With more than 1,200 campuses serving nearly half of all undergraduate learners in the United States, the community college is a major institution of postsecondary education (Cohen & Brawer, 2003). Conventions of the community college up to late modernity have included public support as well as commitments to teaching, open access, an identified service area, communitybased programs, comprehensive programs, and learning support services (Vaughan, 1997). The community college is particularly distinct among institutions of postsecondary education in that it serves learners through a variety of programs including student services, career education, developmental education, community education, transfer and liberal education, and general education (Cohen & Brawer, 2003). Another singularity of the community college is that it serves a unique student population, including high numbers of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; a disproportionately large share of learners who are African American, American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander; and nearly half of firstgeneration college students in the United States (Cohen & Brawer, 2003). Because the community college is often the only viable educational option for members of marginalized communities, the structural outcomes of its mission are of great consequence to educators, policymakers, and citizens concerned with social justice and participatory democracy. Proponents of the community college, referred to by Kevin Dougherty (2001) as functionalist advocates (e.g., Cohen & Brawer, 2003), have identified this institution as "the People's college" and "Democracy's college." Citing its all-around accessibility, functionalist advocates contend that the community college facilitates the realization of the "American dream" for those of humble means and that the institution serves an egalitarian function in society. As one example of this function, advocates assert that the community college provides needed job training for those without the ability, means, or interest to attend four-year institutions. In this view, the community college affords the disadvantaged an opportunity for employment, financial independence, and personal development. Such an outcome may represent the ideal, perhaps; however, in this article, I contrast this vision against pervasive neoliberal discourses that threaten to engulf the mission and purpose of the community college.

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Implicit in the open-door mission of the community college is the mandate that every learning experience should offer full equity and inclusion for all learners, including those of diverse cultural backgrounds. This mission is paramount, given the cultural diversity represented among learners served by the globalized community college. This paper presents a cross-section of research, practice, and discourse focused on expanding our knowledge and understanding of the diverse learning needs of community college learners. The relevance of the literature to the planning, design, and implementation of distance-learning is discussed. In the end, the authors offer distance-learning instructional strategies that may accommodate the unique needs of Hispanic/Latino learners. Implications for community college educators are discussed.Implicit in the open-door mission of the community college is the mandate that every learning experience should offer full equity and inclusion for all learners, including those of diverse cultural backgrounds. The commitment to equity and inclusion in today's globalized community college (Levin, 2001 ) has been stalwartly tested with the increasing reliance on instructional technology and the ascendance of online learning. Unfortunately, technologically mediated learning experiences may accommodate the singularities of a dominant Western culture at the expense of cultural responsiveness to the cultural backgrounds of all participants. More specifically, the dominion of Western culture may be amplified through the way in which instructional technology mediates interaction among participants in the learning experience.

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Executive-level administrators must provide strategic leadership of the institutional mission if their community colleges are to adapt and respond to learner needs in a rapidly changing environment. Through a content analysis of mission statements from 102 community colleges in the United States, this study reveals 7 salient themes regarding the mission priorities of contemporary community colleges in the southern United States. Confidence intervals indicate the probable proportions of community college mission statements reflecting each salient theme.