Understanding Community Colleges ed. by John S. Levin and Susan Kater (review)

Understanding Community Colleges brings together a variety of subjects and issues that face community colleges as they evolve in the higher education landscape. The edition is organized into four sections that cover three arenas: students, administration and leadership issues, and workforce development. Each chapter, regardless of author, does a quality job of explaining the historical context of the given issue and the development or change that is occurring for community colleges nationwide. The text is accessible for those unfamiliar with community colleges and does not fall into the writing traps of consistently comparing community colleges to four-year institutions. Instead, each chapter treats community colleges as stand-alone entities, examining them in each particular setting with no preconceived notions.

Section 1, "The Core," provides necessary background on community colleges and surveys their many student populations. The opening sections by Ken Meier and Lindsey Malcolm are well-condensed overviews of community colleges as a concept, laying the groundwork and needed background to fully appreciate later chapters. In Chapter 1, Meier succinctly reviews the community college's mission from a historical perspective. In Chapter 2, Malcolm briefly reviews the trends in student diversity in community colleges and the accompanying challenges. These "Core" chapters provide the uninformed reader with a necessary understanding of the history of community colleges as well as the specialty backgrounds of their diverse student populations.

In Chapter 3, Joan Hirt and Tara Frank discuss the growing culture of consumerism among students, a phenomenon that community colleges share with their four-year counterparts. The authors point to how consumerist tendencies have led to changes in and expansion of student services on many campuses.

Linda Serra Hagedorn and Yi Zhang, in Chapter 4, discuss the small but growing population of international students on community college campuses. The authors explore students' rationale for studying in U.S. community colleges and the effect their presence has upon the campus.

In Chapter 5, Virginia Montero-Hernandez and Christine Cerven discuss the agentic approach and its influence on community college cultures. A sense of agency, active participation, and the co-creation of learning in the classroom is more prevalent among adult learners. This is a key distinction on community college campuses, where adult learners are often in the majority. Dolores Perins, in Chapter 6, turns readers' attention to underprepared students and highlights what has been, and will continue to be, the defining issue for community colleges in the 21st century.

As the author points out, the mission of simply providing access is no longer enough. The community college must help academically challenged students make greater strides and show documented growth in their learning capacities and abilities. As a collection, these six opening chapters on "the core" of community colleges provide a comprehensive overview far better than a single author could likely accomplish, while making surprisingly little overlap of subject matter.

The transition to Section 2, "Institutional Issues for Community Colleges," loses the breadth the earlier "Core" section provided. Instead, four of the five chapters in this section speak to leadership issues that do not seem unique to community colleges but which are common across all colleges and universities and reflect general changes in the larger state of the working world.

David Ayers and Michael Ayers, in Chapter 7, take a look at program planning models and issues. Pamela Eddy, in Chapter 8, examines management trends and their shift over time in community colleges, while Marilyn Amey, in Chapter 9, looks at evolving models of leadership, pipeline issues in preparing community college leaders, and transitions. Carrie Kisker and Susan Kater, in Chapter 10, provide a historical overview of governance models in community colleges, and the connection between governance models, external expectations, and the ability to accomplish objectives.

Each chapter makes very salient points on what the new leaders in community college face: the flattening of the management structure throughout the college, the need to meet quickly changing demands, and a call for a shifting...