This article was downloaded by: [University of North Texas]On: 11 November 2014, At: 22:20Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Community College Journal of Researchand PracticePublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucjc20

The American Community College Story,Take Two: An Unfinished EssayArthur D. Stumpf aa Leadership and Foundations, Mississippi State University, MississippiState , Mississippi , USAPublished online: 13 May 2013.

To cite this article: Arthur D. Stumpf (2013) The American Community College Story, Take Two:An Unfinished Essay, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 37:7, 566-574, DOI:10.1080/10668921003677076

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10668921003677076

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

The American Community College Story,Take Two: An Unfinished Essay

Arthur D. Stumpf

Leadership and Foundations, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi, USA

The author observes that community college administrators perform their duties on ambiguous and

uncertain intellectual and environmental landscapes, so they continually search for meaning and

purpose in organizational life. This article proposes a straightforward approach to answering several

questions related to the quest for meaning and purpose, and relates the discussion to the origination

of the junior college movement at the turn of the 20th century. The article concludes with implica-

tions for practice by analyzing how community college administrators pursue meaning and purpose

by reflecting creatively on theory and practice of the past, present, and future.

Community college administrators in the postmodern world find themselves on an intellectual

landscape that is not a smooth, even surface. This is due to the explosion of knowledge, which,

among other things, challenges traditional beliefs, practices, and ethics. At the same time, admin-

istrators bear the burden of fulfilling their missions and meeting their obligations to society on

the slippery slope of a changing environmental landscape brought about by rapidly advancing

technology, changing demographics, a fluctuating economic environment, and political

pressures both internal and external. Such uneven and uncertain landscapes bring about a

continual quest for meaning and purpose in organizational life, which Bolman and Deal

(2001) characterize as follows:

. . . a contemporary quest for meaning, depth, and faith that transcends boundariesof gender, age,

geography, and race . . . this contemporary search is grounded in theage-old journey of the soul that

has been a preoccupation of every human culturesince the beginning of time. (p. 4)

Looking at the deeper structure of the quest for meaning and purpose in community college

administration would reveal that part of our problem is that we are all children of the Enlight-

enment. It is a problem inasmuch as a significant part of our educational foundations today are

the imperfect legacies of the Enlightenment, such as utilitarianism, Kantianism, and social

contract theory, which failed to provide the universality and objectivity that Enlightenment

authors set out to provide in certainty of knowledge, human conduct, and governance. Postmo-

dernists assert that the Enlightenment was doomed to fail because all knowing and understand-

ing involve interpretation in terms of some framework, perspective, or point of view. Because it

is impossible to rise above all of mankind’s perspectives (obtain a God’s-eye view), which are

Address correspondence to Arthur D. Stumpf, Mississippi State University, Department of Leadership and Founda-

tions, P.O. Box 9698, Mississippi State, MS 39762. E-mail: ads124@colled.msstate.edu

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 37: 566–574, 2013

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1066-8926 print=1521-0413 online

DOI: 10.1080/10668921003677076

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

embodied in a great diversity of myths and cultural legends, a single true story or grand theory

that informs us of the meaning of life or gives an account of good and evil or right or wrong that

is true for all persons, such as the Enlightenment purported to provide, cannot be found (Kane,

1999, p. 59).

This deeper structure reveals, also, an ongoing debate between traditionalists and postmoder-

nists. Traditionalists, such as Alasdair MacIntyre (1984, 1990), believe, also, that the Enlighten-

ment was destined to fail. But it didn’t fail simply because accounts of good and evil or right or

wrong are relative to different perspectives. Its failure was because it abandoned the classical

traditions of philosophy that go back to Aristotle. Traditionalists believe that in today’s world

we need to cultivate those virtues that sustain our traditions and our culture instead of being

obsessed—as we seem to be—with money, fame, and celebrity. They claim that postmodern

views are dangerous because they allow no universal claims about right and wrong. Postmoder-

nists counter that traditionalists are the real danger because they marginalize persons or groups

whose views or behavior do not fit their norms. (Kane, 1999, p. 60).

