What Happened to Re-Visioning Community College Leadership? A 25-Year Retrospective

Abstract

This research sought to determine if the gendered discourse on community college leadership has changed since Amey and Twombly published their analysis of community college literature in 1992. Argument: More women now lead 2-year colleges than ever before, and conceptions of leadership have evolved over time; but has the language used to discuss gender and leadership in leading community college journals changed as well? This research entailed a discourse analysis of 148 journal articles published between 1990 and 2015 to identify gendered language in literature focusing on community college leadership. The language used in the scholarly examination of leadership is a reflection of the ground realities of the community college setting and provides insight into the persisting gendered constructions of leadership at 2-year colleges. Conclusion: Four main findings emerged from this research. First, masculine-normed leadership approaches remain unquestioned in the literature. Second, participatory leadership rhetoric emerged as a trend at the turn of the century. Third, women do the bulk of the writing about women leaders. Finally, ideal worker norms still prevail. The roots of authoritative leadership retain a strong hold in community colleges and intentional actions are required to achieve real change in constructions of leadership.

Unveiling Latina Community College Leadership Pathways Through Testimonio

“…Both women allude to gendered (Eddy & Cox, ; Eddy & Khwaja, ) and Eurocentric organizations whose underlying practices implicitly promote white masculine leadership norms, norms which usually advance a leadership prototype devoid of meaningful family, community, and cultural responsibilities. Removing an androcentric lens reveals components of Latina leadership—values‐based, democratic, and community‐oriented—characteristics necessary to support the success of an increasingly diverse community college student demographic.…”

“…Feminist scholars have critiqued the masculine‐normed discourse in community college organizational culture impeding the development of new leadership necessary to meet the needs of the “people's colleges” (Dicroce, ; Eddy & Khwaja, ; Townsend & Twombly, ; Twombly, ). For Latinas, a masculinized culture is compounded with a predominantly white organizational culture further masking implicit leadership norms and prototypes that typically minimize and marginalize Latinas ways of leading (Eddy, ; Nevarez & Wood, ).…”

Community College Presidential Leadership: How Presidents Think and Act to Support the Holistic Needs of Their Students

“…This model, Multidimensional Leadership, is one of the few frameworks solely constructed on community college presidential leadership (e.g., Eddy, 2003, 2005; Eddy & Garza Mitchell, 2017). Eddy’s model is grounded on core principles that challenge traditional leadership theories in community colleges and acknowledges the complexity of contemporary colleges and the “constant need to deal with chaos and change” (Eddy & Khwaja, 2019, p. 56). Multidimensional Leadership also recognizes that leadership is ever-evolving and that there is no one-size-fits-all model (Eddy, 2010).…”

President Joko Widodo's Leadership Style Model in Controlling Covid-19

“…The roots of authoritarian leadership are entrenched in community colleges, and purposeful action is required to effect lasting change in leadership development (Eddy & Khwaja, 2019). In authoritarian regimes, bureaucratic control is founded on centralized power in general and the provision of deliberate friction to obstruct autonomous action (Chan & Fan, 2020).…”