Administrative Leadership Seminar participants to come up with a theoretical framework to reinvent the community college for the twenty-first century. They accepted the challenge, formed groups under five major areas for restructuring, and pooled their knowledge to tackle this project.
In order to reinvent the community college for the twenty-first century, the Administrative Leaders decided a team approach of interconnected goals must be developed and implemented. Interconnected goals will require leadership and a willingness to change by both leaders and team members. To this end, there are five major areas of focus for educational change: teaching/learning, instructional/student support, curriculum, organizational structure, and technology.
Teaching/Learning
With teaching and learning as the primary business of a community college, it seems somewhat self-evident that this should be the first area of deliberation in a scheme to reinvent the community college. To begin with, the overall view of the learner must be changed. It is now necessary to consider the learner as an active participant. According to Cambridge University professor Edward deBono in an article in Phi Delta Kappan, “Information is no substitute for thinking and thinking is no substitute for information. The dilemma is that there is never enough time to teach all the information that could usefully be taught.” Consequently, students must learn to use critical thinking tools to sift through the ever-increasingly available information. They need to learn strategies to determine what is useful in their particular career path or at their job site. In other words, students must learn the processes of information gathering.
In recent years, tremendous changes have occurred in how libraries manage information. Few libraries still maintain the card catalog as it was initially conceived. Those little drawers filled with alphabetized cards of authors, subjects, and titles have been replaced with on-line access to combined library holdings. In the Virginia Community College System, for example, the on-line catalog hosts holdings from the 35 libraries around the system. With this multi-library access, the analysis of information regarding the holdings alone has become a more complex process than in the earlier card file system. Add access to the Internet, and information gathering ability has just increased geometrically over that past decade. With increased use of the Internet, available information continues to multiply daily. While much of this available information is not important or significant, substantial amounts are. So critical thinking skills become that much more imperative.
In an article entitled “Teachers as Trailblazers in Restructuring” published in Educational Horizons by Robert Cole and Philip Schlechty, the authors insist that “the purpose of schools is to develop in each student the capacity to think, reason, and use one’s mind well, and to ensure each student develops those . . . skills . . . that make it possible to participate fully in . . . an information-based global economy.”
The needs of the learner are changing. There are more specialized needs across the student population. For instance, disability access is now federally legislated, yet locally financed. Support for the learning disabled comes in a variety of forms: extra time for assignment completion, non-traditional projects, extra tutorial assistance, and varied instructional modes.
Not only are there a variety of disabilities, but also other kinds of problems that adversely influence learning. There are more recovering drug and alcohol abusers attending community colleges than ever before. They have their own needs and problems. They also bring a wealth of insight and experience to the campus as well. For instance, one woman who had gone through three drug treatment programs said that she had finally found a program that was effective for her. In fact, she was writing a research paper for psychology class on the relative merits of the various programs. In the midst of her discussion about the programs, she confided to the tutor that she had sublimated her need for drugs by finding another, yet more socially acceptable compulsion: bingo! As she pointed out, playing bingo five nights a week didn’t allow her much time for studying or getting involved in any campus activities.
Another change to the community college is the increase in the need for developmental classes. More and more students, perhaps as many as fifty percent according to one college survey, are enrolled in at least one developmental course. Students are coming to the community college with minimal preparation and/or skills.
Finally, the increasingly diverse non-traditional student is entering the colleges. In fact, diversity will be the norm. It is not uncommon for men who are now primary care givers of the family’s children to be attending day classes on a full-time basis. There are large numbers of students working night shifts and attending eight o’clock classes before going home for the morning. And there are those who have completed one career, and upon retiring, are returning to school for a variety of purposes.
In an increasingly litigious society, an extra effort must be made to communicate expectations. Responsibilities of the students, both in assignments, as well as in other kinds of policies such as attendance, must now be spelled out in the syllabus which is later viewed as a contract.
Liability is just one reason to itemize expectations. Another reason is to enable the student to succeed by making certain that he or she realizes what is expected and what is accepted.
A variety of delivery modes will be necessary to educational institutions in the twenty-first century. Many students will be able to continue the traditional pattern which is to meet at regularly designated class times at a particular location. However, for many others, accessibility will be a concern. Distance learning, now in progress, but already changing, is one way to handle this problem. Some colleges have teleconferencing systems in place so that live education is taking place, but from a remote site. In addition, there are packets available for courses where there is no regular instructional meeting time. Students work independently and consult with instructors as needed.
