Community College Leadership and Management

Community College Leadership and Management places emphasis on reframing college practices in order to advance student success. This calls for leaders to be well versed on promising strategies which have illustrated evidence in advancing academic success. Such practices include intrusive academic advising, exit interviews with dropouts and graduates, and the use of technology to supplement face-to-face academic counselor advising. These leaders are aware of and welcome the challenges and opportunities a changing student population presents to community colleges. The authors critically analyze and call for a deconstruction of conventional practices and the construction of new approaches to understand how student success is envisioned. For example, a redefinition of what constitutes student success is advanced. A redefinition of student success—as the attainment of an academic, vocational, career, or personal goal—is put forth. This broader perception, definition, and meaning of student success is not limited to or constrained by an accountability paradigm. It is driven by the need to capture a more complete picture of the trajectory of contemporary and traditional enrollees from increasingly diverse backgrounds: students whose goals do not fit solely and neatly into two traditionally dominant outcomes like graduation and transfer. It is the role of community college leaders to affirm, inculcate, and communicate this more nuanced definition, allowing it to guide the vision and mission, programs, policies, and practices of the institution. Carlos Nevarez and Luke J. Wood support their arguments through various models, frameworks, research findings, case studies, and presentation of self-reflective questions aimed at advancing reflective community college scholar-practitioners.

Carlos Nevarez, Ph.D. is Chair of Graduate & Professional Studies in Education and Professor of the Doctorate in Educational Leadership at California State University, Sacramento. Recently, Nevarez served as the Executive Editor for the Journal of Transformative Leadership & Policy Studies. Nevarez is passionate about studying institutional change and the role leaders’ play in advancing student success. His productivity with this line of scholarship has afforded him opportunities to regularly share his research with a regional, state, national, and international audience.

J. Luke Wood, Ph.D. is Associate Vice President for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion and Distinguished Professor of Education at San Diego State University (SDSU). Formerly, Wood served as the Ed.D. Program Director in Community College Leadership at SDSU. Wood also serves as the Co-Director of the Community College Equity Assessment Lab (CCEAL), a national research and practice center that partners with community colleges to support their capacity in advancing outcomes for underserved students of color.