https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/641c7ce895d653bd36ee5aa50cf6bb5c.pdf 42b27090beb83e72368a1a0b068a5c80 PDF Text Text Downloaded By: (Hanson. Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 31: 547-561, 2007 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1066-8926 print/1521-0413 online DOI: 10.1080/10668920600851522 Routledge Taylor & Francis Croup THE LEARNING COLLEGE MOVEMENT: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Chad M. Hanson Department of Sociology, Casper College Casper, Wyoming, USA In this article, 6 key texts from the literature of the learning college move­ ment are examined with the technique of critical discourse analysis. The rhetorical strategies found in the literature are discussed from the stand­ point of critical linguistics, and excerpts from the texts are presented as examples of the discursive practices favored by learning advocates. The cultural and political implications of the movement are also addressed, as the learning college movement is placed in historical context. The community college is a major American institution. As of 2004, there were 979 public two-year schools in the United States, serving roughly 40% of all undergraduates (Phillippe & Gonzalez Sullivan, 2005). For more than 50 years the two-year college has been a pillar of the U.S. education network, but in the last decade the institution’s mission and purpose have changed (Levin, 2000, 2001; Ayers, 2005). The social role of the two-year school has shifted. In the 1990s, the community college underwent a revolution (O’Banion, 1998a, 1998b). The revolution was cultural and linguistic in nature, and it was staged in the name of “learning” (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Boggs, 1995). Personnel in colleges caught in the throws of the change altered their beliefs and practices to match an agenda put forth in the literature of the learning college movement (O’Banion, 1997b). The transformation began in the middle 1990s and, by any measure, the initiative was a success (Marchese, 1997; Tagg, 2003). Today, roughly one decade from its inception, the tenants of the movement are widely accepted. Faculty, staff, and administrators in two-year colleges quickly adopted the language found in learning college texts. Address correspondence to Chad M. Hanson, Department of Sociology, Casper College, 125 College Drive, Casper, WY 82601. E-mail: chanson@caspercoUege.edu 547 �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 548 C. M. Hanson Now, in the first part of the new century, the terms and conditions outlined by learning advocates are engrained in the discourse of two-year colleges. The shift was dramatic enough that it prompted William Flynn (1999) to note, “Whether the topic is the Learning Revolution, a Learning College for the 21st Century, the Learning Organization, or the growth of franchised learning centers through­ out the country, we are in the grip of learning-mania” (p. 8). It is fair to say that the revolution emerged, took hold, and blos­ somed uncontested. There are few debates about the nature of the learning revolution in the literature of two-year schools, and few dis­ cussions of the matter among faculty or staff (Hanson, 1998, 2003). Community college personnel have placed a longstanding emphasis on student welfare and, as such, there was little or no resistance to the move toward a language and paradigm alleged to be “learner­ centered” (Barr & Tagg, 1995). In practice, however, there are heavy consequences attached to the process of focusing institutional attention on learning as opposed to education. The revolution has meant more than a mere adjustment to the way two-year college personnel write and speak. In short, the shift has the effect of moving the mission and purpose of community col­ leges away from public service and toward private sector interests. John Levin (2001) explains: With the concept of a learning college emerging as a beacon of change, the purpose of the institution decidedly moved from individ­ ual and community betterment to economic ends: development sites for workforce preparation, (p. 170) In the learning college literature, the aim is to shift the purpose of two-year schools away from objectives that are public and social and toward goals that are private and psychological. However, the shift is discussed with no mention of the costs or alternatives. The change is simply described as inevitable. Still, William Tierney (1991) claims “a concern with institutional purpose is essentially a moral question that demands a wider range of political and theoretical consideration” (p. 35). Learning college authors make use of terms that sound beneficent: learning, efficiency, and productivity, for example. But a close read­ ing of the texts associated with the movement reveal a pattern of dis­ course with significant implications. In what follows, I use the technique of critical discourse analysis to expose the interests embed­ ded in the texts of the learning college movement. �The Learning College Movement 549 Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 METHOD: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS As a method, critical discourse analysis (CDA) has roots in the field of linguistics. Critical linguistics (CL) is a framework based on the perspective put forth by the faculty of the Frankfurt School of Social Science and their contemporary heir, Jurgen Habermas (Horkheimer, 1972; Adorno, 1973; Habermas, 1977). One of the central assump­ tions of Frankfurt School theorists is that language is a medium where power is exercised. Critical linguists assume that