Rising to the helm of two-year institutions continues to be a challenge for aspiring African American college presidents

During the late 1960s, Dr. Raymond Bowen was fresh out of graduate school and teaching biology at Cleveland State University in Ohio. His goals at the time were to achieve tenure, conduct research, and eventually win a Nobel Prize.

He thought it was an ambitious but attainable career plan. Then, fate intervened.

Disgruntled over the slow pace of change on their campus, Cleveland State minority students demanded that the president appoint a new Black administrator. As the youngest Black faculty member and someone thought to be sensitive to student concerns, Bowen was the logical choice. He became Cleveland State's first assistant to the president for minority affairs in 1968.

"Administration was the furthest thing from my mind," Bowen says now, recalling the vents that change his life.

After several promotions, he left the four-year institution for an associate deanship at La Guardia Community College in New York. That post lead to appointments at other community colleges before he landed his first presidency at Shelby Community College in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1982. Bowen returned to La Guardia to become its president in 1989.

Three decades have passed since Bowen's career took its fortuitous turn. While the climb to the top may be less subject to the whims of fate for today's African American scholars, those who sit at the helm of community colleges are still scant in numbers.

Research by the Black Issues in Higher Education and Community College Week editorial staffs reveals that among the nation's 1,200 two-year institutions, only sixty-four have African American presidents, constituting slightly more than 5 percent of the national two-year president pool -- and that includes the eleven presidents who work at historically Black institutions.

Several other studies and surveys buttress those findings, indicating that community colleges -- the very institutions that tout themselves as paragons of openness and inclusion -- have failed, so far, to adequately diversify their upper echelons.