SUCCESSFUL INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: THE KEY TO DYNAMIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION

Community college administrators can achieve successful interpersonal relationships with their colleagues by exhibiting positive thoughts about their colleagues, developing openness in their relationships, using a team approach and a wide decision‐making base, and being concerned about the perceptions of others.     

ORIGINS OF THE COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

A number of recent articles as well as speeches at national meetings have implied that some terrible plot to denigrate the mission of community colleges by including the function of occupational education (vocational and technical) has been perpetrated by the recent tendency on the part of some to downgrade the arts and humanities. There is no historical basis for this implication. The early leaders of the junior college movement gave appropriate emphasis to the development of a comprehensive institution. This article documentes these emphases and provides a basis for more rational analysis of the curriculum of the community colleges.     

ETHNIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE CLASSROOM

This article addresses the influence of White American ethnic consciousness on educators in the community college classroom. In the event that issues of a multicultural nature arise in this setting, educators may find themselves responding to the information with differing attitudes and behaviors. These varied stances may stem from the process of moving from an unresolved to a more integrative stage of ethnic consciousness. White identity stages are presented, and their implications for classroom instruction are discussed.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY: MAKING THE PARADIGM SHIFT

The author looks at contemporary research and surveys on community college faculty, administration, and students and diagnoses problems and obstacles for the shift from a goal of expanded access in the 1960s and 1970s to the 1990's goal of the community college: teaching and learning excellence. First the current state of teaching and teachers in the community college is examined. Problems are illustrated such as lack of support for new teachers in their vital first years and the many and growing responsibilities of faculty that take away from teaching. The article then identifies and defines three major challenges for the next decade: (1) facilitating and addressing the needs of a wider range of student ability and mastery; (2) conquering the high and accepted attrition rate; and (3) dealing with the differing and often contradicting perceptions of students, faculty, and administration. This particular disparity, or this "gap," among student, teacher, and administrator is discussed in detail. Aside from these three important challenges, however, the greatest challenge for community college faculty in the 1990s is stated as the diversity of student academic credentials and maturity. Several conditions are also cited, which seem to put two-year college faculty at risk. Factors such as increased enrollment, lack of funding, limited facilities and equipment, and lack of faculty involvement in change efforts. Finally, the author looks to research by Honeycutt in a search for solutions to the above challenges. Honeycutt suggests several guidelines that might help to minimize teachers at risk and maximize faculty motivation. If the shift is to be made successfully, suggests the author, then faculty, the administrator, and the student will have to collaboratively explore and adapt suggestions such as those by Honeycutt and pay close attention to, and try to eliminate, the gap that divides them.     

THE STATE POSTSECONDARY REVIEW PROGRAM: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate began a series of hearings in 1990 that uncovered an alarming pattern of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Title IV federal student aid programs. To create a stronger and more coordinated evaluation of institutions desiring to participate in these programs, Congress enacted the new Program Integrity Triad, which significantly increases the gatekeep‐ing functions of each member of the triad and establishes a specific set of responsibilities for accrediting agencies, the states, and the Secretary of Education. Under this program, states are directed to set up agencies known as State Postsecondary Review Entities (SPRE) to assist the U.S. Department of Education in reviewing institutions of higher education referred by the Secretary to determine continued participation in federal financial aid programs. The diverse ways in which students use community colleges will make it difficult, at best, to apply the quantifiable standards for withdrawal, graduation, and placement rates established by the SPRE program. The result could have serious implications for community colleges and their continued participation in Title IV federal student aid programs.     

WOMEN FACULTY: SATISFACTION WITH EMPLOYMENT IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

To ascertain the satisfaction of women full‐time community college faculty with their employment in the community college, an open‐ended questionnaire was sent to over 100 women faculty in the Chicago City Colleges. Although the low response rate precludes much generalizability, the responses indicate that most women in the study found employment in the community college to be ideal for them. The employment enabled them to find professional fulfillment without the pressure to publish and with sufficient time for family responsibilities. Reservations about how “ideal” employment in the community college is for women stemmed from concerns about the institution's negative image. University researchers who decry teaching in the community college as marginalization of women as faculty are diminishing the achievements of the many women who find teaching in the community college to be ideal employment.     

PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS RELATED TO RETENTION AND EARLY DEPARTURE OF TWO-YEAR COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

The present study is based on the theoretical model of college retention developed by Tinto (1975, 1987, 1993) and subsequent validation efforts of others (Bers and Smith, 1991; Munro, 1981; Pascarella and Chapman, 1983a, b; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1983, 1991). The first goal of the study was to assess the validity of the model on a two-year community college sample. The second goal was to extend and further refine the model by examining the mediational influences of a comprehensive set of psychosocial measures (i.e., life events occurring during the first semester of college, social support, self-esteem, social competence, personal conscientiousness, psychological well-being, and satisfaction with the academic, administrative, and social systems of college) on the constructs within Tinto's (1987, 1993) model. Results confirm the generalizability of the model to two-year community college populations. In addition, the structural equations model revealed that the psychosocial measures have both direct and indirect effects on college persistence.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS' OPINIONS REGARDING THE VALUE OF THEIR FRESHMAN SEMINAR EXPERIENCE

Students enrolled in a community college freshman seminar course were interviewed to gather qualitative data on their opinions regarding the value of the course. Existing dissatisfaction among students, faculty, and administrators initiated this study . Data analysis revealed that randomly grouping students with wide - ranging levels of academic abilities and life experiences in a freshman seminar class had a number of drawbacks, as older adult learners differ greatly from younger student learners in aptitude, ability levels, maturity, and academic needs. The findings suggest that older adults need a different kind of freshman seminar course than the traditional first - year student, and that "gifted" older students might be used to provide "on - campus apprenticeships" for other first - year students.     

从地方发债权看预算法的修改

地方政府发债是国家公债制度的重要组成部分,允许地方政府根据本地区经济发展的要求以及地方财政收支状况,在规范管理的基础上适量发行公债,这是一种必然趋势,并且我国在各个方面已经具备了发行公债的现实可行性.所以修改预算法对地方发债权作出规制已经是势在必行.在修改预算法时必须明确地方公债在发行主体资格、债券期限、发行利率、发行方式、发行对象、可流通性、债务资金的投入方向上的选择,并对地方公债发行额度实施良好的总量控制和协调分配.     

THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: SHARED AUTHORITY IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

The department chair position is vital to the effective administration of both the academic unit and the entire college. Inherent in the roles and tasks of the individual position is a responsibility for consensus development, which in turn requires the involvement of faculty in decision-making activities. This consensual development dictates that faculty who are specialists in their particular academic disciplines be involved in decisions ranging from admissions and grading to institutional policy formation and cross-disciplinary curricula development. The current study was conducted to examine the perceptions of department chairs in the involvement of faculty in departmental decision-making.     

ECONOMIC LITERACY AND THE INTENTION TO ATTEND COLLEGE

In this paper, I empirically study the effect ofeconomic literacy at the high school level on students'intention to attend college. Using a multinomial logitmodel and the data from the National Assessment of Economic Education survey, I find that astudent's perception of the helpfulness of economics inthinking about getting more education positively affectsthe intention to attend college. Other factors found to be influential include ethnicbackground, academic ability, performance in highschool, parents' education, per capita personal incomein a student's county of residence, and tuition ofvocational/two-year colleges in the student's home state.     

HIDDEN CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY COLLEGE TEACHERS

This article explores faculty viewpoints, values, and behavior regarding faculty student interaction in and outside of the classroom.

The research is qualitative in nature, consisting of systematic observations of five effective community college faculty members interacting with students in the classroom, supplemented with open‐ended interviews of faculty.

The results of the study validate earlier research on effective college teaching and suggest additional “hidden characteristics” that help to explain why some professors are particularly effective. These characteristics are significant in that they have not been previously reported. Attention is shifted away from just looking at a teacher's command of the subject, organizational skills, and rapport with students. Characteristics such as charisma and altruism also come into consideration, bringing forth the concept of teacher as messiah.

For these faculty, teaching is more than an occupation; it's a dedication to leave the world a better place, an opportunity to make a difference in another's life, a chance to enhance one's own life.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY INVOLVEMENT IN INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE

The current study provided an investigation of 110 faculty who were very involved, moderately involved, and not involved in governance activities in community colleges. No differences were found between the three groups on characteristics of an ideal governance process or the roles faculty have in shared governance. Differences were found in responses to general perceptions toward faculty involvement in governance.     

对高校实验室开放的认识及思考

高校实验室应该是一个独立的开放的实验系统。作者对高校实验室的性质功能 ,开放的重要性 ,开放的条件 ,开放实验室的管理等有关问题进行了分析探讨 ,并提出了自己的若干见解