Given the fact that community college professionals must pursue meaning and purpose on

ambiguous landscapes and amid such controversy, is there a ready path they can take that

promises some fulfillment of their quest? Where does it begin? How do they know whether they

are on the right path? Is there a set of tools they should carry with them that might make their

journey more meaningful and enjoyable? Or do they resign themselves to peering through the

fog and mists of the past and present by poring over ancient and modern texts and tracts to find

the backbone of reality and truth they seek?

The answers to these questions lie in the works of those who have gone before us who had the

same questions. They are more straightforward than one would expect, they are easily

accessible, and they are especially valuable to newcomers to the profession of community col-

lege education. One place to start is to read cover-to-cover The community college story by

George Vaughan (2006), an insightful and informative, but brief, synopsis of the history and

philosophy of the community college. With that overview, proceed to The American communitycollege (5th ed.), by Cohen and Brawer (2008). Read Chapter 1, ‘‘Background: Evolving

Priorities and Expectations of the Community College.’’ Then read Chapter 11, ‘‘Collegiate

Function: Transfer and the Liberal Arts.’’ The reason for skipping to this chapter is that it dis-

cusses some of the reasons why community colleges got started in the first place. As a sidebar to

one’s main effort, it’s not a bad idea to acquire some depth in relation to the ethos of higher

education by studying The closing of the American mind by Allen Bloom (1987), especially

the last chapter in the book, ‘‘The Student and the University.’’ At this point, it might be advis-

able to jot down the definitions of some esoteric terms such as academic discipline, liberal arts,

general education, history, philosophy, and so on. In reducing to writing these definitions, an

administrator can become more easily conversant with the notions they impart within the context

of community college education.

In circumscribing reasonable limits to the quest for meaning and purpose in organizational

life of the community college, one should begin to reach closure by reading Chapters 8–10 in

Cohen and Brawer (2008), which are discussions of vocational education, developmental edu-

cation, and community education, respectively. Focusing attention on the major functions of

the community college, that is, the collegiate (transfer) function, vocational education, develop-

mental education, and community education, provides a fairly thorough treatment of the essen-

tial mission of the community college and how that mission evolved over the decades of the 20th

THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE STORY 567

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

century. At the same time, it would be advisable to become acquainted with Robert McCabe’s

(2000, 2003) works because his studies of developmental education have special relevance to

each of the major functions in today’s community colleges. Reach closure by reading Chapter

13 in Cohen and Brawer (2008), ‘‘The Social Role: Response to the Critics.’’

If this brief tour de force on the path to meaning and purpose inspires some administrators to

express their own thoughts in writing, Cohen and Brawer (2008) provide some guidance in

Chapter 12, ‘‘Scholarship and Assessment: Research in and About the Colleges.’’ The same

can be said for Chapter 14, ‘‘Toward the Future: Trends, Challenges, and Obligations.’’ Excel-

lent examples of publication by community college professionals can be found in professional

journals devoted to community college education, such as the Community College Journal,Community College Journal of Research and Practice, Community College Review, Journalof Applied Research in Community Colleges, Journal of Developmental Education, and others.

Citing chapter 13 in Cohen and Brawer (2008) brings to mind an anecdote discussed in a chat

session in an online course of study in the history and philosophy of community colleges. In that

course, an elitist colleague in the mid-1970s was venting his frustration about the rapid growth

of community colleges. To him, it seemed to be opening higher education to anyone who wished

to take advantage of it. He was quoted as saying that community colleges were becoming a

wonderland of egalitarian excellence where everybody is above average and nobody fails

(Stumpf, 2009). His gripe was that a significant segment of higher education was becoming

remedial and vocational at a time of great advances in knowledge (America was in the Space

Age then: we had put a man on the moon in 1969): what the nation needed then, in his opinion,

were advances in education in scientific research and the humanities. He thought the trend in

community colleges was problematic for the rest of higher education and even for society itself,

which seems to be the hue and cry of the ‘‘jeremiads’’ cited by Cohen and Brawer (2008, p. 422).