authors use words and the ideas associated with them to move readers toward a particular view of the world, and they also draw attention to the potential for words to incite action. Ayers (2005) suggests, “CDA is grounded in a view of language not as a simple tool for communi­ cating information, but as a means of ordering social activity” (p. 534). More so than other social science methods, CDA is closely linked to its theoretical framework. True to the spirit and intent of the Frankfurt School project, CDA researchers maintain a “particular interest in the relation between language and power” (Wodak, 2001, p. 1). The link between CL and CDA is significant enough, Fairclough claims that CDA is “as much theory as method” and, as a consequence, he suggests the approach is best considered “a theoretical perspective on language which gives rise to ways of ana­ lyzing language” (Fairclough, 2001, p. 121). In the following, he describes the levels of analysis applied to texts in the process of undertaking CDA: Discourse, and any specific instance of discursive practice, is seen as simultaneously (i) a language text, spoken or written, (ii) discourse practice (text production and text interpretation), (iii) sociocultural practice. (Fairclough, 1995, p. 97) In this study, I consider Fairclough’s first two levels of discursive practice, but I pay particular attention to the social and cultural implications of learning literature. More so than one finds in other bodies of work in education, the authors of learning college texts are attuned to the notion that their words hold the potential to restructure norms and values. For example, in a 1997 article for Trustee Quarterly, Terry O’Banion quotes Ian Wilson on the capacity for two-year college administrators to conjure visions with the power to affect institutional change. Wilson writes: �Downloaded By: (Hanson, Chad] At 15:45 20 July 2007 550 C. M. Hanson If a vision is to shape the future and drive action, the leader—and others in executive positions—must communicate it broadly, consist­ ently, and continuously, until it becomes an integral part of the orga­ nization’s culture. (1996, p. 5) O’Banion also suggests, with respect to making the turn away from education and toward learning, “The message must be driven home again and again through speeches, newsletters, meetings, articles, interviews, surveys, and actions” (O’Banion, 1997a, p. 12). The intent of learning college texts is often less than subtle; however, in what fol­ lows, I make a case that the authors also choose words with the intent to conceal or obfuscate. In this analysis, I use the perspective and method of CDA to exam­ ine the language of the learning college movement. In the process, I abide the words of Terry Locke, who writes on the use of CDA, “With respect to educational research it has the potential to reveal the way that power is diffused, through the prevalence of various discourses, throughout an education system” (Locke, 2004, p. 2). Through the use of CDA, it can be demonstrated that the literature of the learning college is ideological. Kindly messages about learners and learning aside, it can be shown that the revolution has had the effect of granting privileges to moneyed interests in the private sector. I use CDA for the purpose of generating a critical discourse on the learning college movement. Ronald Barnett suggests, “Ideology can be counteracted to some extent through the formation of critical discourse,” and I support his contention that “it is in this critical dis­ course that a genuine higher education will be attained” (Barnett, 1990, p. 89). A SAMPLE OF THE LEARNING COLLEGE LITERATURE I draw from six texts essential to the success of the learning revolution. Robert Barr and John Tagg’s 1995 article “From Teaching to Learn­ ing,” laid the rhetorical foundation for the initiative and, in the words of Change editor Ted Marchese, “No recent article in Change has attracted the attention of...‘From Teaching to Learning; A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education’ which has been reproduced for countless conferences and faculty meetings” (Marchese, 1997, p. 4). The Change article was written for a general audience, but at the time the piece was published Barr and Tagg were both two-year college practitioners. Barr was director of institutional research and Tagg was associate professor of English at Palomar College. �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 The Learning College Movement 551 In the same month that Barr and Tagg’s work appeared in Change, George Boggs (1995), then president of Palomar, published “The Learning Paradigm” in the Community College Journal. Concep­ tually, Bogg’s work mirrors that of Barr and Tagg, but his 1995 article tailors the learning rhetoric to the mission of two-year schools. William Flynn (1999), Dean of Community Learning Resources at Palomar, published “Rethinking Teaching and Learning,” four years later. Flynn’s position matches that of Barr, Tagg, and Boggs. His work is a restatement of the arguments outlined by Palomar College staff in the middle 1990s; however, I include the text here because it represents an effort to carry the movement into the new century. In addition to the work of Palomar personnel, I sample three texts by O’Banion, one time director of the League for Innovation in the Community College, an organization with the expressed purpose of promoting the learning college agenda. O’Banion is the most prolific author in the learning literature. In this study, I consider three of his 1997 publications. The first was written for an audience of college trustees. “The Learning Revolution: A Guide for Community College Trustees,” (O’Banion, 1997a) appeared as a special issue of Trustee Quarterly. I also sample from O’Banion’s (1997b) book, A Learning College for the 21st Century and from a monograph pub­ lished with the support of the Peoplesoft Corporation, Creating More Learning-Centered Community Colleges (O’Banion, 1997c). These six references are a sample of the books and articles calling for fundamental change in the mission of the two-year school. The sample was taken purposefully, with the intent to capture the charac­ ter of the learning college movement. Although other texts are avail­ able, the six samples I consider represent a cross-section of the widely read and broadly referenced works in the literature. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS The analysis is presented in two sections. In the first, I examine the rhetorical strategy found in the texts. Throughout the body of work, learning college authors make “proposal” arguments; they ask their readers to “act in a certain way, to do something” (Ramage & Bean, 1989, p. 270). As a point of fact, they ask nothing less of their audi­ ence than to “overhaul the traditional architecture of education” (O’Banion, 1997c, p. 11). In the opening section of the analysis I document the techniques learning college authors use to move read­ ers toward enacting change. �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At; 15:45 20 July 2007 552 C. M. Hanson In the second section, I consider the impact of the revolution. I give attention to the shift from education to learning in the discourse of the movement. I also discuss the implications of faculty bending their conception of two-year schools away from that of a public institution and toward that of a business providing services to corporations. I also stress the consequence of college staff conceiving students as products. Hostility to Academic Norms, Roles, and Values In the 1990s, learning college authors faced a tough task in convinc­ ing two-year college personnel that a revolution was necessary. Then, as now, both community college professionals and citizens at large were satisfied with the character and performance of public colleges. In an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Selingo (2004) described the results of an annual survey designed to measure American attitudes toward postsecondary schools. In 2004, the sur­ vey was administered to 1,000 randomly selected men and women aged 25 to 65, and their views are summarized as follows: The public’s trust in colleges stands near the top among all kinds of institutions, right along with its faith in the U.S. military and in churches and religious organizations. Nearly 93 percent of the respon­ dents agreed that higher education institutions are one of the most valuable resources in the United States. (Selingo, 2004, p. 1) Public satisfaction with the community college has always been high (Adelman, 1992), and in an environment where people are satisfied, “proposers of change face an extraordinary burden of proof. Specifi­ cally, they have to prove that something needs fixing” (Ramage & Bean, 1989, p. 272). For supporters of the learning college movement that meant strong measures were needed. When the public or a given readership is satisfied with a state of affairs, rhetoricians pushing for change normally accept that “you can’t argue what we have is bad,” and they hold to a line of reason that suggests, “what we could have is better” (Ramage & Bean, 1989, p. 272). But learning activists pursued a different strategy. They set out to disparage traditional academic culture and institutions committed to the liberal arts, even in spite of their widespread esteem. They began publishing books and articles designed to convince faculty and staff working in two-year schools that the historic norms and values of higher education were detrimental to the health and �Downloaded By; [Hanson. Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 The Learning College Movement 553 success of community colleges. Each author sampled here makes an effort to suggest that the goals and objectives of two-year schools are not consistent with those of the academy, (see Table 1) Of the authors sampled here, O’Banion’s work is the most hostile to the institution of education. In his 1997 piece for Trustee Quar­ terly, he quotes Lewis Perelman to the effect that, “The principal bar­ rier to economic progress today is a mind-set that seeks to perfect education when it needs only to be abandoned” (Perelman, 1992, p. 24). In addition, he borrows the language of George Leonard who paraphrases President Ronald Reagan in the context of edu­ cation (O’Banion, 1997a). The Leonard quote appearing in the O’Banion text reads as follows: “The time has come to recognize that school is not the solution. It is the problem” (Leonard, 1992, p. 26). O’Banion’s attempt to clear the way for an alternative to the liberal arts are the boldest in the learning literature, but each author sampled here makes a similar attempt to signal the danger involved in uphold­ ing academic values and traditions. Barr and Tagg, Boggs, and O’Banion all rely on the work of the Wingspread Group on Higher Education, funded by the Johnson Foundation, to make their case against the academy. Boggs and O’Banion even quote the same passage from a 1993 Wingspread report, titled An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education. The authors of the report explain: Table 1. Discursive practices that signify hostility toward academic norms and values Authors/Dates of publications O’Banion (1997a) Boggs (1995) Flynn (1999) Barr and Tagg (1995) O’Banion (1997b) Selected excerpts Creating a learning-centered institution means tossing hundreds of stones into the pond, dumping boulders into the pond, and perhaps even filling in the pond and digging a new one. (p.l2) The time has come for us to change the way we define the mission of the community college. The paradigm that has guided our institutions from their inception in the early 1900s no longer fits as we approach a new century, (p. 5) We are trapped inside a house of our own creation, prisoners of a system, structure, and history, (p. 10) After centuries of respect for the academy and the professorate, the focus is now on the learner, (p. 8) In the learning paradigm, learning environments and activities are learner-centered and learner-controlled. They may even be “teacherless.” (p. 17) It is the business leaders of this country who will confront the academy and prevail, (p. 39) �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 554 C. M. Hanson A disturbing and dangerous mismatch exists between what American society needs of higher education and what it is receiving. Nowhere is the mismatch more dangerous than in the quality of undergraduate education provided on many campuses, (p. 1) The situation sounds dire, and learning college activists use the dis­ quieting language of the Wingspread publication to persuade readers that change is needed, but the authors sampled here are purposeful in the way they excerpt from the Wingspread document. They use the report to sound an alarm, but they steer a wide path around its con­ clusions. The Wingspread Group (1993) offers the following as a sol­ ution to the problem they present in An American Imperative'. Every student needs the knowledge and understanding that can come only from the rigors of a liberal education. Such an education lies at the heart of developing both social and personal values. If the center of American Society is to hold, a liberal education must be central to the undergraduate experience of all students, (p. 9) Learning advocates have made routine declarations along the lines that the liberal arts curriculum is “just a bunch of courses. It doesn’t mean a thing” (Willimon & Naylor, 1995, p. 57). Barr and Tagg’s, Boggs’s, and O’Banion’s appropriation of the Wingspread report’s opening sentiments and disregard for its conclusions must be seen as disingenuous. Their selective use of the report points toward a tendency for learning college authors to place the goal of advancing their cause above their obligation to uphold the standards of unbiased scholarship. From the perspective of critical discourse analysis, it is important to consider the motivation for the extraordi­ nary steps taken to convince readers that liberal arts education is worthy of scorn. In the context of British higher education, Barnett (1990) has argued that similar calls for reform in the UK were motivated by a growing number of adherents to a culture of science and technology. Barnett claims that scientists define education in different terms than those in the arts and humanities and, in his words, “there was an underlying gulf in the conceptions of what higher education stood for” (p. 106). Accord­ ing to Barnett, scientists see through a lens of measurement and quanti­ fication, while those in the humanities are likely to see the college experience as a meaningful part of a student’s ongoing development, dif­ ficult to assess except in narrative or qualitative terms. �Downloaded By; (Hanson. Chad] At 15:45 20 July 2007 The Learning College Movement 555 Similarly, in the United States, John Bean suggests that calls for reform have been driven by a growing culture of masculinity that values efficiency and productivity over what are perceived to be more feminine concerns; morality, scholarship, and community (Bean, 1998). But Bean offers the most compelling explanation of the under­ lying force that propels learning college authors when he points out with regard to the terms they use, “it is the language of counting, accountants, accountability and, to a greater or lesser extent, it is how we imagine our enterprise” ( p. 497). The learning college move­ ment is driven by the language of business. Learning college activists have worked to disparage the word “edu­ cation,” traditionally associated with broad public purpose. This was done to help elevate the term “learning” to prominence. Learning is easier to conceive in private and individualistic terms, and the word “learning” is also more palatable to educators than the term “train­ ing,” a favorite in the private sector. The discourse of the learning college movement is designed to sweep the language of public pur­ pose aside. The purpose is to make room for the instatement of terms that narrow institutional focus down to the level of learning out­ comes valuable to corporations. Learning college authors take delib­ erate steps to disparage the traditions of the academy because they are at odds with the flat assertion that, “The learner’s purpose is to please employers” (Ayers, 2005, p. 542). The Consequence of Shifting from Education to Learning An examination of O’Banion’s “six key principles” for learning col­ leges creates an understanding of the extent to which an author will go to replace the idea of public education with terms that are more individualistic (O’Banion, 1997c, p. 15). O’Banion’s principles consist of six sentences. Within those sentences, the terms learn, learner, or learning appear 17 different times (see Appendix A). Within the learning college movement, the terms student, teacher, and education are conspicuous by their