New technology is making distance learning even more accessible. Faculty must start thinking creatively to provide access for students. For instance, with e-mail, students can interact with an instructor despite time and location problems that might arise from traditional methods of meeting in conference at a regular time.
Also, a somewhat less sophisticated, but no less acceptable alternative to meeting face to face, is the use of fax and phone. A student can fax a paper to a professor, then get feedback by phone rather than commuting thirty minutes or longer to campus, meeting, then returning to work. These strategies can make the difference between success and failure, retention and withdrawal.
Textbooks will be changing in the coming years. Already there are alternatives. Several textbook publishers offer an individualized approach to existing texts. The professor can tell the company which chapters he wants, even from a number of texts, and the company will produce the text that is requested.
Desktop publishing has made self-publishing of materials more accessible to faculty. Producing one’s own materials in an attractive, usable form can be accomplished by using easy-to-master desktop publishing software already available on most campuses.
The information highway is aptly named. Materials are available on electronic bulletin boards and on the World Wide Web. These sources are frequently updated as often as daily. Digital documents that can be downloaded to one’s own computer are already a reality.
With the rapid changes that are occurring and need to occur, assessment of student outcomes is even more necessary than ever before. Methodologies must be considered to do this effectively. Classroom research projects initiated by teacher researcher programs are a way of developing assessment strategies. This approach has many benefits. Because it is teacher initiated, it is also teacher supported. It also has the benefit of being a professional development activity. Teachers continue to study the problems while looking for the answers both in their classrooms and in the literature. Ultimately, they can share their results with colleagues in a variety of forums. Teacher-researcher programs are recognized across the country at national conferences, and the results are altering the way teaching professionals are working with students and sharing information with colleagues.
Cross discipline teaching and learning is another change in the community college of the future. It is now understood by many as a result of writing-across-the-curriculum programs that teaching writing is not the sole domain of English teachers. In a somewhat startling offshoot of this concept, a Cornell botanist is teaching a freshman composition course as part of a cross discipline program. This is a practice that takes the belief that writing must be taught and reinforced by all teachers to an extreme.
Another practice gaining more acceptance involves the inter-relatedness of disciplines. At George Mason University, a course is taught to doctoral candidates called Ways of Knowing. This course allows students to study the various research methodologies across the disciplines and what constitutes facts and knowledge in each.
Not only are teachers banding together, but so are students. Another need for colleges is to face that entire groups of people from a workplace may go lock-step through an entire program together. Scheduling and productivity issues must then be faced as a result.
Finally, lifelong learning is imperative for the twenty-first century. According to Dennis Sparks in the Education Week article “Thirteen Tips for Managing Change in Schools,” there should be “lots of training and other staff-development support. Significant changes require that everyone who affects students’ learning acquire new attitudes, knowledge, and skills. Staff-development programs must be well designed and include follow-up activities such as study groups and on-the-job coaching.”
Instructional and Student Services
In order to reinvent the instructional and student services aspect of the community college, one must think in terms of holistic thinking, streamlined governance, partnerships, expanded options, and continuous learning. The reinvented college must think of itself as a place where active learning occurs. Placing learning, rather than teaching, at the forefront emphasizes these concepts as opposed to a more traditional view of college as a place where teaching occurs. Now teacher and student must be partners, rather than teacher as dispenser of knowledge with student as passive learner.
The reinvented college has a new notion of students. It is not enough for them to attend in numbers sufficient to meet enrollment projections. In a learning environment, students acquire skills but they also experience continuous learning beyond the classroom walls. They are demanding more, more quickly. They feel empowered to undertake lifelong learning to achieve their goals.
In its emphasis on partnerships, the reinvented college does not forget that true partnerships benefit all parties involved. And reinvented community colleges do not forget their responsibility to the community—individually and as a whole. The student is the citizen of the community and is the customer of the community college. Customers vote with their feet.
Despite the view of the student as client, the community college of the twenty-first century must continue to foster pride of ownership for all parties involved. In other words, they must do the right thing for the right reason. Issues of academic excellence and student success must continue to be examined.
Curriculum
A curriculum ought to operate as an orderly arrangement in time of the development of knowledge and skills. In a community college, this is often difficult, as students move in and out of programs, come with prior experience and credit in varying amounts and kinds, and so on. Curricular issues concern the content, interrelationships, and sequencing of the courses that make up a curriculum; and within the VCCS colleges curricular problems fall within all these areas.
Community colleges try, often at the expense of curricular coherence, to be everything to everybody. They seem incapable of drawing limits to services for fear (at least in part) of rejection by sectors of the marketplace and service areas (e.g., “If you can’t do it, we’ll do it ‘in house.’.”).