This elitist colleague, a well-published full professor of history in a Big Ten university, venting

his frustration three quarters of a century after the first junior college got started, was at least a

decade too late with his objections: the previous decade of the 1960s saw the construction of

nearly 500 new community colleges (Vaughan, 2006, p. 1), the period of the largest increase

in the number of community colleges since the founding of Joliet Junior College in 1901. It

was also a time of significant change in the nature of community college education. This was

because the end of the decade of the 1960s saw the end of the prominence of the collegiate

(transfer) function in terms of enrollment and the beginning of the dramatic increase in the num-

ber of vocational-technical students. There was also the expansion of developmental education.

Up to this time, junior colleges were just that: they were junior colleges, that is, the first two

years of a four-year college education, not the comprehensive community colleges we have

today. The dramatic change in the composition of the student body was due to a large extent

to the Vocational Education Act of 1963 and the Higher Education Act of 1965. These Federal

legislative actions came on the heels of the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which was

a result of the scare given by the Soviet Union’s Sputnik I in 1957. The space race was on.

When we consider the explosion of knowledge we’ve experienced in the last half century and

the attendant technological infrastructure produced by it, the intellectual landscape and techno-

logical infrastructure at the turn of the 20th century pale in comparison. Conversely, the draco-

nian suggestions for change in community colleges proposed by the jeremiads in Chapter 13 of

Cohen and Brawer (2008) pale in comparison to what William Rainey Harper got started in 1901

when he helped in founding the first community college, Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois.

568 A. D. STUMPF

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

The first decade in the life of community colleges was impressive: by 1910, the number of junior

colleges in the United States had increased by 2,500%, the decade of the largest percentage

increase in the history of community colleges. You might say that the momentum for the

junior=community college movement in the USA was established then, changing forever the

nature of higher education.

What was it like when William Rainey Harper gave life to the community college movement?

There were no computers, cell phones, TV, air travel, or the Internet. Railroads were common-

place, the automobile was in use, and there was considerable electrical power. There was the

telegraph, radiotelegraphy, the Transatlantic Cable, and the telephone was coming into use.

There were sewing machines, cash registers, and typewriters. You got the news by reading

the newspaper. Educators kept in touch through correspondence, journals, professional organiza-

tions, meetings, and conferences.

In thinking about the fact that William Rainey Harper was considering the idea of an

extended high school experience, that is, a junior college experience, to prepare students for suc-

cess in the university, one can’t help speculating that he viewed the necessity of the junior col-

lege in relation to how he perceived the intellectual landscape in science, mathematics, and the

humanities. It’s hard to say how satisfied he might have been with the inauspicious beginning of

Joliet Junior College (six students in 1901 mixed in with high school students), but this begin-

ning certainly was not predictive of the sea change in higher education that he had just got

started. Harper died in 1906, but he had created a movement and given it a life of its own:

by 1910 there were 25 junior colleges in the U.S. The next decade saw a tripling of that number

(Vaughan, 2006, p. 1). Parenthetically, an historical study of the first 10 years in the life of com-

munity colleges might be an interesting undertaking. Studying the expansion in the number of

junior colleges could be done in relation to advances in science and technology, in relation to

changing demographics in American society, and in relation to the growth in senior institutions

of higher education in the same period. The same approach could be taken for an historical study

of the next decade or any decade of the 20th century. Such an approach would be similar to what

Robert McCabe (2000, 2003) did in his study of developmental education in community

colleges.

George Vaughan (2006) does a reasonable job in citing milestones leading up to the founding

of Joliet Junior College in 1901, and Cohen and Brawer (2008) do a good job of characterizing the

state of affairs in academe in relation to the liberal arts and the takeover by the academic disci-

plines at the turn of the 20th century. One could expand a bit, though, on Vaughan’s citing the

passage of the Morrill Act in 1862 by noting that the Morrill Act used the language that

educational opportunities would be provided ‘‘. . . in order to promote the liberal and practical edu-

cation of the industrial classes [of people] . . .’’ (U.S. Statutes at Large 12, 1862: 503), and that it

might have been enacted partly as a result of the Second Industrial Revolution, a term coined by

the great historian Arnold J. Toynbee in his Gifford Lectures in 1881 (New World Encyclopedia:

