https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/9ced7563b0046930f748a9499ee064e5.pdf 1c9efda09c22f099b283fdc1da8a68bd PDF Text Text Editor’s Choice From Learning to Education A New Paradigm for the Community College Chad M. Hanson Casper College, Wyoming In the 1990s, community colleges underwent a shift in their guiding paradigm. The transformation in norms, roles, and values look place in the name of “learning,” as the change was driven by the goal of turning 2-year schools into “learning colleges.” In this article, it is suggested that the shift ushered in by the learning movement limited the focus of community colleges to goals that are narrowly private and psychological. An alternative to current organiza­ tional culture is proposed: an “education” paradigm that widens institutional focus to include goals consistent with serving social and public purposes. Keyword: learning colleges; student development; workforce training; learning paradigm or more than a century, community colleges have been an integral part of the undergraduate experience. Two-year college professionals have served students for more than five generations, and they have served the nation well. In a recent report on a survey commissioned by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Selingo (2004) wrote, “Nearly 93 percent of the respondents agreed that higher education institutions are one of the most valuable resources in the United States,” and community colleges are among the resources we trust and value most (p. 1). The key to the growth and success of community colleges has been a long-standing commitment to students. In contrast to institutions with a wider range of duties, 2-year schools are single-mindedly devoted to student development. Thus, in the middle 1980s, when accrediting agen­ cies and state legislatures moved to emphasize accountability through the F Editor’s Note: This article is published as an Editor’s Choice selection. Editor’s Choice articles are selected by the editorial staff of Community College Review and have not gone through the peer review process. 128 Hanson / From Learning to Education 129 assessment of student learning (Lazerson, Wagener, & Shumanis, 2000, p. 14), community colleges were among the first to heed the call. In the 1990s, we began to focus on learning with a kind of zeal characteristic of social or political movements (O’Banion, 1998a, 1998b). Over the course of the past decade, the goal of increased student learning grew to the point where community colleges came to think of and refer to themselves as “learning coUeges” (Barr & Tagg, 1995; O’Banion, 1997; Tagg, 2003). By the turn of the century, the words of Robert Barr and John Tagg (1995) had hardened into truisms: “Our mission is that of producing learning with every student by whatever means” (p. 9). Never before has learning been a more central focus in 2-year colleges. Yet the heightened focus on learning has channeled the efforts of educators toward purposes that are limited in scope. The focus on learning, in lieu of education, limits the approach of staff and faculty merely to encouraging cognitive as opposed to social, moral, or aesthetic development (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Today, the goal of “producing learning” is seen as customary, but learning and education are not one and the same. Learning is private and psychological, whereas education is both social and public. It is possible that learning may be produced by whatever means. Learning can even take place anytime or anywhere (O’Banion, 1997). However, education is a social institution, and the process of becoming an educated person is complex and multifaceted. As the Russian psychologist Pavlov demonstrated, dogs are capable of leammg; so are ducks and mice and barnyard animals (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2005). Learning is easy to produce and equally simple to measure. The same cannot be said of education, however. Education is rich, diverse, and complicated. Nonetheless, a well-educated citizenry is crucial to maintaining the health and sovereignty of free and self-governing nations (Barter, 1992). At best, cognitive development can only be a partial goal for public colleges. Our primary objectives must be social and cultural in character. Postsecondary schools bear the responsibility of “providing the next generation with the capacities, beliefs, and commitments necessary to ensure society’s goals” (Shapiro, 2005, p. 37). Shifting the focus of 2-year colleges away from the current emphasis on learning and toward a broad concern with education is consistent with the schools’ historic function as a cornerstone of democracy (Griffith & Connor, 1994; Hanson, 2002; Rhoades & Valdez, 1996). In honor of its place in the nation’s political fabric, the community college has been �130 Community College Review Hanson / From Learning to Education referred to as “democracy’s college’’ (Diekhoff, 1950). A renewed insti­ tutional commitment to liberal or general education holds the promise of restoring our commitment to the once-proud designation, but the change also comes with potential benefits for colleges. The move from learning to education stands to make 2-year schools more competitive in the post­ secondary marketplace. In addition, by moving the focus of our efforts from learning