In the interests of flexibility and “access,” the community college curricula often subvert elements of pedagogical sound course sequencing. Courses which ought to come early in a student’s educational experience, as sound preparation for continuing study, are often not mandated prerequisites. As a case in point, students in most curricula can take ENG 111, the foundational college-level writing course, at almost any time they wish, and many postpone it as long as possible. This decision has ramifications. Students proceed into courses for which they are not adequately prepared. Faculty, seeing more poor writing over the long term, gradually lower expectations, often eliminating papers as assignments and abdicating responsibility for helping to improve writing. And program heads and faculty, fearing a decline in enrollments (and thus FTE’s and productivity), are reluctant to set prerequisites.
In reinventing the community college for the twenty-first century, completion of ENG 111 and perhaps other courses identified as foundational, should be required of all students early in their college experience, perhaps within their first 12 credit hours, when it can function as a meaningful preparation for further college-level work. Support for such a stand must come “from the top” to set aside apprehensions, as this transition takes place, about possible drops in FTE’s and productivity. This type of policy could be gradually phased in.
Courses function in different ways within a curriculum, and at a time when students turn increasingly to telephone registration, they are free to nurture illusions about their preparation and perhaps favor unchallenging classes and teachers.
Foundational courses in occupational skills as well as general education remain important. With this initial concentration, a properly sequenced curriculum could then move to more specialized courses within the degree. Following the degree, the option of a post-degree certificate would allow for further study/training in areas of timely concern or occupational needs.
In a state-wide system, community colleges have too little flexibility in curricular design. The VCCS curricular model is out of date (e.g., discipline-bound and -segregated). Four-year institutions within the state and across the nation have moved toward interdisciplinary curricular concepts to improve students’ engagement with and understanding of the demands of their ever-changing world. This is not news to those in the VCCS, and they see no reason to take a back seat to four-year institutions regarding curricular evolution. In the recent publication, Higher Education and Work Readiness: The View from the Corporation, the Business-Higher Education Forum declared, “In the face of global competition, higher education is behind the curve—unable to respond quickly and trapped in a discipline-bound view of knowledge.”
Courses function in different ways within a curriculum; while some function as foundations, others function as “advanced study’ needing prerequisites. Prerequisites, however, can be excessively relied upon to weed out unprepared students. Instead, more attention should be focused on entry-level assessment (i.e., at the time of enrollment) as an advisory tool to discover and evaluate students’ deficiencies, disabilities and ability to benefit, as well as their strengths and interests.
The marketplace turns increasingly to in-house training, consequently threatening occupational courses and programs. Programs requiring certification and specific competency levels (e.g., nursing, veterinary science, etc.) increasingly lose students to the private sector, where CD-ROM course materials, for instance, pass for “training” when hands-on experience is required.
The community college of the twenty-first century needs to make a serious, system-wide review of the components of general education within the curricula and consider adopting interdisciplinary requirements. Knowledge continuously reforms itself with human experience. In retaining the narrow and dated framework of traditional discipline boundaries, all but the most basic skills courses fail to some extent to mirror experience as the students live it, artificially dividing it for the sake of academic credit. Community colleges, their students usually in the “front line” of social experience, ought to be the institutions most interested in adapting to changing experience, in incorporating new construction of knowledge, and in addressing issues of the times. Rosemary Closson of Valencia Community College wrote in Community College Review, ”The multifaceted mission of the community college certainly allows (if not mandates) it to assist learners with gaining more control over their own learning in both formal and informal settings.”
While trying to keep pace with fast-moving advances in technology, the reinvented community college of the twenty-first century will ask continually whether what is most valued in educating or training students is protected and preserved or lost in the translation from traditional to technological. What, for example, is traded off in the exchange between classroom learning and distance learning?
Organization
The community college of tomorrow must be an adaptive organization that meets the needs of all stake holders—internal and external. In order to reinvent the current community college system, it is necessary to look at all the typical organizational units within a VCCS college and see how those units should relate to each other—in other words, this is an attempt at an ideal organizational chart.
Mentality
Many feel that potential variations within an organizational chart are endless and there really is no way of knowing if one would be more successful than the other without testing the structure under actual situations. In theory, it would seem that the mentality or culture of the organization is a much greater factor in an organization’s ability to adapt and change. Every member of a community college organization today must be able to accept change in reporting lines and responsibilities as a way of life.
