Pending retirements underscore the need to develop community college campus leaders. Rural community colleges will be particularly hard-hit by changes in leadership as they represent the majority of 2-year colleges and face unique challenges given their location. To help address the anticipated leadership transition, the American Association of…

Signs of a leadership crisis in community colleges have been building over the past decade, with one study predicting that as many as 84 percent of current presidents could retire within the next 10 years. Several plans of action are under way to handle this changing of the guard, including more leadership-preparation programs offered by such…

This chapter provides a portrait of women's representation in the leadership ranks of community colleges. The study analyzed audiotaped and transcribed interviews with six women community college presidents. Each of the women had been leading her institution for less than five years; one participant was serving in her second presidency. Findings…

As the "people's college," community colleges have a reputation of being more welcoming of women--as students, faculty, and administrators (Townsend & Twombly, 2006). However, the current percentage of women leading community colleges, which is hovering at 29% (American Council on Education, 2007), begs the question of why parity is not witnessed…

College leaders serve important roles as guides for campus understanding during times of change. Within multicollege districts, campus members deal with several levels of leadership, ranging from department chairs, to the college president, to the system chancellor. These leaders may send conflicting messages regarding change, or have competing…

This study detailed how two community college presidents framed issues and events of change on their campuses based on their thinking, and it outlined the sources of power they used during the application of their plans for change. Both presidents were relatively new at their jobs; both had come from out of state to assume their new roles. A total…

Presidents are one of the most studied of administrative roles, yet little research occurs on understanding how these leaders construct their own leadership. Thus, the question guiding the research reported here concerned how community college presidents cognitively framed their leadership roles. This study involved the interviewing of 9 community…

The role of gender in presidential communications and leadership on campus was studied through an exploration of the language 2-year college presidents used to describe their own leadership. The study also considered whether gendered concepts of leadership were reified by campus members. Participants were two community college presidents, one male…

As organizational change at community colleges becomes the norm, presidents leading these campuses play a heightened role in guiding successful initiatives. The research reported here investigated the relationship between leader cognition and power levers of two presidents as they framed change for campus members. These leaders' underlying…

This paper presents a study that analyzed the ways in which community college presidents define and disseminate information on institutional and organizational change. It identifies three courses of change on community college campuses: presidential initiatives, internal pressures, and external pressures. The study centered on the presidents'…

Describes the ways in which two community college presidents used framing to aid campus sense-making. Defines framing as the choice of one set of meanings over another, and sense-making as the process by which individuals interpret changes around them. Reports that the presidents chose frames that drove campus goals and subsequent strategies to…

Summarizes the theoretical foundations, data collection procedures, and findings from a study designed to examine the linkage between presidential cognition and the ultimate framing of organizational change on a community college campus. The data analyzed in this study was gathered at two community college sites intentionally selected based on the…