absence. From a linguistic standpoint, the word “student” implies “tea­ cher,” and in a learning college, teachers are thought of as barriers to the creation of “environments and activities” that are potentially “teacherless” (Barr & Tagg, 1995, p. 17). The terms student and teacher also carry other connotations. The words student and teacher suggest an institution: education. For learning advocates, traditional liberal arts education with a broad public purpose is anathema to the goal of turning community colleges into learning colleges with the expressed purpose of subsidizing corporate training costs. When �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 556 C. M. Hanson community colleges become learning colleges, two-year school practi­ tioners begin to assume that the sole objective of their work is to move students toward meeting standards set by employers. Accord­ ing to Ayers (2005), in the minds of learning activists, “needs tan­ gential to this purpose are irrelevant” (p. 542). Furthermore, as community colleges make themselves over into learning colleges, organizational structures start to match those found in the for-profit sector. Levin (2000) offers the following prediction for the American two-year school if the learning college movement goes unchecked: ... community colleges will function more on a model compatible with business norms: a fluid organization, with little reverence for aca­ demic traditions, little evidence of a dominant professional class of faculty and more evidence of a professional managerial class, more emphasis on technology and less on full-time labor, (p. 21) The learning movement is an attempt to transform community col­ leges into business-like employee training camps for entities in the economy. Yet, in the transition from community college to learning college, “There is little or no consideration of the possibility that on occasion the interests of the community and that of employers might actually be opposed” (Dougherty & Bakia, 2000, p. 221). The character of the movement is captured by a slogan made popular in the decade after World War Two, “What is good for General Motors is good for America.” In the articles by both Boggs and Barr and Tagg, the General Motors Corporation is held up as an example for colleges to follow. In the learning college movement, the GM model is used to encourage faculty to imagine community colleges as organizations where the bottom line is all that matters—training employees for service to multinational companies. Comparing two-year colleges to auto manufacturers has the effect of minimizing the importance of educational processes, and the com­ parison also has the effect of heightening the conception of students as products. For example, Boggs (1995) uses the GM analogy to cre­ ate a sense that there would be grave consequences “if General Motors were to see its business as defined by the assembly line rather than the production of automobiles” (p. 6). Barr and Tagg (1995) continue the metaphor by mocking colleges that care about the nature and the quality of the process students move through on their way to graduation. They claim an overt focus on the process by which students are educated “is like saying that General Motors’ business is to operate assembly lines” (p. 9). In addition, they go on to harden their preference for products over �The Learning College Movement Table 2. Discursive practices that define education as a product Authors/Dates of Publications Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 557 Barr and Tagg (1995) Boggs(1995) O’Banion (i997c) Flynn (1999) Selected excerpts In the learning paradigm a primary drive is to produce learning outcomes more efficiently, (p. 11) The mission should be student learning, and we should measure our effectiveness based upon student learning outcomes, (p. 6) “What does this learner know?” and “What can this learner do?” arc questions that provide the framework of documenting outcomes, both for the learner and learning facilitators, (p. 20) Curriculum should be designed around the critical learning outcomes necessary for success in a field, (p. 12) A curriculum built on outcomes gives learners the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are valued by employers, (p. 13) processes by dictating the overall mission of higher education. They write, “Our mission is that of producing learning with every student by whatever means” (p. 9). (see Table 2) In the automotive industry, lengthy considerations of the manufac­ turing process are secondary to the assessment of final products—fin­ ished cars and trucks. It is fair to assume that automobiles can be manufactured by whatever means; the means that are most efficient or the means that contribute the most to quality. Car parts have no preference for one manufacturing process over others, but that is due to the fact that car parts do not own either minds or memories. In contrast, students possess both. The discourse of production and efficiency are appropriate for manufacturing, but when applied to education the terms lose concep­ tual purchase. Educational institutions change identities (Chickering, 1969) and the human self or identity is a collection of memories (Mead, 1934; McCall & Simmons, 1966). For graduates, a college is an alma mater, a set of experiences, and a bundle of recollections that confer social status and order behaviors across the course of entire lives. In the words of Howard Bowen, “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” (Bowen, 1977, p. 270). Accordingly, “The proper study of the effects of college... is the study of lives” (Sanford, 1962, p. 