For an entire organization to be flexible and adaptable, the leadership of the college must be willing to accept at least some degree of decentralization and be able to develop a shared vision—a vision developed and acted upon by all units and all individuals within those units. The President of the college is, of course, the key. If the President is unwilling to allow the college to develop a shared vision or unwilling to act upon strategies that come from a shared vision, then the organization will never reach the potential of a totally adaptive organization.
However, there must be some ideal organizational pattern for a given college. A prime example would be the relationship of computing services to the rest of the college. Computing services in most colleges developed out of the administrative side of the house, and as time progressed and instructional technology has become more and more pervasive in the classroom, the need for computing services on the instructional side of the house has dramatically increased.
Some colleges have chosen to have separate computing services for instruction, and others have integrated administrative and instructional computing services. Integration seems more efficient, but reporting lines, both official and unofficial reporting lines, must accommodate both the administrative and instructional facets of the college. Therefore, organizational design can be critical in certain areas of the college, such as computing services, and it is essential that the organizational structure be given careful study.
Flattening Organizations
Flattening of an organizational structure is generally considered a beneficial process in the cultivation of an adaptive organization. A flattened organizational chart has more horizontal lines than vertical lines and the numbers of middle managers are reduced. The president and heads of organizations are also more accessible with this structure.
Many VCCS colleges, particularly the smaller ones, are already relatively “flat organizations.” These colleges have often described their organizations as “lean and mean.” Middle management has been minimized and workloads are heavy.
Matrix Organization
Traditionally, industry, as has academia, used a functional organizational structure. That is, the organizational chart and lines of reporting developed from the different functions of the units involved. Larger industries, such as the automotive industry, have evolved into a product-oriented structure (i.e., separate product-oriented divisions). Eventually, some found the two types of organizations could be partially or completely blended into one. This is described as a matrix organization with day-to-day responsibilities operating through typical vertical lines and special projects or tasks accomplished by teams that cross organizational lines.
All colleges employ the matrix technique to some degree. For example, the task of monitoring curricular change is handled by a curriculum committee, a standing committee of selected faculty members and administrators.
Matrix-style organization can be maximized through the development and use of a total college governance structure with a complete complement of committees that cover the gamut of college work. For tasks or problems that are not appropriate for any one standing committee, the “think tank” approach can be employed with input for decision-making drawn from all those affected and all those with the appropriate expertise. This can be accomplished formally with the appointment of ad hoc committees or informally with one-time meetings of a group to meet a special need.
Communication
For work to be accomplished in any organizational structure, effective communication is paramount. Communication through reporting lines is of course essential, but the requirement that communication be restricted to these lines will stifle the adaptability of the organization.
All organizations have an informal structure that emerges from the personal and group needs of employees. This structure not only satisfies social needs but also assists in getting work done. This structure promotes cooperation among departments and allows the organization to be more responsive and make decisions faster. As long as the informal structure does not become counterproductive to the mission and the objectives of the college, leaders should actively encourage the formation of informal structures and informal communication. However, leaders should be mindful that informal communication can be counter productive, if not destructive, if lines of communication and chain of command are ignored.
This means of communication is also a factor in the responsiveness of the institution. Paper trails are important and still essential, but in many ways, slow and wasteful. Telephone communication allows immediate interaction, but lacks a record of what was communicated; this lack can pose problems and the “phone tag routine” can discourage consultation.
Electronic mail has revolutionized the ability of the organization to communicate, both through formal and informal channels. Ease of use and ease of dissemination throughout the organization facilitates communication between individuals and units that perhaps would have minimal interaction otherwise. This free flow of information and dialog makes the creation of a totally adaptive organization infinitely more possible.
The reinvented community college should not rely on a “magic” structure but base itself on attitude—an attitude of service to customers. If the institution focuses on the needs of the customer and continual process improvement in order to better serve the constituents, many types of organizational designs can support it.
Technology
Technology is perhaps the one area that will have an impact on all of the other areas. It is necessary to be careful that technology does not become the result. University of Virginia Professor Mark Shields published an article in TECHNOS which suggests this has already occurred. “In the ‘90s, the pedagogical vision is blind, and technological modernization has become an end in itself.” Technology must provide the support mechanism that will foster and enhance the pivotal shifts that must take place in each of these areas as a learning organization is developed.
Planning
Planning is a continuous and ongoing process and as such, colleges seeing to reinvent themselves for the twenty-first century must be careful in developing and implementing technology strategies. Technology is changing at such a rapid pace that the best-developed solutions can very quickly become obsolete. A continuous planning process that is constantly seeking the best technological solutions available is critical to success. Colleges must not become complacent in thinking that they have found the “right” solution; they must remember that it is only “right” for today. They must continually look for what will be “right” for tomorrow. A system-wide structure to support on-going technology planning that is focused on interaction and student support is critical.
