The American Community College by Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer Jossey-Bass, Inc., San Francisco, 1996 512 pages
Hardback: $38.95
Now in its third edition, Cohen and Brawer’s The American Community
College has achieved and exceeded the status of earlier classic
overviews of the field, many of which I have used in a graduate class
on the community college over the past two decades at Teachers College,
Columbia University.
While most of the books are good, none is as satisfying as The American Community College.
As in previous editions, the authors raise important questions that
must be addressed by those of us practicing in the field. What would be
the shape of American higher education if the community colleges did
not exist? Have changes in the students and society we serve changed
the mission of this community-centered institution? Have we been
overusing part-time faculty? Will changing patterns of financing our
operations lead to positive or negative changes? Will newer modes of
delivery of instruction compete with what our institutions have been
doing comfortably for so long? Who will make the tough decisions we
need to address — the boards, the faculties, the administrations, the
students, the unions, the politicians, the media, or some combination
of them all? What are our most important functions, and do we nourish
them adequately? Will conflicting forces — to change the colleges or
to keep them the same — tear the institutions apart? Will there he
increased interference in the internal governance of the institutions?
And how will that be faced? How does one answer the critics of our
mission?
Not all of these questions are answered in the book, nor should
they be. The authors make clear that these are living and breathing
institutions that evolve like their book and that will change over
time, as they should.
The authors have become synonymous with the community college
movement. A look at any bibliography finds their names in it
repeatedly. They have visited hundreds of institutions all over the
country. They have lead the University of California at Los Angeles’
ERIC Clearinghouse for Junior Colleges since its inception in 1966 and
have supervised and/or conducted important research in the field
through the Center for the Study of Community Colleges. They are the
editors of the New Directions for Community Colleges series published
quarterly by Jossey-Bass since 1973 when it began.
