Turning a College Around Through Planning,Governance, and Finance

There was rapid growth of Alabama community colleges in the late 1960s. At the same time, there was rapid growth nationally of fire science associate degree programs. With these concurrent events, one would expect fire department personnel in Alabama to benefit from new community college opportunities in fire science and fire administration. Instead, participation in fire science degree programs has been disappointing. Almost 40 years later, most of the fire-related community college programs in Alabama have closed due to low enrollment, while the national trend for fire science programs indicates steady or growing enrollment elsewhere. This article looks at the 25-year period of 1977 to 2002. Reasons for the decline in Alabama fire-related community college programs are examined. During this period of decline, fire chiefs and leaders of the statewide fire associations failed to publicly embrace higher education. The inescapable conclusion is that the expected benefits to the people of Alabama resulting from significantly higher levels of professional training and education programs for Alabama fire fighters and officers have not been realized.