Internal governance in the community college: Models and quilts

Abstract

Community college management has typically been cast as bureaucratic, allowing functional responsibilities of various offices to respond directly to specific needs and to respond directly to specified supervisors. One of the most popular and well-received depictions of this casting was offered by Birnbaum (1991), who aligned the clarity of community college mission with clean lines of authority.The intention of the Birnbaum description was to demonstrate that the evolution of the contemporary community college was based largely on the ability of these colleges to demonstrate and live a mission and philosophy grounded in clearly articulated ideas and activities. Community colleges were designed as teaching institutions that provided relevant curriculum to their local communities. However, much within the higher education landscape has changed both in philosophy and operation, especially in the dynamic arena of community college education. Changes include an increased reliance on state instead of local revenue, reliance on and attention to philanthropic support, a growing role in transfer education, service to international populations, a third or fourth generation of faculty who use a great deal of intentionality in selecting their occupations, and a commitment to facility sophistication that includes a broader variety of services, types of facilities, and technology. The result is a changing and challenging approach to leadership and decision making.

Community College Faculty Conceptualizations of Shared Governance: Shared Understandings of a Sociopolitical Reality

“…It is the spirit and intent of the practice of shared governance that in part frame their roles as professionals. Although earlier research on shared governance in the community college focused more on structural and functional models (Birnbaum, 1988;Kater, 2003;Miller & Miles, 2008), scholars are increasingly exploring the importance of sociocultural aspects of governance, but the research continues to focus primarily on university faculty. The current research focuses on community college faculty, suggesting a sociopolitical perspective of the concept of governance in a neoliberal environment.…”

Undergraduate student government participant decision-making at a California state university : an interpretative phenomenological analysis

“…Having Conversations with others also shows that these participants were not making decisions in silos to serve their own self-interests. Current literature discussing perceptions of student government participants as only serving self-interests or the interests of a small population of the student body is not supported in this finding (Lizzio & Wilson, 2009;Miles, 2011;Miller and Miles 2008).…”