809). CONCLUSION In the words of the eminent psychologist B.F. Skinner (1964), “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 558 C. M. Hanson forgotten” (p. 484). Colleges focused solely on cognitive learning outcomes cannot fulfill their social or public obligation. When col­ leges focus exclusively on learning they abrogate their responsibility to make prudent long-term investments with public funds. Learning colleges discount their commitment to education for the common good, and in the process they short-change both students and society. The authors of the texts I sampled ask two-year school professionals to focus on the short term and the observable, under the assumption that community colleges must alter their curriculum and practices at a pace that matches that of the economy. In fairness, the economy is changing fast, but the abilities that make a person a successful member of a community have not changed at any point in American history. The thoughts, dispositions, and habits of mind that make someone an educated person and an asset to a community are the same now as they were when Washington crossed the Delaware. Once students find themselves in possession of those traits, they last. The success of the learning revolution has hinged on the ability of authors to conceal or minimize the importance of proud phrases like “public education for the common good,” and with terms like “pub­ lic” and “education” removed from the discourse, learning activists installed a more individualistic goal for two-year colleges, “learning for the sole purpose of earning” (Levin, 2001, p. xx). At present, it would appear that learning advocates have reached their goal. The rhetoric of learning is so pervasive, many of us “imagine that no other world is possible” (Bean, 1998, p. 496). On the current state of our imagination, Zemsky, Wegner, and Massey (2005) 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 point out, with respect to the turn away from community and toward the needs of corporations, “When a college or university is wholly dominated by market interest, it sacrifices much of its capacity to serve its public purposes and sometimes even its fundamental mission” (p. B6). Despite the obvious lament of authors Zemsky, Wegner, and Massey, they suggest that “there will be no return to a simpler era when market forces played a less dominant role in American higher edu­ cation” ( p. B6) adding an air of inevitability to the transformation of our institutions. Yet, as unlikely as change seems in these times, community college professionals would do well to recall a key lesson of history. This is not the first era where market forces and the language of business have come to predominate. �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 The Learning College Movement 559 In the words of educational historians Camoy and Levin (1985), “Just as the period 1880—1929 witnessed the emergence and consoli­ dation of the political power of big business in America,” in the four decades that followed Americans saw “the decline of corporate power and the success of social movements in winning social reform” (p. 11). Those social reforms included civil rights, women’s advocacy and environmentalism, right up to and including the movement that gave birth to the rapid construction of two-year schools from coast to coast. In a speech delivered to the American Association of Community Colleges on April 26, 2004, President George W. Bush expressed the view that community colleges operate best when they are “willing to listen to the needs of those who are looking for workers” (Rouche & Jones, 2005, p. ix). Such sentiments represent a significant shift, as in the past community colleges served the needs of citizens. “Histori­ cally, the meaning of public education was precisely what it meant to belong to a public; education in the res publica—in commonality, in community” (Barber, 1992, p. 14). The needs and interests of American citizens are not the same as those of multinational compa­ nies. Similarly, the abilities essential for participation in the life of our democracy are different than the skills required to fulfill a role in the economy. Again, Barber’s words are instructive. He writes, “Education in vocationalism, pre-professional training, what were once called the ‘servile arts’ may be private, but public education is general.. .education for citizenship” (p. 15). Corporations are not obliged to contribute to the social, cultural, or political life of the nation, but public tax-supported institutions have responsibilities. If college faculty and staff do not take a pur­ poseful set of steps to win back the language of public education for the common good, the movement toward the terms of economic self-interest will continue to prevail. Words make a difference in the way we live and work. Thus, with respect to the American two-year school, I suggest the following: education is the focus, students are citizens not products, and in the spirit of our proud historic mission, the institutions are “community” colleges. REFERENCES Adelman, C. (1992). The way we are: The community college as American thermometer. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Adorno, T. (1973). Negative dialectics. New York: Seabury Press. Ayers, D. F. (2005). Neoliberal ideology in community college mission statements: A critical discourse analysis. The Review of Higher Education, 4, 527-549. �Downloaded By; [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 560 C. M. Hanson Barber, B. (1992). An aristocracy for everyone: The politics of education and the future of America. New York: Oxford University Press. Barr, R. & Tagg, J. (1995). From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for under­ graduate education.” Change, 6, 9-21. Barnett, R. (1990). The idea of higher education. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Bean, J. (1998). Alternative models of professorial roles: New language to reimagine faculty work. The Journal of Higher Education, 5, 496-512. Boggs, G. (1995). The learning paradigm. Community College Journal, 6, 5-8. Bowen, H. (1977). Investment in learning: The individual and social value ofhigher edu­ cation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Carnoy, M. & Levin, H. (1985). Schooling and work in the democratic state. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Chickering, A. (1969). Education and identity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 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The end of school. The Atlantic, 5, 24-27. Levin, J. (2001). Globalizing the community college: Strategies for change in the twentyfirst century. New York: Palgrave. Levin, J. (2000). The revised institution: The community college mission at the end of the twentieth century. Community College Review, 2, 1-25. Locke, T. (2004). Critical discourse analysis. London: Continuum. Marchese, T. (1997). A shift to learning. Change, 2, 4. McCall, G. & Simmons, J. L. (1966). Identities and interactions. New York: The Free Press. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. O’Banion, T. (1997a). The learning revolution: A guide for community college trus­ tees. Trustee Quarterly, I, 2-19. O’Banion, T. (1997b). A learning college for the 21st Century. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. O’Banion, T. (1997c). Creating more learning-centered community colleges. Mission Viejo, CA: League for Innovation in the Community College and PeopleSoft, Inc. O’Banion, T. (1998a). The learning revolution: Perched at the millennium. Com­ munity College Week, 12, 12-15. O’Banion, T. (1998b). The center of the learning revolution. Community College Week, 4, 24-26. �Downloaded By: [Hanson, Chad] At: 15:45 20 July 2007 The Learning College Movement 561 Perelman, L. (1992). School’s out—A radical newformula for the revitalization ofAmer­ ica’s educational system. New York: Avon Books. Phillippe, K. & Sullivan, L. G. (2005). National profile of community colleges: Trends and statistics. Washington DC: Community College Press. Ramage, J. & Bean, J. (1989). Writing arguments. New York: Macmillan. Rouche, J. & Jones, B. (Eds.). (2005). The entrepreneurial community college. Washington, DC: Community College Press. Sanford, N. (1962). The American college. New York: Wiley. Selingo, J. (2004). U.S. public’s confidence in colleges remains high. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 35, 1,10. Skinner, B. F. (1964). New methods and new aims in teaching. New Scientist, 122, 483^84. Tagg, J. (2003). The learning paradigm college. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing. Tierney, W. (1991). Ideology and identity in postsecondary institutions. In W. Tier­ ney (Ed.), Culture and ideology in higher education: Advancing a critical agenda (pp. 35-57). New York: Praeger. Willimon, W. & Naylor, T. (1995). The abandoned generation: Rethinking higher edu­ cation. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. Wilson, I. (1996). The practical power of vision. On the Horizon, 2, 1-5. Wingspread Group on Higher Education. (1993). An American imperative: Higher expectations for higher education. Milwaukee: The Johnson Foundation, Inc. Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important con­ cepts, and its developments. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods ofcritical discourse analysis Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zemsky, R., Wegner, G., & Massey, W. (2005). Today’s colleges must be market smart and mission centered. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 45, B6-B7. APPENDIX: LEARNING COLLEGE PRINCIPLES • The learning college creates substantive change in individual learners. • The learning college engages learners in the learning process as full partners, assuming primary responsibility for their own choices, • The learning college creates and offers as many options for learning as possible. • The learning college assists learners to form and participate in collaborative learning activities. • The learning college defines the roles of its learning facilitators by the needs of the learners. • The learning college and its learning facilitators succeed only when improved and expanded learning can be documented for its learners. Source: O’Banion 1997c, p.l5. Note: italics added. � 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/. Title A name given to the resource The Learning College Movement: A Critical Discourse Analysis Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div id="dublin-core-rights" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text"> <div class="element-text"> <div class="element-text"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <div class="element-text"><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2007-07 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chad Hanson Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Chad Hanson Journal Publications, CCA 04.ii.e.2025.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA 04.ii.e.2025.01_ChadHansonPapers_08 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Searchable PDF Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <em>Community College Journal of Research and Practice</em> is published by Taylor &amp; Francis Group, LLC