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Q: Why have you chosen community colleges as your life’s work?
Landsberger: Well, first you need to know that I graduated from U. C. Berkeley in the late ‘60s with what you might call a “well developed” social conscience. When I graduated from law school, I knew that I wanted to put my skills to use in some way that I could feel good about. I certainly didn’t want to go to work for some big law firm or corporation. So that meant legal aid, government, or education.
I was fortunate to end up in education as an attorney in the General Counsel’s Office of the California State University System. I moved to the community colleges four years later and stayed largely because I view community colleges as important institutions that enable people to become better skilled, more informed, and better equipped to make a valuable contribution to their community and at work.
Perhaps more important, our colleges address the educational needs of people in our society who generally have the fewest advantages, many of whom have experienced genuine hardship in their life and real unfairness. We give them the opportunity to overcome some of that and, as a result, are strengthening the social capital of our society and promoting equity and social justice. I’m proud of that and of the values and ideals community colleges manifest when they are at their best.
Q: What are some of the significant differences that you have seen since 1978 when you first began working in the community college system? Are there changes that stand out as significant in retrospect?
Landsberger: I would put the changes into categories. First, I sense a change in our students. I think that particularly among younger students there are more who are affirmatively choosing community college as the best college alternative. This was less common 25 years ago when we had much more of a reputation of being a high school with ashtrays. I think that’s beginning to go away. Also, students are coming to us with higher expectations, or more of what the faculty sometimes decry as a consumer mentality. In many cases they are coming to us as a much more diverse group than they were when I was in community college. Back then, we were a much more homogenous group in terms of knowing where we were going and being prepared for college work. Today’s students are much more scattered now in terms of preparation, background, and experience. Certainly their ethnic and cultural diversity is more pronounced today than it was back then, although it has always been significant in community colleges.
Second, I think there is an evolving and subtle, but profound change in the public’s perception of what they used to think of as junior colleges. They are increasingly aware of the role of community college as a high quality, low cost alternative for students who can’t afford to go directly to a baccalaureate institution. They are more aware of our role in economic development, in keeping the work force well prepared by providing opportunities in retraining and retooling. I think the public is more supportive than they were before. Votes on bond measures are a good barometer of that.
Finally, both collective bargaining and shared governance brought some profound changes internally - many of them good. I think these measures have improved the imperative to be open and collaborative in decision-making, which in the long run is good. However, they also made us more process oriented, more bureaucratic, and less agile than community colleges used to be. I sometimes worry about our ability to respond effectively to the changing needs and expectations of the community.
Q: What are some highlights or memorable experiences that will stand out for you? Weren’t you instrumental in getting AB 1725 passed?
Landsberger: I did play a role in the creation of AB 1725. First of all, it was in Foothill DeAnza after several years of pitched battles and unwritten strife, particularly between the faculty and management that we decided that we had to do things differently. So, we created what was called the budget and policy development group, kind of a prototype of the college Planning Action Council (PAC) in today’s environment. We talked about issues that before then were not really the subject of broad discussion in colleges with faculty and staff and thus spear headed what was later called shared governance. When the legislature put together some task groups to look at the way community colleges were funded and the way that the faculty, staff, and administration was organized, I was asked to be the principal facilitator and consultant for one of the those task groups. The portion that the task group worked on and that I helped author, as their principal consultant, was the portion that became a large part of the intent language in AB1725.
Q: What do you feel are some of the most important issues facing community colleges today?
Landsberger: The nature of the students that are coming to us is changing. We need to be responsive to their needs, issues, and concerns and not insist that they conform to the way we do business. In fact, at the heart of all challenges is the word “change.” The ability to grapple with the kinds of changes that are required is a huge issue and the nature of the student body is one example.
The new focus on learning and the results of our students’ engagement with our institutions is also important. We need to tackle the difficult time-consuming work of deciding what we want students to be able to do when they have completed a course, a program, a degree; to know “What should that reflect?” I know that it isn’t easy because it requires us to agree at a much higher level then we did before and not just use anecdotal information to say, “Yes, that student got there.” We must begin to collect the data that helps us determine if we are doing these things right. If so, we need to preserve the data. Learning can then be improved.
We can gain insight into what we need to do to enhance these areas and then measure whether or not the changes actually accomplished the results we were seeking. This is something we’re not all that experienced at doing. Plus, we must try to accomplish all of that change within an environment of very scarce resources, which can sometimes be discouraging. I don’t know if we can live up to our own ideals and to the ideals that are set in the new accreditation standards with the resources we have available to us. It will be another challenge not to get burned out and discouraged.
