Community Colleges and Their Students: Co-construction and Organizational Identity PDF
Preview Community Colleges and Their Students: Co-construction and Organizational Identity
Community Col/eges and Their Students Co-construction and Organizational Identity JOHN S_L EVIN AND VIRGINIA MONTERO-HERNANDEZ Community Colleges and Their Students Community Colleges and Their Students Co-construction and Organizational Identity John S. Levin and Virginia Montero-Hernandez community colleges and their students Copyright © John S. Levin and Virginia Montero- Hernandez, 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-61510-6 All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States - a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-37877-7 ISBN 978-0-230-10150-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230101500 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Levin, John S. Community colleges and their students : co-construction and organizational identity / authors, John S. Levin and Virginia Montero-Hernandez. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Community colleges—United States—Sociological aspects—Case studies. 2. Community college students—United States—Case studies. 3. Organizational behavior—United States—Case studies. I. Montero-Hernandez, Virginia. II. Title. LB2328.15.U6L478 2009 378.1'5430973—dc22 2009021752 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Macmillan Publishing Solutions First edition: December 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface and Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 Community Colleges Seen from an O rganizational- Cultural Perspective: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations 11 2 The Construction of Educational Experiences: Elements and Dynamics of the Complexity of College Life at Bakersfield College 25 3 Organizational Culture and Organizational Identity: Constructions of Student Accommodation in Community College of Denver 49 4 Discourses of Democratization: Students’ Upward Mobility and the University Transfer Approach at Borough of Manhattan Community College 71 5 Overlooked Differentiation and Student Categorization: The Hybrid Identity and the Climate of Isolation in Wake Technical Community College 91 6 Strategic Planning and the Struggle to Generate a Responsive College: Differential Effects upon the Development of the Student Body at Harry Truman College in Illinois 113 7 Organizational Change and Student Accommodation: Edmonds Community College as an A daptive-R esponsive Organization 135 8 Forging Student Identity: Socialization, Development, and Contextual Tensions in Community Colleges 159 9 Conclusions 181 Appendix 201 Notes 203 Bibliography 223 Index 237 Preface and Acknowledgments Community Colleges and Their Students: C o- construction and Organizational Identity is the product of collaboration, a rather unusual dynamic given the actors: two people with dissimilar backgrounds and pathways. Virginia M ontero- Hernandez is from Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos, Mexico. Virginia arrived at the University of California, Riverside, as an international graduate student in the Graduate School of Education. Her program area was curriculum and instruction, and she decided to answer a call for a graduate student researcher from John Levin, professor in the Graduate School of Education and higher education scholar. Levin was working on a report of his research investigation for Lumina Foundation and the Pathways Project based at the University of Virginia. Through their work together, both recognized that the data from this investigation could be a valuable and substantial source for a book on student development and experiences at community colleges and community college organization and culture. Virginia Montero-Hernandez My experience in research on higher education is relatively short; it started five years ago in Mexico, when I worked as a research assistant with a Mexican pro- fessor at the public university in the state of Morelos. During my research work with this scholar, I became familiar with various sociological theories and the use of organizational analysis to make sense of the Mexican public university. I discovered my capacity to conduct educational research when my professors at the Mexican university in which I did my undergraduate studies encouraged me to participate with them in research seminars, the design of investigative projects, fieldwork, data analysis, and report writing. When I started working with Professor Levin, my main task was to learn as much as possible about the place that community colleges have in the institutional hierarchy of the higher education system of the United States. Professor Levin’s guidance and insights as well as my previous experiences in educational research were key components in navigating the process of data analysis and writing on community colleges. As a scholar, I still have a lot to learn about the U.S. context, its higher e ducation viii ● Preface and Acknowledgments system, and its actors. However, writing on community colleges has given me one of the best opportunities to understand American education, its people, complexity, exemplary practices, and struggles. The experience of writing this book with my coauthor, John Levin, has been a journey of learning and s elf-d iscovery. During the process, my thinking and emotions were affected by the fact that I was intermittently inhabiting two coun- tries, Mexico and the United States, and their cultural traditions. When I started my work with Professor Levin, I tried to make sense of the descriptive data by referring to my knowledge of the higher education context in Mexico. Early in my study of community colleges, I realized that the public university in Mexico shows a strong similarity with community colleges: a focus on teaching, financial crises, interinstitutional competition, and a student population with academic deficits and financial strains. Although the public university in Mexico does not have a large population of adult students who work, as is the case in community colleges in the United States, classrooms at Mexican public universities are being populated by an increasing number of adult learners. In most of the 180 transcripts that I read to write