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…

Leadership, as it is practiced today in community colleges, has taken three brilliant ideas to excess and made them into guiding ideologies. The first is "growth," a means for gauging organizational legitimacy and success that has eclipsed other means. The second is "complexity," which has gained acceptance as a structural necessity for managing…

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…

Examines changing environmental conditions facing community colleges. Uses a symbolic interaction model to analyze leadership potential for institutional development. Examines the compatibility of leader and organizational behavior with emerging conditions. Identifies problems in the leadership capacity of presidents/chancellors facing change and…

Presents ideas for redesigning community colleges to compete in a new market. Instead of "organizational tinkering," more thought must be given to different ways of organizing, managing, and leading the institutions that create value, and allow the colleges to outpace the competition provided by the Internet, technology, and virtual institutions.…

Based on an analysis of the subjects of American Association of Community and Junior Colleges annual convention forums, identifies shifts in the issues faced by community college faculty and administrators, factors which might account for these differences, issues which will be important in the future, and the implications of these trends for…

Presents results from a study of community college leadership, conducted to examine interactive leadership relationships between college presidents and the principal internal governance groups with which they work. Presents a model linking leadership style, group situation, and leadership effectiveness. Discusses implications for the future. (DMM)

Discusses reasons for the continuing importance of transfer education. Examines the economic and organizational culture contexts of transfer. Describes a step-wise strategy colleges can use to design policies and programs for transfer. (DMM)

Analyzes social, political, and economic factors affecting community college development, including economic decline, increased state control, reduced appropriations and discretionary income, loss of diversity and autonomy, demographic transitions, and technological changes. Recommends a strategic management approach to issues of mission and…

Highlights the importance of developing community college leaders capable of demonstrating strategic leadership and responding to the global forces that influence community college education. Discusses the Consortium for Community College Development's Strategic Leadership Forum and its principles, format, content, and early results. (RC)

Addresses the issue of current and emerging models of faculty and student participation in community college governance. Describes the functional, coordinated systems, and rewards/incentive models of participation. Argues for decision-making processes that fully use the resource potential of faculty and students. (DMM)

Enumerates changing external conditions and internal organizational problems in community colleges resulting in a paradox involving institutional mission and structure. Lists steps for positioning community colleges as the key provider of specified programs/services through carefully defined linkages with public- and private-sector organizations…

Argues that financial administrators in community colleges must be cognizant of trends in public policy at federal, state, and local levels if the financial strategy guiding resource allocation is to be effective. Looks at emerging conditions affecting public policy and their implications for community college financial administration. (AYC)

Argues that current changes in the educational climate require transformations in community college organization. Discusses operational, linear, and frame-breaking approaches to change, arguing that all are important in making the transformation to high-performing institutions, or institutions that can manage both incremental and revolutionary…