This chapter addresses the critical need for leadership development, the current options, and recommended solutions for meeting the training needs of a new generation of community college leaders.
Professional development as a movement in the community college began in the early 1970s. No singular event heralded the start of the movement; it simply developed out of the rapid growth that community colleges were experiencing at the time. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a perspective on the need for faculty and staff development, some of the early struggles, its present status, and some challenges for the future.
Need for Faculty and Staff DevelopmentAccording to O'Banion (1981), professional development began to grow in response to the realization that the rapid growth of new community colleges in the 1960s and early 1970s was waning and that people, rather than buildings, programs, and organizational structures, needed attention. More specifically, a number of factors precipitated the need. Among those that Hammons, Wallace, and Watts (1978) identified were the need for increased effectiveness and efficiency due to competition for limited tax dollars and beginning public demands for accountability; the acknowledgment that the future success of the community college depended on the ability of its personnel to adapt to a constantly changing environment; the development of a technology of instruction with potential for improved instruction unknown to most faculty; an awareness among faculty that they were becoming unable to cope with the needs of the increasing percentages of "high-risk" students enrolling in community colleges; a recognition among leaders that change was imperative and that they needed to become skilled in planning, implementing, and evaluating change; the increasing influence
A longitudinal pilot study investigating the cumulative effects of reality therapy counseling and individualized instruction on the control expectancy and success rates of high-risk community college students was conducted. Findings support the tentative hypotheses that control expectancy, achievement, and holding power can be modified by instruction and counseling. The study was conducted over a three-year period at a community college in southeastern North Carolina.
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