Community Colleges on the Horizon: Challenge, Choice, or Abundance (review)

Richard Alfred, Professor of Higher Education in the Center for the Study of Higher Education and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan, along with University of Michigan doctoral students Christopher Shults, Ozan Jaquette, and Shelley Strickland, has written a compelling book for community college leaders synthesizing more than “a decade of research on community colleges” (p. xiii).

The authors explore three different circumstances common to community colleges: challenge, choice, and abundance. By studying these aspects of community college operation, the authors develop a new way of thinking about the role of leadership in community colleges and new means of creating better, stronger institutions.

The authors divide their book into three parts. In Part 1, “Community Colleges in Context,” Alfred et al. take a look at the “three Ps for the future: prospect, pitfalls, and potency” and focus on the differences between managing strategically versus managing operationally, and allocating dollars versus leveraging resources” (p. 5). Alfred et al. argue that, while educators tend to blame institutional shortcomings on a lack of competency and resources, it is more often missed opportunities that prevent institutions from achieving their full potential.

The “pitfalls” section is most helpful for practitioners, as it includes thoughtful discussions on (a) inattention to organizational uniqueness, differentiation, and strategy; (b) falling into the trap of complexity; (c) missing or inconsistent emphasis on quality; (d) marginal staff involvement; and (e) the slow pace of change and innovation. Further, this section serves as a warning to community college leaders inasmuch as it identifies many causes to common problems.

Part 1 also includes a historical perspective on forces that affect community colleges. The authors identify a number of significant external influences, including demographics, policymaking, economics, and labor market trends. They astutely point out that “understanding forces at work in the external environment is important because it helps leaders envision the type of institution their college must become to thrive in the future” (p. 68).

Chapter 3, “Coming of Age,” examines the inverse of this issue by focusing on internal forces, including organizational maturation, institutional capacity, and tangible resources such as money, staff, and technology. The authors also give consideration to intangible resources such as culture, architecture, time, system policies, partnerships, reputation, and, perhaps most significantly, leadership. Chapter 3 reinforces Chapter 1 by discussing the leverage needed to “stretch” (p. 120) resources in order to maximize the pursuit of opportunity.

In Part 2, “Scenarios for Development,” the authors examine the many different circumstances in which community colleges currently find themselves. In Chapter 4, “Alternative Scenarios,” the authors develop their definition of “abundance,” encouraging leaders to look past “what is” and see “what could be” for their institution (p. 132). As the authors state, “It is difficult to aspire to something that cannot be seen or understood” (p. 147). Perhaps for this reason, Chapter 4 is filled with charts and graphs, which can help readers visualize the process through which a college transforms itself from a college of challenge to a college of choice and,perhaps, a college of abundance.

The following chapters elaborate on each type of college. In Chapter 5, the authors define “Colleges of Challenge” as institutions that “are easily discerned as in trouble” (p. 151)—suffering from resource deficiencies, incapacity, and leadership inefficiencies. The authors use this designation for institutions that do not have the “capacity to leverage the resources available to them” (p. 170) and whose focus is on survival and problem solving. The authors examine the circumstances that push a college into a position of challenge and offer case studies to provide insight and awareness of such situations. While colleges of challenge are a minority, studying this chapter carefully may help community college administrators identify common pitfalls and take steps to prevent or address them.

Chapter 6 focuses on “Colleges of Choice,” a category that includes “most community colleges...