Entrepreneurial Community College Presidents: An exploratory qualitative and quantitative study

This study examined the entrepreneurial, nontraditional fundraising behaviors and activities of 23 community college presidents using interview and survey data. The institutional characteristics that facilitate entrepreneurial action and how presidents are raising these new revenues were explored. “Best practices” and implications for future research and practice are provided. The results of this analysis revealed meaningful information that is beneficial for community college presidents seeking to transform their colleges through entrepreneurial leadership. These findings indicate entrepreneurial presidents do exist and their practices can be identified. The findings also indicate that presidents' engagement in certain specific entrepreneurial practices do result in increased nontraditional funding secured. A summary of these key findings may be used as a guide for current and future community college leaders who desire to become more entrepreneurial.     

Trends in global communication policy‐making: Lessons from the Asian case∗

This paper surveys current trends in the restructuring of global communications since publication of the MacBride Commission Report on NWICO. Focusing on a specific region, Asia, the analysis addresses implications of the shift in communication policy from the dominant, twentieth century democratic conception of the ‘public’ as a community of free citizens, to a more archaic conception of the ‘public’ as individual consumers in a laissez‐faire’ market. The paper inquires into evidence of this policy shift in the Asian context as well as into the contemporary relevance of concerns expressed by NWICO advocates. Based on a substantive examination of recent literature, it is argued that since communication is a precondition to development, access to and control over the means and processes of communication are properly questions of great social importance. The paper further argues that current Asian trends converting communication into a commodity run counter to the possibilities for rational and autonomous public communication necessary to the practice of liberal democracy. A headlong rush to a global economic market as the definer of communication processes has forced governments to share power with national and multi‐national private commercial interests, thereby radically altering the very structure of institutions shaping communication policy and practice. Consequences of this restructuring have been to virtually eliminate any influential national or global setting where these issues may be debated and addressed.     

Library Experience Matters! Touchpoints to Community Engagement

ABSTRACT

This article explores the concept of service branding in the context of libraries and information organizations. We discuss community perceptions of library brand value from the librarian's perspectives in the context of public and academic libraries. Librarians’ thoughts and viewpoints in improving the community's library experience are also discussed. The findings highlight the importance of improving the library's visibility, creating appealing ambience, and developing a strategic branding plan in order to provide robust, compelling, and meaningful experiences for their community.     

The Information Age

A FEW GOOD MEN FROM UNIVAC by David E. Lundstrom (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987—$19.95)

DYNAMICS OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT: CONCEPTS AND ISSUES edited by Indu B. Singh and Vic M. Mishra (Norwood, N j: Ablex Publishing, 1987—$37.50)

HIGH-TECH SOCIETY: THE STORY OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION by Tom Forester (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987—$19.95)

THE IDEOLOGY OF THE INFORMATION AGE edited by Jennifer Daryl Slack and Fred Fejes (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1987—$37.50)

INNOVATION IN ELECTRONIC MAIL by Peter Vervest (Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Science/North Holland, 1987—$61.00)     

Further Attempts to Balance Liberal Virtues with Claims for Cultural Identity within Traditional Non-liberal Communities. A reply to Neil Burtonwood

In a recent paper, Neil Burtonwood (Educational Studies, 24(3), pp. 295–304, 1998) argued that 'recent attempts to balance the claims for political citizenship in a liberal democracy (liberalism) with the claims of cultural identity within traditional non-liberal communities...' (p. 295) are bound to fail; because 'liberalism cannot be neutral between ... cultures that value individual autonomy and those that do not', any 'attempts at reconciling' those two perspectives 'are bound to fail' (p. 303). His claim is that whatever position we begin from, there are real difficulties in achieving a reconciliation between the two perspectives, which he sees as exclusive. He refers to my papers (Singh, Educational Review, 47(1), pp. 11-24, 1995; Educational Studies, 23(2), pp. 169-184, 1997) where discussion method has been suggested as a means of reconciling the two positions. I still favour this method. This paper agrees with Burtonwood that liberalism is non-neutral in relation to liberal virtues such as equality and respect for persons, and no groups including liberal ones, should be privileged with respect to non-interference from the state. Although the paper acknowledges the value of 'Popperian critical method', it sees this method as very limited in respect of settling conflicts arising from comprehensive or world-views. Liberals and liberal societies have long realised this and have made attempts to accommodate cultural practices of traditional groups. Although the two positions exclude each other at a deep level, at a more mundane, every-day level, they share much that is common to both, which makes intercultural understandings possible. Education must capitalise on this and take us beyond a single framework. The difficulty is, of course, what do we do and how can we assess the situation, when frameworks themselves clash? The paper argues for dialogue, tolerance and accommodation within limits, set by respect for persons. This is not to ask liberalism to give up what is foundational to liberalism, as Burtonwood suggests, but to reinforce liberalism itself, as we show below.