Another important issue is the question on leadership. I mean leadership generally—good faculty leadership, good staff leadership, but in particular good leadership in terms of deans, presidents, vice presidents, and chancellors. I think the demands of those jobs are rapidly escalating with diminishing results. Consequently, I worry about how we are going to replace presidents who may retire, vice presidents who may move up. Are there going to be enough really able and capable vice presidents to take over the presidency? What is needed now are people who are great communicators, good listeners; people who are good at leading through collaboration and facilitation rather than command and control; people who are genuinely comfortable with ambiguity and can tolerate an uncertain situation, take a risk and move forward when he or she doesn’t know what the outcome is going to be or exactly how to get from step A to step Z. And there are a lot of people who, when faced with the harassment and complaints, the bureaucratic impediments, the rules and regulations, and quite frankly, the sometimes shabby pay, won’t want to do it.
Q: Are the community colleges vulnerable now? The governor has indicated that he wants to transform California, its agencies, bureaucracies, government, etc.
Landsberger: The California Performance Review, which is the effort that the governor put together to “blow up the boxes,” has proposed among other things that the State Chancellors Office be merged with three other agencies, that our Board of Governors be eliminated and that these agencies all be subsumed under a division of higher education within the Department of Education, reporting to an Under Secretary of Education who will report to the Secretary of Education. The Secretary of Education would then report directly to the governor. Well, as you know that proposal is not a good one. I hope that it has a short life. We are going to have to depend on our friends in the business community to react to it.
So frankly, I will be spending my time talking with the people in the Chamber of Commerce and elsewhere (such as the L.A. Business Council) to alert them to the risks and danger of that part of the California Performance Review. I think if they understand it, they will not like the idea of putting community colleges in with some a big government bureaucracy. I think that Governor Schwartznneger and the people he has brought into his administration will be much more focused on top down accountability. It is very clear that he vetoed 31 million dollars out of Partnership for Excellence, and one of the stated reasons for that is the reluctance of the community colleges to agree to District specific accountability measures through PFE.
In terms of accountability, often the faculty confuses student-learning outcomes with the whole accountability crusade of government. That’s an unfortunate confusion, because student-learning outcomes in my view are generally good and a lot of these crude, simplistic, accountability measures from the legislature, governor, and people like that, do a lot of damage in very unintentionally distorting and mischievous ways. So, I think we are going to end up having to struggle with that issue a lot.
Q: Looking outward, are there national trends, not yet adopted within California that we should embrace?
Landsberger: Well, the one that comes to mind immediately is student learning outcomes. Other states have taken the lead in assessing SLOs in both instruction and student services, but in California we have been slow in getting there. In fact, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges was one of the last accrediting commissions to adopt the new accreditation standards.
Q: Any there any models or successes, innovations or studies of which you are aware which should be considered by the field?
Landsberger: There are a number of successful models and innvoations, as well as studies that are often highlighted at the American Assoication of Community Colleges (AACC) annual conference and other higher education conferences. When I was President of College of San Mateo, I routinely brought a group of administrators to those conferences as a part of their professional development so that we could look at models of success and share our expertise. Also, technology is constantly changing and there are some really innovative things going on in that area. This puts a real high premium on being aware of the latest innovations and gives us an imperative to have much more robust and constant professional development program. However, it goes back to the fact that we have scarce resources and quite frankly we don’t have the resources to invest in professional development the way that we should.
Q: What can students expect from the Community Colleges in the future? Looking specifically at Student Services, do you have recommendations or suggestions for the field?
Landsberger: I believe that Student Services and Academic Affairs should strive to be much more collaborative and not work in silos. We can create productive collaborations when we work together. When I was president of College of San Mateo, I spent time trying to build bridges among the two groups. I set aside professional development money to take these two groups to conferences to see what can and has been done with collaborative partnerships outside of California. When Student Services and Academic Affairs engage in collaboration, we all recognize that we are contributing to a common goal—assisting students to be more successful.
Q: Who are the state and national leaders that influence higher education?
Landsberger: On the national level of course there is Rod Paige, the Secretary of Education. On the state level there is Richard Riordan, the California Secretary of Education and members of the California legislature. Senator Jack Scott has always been a leader and has a very important bill pending on the transfer of community college students to CSU campuses. Senator John Vasconcellos, who is being termed out, has also been influential and I don’t suspect that he’ll stop being influential just because of term limits. On the Assembly side, Carol Liu, who is Chair of the Higher Education Committee, has been a leader on higher education issues and Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh has championed access issues that are extremely important in districts like Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. I also think that Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally has a lot of interest in community colleges and will work to make sure that our issues are placed on the front burner.
Q: You will be retiring next June. What three things would you like to be known for?
Landsberger: I would like to be known as someone who is dedicated to making a difference and bringing about beneficial change. I’d also like to be known as someone who values teamwork and team accomplishments as well as individual success. Third…Well, I guess I’m vain enough to want to be thought of as smart, capable and someone who can get the job done.
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