Industrial Revolution, 2010, p. 14). One might observe that, as a major outcome of the Second

Industrial Revolution, by 1901 great captains of industry, i.e., Jay Gould (railroads), Andrew

Carnegie (steel mills), John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil Company), controlled huge amounts of

wealth, power, and influence, as well as the lives of millions of people. A reaction to such wealth,

power, and control was the formation of worker unions, for example, the American Federation of

Labor founded by Samuel Gompers in 1886 (by 1904 the AF of L claimed 1.7 million members).

Unionization ultimately led to numerous strikes, some of which were violent and bloody.

THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE STORY 569

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

The intellectual landscape at the turn of the 20th century was conspicuous because of the

Second Scientific Revolution. Parenthetically, the first scientific revolution occurred two centu-

ries before with the contributions of Isaac Newton and Wilhelm Leibniz (The New Sciences: The

Second Scientific Revolution, 2010, pp. 1–3). The Second Scientific Revolution began, more or

less, with the publication of James Clerk Maxwell’s Treatise on electricity and magnetism in

1873 and the famous Michelson-Morley experiments in 1887 in measuring the speed of light.

Michelson received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907. Philipp Lenard was working on his dis-

covery of the photoelectric effect, which he announced in 1902. The Wright brothers were busy

experimenting with gliders, and they demonstrated powered flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Mean-

while, Albert Einstein was at work on his special theory of relativity which he announced in

three papers in 1905. The famous German scientist, Max Planck, produced significant papers

on theoretical physics in 1900 and 1901. Planck, known for his work in black body radiation,

supported and extended Einstein’s theory, and his work in quantum theory later led to his Nobel

Prize in Physics in 1918. Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and others were busy at the

turn of the 20th century studying mathematical logic, culminating in the first volume of Russell’s

and Whitehead’s Principia mathematica in 1910. Charles Darwin died in 1882, but his publi-

cation in 1859 On the origin of the species continued to have influence in biology, religion,

and the social sciences at the turn of the 20th century (and beyond).

The intellectual landscape at the time of the founding of Joliet Junior College wasn’t domi-

nated exclusively by the Second Scientific Revolution. At this time, Charles Sanders Pierce

(1839–1914), William James (1842–1910), and John Dewey (1859–1952) were evolving the

philosophical school of pragmatism. Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), a German mathematician,

who became known, ultimately, as the father of analytic philosophy, produced numerous works

from 1879 to 1904 in arithmetic thought and logic which influenced the later works of Bertrand

Russell, G. E. Moore (1873–1958), and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) in establishing the

new tradition of analytic philosophy in the English-speaking world. G. E. Moore produced

The nature of judgment (1899) and Principia ethica (1903). Bertrand Russell wrote A criticalexposition of the philosophy of Leibniz (1900) and The principles of mathematics (1903). JohnStuart Mill died in 1883 and Frederick Nietzsche in 1900, but Mill’s On liberty (1859) and

Utilitarianism (1863) and Nietzsche’s relativism (15 major works from 1872 to 1888) continued

to influence political science and philosophy at the turn of the 20th century, even as they do today.

William Rainey Harper’s academic specialties were the Greek classics and Hebraic studies,

but it’s safe to assume that he stayed on the cutting edge of the intellectual landscape of the time

and the technological infrastructure connected with education because he became the president

of the new University of Chicago in 1892. One of his first hires was John Dewey in 1894, and

Dewey was there when William Rainey Harper was involved in the founding of Joliet Junior

College in 1901. By that time, Dewey had produced three significant publications, not the least

of which was The school and society in 1900, and he was evolving his notion of the university

laboratory school in conjunction with teaching professional education. Did William Rainey

Harper consult John Dewey about the founding of Joliet Junior College? Who knows? What

we do know is that Dewey left the University of Chicago in 1904 because of a conflict with

the administration. Did William Rainey Harper view the idea of the junior college as a necessity

because of the intellectual landscape in science, mathematics, and philosophy at the turn of the