to education, we equip colleges to fulfill their responsibilities as public institutions, and we position ourselves to make sound invest­ ments with tax dollars. Education Is Competitive in the Marketplace The postsecondary marketplace is competitive. Generally speaking, local, state, and federal higher education budgets shrank from coast to coast throughout the 1990s, and the trend continues here in the first part of the new century (Roueche & Jones, 2005). In addition to budget short-_ falls, public 2-year colleges were also forced to compete with a host of new institutions geared toward serving private sector interests (Boggs, 2005). In response to the competition, community colleges began changing their public image to match that of the growing number of for-profit train­ ing institutes. In effect, over the course of the past decade, community colleges have worked to become more like their competitors. According to Richard Alfred (2000), “Most institutions focus on keep­ ing pace with rivals and, as a result, their marketing strategies tend to con­ verge’’ (p. 14). In the case of community colleges, the strategy has hinged on the notion that 2-year schools should become convenient places for students to acquire labor market skills. Higginbottom and Romano (2001) suggested, “Community colleges see themselves as the workforce training centers of the 21st century,’’ and they went on to explain, “Increasingly this is taken to mean short-term training of job-related skills, as opposed to the broader goals of general education’’ (p. 255). Through the process of identifying themselves as vocational centers, public 2-year schools shifted their missions (Ayers, 2005) and organizational culture (Levin, 2001) to match the norms and values found in the private sector; Nordstrom’s department store is even used as an organizational model (Pickelman, 2005). 131 Through the course of trying to emulate competitors, 2-year schools turned attention away from the practice of “establishing a brand identity that distinguishes it in the eyes of customers” (Alfred, 2000, p. 14). Instead of striving to establish a proud and unique public image, community colleges have refashioned themselves (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2006) as job-training institutes, a distinction that does little to inspire respect or reverence in the minds of students. Like it or not, the nation’s postsecondary system is structured hierar­ chically. Status and prestige are intertwined with cost, selectivity, and purpose (Alfred & Horowitz, 1990). I suspect that many of us hope for a future where the arrangement is more egalitarian than at present, but there can be no question that Ivy League schools are perched at the top, com­ prehensive state universities occupy the middle rungs, and community colleges fall somewhere near the bottom of the ladder. Potential students are conscious of the status differences, and economic models suggest that, when it is possible, consumers choose the highest level of prestige at the lowest price (Breneman, 1996). In the words of Lyall and Sell (2006), “As students become customers, they become more price sensitive, brand-name aware, and quality oriented. These factors, which have been at play in the private university sector for some time, are gaining impor­ tance in public higher education as well” (p. 51). The same authors went on to note that “the ‘public-ivy’ universities now generate far more demand than they have capacity to satisfy” (p. 51), and public community colleges have the ability to generate similar levels of demand. As part of the process of securing their position in the marketplace, institutions of all types work to create an image that appeals to potential students, and for pragmatic reasons, that identity or image should be set as high on the status hierarchy as possible. Students predisposed toward lower rungs on the ladder are likely to be motivated by a chance at high status, without an associated rise in costs. Similarly, prospective students inclined toward the middle may be drawn to the low cost of community colleges, if the choice could be made without a corresponding loss of prestige. By contrast, those same students, leaning toward the middle, are likely to steer away from schools lowering themselves to the bottom of the hierarchy by making vocational training the central feature of their enterprise. Community colleges have everything to gain by becoming more like institutions in the middle or at the top of the postsecondary ladder, and the move is well within our grasp, as public 2-year schools are endowed �132 Community College Review Hanson / From Learning to Education with assets that for-profit colleges can only dream about—campuses and full-time faculty. Community colleges are premier public places, where citizens from across a locality can join together for the purpose of higher education. When these strengths and advantages are explained to stake­ holders and constituents, the results are palpable. For instance, students at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina, describe the school in the following terms: “It is a real academic institu­ tion. It has a beautiful campus. Classes are small and instructors really care” (Alfred, 2000, p. 18). Two-year colleges have more in common with high-status institutions than they have