“When you set off for Ithaca, hope that the voyage is long. . . for it is the journey, not the arrival, that is your objective.”
From “Ithaca” by C.P. Cavafy
Background
At the time of our interview, Dr. Carroll was just getting settled into her new third-story District office. Congratulatory cards and colorful flowers and plants were still in evidence. We began the interview with a review of her extensive involvement in the world of education and community colleges. She reflected back 30 years to her time as associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Maine, Portland-Gorham (now University of Southern Maine). There she helped create a community college without walls, designed to bring education to under-served areas of the state of Maine. She smiles as she reminisces, “We didn’t really know much about community colleges. We just cut the curriculum in half—two years for the new community college and two years for the university.” However, in the process Carroll fell in love with the concept of the community college. To this day, she passionately believes it to be “the pathway to democratic education.”
Preparation
When asked about her preparation for educational leadership, Carroll reflected on her lifelong immersion in the classics, the study of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the ancient Greek and Latin languages. Her dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh centered on Greek tragedy and her love of Greek literature endures. She commented that up until the 1940’s, a classical education was the traditional preparation for aspiring leaders and for good reasons. Classical scholarship embraces the study of civilization, the rise and fall of human dreams, international conflicts, the nature of historical patterns, cycles and change. Classical scholarship presents different cultures, both east and west, and the great literary achievements of the world. Carroll’s role models still include Pericles, Cicero, and Alexander. Such rigorous study of the classics is exceptional among today’s current leaders who tend to be formed and informed by the study of law, business, or public and educational administration. She referenced California Senator Jack Scott, an educator, legislator, as well as a lifelong student of history. Carroll emphasized that the classics and historical perspective, cultivate skills in framing and understanding issues and how the larger world works. These are powerful attributes for all leaders, including those in education and the legislature.
Our Mission and How It Has Changed
When asked what changes she has witnessed in community colleges, Dr. Carroll began with the 1970’s. She remembers that time as the “Golden Age” of community colleges. She says, “There was a clear mission. That mission was lifelong learning, and California was the epitome of this great movement. The mission intended to serve everyone, all ages, and all backgrounds through life.” In response to financial problems, Carroll believes we now have made a “massive retreat” from that earlier time and mission. She is quick to point out that some of these changes have sharpened and improved community college performance and accountability. However, she contends that over-emphasis on the transfer of students to four-year schools and early tracking of students in vocational and workforce programs can be problematic. This new emphasis, as defined by AB 1725, has “narrowed” and “fragmented” the mission of lifelong learning. In this new environment, Carroll believes that the lifelong learner, or the person without a quantitative goal, gets lost—even disenfranchised. She says this new utilitarian mode flies in the face of “an enlightened citizenry and the valuable notion of discovery and exploration.” For over a generation, the accountability movement, with emphasis on measurements, standards, tests, and measurable outcomes, has tended to eliminate opportunities for learners rather than enhance opportunities. None of these measures is undesirable as such, but more and more they have become the sole basis for planning “a path of learning.” Carroll firmly believes that further retreat from the original mission and the Golden Age of community colleges will have “critical consequences for society’s complex issues.”
Commencement Reigns as Memorable Moments
Dr. Carroll’s “memorable moment” in community colleges happens regularly every spring. It is commencement. “I am a commencement junkie,” she laughs. “Whatever year it is; whatever commencement it is. I go to all of them.” Her classical training is reflected again as she describes all commencements as “moving and ceremonial—they are transformation and triumph, tragedy and comedy—high drama for all ages.” Warming to the subject, Carroll remembers a middle-aged woman accepting her hard-earned community college diploma, while the graduate’s family unfurled a large banner that proclaimed ,”No More Meatloaf!” Commencement never fails to dramatize the joy of learning, as well as sacrifices made for the personal fulfillment of dreams. At commencement the true community college mission is clear.
Are We Vulnerable?
Proposed changes for community colleges seem to occur regularly, including fee increases, the recent California Performance Review, and various mandates which impact mission. When asked about the vulnerability of community colleges,. Carroll said, “It’s yes and no.” She went on, “There are always proposals for change and many would cause “structural violence” to the system, but invariably they do not succeed. For example, the California Performance Review would eliminate the community college board of governors and consolidate the state chancellor’s office with other agencies under the Secretary of Education. This is not acceptable and most California community colleges are making their opposition known. Carroll is confident that California community colleges will not lose their autonomy.
Carroll goes on to note that what makes the system vulnerable is lack of clarity about what community colleges are and what the system wants, especially in funding. In general, community colleges like the benefits of being included in Proposition 98 funding with K-12. At the same time, there is resistance to being in the same system with K-12. Carroll notes, “We can’t have our cake and eat it, too.” A way out of this dilemma would be to restructure community college finance along the lines of the systems utilized by many other states: a balance of state funding, local funding and student tuition. When Proposition 13 passed, local community college boards lost the ability to levy local funds, with the result that the colleges are now funded almost exclusively by the state, with modest income from student enrollment fees. The enrollment fee in California community colleges, even with the recent increase from $18 to $26, remains the lowest in the nation. Other states charge upwards to $66 to $96 per unit and beyond. California needs to look outward to more progressive finance models. In short, the state’s community colleges are vulnerable as long as they continue to be underfunded, and they remain vulnerable to “endless tinkering with governance models and requirements for more and more quantitative reports and mandates.”