20th century? Parallel to this question is what the vision was of John D. Rockefeller when he

selected William Rainey Harper in 1891 to assist in founding a midwestern university to rival

570 A. D. STUMPF

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

the Ivy League schools of the East. What we know, simply, are the outcomes of John D. Rock-

efeller’s and William Rainey Harper’s creative contributions. In relation to how we may view

such facts of history, John Lewis Gaddis (2002) gives some relevant guidance:

. . . if you think of the past as a landscape, then history is the way we represent it, and it’s this act of

representation that lifts us above the familiar [of the present] to let us experience vicariously what we

can’t experience directly: a wider view. What, though, do we gain from such a view? Several things, I

think, the first of which is a sense of identity that parallels the process of growing up . . .Historicalconsciousness . . . leaves you, as does maturity itself, with a simultaneous sense of your own

significance and insignificance . . . You’re suspended between sensibilities that are at odds with

one another; but it’s precisely within that suspension that your own identity—whether as a person

or a historian—tends to reside. Self-doubt must always precede self-confidence. It should never,

however, cease to accompany, challenge, and by these means discipline self-confidence. (pp. 5–8)

The self-confidence of students who pursue to completion an associate degree in science or in

the liberal arts may be such that they hardly remember the self-doubt that preceded such pursuit,

self-confidence that will stand them in good stead when they transfer to the university. While the

numbers in developmental and occupational education seem to dominate the community college

landscape at present, transfer students remain an integral part of that landscape. Their part of the

community college story may become ever more important to the future of higher education,

despite the changes we’ve seen in the past half century in the composition of academic pro-

grams, in the growth in enrollment, and in the composition of the student body. There may

be a grain of truth in what the jeremiads have to say in Cohen and Brawer (2008), and it is this:

the collegiate (transfer) function remains an essential ingredient of the community college, if

only because it is symbolic of what made the community colleges a necessity. More important,

though, if community colleges are to retain their status as a segment of higher education, com-

munity college leaders must preserve the collegiate function as an integral part of community

college culture.

There’s no doubt that inventive thinkers change the world, as William Rainey Harper did at

the turn of the 20th century. Later in the century, new insights into the human condition, such as

the Hawthorne Effect, were given by researchers from Harvard as a result of studies at the

Hawthorne plant of Western Electric in Cicero, Illinois (Perrow, 1986, pp. 79–85). About the

same time, English translations of Max Weber’s works in sociology provided meaningful under-

standing of life in bureaucratic organizations in the United States (Perrow, 1986, p. 3). Using

Abraham Maslow’s paradigm of a hierarchy of needs in human motivation, Douglas McGregor

argued before the assembled faculty of the School of Industrial Management at the Massachu-

setts Institute of Technology in 1957 how the social sciences could contribute to the develop-

ment of industrial organizations of the future. He argued that his Theory Y, that is, applying

the talents of industrialists in the pursuit of economic ends to the human side of enterprise,

would enhance not only materialistic achievements but would bring us closer to the ‘‘good

society.’’ (Bennis & Schein, 1966, p. 20). Ultimately, McGregor changed the way that human

resources in organizations in our society became managed and led, and his sea change can be

seen today in business, industry, health care, government, the military, and education. Not

too long after McGregor, Frederick Herzberg (1968) showed how employees are motivated more

by meaningful work than they are by external incentives. About the same time, Livingston

(1969) demonstrated that the relationship between the performance of employees and the

THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE STORY 571

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

expectations of managers is practically natural law. In the field of human learning, the research

of Leslie Briggs (1968) in sequencing instruction based on the Conditions of learning of Robert

Gagne (1970) and the notion of Mastery learning of Benjamin Bloom (1971) have influenced

markedly the design of instruction at all levels of education. Needless to say, all such advance-

ments in knowledge have been put to productive use in community college administration.