Organizational Structure
Most of the colleges in the VCCS are organized around the old data processing mentality. Data processing is typically a department reporting to the dean of finance and administration that supports primarily the administrative units at the colleges. This model worked well in the 1980’s, but as the paradigm of technology shifts from administrative support to instructional and student support, so too must the organizational structure. Information technology and instructional technology are more descriptive of the roles that technology now plays at each institution. The organizational structures need to be reflective of this new and more pervasive role.
Support
A VCCS Information Infrastructure Task Force survey indicated that one of the most common complaints by users was the lack of user support. As technology has become pervasive in almost every aspect of the colleges, the funding to provide adequate training and support systems has not kept pace. The VCCS must make a commitment to provide appropriate training and user support in all aspects of technology implementation.
Privatization
In an effort to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, the VCCS should consider employment of private enterprise to assist with technology solutions, particularly in areas where the level of staffing and expertise in the System is not adequate. Privatization of certain aspects of the technology plan, such as student access, can enhance and strengthen the existing systems and staff.
Integration into the Curriculum
Faculty and administrators will feel the pressure to review their curricula and to develop ways to incorporate technology. In fact, Professor Shields points out that “word processing and electronic mail are the only ‘instructional’ technologies in widespread use.” Students will become more and more accustomed to an environment that utilizes technology; their expectations will force the colleges to rethink the traditional teaching methods. They must, however, be careful that they are not incorporating technology for the sake of technology. According to Professor Shields, “There’s little basis for believing that computers have helped to alter let alone transform, the cognitive-intellectual capabilities students need to develop in college. . . .” The ultimate purpose of employing technology is to improve the curriculum and to enhance the teaching/learning process. Professor Shields further notes that “a majority of faculty have . . . declined to jump on the instructional computing bandwagon. . . because the pedagogical benefits of computer-based instruction are dubious.” The reinvented community college must guard against those uses that do not add value or improvement to the current courses and processes.
Physical Environment
In the quest “to provide a client-centered information environment. . . for all colleges in the VCCS” as recommended by the VCCS Information Infrastructure Task Force, each college must proactively transform the physical environment at each campus. An environment must be created that is conducive to teaching and learning and is aesthetically pleasing to students, while providing the infrastructure needed to support the integration of technology into all aspects of campus life.
Conclusion
If the reinvented college is to evolve and realize full potential as a “learning organization,” leadership must accept the disorder that can accompany decentralization. Strategic planning involving the entire community, actions developed through committees and think-tanks, and empowerment of units and individuals can be messy if not chaotic. The community college of the twenty-first century should not fear chaos, but learn to benefit from it.
The Authors are at the following Virginia community colleges: Dr. Wendy F. Weiner, Northern Virginia Community College, Manassas; Dr. Paul McVeigh, Northern Virginia Community College, Alexandria; Dr. Ken Clever, Blue Ridge Community College; Ms. Diane Brasington, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Central; Ms. Mary Jane King, Piedmont Virginia Community College.
In addition to the major writers of this paper, the following were participants of the 1995-96 VCCS Administrative Leadership Seminar and contributed to this project: Dr. Marilyn Fisher, CVCC; Ms. Laurel Reid, DLCC; Dr. Edward White, DCC; Mr. Richard Pearce, GCC; Mr.Mark Raby, JSRCC; Mr. Richard Wilt, JSRCC; Ms. Mary Buchanan, JTCC; Mr. Gary Graham, JTCC; Ms. Jennifer Sager LFCC; Mr. John Cotham, MECC; Ms. Rita Dixon, NRCC; Mr. George Duffy, NVCC; Dr. Carol Ross, NVCC; Dr. Leslie Sinn, NVCC; Dr. James Mustachio, NVCC; Ms. Cynthia Ingram, PHCC; Mr. Christopher Smith, PCCC; Ms. Linza Weaver, PCCC; Ms. Judith Shepherd, SVCC; Ms. Barbara Perkins, SVCC; Mr. Ronnie Bartley, SVCC; Ms. Sara Marchello, TNCC; Ms. Patricia Thomas, TCC; Ms. Theresa Ruffing, TCC; Mrs. Linda Rice, TCC; Ms. Melinda Wallen, VHCC; and Dr. David Johnson, WCC.