National Trends
Funding remains an ongoing challenge, yet community colleges across the nation continue to change. When asked about national trends, Carroll expressed great support for community colleges offering selected baccalaureate degrees. Perhaps an obvious example would be the field of nursing where shortages have occurred nationwide. Locally the state system of higher education remains cool to this trend, while at the same time creating more and more barriers to incoming students. In reality the expansion of baccalaureate degrees would only serve to advance educational opportunities for aspiring students. If there is a lack of capacity at the UC’s and CSU’s, then there is lack of capacity to serve and “lack of advancement for citizens.” At the same time, Carroll is troubled by the growing trend to award the Associate in Applied Science degree. The AAS focuses exclusively on technical training and is earned with a minimum of general education courses. This is a way for some community colleges to be competitive with proprietary schools, but it results in one-dimensional learning. Always attentive to the larger context, Carroll says, “Our technicians, as good citizens, need to be both well-trained and well-educated.”
Students Now and in the Future
Dr. Carroll has both served and observed community college students for several decades and has noted changes. She sees our K-12 children suffering many inadequacies, resulting in insufficient mastery of subject matter. This is definitely a growing reality in the “gateway” courses of English and mathematics, courses central to collegiate level acceptance and success. As students struggle to gain the requisite level of achievement, the learning process slows down, may become discouraging, and, certainly, becomes more expensive. Carroll speaks warmly of a “positive change” in demographics. Perhaps with the exception of certain rural and more isolated communities, there is an enormous new diversity on college campuses across the nation. She says, “This is a great mix—a true rainbow of students.” The average age of students is increasing nation wide, to around age 31 and going up. Some exceptions are campuses intently focused on the transfer curriculum. However, community colleges are known for being greatly responsive to students and model programs have emerged to assist the changing nature of students. Carroll praised community college honors programs which stimulate and challenge highly motivated students. Most honors programs are articulated with higher education, facilitating the students’ progress toward transfer and completion of goals. A number of colleges have worked to establish Learning Communities and the Freshman Experience in which a cohort of students learn together and have more individualized guidance in mathematics, English, and educational planning. Such programs create a supportive network for students, providing a social context and an environment of collaboration and cooperation.
As students change, so do their expectations of the college experience. Already California sees the intense demand for greater access and opportunities for earning the baccalaureate degree. As student access and time become greater challenges, students will demand and need more on-line courses so they can proceed at their own pace, learn on their time, and not have to compete for physical space in a classroom. Carroll sees more and more students attending multiple colleges to get what they want when they want it. Colleges need to be prepared for this trend by creating sound structures for transferability for students with “portable academic lives.” When Carroll was asked about the potential loss of students’ sense of community or bonding with a one and only campus, she, again, reflected on the larger mission of community college. She says, “The culture of community and attachment is the right model for transfer students. They should be allowed and included in a full-blown student life with leadership, club, and co-curricular activities and opportunities.” However, she reminds us of “thousands of others who do not want or need the culture of community.” She describes these students as typically “older students or others—whose organizing principle is themselves or the jobs they hold.” She goes on to say that wise community colleges will become like “a kaleidoscope that will accommodate all of those different needs.” The transfer function is but one part of the kaleidoscope and colleges must vary delivery systems. Such systems will be on-line courses, short-term courses, week-end courses, intersessions, and more.
Student Services: The State of the Field
Student services for the 21st century must expand options for students. Carroll sees on-line support systems and regional efforts as a way to serve the shifting and changing expectations of learners. Many colleges have made good progress in consolidating all student services into “one-stop centers.” However, on-line support services must be expanded, particularly in counseling. This is needed to address “a new generation of students who won’t come on campus at all.” To support the new models for student learning, be it on-line delivery, honors programs, service learning, or learning communities, Carroll is emphatic that instruction and student services must not only collaborate, they must integrate. She says, “We must be less passionate about separating student services from instruction and more eager to include both in collaborative efforts for the good of students.” Instruction must think in terms of service to students and student services must become involved in the learning and delivery options. In regard to the “transient student” who may slip through the system unnoticed, Carroll recommends regional efforts for “common advisement.” Colleges would serve the larger view by using their web sites to include links to other regional community colleges, lists of transfer and vocational options and advisories for UC and CSU, as well. She says, “We already have “regional students,” and community college “regional collaboration is crying to be had.” In this way, students can draw from the largest possible framework.
A Final Word
With so many changes and challenges ahead, where does the student services practitioner look for guidance and tools? Carroll smiled as she replied, “ Anybody or anything at Harvard,” and then went on to say that Harvard University still dominates notions of educational change. For the best historical account of community colleges, she cited “The American Community College” by Arthur Cohen and Florence Brawer of UCLA. Understanding complex organizations is helpful and “Reframing Organizations,” by Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal, is excellent. Carroll smiled again as she said, “As a classicist, I love primary texts, so one should read the text of AB1725, also the original California Plan for High Education, and the current California Master Plan, California Education: K Through University. These documents, she says, provide understanding as well as “hope and vision.”
And, finally, how does the person aspiring to a career in student services begin preparation? Carroll, one more time, stressed the historical perspective. She says, “Get grounded in the history of community colleges so you won’t be tempted to reinvent the wheel.” She advised newcomers to consider and determine what difference they want to make. Student services is a rewarding field with many options. Some might choose close, one-on-one work with students, as in counseling. Others might be attracted to crafting and designing programs at the dean level. At the vice-president level, one can apply leadership skills to bridging with instruction and other areas of campus. Ultimately a presidential position allows the student services professional to shape an entire institution in a student-centered mission and culture.
As Carroll returned to a focus on students, she closed the interview with heartfelt words that reflect the whole purpose of student services and why Dr. Constance Carroll has made such a difference in community college education. She concluded, “Students need the best educated, best trained, most compassionate persons possible. They need people who love students and who love to teach, for after all, it is the element of love that distinguishes community college education from others.”
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