An Institutional Accountability Model for Community Colleges

Abstract

Community college leaders must manage an increasingly complex institutional accountability environment. In this environment, accountability demands may be based on explicit or implicit standards and presented by a variety of stakeholders (Alfred, 1997;Kearns, 1998; Lannan, 2001). Practitioners must identify, analyze, and prioritize diverse accountability demands while respecting the institution's culture, history, and commitments to open access and the comprehensive mission. In this article I propose a model for managing a community college's accountability environment and show how it can be applied. This model incorporates an accountability framework developed by Kearns (1998) to show how specific demands can be analyzed. It also integrates contributions by Christensen (1997) and Vaughan (1985) to explain how the college's mission, culture, and history should be considered in this process.

Issues in Malaysian Higher Education: A Quantitative Representation of the Top Five Priorities, Values, Challenges, and Solutions From the Viewpoints of Academic Leaders

“…In other words, numerous studies have focused on probing HE challenges as well as proposing recommendations to shatter these impeding factors in the 21st century. For example, the changes in university organizations and the changing nature of academic work (Ramsden, 1998), the intensification of institutional accountability to legislative and governing authorities (Harbour, 2003), the environmental challenges for universities (Malm, 2008), the managerial reforms due to neoliberalism (Shin, 2015), the expansion of networks and external relations (Shin & Harman, 2009;Van Damme, 2001), and the issue of consumerist turn in HE (Naidoo, Shankar, & Veer, 2011) have been scrutinized. Other main identified challenges include academic leadership challenges (Black, 2015;Drew, 2010;Fullan & Scott, 2009), sustainability challenges in HE (Mader, 2012;Mader, Scott, & Razak, 2013;, university mergers and transnational virtual delivery of HE (Van Damme, 2001;Yung-Chi Hou, Morse, & Wang, 2015), challenges pertinent to embedding a quality culture in universities (Lomas, 2004), gender issues in HE (Baker, 2016;Cotterill & Letherby, 2005), and the challenges of merging divergent campus cultures to form coherent educational communities (Harman, 2002).…”

“…In other words, numerous studies have focused on probing HE challenges as well as proposing recommendations to shatter these impeding factors in the 21st century. For example, the changes in university organizations and the changing nature of academic work (Ramsden, 1998), the intensification of institutional accountability to legislative and governing authorities (Harbour, 2003), the environmental challenges for universities (Malm, 2008), the managerial reforms due to neoliberalism (Shin, 2015), the 755839S GOXXX10.1177/2158244018755839SAGE OpenGhasemy et al…”

Six Community College Presidents: Organizational Pressures, Change Processes and Approaches to Leadership

“…Following are several documented environmental challenges and uncertainties impacting community college organizational change processes and presidential leadership approaches: declining state government funding (Kinkel, 2003), growing private fundraising and grant-seeking efforts (Keener, Carrier & Meaders, 2002), increasing student enrollments (Maryland Higher Education Commission, 2003), increasing student populations with a lack of academic or social preparation for community college learning (Milliron & Leach, 1997), accelerating faculty and staff retirement rates (Shults, 2001), and, intensifying institutional accountability to legislative and governing authorities (Harbour, 2003).…”

The Community College Accountability Network: Understanding Institutional Accountability at Aspen Grove Community College

“…Finally, higher education scholars have regularly discussed the academy's responsibility to take the lead in defining accountability (e.g., Ewell, 1994;Maki, 2009) whereas others have discussed academic accreditation and internal auditing processes as mechanisms that can promote greater institutional accountability (e.g., Dill, 2000). Some of this work has described organizational models that may be used to manage institutional accountability environments (e.g., Harbour, 2003;Kearns, 1998).…”