Recognizing that the duties and responsibilities of the department chair in the community college are quite complex, North Carolina State University developed a training program for practitioners.

Prevailing research tends to narrow the starting view of most authors, including those who write about community colleges and their governing boards in common terms of organizational structure, management style, roles and responsibilities, personality issues, and so forth. But this essay focuses more on one particular topic: the unique relationship between boards and the urban colleges they serve, from the perspective of a university professor who also serves as a community college trustee.

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If one asked me to what do I think one must principally attribute the singular prosperity and growing force of [America], I would answer that it is the superiority of its women. (de Tocqueville, 1835(de Tocqueville, /2000 Almost 200 years after de Tocqueville' s observations, the theme of his acknowledgement remains pertinent; reporting on research findings highlights how capitalizing on women' s abilities as leaders can allow prosperity to grow in American community colleges. The effort to expand the number of women in leadership roles is now being explored as a matter of urgency by the American Council of Education (ACE) in a national effort titled Moving the Needle (MtN). Explaining "where we are now, where we want to be, and why now" the following data are revealed by ACE (2016):• Women occupy 26% of all college presidencies. • Women are outnumbered by men on all governing boards by two to one. • Women of color earn 54% of men' s earnings. • Women earn 59% of all academic degrees.• Women comprise 48% of professors (although men as full professors greatly outnumber women). • Women represent over 60% of students in colleges. • Sixty percent of all current college presidents are over age 61. (p. 1) NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, no. 179, Fall 2017

The rural context and the place of women and minorities are presented and analyzed, along with some suggestions regarding issues where change is needed.