There seems to be value in considering the present in terms of the past, because the past tells

us where we’ve been. At the same time, we have to keep our eye on the future because that is

where we’re headed. For instance, Lumsden (2009) devoted an entire issue of the CommunityCollege Journal of Research and Practice to the topic of the community college baccalaureate

(CCB). This new wave has the potential of even broader impact than online courses of study and

programs. As CCB becomes more widespread nationally, it will signify another sea change in

community college education having serious implications for faculty workload and credentials

in teaching upper division coursework. It will also have implications for all of higher education

structurally, financially, politically, culturally, in human resources, and in regional accreditation.

While the impetus of the CCB seems to be in the state of Florida, it has spread to other states, as

pointed out by Bemmel, Floyd, and Bryan (2009). Humphreys (2009) describes a seamless

baccalaureate program between a community college and a state university in Kentucky, perhaps

signifying the eventual development of the CCB in that state.

Another new wave is how community college leaders are beginning to view spirituality in the

administration of community colleges. A meaningful treatment of that topic recently is given by

Walker and McPhail (2009). In relation to the quest for meaning and purpose, keeping an eye on

the future in regard to spirituality in administration is meaningful in reflecting on what is really

worth striving for in community college administration. What is important, what is valuable in

organizational life in the community college that makes it a good life, what is it that makes that

life worth living? Even though a person may experience some self-doubt in examining this ques-

tion in relation to his or her own life in community college administration, it should lead to

self-confidence eventually, if there is any credibility to what Gaddis says. Socrates held that

the unexamined life is not worth living. At least this much is true: the unexamined life will never

know whether it is worth living (Grim, 2005a, p. 5).

In their quest for meaning and purpose, community college administrators inevitably discover

that values are inescapable (Grim, 2005b, p. 192). They understand that their own particular

values and those of others constitute an inescapable pluralism. Yet, they find that there are

values common to all such as commitment. In practical application, for example, this value could

be formulated as a principle of refraining from making promises that can’t be kept. Administra-

tors tend to place a strong value on justice, another value fairly common to all (Grim, 2005b,

p. 193). A practical application of justice is providing remediation for persons not ready for

college-level instruction when a college has an open door admission policy. Not unconnected

to justice is the commitment to truth and, ultimately, to reality (Grim, 2005b, p. 193). This fairly

common commitment gives rise to a continual, inescapable reflection upon one’s particular

values because it requires particular values to be right. For example, if an administrator sees

advantages to more virtuous leadership based on spirituality, but has been committed to

dispassionately secular principles of administration, reflection on those secular principles might

reveal that they are nothing more than societal norms now inappropriate to a new, changing

reality. In that same vein of thought, if one considers the advantages of the community college

baccalaureate, but has been committed to the associate degree as the terminus of a community

572 A. D. STUMPF

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

college education, reflection on that commitment might lead to a conclusion not unlike the

conclusion reached about outmoded principles of administration.

The challenge of fulfilling their organizational missions and meeting their responsibilities to

society on uneven intellectual and environmental landscapes generates for community college

administrators the question that is always a part of leadership: ‘‘How do you match the right idea

to the right problem, at the right time, and in the right way?’’ (Bolman & Deal, 1991, p. 3).

Armed with their commitment to reality and truth, administrators may attack this question by

assessing their present situation and asking how favorably it compares with how they believe

it ought to be. Discrepancies between how things are and how they ought to be may yield needs

for altering organizational policy or practice. Considering how to implement new policy or prac-

tice may give rise to problems in overcoming barriers to implementation. Engaging in the heur-

istics of problem solving and decision making sometimes may result in a bold, intuitive flash of

insight that could significantly change the organization. Or it could change the world, as did the

ideation of William Rainey Harper and that of Douglas McGregor.

The ability of community college administrators to fulfill creatively their organizational mis-

sions and meet their responsibilities to society is augmented by their quest for meaning and pur-

pose. In that quest they try to capture an overview of their situation by reflecting on the past,

present, and future. They recognize that they cannot give what they do not have or lead to places

they’ve never been (Bolman & Deal, 2001, p. 106), but in reflecting on the past, that is, where

they’ve been and where others have been who have gone before them, they are able to experi-

ence vicariously what they can’t experience directly. Thought experiments substitute for direct

experience and may lead to intuitive insight. Thus, in times of adversity, when intellectual and

environmental landscapes are fluctuating wildly, they may be able give others comforting

versions of what to think, feel, or do.

