edited by James C. Palmer and Stephen G. Katsinas Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco, 1996

I had looked forward with considerable anticipation to the publication of Palmer's and Katsinas's Graduate and Continuing Education for Community College Leaders: What It Means Today.

I know the majority of the authors featured in this publication as dedicated professionals, sincerely concerned about the future of the community college and those who will lead it into the next century. It was my hope this work would offer the first objective and comprehensive assessment of the twenty-odd graduate programs concentrating on community college leadership, and that this assessment would form the basis of an objective discussion of the relevance of these programs now and in coming decades.

That my hopes would not be fulfilled was evident from the moment I reviewed the work's table of contents.

Like too many other publications within Jossey-Bass's New Directions series, Graduate and Continuing Education for Community College Leaders is an ensemble work. In keeping with conventional practice, the work's two editors, James Palmer and Stephen Katsinas, assembled a large number of essays -- ten in all -- apparently with the objective of providing a wide range of perspectives on the present and future state of community college graduate programs.

What the reader soon realizes, however, is that inclusion and diversity have come at the price of an extended and objective engagement with the subject matter. Because of its highly fragmented organization and the brevity of each chapter, the overall work favors description over analysis and superficial treatment over the more involved process of constructing persuasive arguments. One gets little sense that the various chapters that make up this work are joined together by any shared perspective or sense of larger purpose.

The range of topics that the book attempts to cover is really quite staggering. One chapter, by Raymond Young, attempts to summarize the history of community college leadership programs. Another, by Katsinas, argues that leadership programs should take into account the tremendous diversity of institutional types now clustered under the community college tent. Yet another, by Berta Laden! describes a number of continuing education programs offered by community college professional associations.