Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore how public community college presidents draw upon data, their core values, and lived experiences to make decisions about how they can best respond to the holistic needs of their students. Method: Utilizing secondary elite focus group data with 15 community college presidents in Texas, we employed…

This study explored how a community college president used strategic planning concepts to advance an institution's completion agenda initiatives. The research method was a qualitative single case study design. Keller's (1983) academic strategy served as the conceptual framework to conduct the investigation. Four research questions guided the…

Community college research studies have noted that full-time faculty add quality to the curriculum and enhance the student experience, as well as comprise a significant investment in college budgets and futures. However, in the context of fluctuating patterns of student enrollments and staffing, determining which disciplines need additional…

Objective: The objective of this article is to delve more deeply into the thought processes of the key decision makers at community colleges and understand how they make decisions. Specifically, this article focuses on the role of the community college president's personal values in decision making. Method: We conducted interviews with 13…

This case study addressed how community college presidents make decisions under conditions that can escalate to full-scale crises. The purpose of this study was to gather data to support the development of alternative models or refinement of existing models for crisis decision making on community college campuses, using an abbreviated…

Community college leaders commonly think of community college leadership in terms of rationality, expertise, power, negotiations, and legalisms rather than the more human, loving, symbolic, and transcendent dimensions of their work. Yet the giving of oneself to a common cause, to a higher calling, is the most important role community college…