this book, I always found a reason to connect with community college students. I found that most complaints expressed by faculty members and administrators in community colleges were similar to those that Mexican faculty and university officers exposed to me during interviews or informal conversations in my country. I connected with college students every time they talked about their immigrant status and their struggle to learn how to speak English, when they nostalgically remembered their Latin American heritage, when they talked about their gender condition as women, or when they described Mexico and its economic strains. The large number of community college participants of Latin American origin I encountered enabled me to develop familiarity with, empathy toward, and understanding of the sample in this study. I now realize that my work with John Levin became an opportunity to learn about the United States and, simultaneously, to remain connected to my Mexican cultural background and my commitment to issues of equality and quality in education. The process of writing a scholarly piece in a second language has been an opportunity for recreation and struggle that has taught me how to think and how to communicate my ideas to others clearly. The construction of each chapter brought excitement and stress, both central components in the profes- sional life of any scholar. To me, the writing of this book was not only an intel- lectual exercise but also a process of acculturation in which the appropriation of the English language to make the arguments of this book became a way to learn about American culture and its academic conventions. The necessity of grasping the English language, its context of expression, and its interlocutors forced me to pay close attention to the way in which faculty, administrators, staff, and students in a community college talked about themselves, their educational experiences, and their challenges. I had to invest the same quality of attention and effort to represent, in a written form, the construction of college life in multiple sites. Our readers may ask about my authority to write about community c olleges since I am a Mexican scholar who stayed for a relatively short time in the Preface and Acknowledgments ● ix United States. Through the process of data analysis and writing, I endeavored to become an insider of American culture and the organizational life of community colleges. I devoted myself to learning about the language, practices, and people in community colleges. In my mind, there was always a guiding question: How can I understand the ways in which college life are experienced and constructed from the perspective of its participants? I embraced this interrogation as a tool to become an insider in the world I was learning about and trying to represent. The conclusion of this book represents the beginning of my life as a scholar and my commitment to keep posing intriguing questions about faculty, students, and their context. Through this collaboration, I realize that doing research is a complex process in which one is always learning how to make sense of oneself, a specific context, and others. Doing research is not an easy activity; however, it is one of the best ways to learn how to interact with scholars, students, readers, and authors of other books. The act of acknowledgment is always an exercise in remembering, reflection, and thankfulness. I use this space to do so. I realize that three conditions were central to the writing of this book: commitment, cooperation in learning, and confidence in the possibility of creation. In meeting each of these conditions, it was always essential to count on somebody who could provoke my thinking and writing. First, I want to thank John Levin, who offered me the opportunity of learning the hard but fulfilling activity of doing research and writing academi- cally. John’s confidence in the value of my ideas, humbleness in sharing his exper- tise, his questions, and his patience in correcting my writing style were critical to the writing of this book. I also thank Professor Omar Garcia, who was the first person who encouraged me to study abroad and to believe that the construction of knowledge is the best way to learn how to live and how to dream. Professor Omar helped me understand that dialogue and trust are essential conditions for learning, that creation is always a coauthorship, and that educational experi- ences have a stronger influence on people’s lives when close communication and mutual caring become the core of the interaction between the instructor and the student. I also thank Professor Manuel Aguilar, who patiently taught me how to use technology in the construction of knowledge. He instructed me in the use of software meant for qualitative data analysis and concept mapping that enabled me to represent my thinking and communicate it in graphic forms. Finally, I thank Professors Reba Page and Natalie Becker who made available the authors and readings that helped us find the theoretical approach needed to interpret the complexity of social life in community colleges. I found myself surrounded by inspiring people like Professors Levin, Omar Garcia, Manuel Aguilar, Reba Page, and Natalie Becker, who helped me to realize ideas, perspectives, and concepts that I could hardly discover by myself. Every page of this book was the result of the collaboration and the faith of these professors who still believe that sharing is the best way to learn. It was the continual dialogue with these scholars that enabled me to represent community colleges in the way that this book does. Apart from these scholars, I wish to thank my dear friend Ana Vazquez, who joined me in the difficult journey of doing my graduate studies at the x ● Preface and Acknowledgments University of California. She always offered me support to face all the challenges involved in living and studying in a foreign country. Ana’s strong courage and her pride in her Mexican heritage were an inspiring model. Ana taught me about courage, friendship, autonomy, and self- confidence, all values and ways of being that are expressed in each page of this book. She and her husband, Rana, cel- ebrated the writing and publishing of this book enthusiastically with me. I also acknowledge the insights