with private training organi­ zations with no commitment to public service. Thus, community colleges are in a unique position to use the prestige and purpose of the liberal arts to strengthen their foothold in the marketplace. Education Is Public Public 2-year schools are heavily subsidized. Community college students pay a fraction of the cost of their education in the form of tuition. The bulk of their education is subsidized by local, state, and federal tax­ payers (Romano, 2003). Still, students conceive of themselves as cus­ tomers, and colleges relate to them as such. Of course, within our culture it is routine to approach students from the standpoint of customer service, but public colleges enter an unbefitting realm when they use prospective students’ private and personal interests as a foundation for marketing strategies and, as of late, community colleges have worked to create public images designed to appeal to self-interest. The situation is prevalent enough that it prompted Zemsky, Wegner, and Massey (2005) to write, “As more people have viewed higher education as offering mainly personal advantages . . . colleges have virtually given up defining themselves in terms of their contributions to the community, state, or nation” (p. B6). The same authors went on to explain, with respect to the tendency for colleges to identify themselves as commercial entities, “When a college is wholly dominated by market interest, it sacri­ fices much of its capacity to serve its public purposes and sometimes even its fundamental mission” (B6). The fundamental mission of public 2-year schools is to serve the social and cultural needs of the communities of which they are a part but, in the words of John Levin (2001), during the 1990s, “the purpose of the institution 133 endt individual and community betterment to economic colleg^rwerepreparation” (p. 170). Community FranfNeZma^ Am? / “dergo the shift. According to rank Newman (2000), former director of the Futures Project at Brnwn niversity institutions of all types underwent a similar change and he suggested that the focus on economic development holds the Dot’ential m c™ti“ w?ot? for higher edu Xe-haJ^hld?"’-, state-owned and pmfitaet.vldesanJ?nadcS^^^™:“:^ In short, we are moving toward a point where “education could be con- notT indulgence that, whatever its value to an individual does not deserve public support” (Shapiro, 2005, p 90) fm“S?g institutions, community colleges depend on public Education Is for Life “FdVrf psychologist B. F. Skinner (19641 ized the limit?' J? P^onuMot psychologist of the 20th century real- �134 Community College Review Hanson / From Leaming to Education educated people. In the shadow of such venerable goals, the aim of pro­ ducing learning shrinks by comparison. Still, the president of the American Association of Community Colleges has suggested, with regard to 2-year schools, “The mission should be student learning, and we should measure our effectiveness based upon student learning outcomes” (Boggs, 1995, p. 26). Cognition is one element of student development but, arguably, not the most important (Weidman, 1989a, 1989b). Educational institutions have a deeper capacity and a larger responsibility of changing students’ self­ concepts or identities (Chickering, 1972), and human identities are bun­ dles of recollections (McCall & Simmons, 1966; Mead, 1934). For the graduate, a college is a collection of memories—an alma mater—confer­ ring social status and ordering behaviors over the life span. Howard Bowen (1977) wrote, “The impact of higher education is likely to be determined more by the kind of people college graduates become than by what they know when they leave college” (p. 270). Hence, “The proper study of the effects of college . . . is the study of lives” (Sanford, 1962, p. 809). Because learning is relatively easy to produce and simple to measure, the current tendency is to focus on the short term and the observable; however, the focus on learning has forced us to sacrifice the goal of preparing citizens to fill long-term social and political roles within our communities. Community college curricula and advertising currently focus on appealing to students’ self-interest and their desire for convenient access to credentials, but this move is out of step with the mission of a public institution. In the near term, students may have an interest in the fastest and most convenient route to becoming certified as members of a profes­ sion, but if we oblige them by offering mere convenience, we do students a disservice, and we also fail to live up to our own obligations. Colleges have different goals from those of the armed forces, but they are both institutions with a commitment to public service. Therefore, colleges could learn from the example set by the military, with respect to their approach to new recruits. In the case of the Air Force, the historical call was to “aim high.” The Army issued a challenge to “be all you can be,” and the Navy currently implores recruits to “accelerate their lives.” These institutions challenge prospective service people to use their individual abilities to serve a higher purpose. As institutions, the Army, Navy, and Air Force serve as reminders that selflessness and social responsibility are necessary to the health and maintenance of a free and democratic nation. 