Community College Leadership: A Multidimensional Model for Leading Change by Pamela L. Eddy (review)

Given the rise in community college enrollment and the expansion of the communities that these institutions serve, community colleges face an increased responsibility to educate and train a more diverse student body. However, in this responsibility, Pamela Eddy points out that community colleges in the near future will face a "leadership gap," either through reductions in funding or the retirement of a majority of community college presidents.

In Community College Leadership: A Multidimensional Model for Leading Change, Eddy offers a rationale to investigate the "changing of the guard" in community colleges by reviewing the various leadership training programs for future leaders. In exploring the current leadership models and relevant competencies for effective community college leaders, Eddy outlines leadership competences that can be developed through a multidimensional model. She further articulates how they can be applied to various types of community college institutions.

In this journey through developing effective community leaders, Eddy begins with an overview of traditional leadership styles and lays the groundwork for the rest of the book by describing nine different archetypes of community college institutions. She identified them with the pseudonyms: Technology Community College, Hunkering Down Community College, Bifurcated Community College, Strategic Community College, Large and Growing Community College District, Don't Make Waves Community College, Rogue Community College, Me-Too Community College, and Tradition-Bound Community College.

In the context of these different case studies of institutional types, Eddy proposes applying a multidimensional leadership that consists of five different propositions as its foundation. These propositions include: (a) there is no universal model for leadership, (b) multidimensional leadership is necessary in complex organizations, (c) leaders rely on their underlying cognitive schema in making leadership decisions, (d) leaders often adhere to their core belief structures, and (e) leaders are learners.

In the subsequent chapters, Eddy effectively and interestingly describes the leadership qualities of how to learn to lead, communicating and framing information on campus, knowledge of leadership competencies, and the importance of gender leadership at the community college level. She brings to life these vital leadership characteristics through case vignettes, using the previously listed types of colleges to provide leaders with an informative understanding of the institution's cultural underpinnings. Finally, Eddy offers insightful practical suggestions for leaders as they plan for the institution's future.

In her study, Eddy investigates the leadership dilemma by looking at case studies of colleges that have recently experienced a change in leadership and who have a hired a new president within the past five years. In order to address the issue of race in community college leadership, she selected additional minority presidents to gain a more comprehensive view of institutional leadership. By looking at institutions with new leaders, Eddy offers readers a prime opportunity to explore educational institutions during periods of cultural change often initiated by new leadership. These case studies cover a broad range of institutional issues and a diversity of regional factors that can affect a campus's culture.

Similar to each institution's having its own culture and personality, Eddy clearly illustrates the different career paths that lead to the community college presidency. Despite these differences in career pathways, Eddy comprehensively analyses what motivates potential leaders to the presidency as well as the support measures that they receive to obtain this position. Given that many presidents develop through the ranks of former presidencies or chief academic officers (nearly 60%), Eddy found that role models and mentors were crucial for those aspiring to the presidency. Combined with such uncontrollable factors as chance and timing, leadership development, both formal and informal, came from such diverse learning opportunities as American Association of Community Colleges' Futures Leaders Institute, doctoral programs, relevant literature, and personal experiences.

With the diverse cultures that many leaders experience, Eddy stresses the importance of making sense out of the campus environment in order to more effectively communicate. Through interesting and clarifying vignettes, Eddy depicts real...