Forces inside and outside community colleges are changing the context for performance and mandating new conceptions of effectiveness. This article addresses the future of institutional effectiveness in community colleges. Its emphasis is on what is measured and why, beginning with a retrospective look at early efforts in effectiveness, moving to…

This chapter begins with a retrospective look at governance in community colleges based on a working understanding of governance as a correlate of decision making. In its simplest form, governance is "a process for distributing authority, power, and influence in decision making among constituencies" (Alfred and Smydra, 1985, pp. 201-202). What…

Community colleges are experiencing tough times. As leaders watch the economy jump back to life and recognize this as a time of opportunity, they also realize that recovery in the public sector lags behind. Community colleges expecting to emerge from reduction stronger and better positioned will need to operate outside of a conventional business…