In an age of increasing pressures on the future workforce, the Presidents’ Round Table, a network of African-American community college presidents and chief executives, seeks to meet the demand for supplying and training the next generation of educated employees for the evolving job picture.
Among its varied goals, the Round Table works to empower and provide community college leaders with the skills to keep the nation’s community colleges viable.
To get a glimpse into the of the needs and stresses facing community college leaders, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education spoke with two of the Round Table’s leaders: Dr. Andrew C. Jones, chancellor of Coast Community College District in Southern California and convener of the Round Table, and Dr. Charlene M. Dukes, president of the Prince Georges Community College in suburban Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C., who is secretary of the Round Table.
Following are excerpts of the dialogue with them:
DIVERSE: Let’s start off by having you tell me a little about the Presidents’ Round Table. How did it come to be? And how useful is it?
Jones: The Round Table is 29 years old . . . and was founded in 1983 by a group of about eight African-American [community college] presidents, who at that time found themselves in a fairly isolated situation. They were all over the country. They didn’t have a way of really connecting with one another, except through some of the general professional meetings. Some of them knew each other from previous experiences, but they decided to form an organization that would be in [the interest] of promoting the development of more African-American leaders at that time, and that’s how the Round Table was actually “born,” if you will. Over the last 30 years, it has been the most prolific executive leadership organization in terms of promoting the ascension to the presidency of any leadership organization in the county. We think it’s very successful.
DIVERSE: In an effort to get more people to do it, you have the Thomas Lakin Institute, where you bring people who are not already presidents “into the loop,” so to speak.