135 Community colleges could serve as a similar reminder. However, if we emphasize self-interest and convenience in our efforts, we circumvent the expectations placed on us as institutions, and we also deprive students of the self-respect that accompanies hard work, commitment, and sacrifice When ^aduates reflect on their community coUege experience, they are entitle^o better and more meaningful memories than “That was convenient ” Ibere IS no question that contemporary students approach prospective colleges from the standpoint of asking, “What can this school do for me*?” V’ t^ornmunity colleges have an obligation to teach students to there is a more important question to ask: ‘What can this college help me do for my community?” Conclusion to the mid-1990s, *e Wingspread Group on Higher Education, funded y the Johnson Foundation, issued a warning to postsecondary educators An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education suggested to leaders m 2- and 4-year schools alike, “A disturbing and dangerous mismatch exists between what American society needs of higher education and what it is receiving. Nowhere is the mismatch more dan­ gerous than in the quality of undergraduate education provided on many campuses (Wingspread Group on Higher Education, 1993, p. I). The authors of An American Imperative then went on to recommend a means of addressing the mismatch. In their words. Every student needs the knowledge and understanding that can come only from the ngors of a liberal education. Such an education lies at the heart of ^*evelopmg both social and personal values. If the center of American Society "" ** experience Recently, John Roueche and Barbara Jones (2005) pointed out that many 2-year colleges “merely hit the snooze button on the national wake­ up call provided by the Wingspread Group (p. x). Some schools even worked to circumvent their own liberal arts curriculum by offering shortteim certificates with little or no general education. In effect, community colleges bec^e invested in a pattern President George W. Bush describes smbemTn! r expectations for tudents. By limiting our focus to leaming, community colleges engage �136 Community College Review Hanson / From Learning to Education in a pattern of relating to students as if they were purely one-dimensional, as if economically valuable cognitive skills are the only traits they are competent to possess. Students are increasingly thought of and described as “workers” in the community college, and in the process, their lives as citizens and members of communities are systematically neglected. Community colleges serve historically disadvantaged groups; women, minorities, people of low socioeconomic status, and first-generation college students (Adelman, 2005). As professionals, our challenge is to provide those students with an education of the same nature and character that one finds at the top levels of our postsecondary network. To offer community college students anything less is to partake in a subtle but socially consequential form of bigotry. Unfortunately, when we limit the scope of our efforts simply to producing learning, we deny our students the broil education for citizenship that takes place at the upper levels of the postsecondary hierarchy. The most effective way to widen the narrow and limiting approach to education ushered in by the learning movement is to change the paradigm shaping our beliefs and values. Levin et al. (2006) suggested that over the course of the past decade, “community colleges have developed an overt entrepreneurial culture, with a ‘managed’ organization that can provide efficient and flexible programs tied to market demands” (p. 1). This culture of top-down management, together with the tendency to subordinate edu­ cational goals to the whims of the marketplace, stands opposed to any steps we could take toward improving or maintaining the status of the 2-year college as an honorable public institution, with firm roots in the social and political fabric of our nation. Thus, the time is right to restate our goals. The time is right to change the way we think, write, and speak as staff and faculty. Alfred and Horowitz (1990) explained, “The stature of an institution reflects its historical legacy,” and they went on to add that any effort to improve status “resists impulses to alter institutional domains of activity in response to rapidly emerging market forces” (p. 8). In the decade of the 1990s, and here in the first part of the new century, conununity colleges have given in to market forces and aligned themselves with private sector interests (Levin, 2001; Roueche & Jones, 2(X)5). The change in mission and culture that has accompanied the shift has caused us to forsake our social identity, and in the words of Constantine Curris (2006), “Our state institutions were not founded to be publicly supported alternatives to private colleges, but to fulfill public purposes” (p. B24). 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Today’s colleges must be market smart and mission centered. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 57(45), B6-B7. Chad Hanson teaches sociology at Casper College in Casper, Wyoming. � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Print Journal Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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