offered by Christine Cerven, who read most of the drafts of this book patiently and helped us identify weak arguments, awkward sentences, and incoherent paragraphs. I want to praise my parents who, through their exemplary way of being elementary school teachers in Mexico, reminded me of the commitment that educational professionals have to their students. My parents’ effort and struggle to help students learn enabled me to understand community colleges as sites in which educational experiences are always the expression of human capacities such as effort, respect, dedication, and even frus- tration. It was also my parents’ commitment to learn how to be better teachers that encouraged me to try to answer questions that are not only relevant for me but also for all who are interested in improving education. I praise my parents and my brothers, Rodolfo and Oscar, who were the strongest reasons to keep my spirit high and my mind sharp enough so that I never gave up on the intricate job of using words to represent that reality which rests in some point between time and space, between our emotions and reason. John S. Levin My roots in the community college have come, I suspect, to full develop- ment with this book. My research for several decades did not address students directly until 2002 when I joined a research project on adult learners, a group I acknowledged in my previous publication—Nontraditional Students and Community Colleges: The Conflict of Justice and Neoliberalism. At that time I was drawn back to the class of students that I encountered as a community college instructor of English from 1970 to 1981. My memories of many of those stu- dents are rather sharp, and my recollections of the discussions with my colleagues at the time are also vivid. As one of the youngest faculty members in my college, I too developed with the help of the guidance of older, more experienced col- leagues. When I turned to a university career in the 1990s and began extensive field research, my encounters with faculty and administrators in numerous jurisdictions renewed my connections with instruction and work with students. Yet, the bulk of my research from the late 1980s until 2002 did not address the experiential domain of students. Instead, I focused upon those structures and processes that ultimately affected students: global economic competition, insti- tutional governance, labor and management in community colleges, government policy, administrative behaviors, and organizational change. A good portion of my work also examined community colleges in two countries—Canada and the United States—and a comparative perspective was central to my intellectual pursuits, even if not explicitly so. Preface and Acknowledgments ● xi As I embarked on the adult learners’ project and eventually on the project that led to this book, I was struck by the condition of large numbers of college students in the United States as well as by the dramatic images of both U.S. education and society that are in circulation. This observation came to me not only because I had moved my research focus to the student level but also because it was stripped of Canadian data. Thus, two factors are now evident in my previ- ous work. First, where I used both Canadian and U.S. sources, Canada probably served as a moderating effect on my observations and conclusions. Second, my work did not uncover the personal, specifically, the experiences of students, and thus both emotionally compelling observations and at least one major outcome of institutional behaviors—institutional effects upon students—were absent. My previous book and this book certainly do not lack for attention to both students and institutional effects upon students. While neither book offers commentary upon U.S. education or society, as a researcher whose work includes examination of other countries, I was and am still struck by the U.S. context, particularly when it is viewed through the lens of the community college and its students. The U.S. context for higher education viewed from an international com- parative perspective is well articulated by Seymour Martin Lipset and Michael Skolnik.1 The U.S. context for the community college is largely undeveloped, with some exceptions, including my 2001 examination of the effects of globali- zation and the critical analyses of such scholars as Rob Rhoads, James Valadez, Kate Shaw, and Penelope Herideen.2 Through this project, I encountered a number of issues and themes that suggest a foundational context for the com- munity college in the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-f irst centuries. While these themes are not developed in this book, they do serve as a background and deserve attention by scholars and researchers. Access has been a prominent issue in community colleges over the past thirty years. The U.S. context for community colleges defines access as a national social and cultural issue. In the United States, access is synonymous with democracy, nonelitism, equity, and social mobility.3 As the institution characterized as the “ open- door college,” and as “democracy’s college,”4 the community college is tied, on the one hand, to the ideals of U.S. society and, on the other hand, to the failure of higher education to produce a more equal society. Both scholars and practitioners continue to press for a higher education institution that will fulfill personal and societal expectations tied to the proverbial “American dream.”5 The inability of the institution to realize this dream for the many is well- documented.6 Policy and policy recommendations have increasingly emphasized this connection and have decided upon some rather inappropriate measures to track the progress of the community college. What is, of course, neglected in these policies and policy recommendations are two rather significant factors: institutional goals and student backgrounds.7 Indeed, even high level and widely cited scholarship on community college behaviors neglects these two factors in their judgment of the institution.8 Organizational goals, as Mintzberg has noted, are reflected in the actions of organizations—that is, in what they do.9 In the case of the community college, goals include considerable ministering to and
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