While students at both four-year institutions and community colleges enroll in remedial coursework, policymakers look to community colleges to be the main, if not sole, providers of basic skills education. Policy makers argue that community colleges are the most cost-efficient and appropriate places to provide this instruction (Bettinger &…

The role of government in community college governance cannot be underestimated: state, provincial, and territorial governments are the formal creators of public colleges and the bodies that can alter governance arrangements. Nonetheless, local contexts are not to be overlooked. Interpretations of legislation and government policy give rise to…

Part-time faculty members at community colleges are customarily understood from an institutional perspective that is based on traditional conceptions of the community college as a component of a tiered educational system. This conception places the community college in the role of either a junior college or a training school. However, the…

Faculty are the critical labor element in the pursuit of the economic goals of the community colleges, yet they are not central to institutional decision-making. Their views and values are not consistent with the goals and actions of their colleges. Instead, these goals and actions are aligned with business and industry, directed by government and…

Community college faculty are a major labour force in the U.S. and constitute one-third of all postsecondary education faculty. As a labour force, community college faculty epitomize professional work in the new economy and the post-bureaucratic organization: they are predominantly temporary or part-time; the majority bargain collectively for a…

This paper reviews the literature on specific and multiple organizational cultures identified with the community college. The community college culture is seen as both fulfilling organizational purpose (a functional perspective) and expressing organizational behaviors (an interpretive perspective), including the beliefs, values, and ideologies of…