Experimenting with ideas is not without some risk, and Grim (2005b) cites a warning from

the educator and philosopher, John Dewey:

. . . an inquiry of ideas, like every other exploration, is intellectually dangerous. Once you start to

think critically about ideas, once you are no longer satisfied with familiar beliefs just because they

are familiar, you can no longer be certain what conclusions you will come to. (p. 194)

Despite the risk, however, it is the responsibility of community college administrators to reflect

upon theory and practice of the past and present and step forward with ideas that help their orga-

nizations to develop, grow, and improve. In the words of Douglas McGregor, then, ‘‘Shall we

get on with the job?’’ (Bennis & Schein, 1966, p. 20).

REFERENCES

Bemmel, E. P., Floyd, D. L., & Bryan, V. C. (2009). Perceptions and reflections of administrators: Community colleges

transitioning to baccalaureate colleges. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 33, 151–176.Bennis, W. G., & Schein, E. H. (Eds.). (1966). Leadership and motivation: Essays of Douglas McGregor. Cambridge,

MA: The MIT Press.

Bloom, A. (1987). The closing of the American mind. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Bloom, B. S. (1971). Individual differences in school achievement: A vanishing point?. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa.

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. San Francisco, CA:

Jossey-Bass.

THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE STORY 573

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2001). Leading with soul. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Briggs, L. J. (1968). Sequencing of instruction in relation to hierarchies of competence. Pittsburgh, PA: American

Institutes for Research.

Cohen, A. M., & Brawer, F. B. (2008). The American community college. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Gaddis, J. L. (2002). The landscape of history: How historians map the past. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gagne, R. M. (1970). The conditions of learning. Chicago, IL: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Grim, P. (2005). Lecture transcript and course guidebook: Questions of value, Part 1. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching

Company.

Grim, P. (2005). Lecture transcript and course guidebook: Questions of value, Part 2. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching

Company.

Herzberg, F. (1968). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, 46(1), 53–62.

Humphreys, G. G. (2009). Madisonville Community College: The quest for excellence 1968–2009. Madisonville, KY:

Madisonville Community College.

Kane, R. H. (1999). Course guidebook: The quest for meaning: Value, ethics, and the modern experience, Part I.

Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company.

Livingston, J. S. (1969). Pygmalion in management. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review.

Lumsden, D. B. (Ed.). (2009). Special issue: The community college baccalaureate. Community College Journal of

Research and Practice, 33(2).

MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

MacIntyre, A. (1990). Three rival versions of moral inquiry. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

McCabe, R. H. (2000). No one to waste: A report to public decision-makers and community college leaders. Washington,

DC: Community College Press.

McCabe, R. H. (2003). Yes we can: A community college guide for developing America’s underprepared. Phoenix, AZ:League for Innovation in the Community College.

New World Encyclopedia. (2010). Industrial revolution. Retrieved from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/

Industrial_Revolution

Perrow, C. (1986). Complex organizations: A critical essay. New York, NY: Random House.

Stumpf, A. D. (2009). Second chat session, CCL 8113: History and philosophy of the community college. Starkville, MS:

Mississippi State University.

The new sciences: The second scientific revolution. (2010). Retrieved from http://faculty.tnstate.edu/tcorse/h3630/new_

sciences_the_second_scientif.htm

U.S. Statutes at Large 12. (1862). 503. Retrieved from http://eca.state.gov/education/engteaching/pubs/AmLnC/br27.htm

Vaughan, G. B. (2006). The community college story. Washington, DC: Community College Press.

Walker, M. W., & McPhail, C. J. (2009). Spirituality matters: Spirituality and the community college leader. CommunityCollege Journal of Research and Practice, 33(3=4), 321–345.

574 A. D. STUMPF

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f N

orth

Tex

as]

at 2

2:20

11

Nov

embe

r 20

14