Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / American Assn of Community Colleges
Pages: 370
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-4758-1102-5 • Hardback • November 2014 • $150.00 • (£115.00)
978-1-4758-1103-2 • Paperback • November 2014 • $75.00 • (£58.00)
978-1-4758-1104-9 • eBook • November 2014 • $71.00 • (£55.00)
Gail Mellow, the president of LaGuardia Community College in metropolitan New York, is a long time advocate for community colleges. A national speaker and writer, her focus is to create equity for community colleges for their vital role educating students for a global economy and spurring economic development for the communities they serve.
Cynthia Heelan, Ph.D., is retired president of Colorado Mountain College and an educational consultant. She is a national facilitator and Distinguished Advocate for the Center for Renewal and Wholeness in Higher Education (www.richlandcollege.edu/crwhe/) She is the author of the Heart at Work: Stories About Speaking From the Heart at Work, and co-author, with Dr. Gail Mellow, of Minding the Dream: Process and Practice or the American Community College. After a long and distinguished career in higher education, she assists educational organizations in leading and planning in ways that engage the entire institution’s heart and voice. She is a board member and board chair emeritus for Battery Dance Company of New York City. Dr. Heelan holds a Ph.D. in policy analysis and administration and a Masters Degree in Adult Education from the University of Minnesota. She was an Archibald Bush Foundation Fellow in the College Management Program at Carnegie Mellon U.
Acknowledgements
Foreword
CHAPTER 1: An Overview of the American Community College
CHAPTER 2: Community Colleges: Private Benefit or Public Good?
CHAPTER 3: Financing Community College
CHAPTER 4: Measuring Community College Effectiveness
CHAPTER 5: Governance
CHAPTER 6: A Changed Pedagogy
CHAPTER 7: Leadership Guide to the Dream
CHAPTER 8: Global Adaptations: International Implications of the American Community College Model
CHAPTER 9: Developmental Studies
CHAPTER 10: The Transfer Experience
CHAPTER 11: Economic And Workforce Development
CHAPTER 12: English as a Second Language
CHAPTER 13: Programmatic Challenges of Diverse Demographics
Summary: Minding the Dream
References
This book reflects the potential of the community college as the institution to make a reality of the American Dream. The ambitious goal of the authors is to give an overview of what is happening, why it is happening, and what should be happening on the more than 1,167 campuses of community colleges throughout the US. Although the book does not represent an official view of the American Association of Community Colleges, the AACC was a partner in its publication and authors Mellow and Heelan are long-time insiders in the American community college movement. Mellow and Heelan make excellent use of their knowledge of and familiarity with relevant data and analyses to examine the very broad range of processes and programs in existence at community colleges. The processes include financing community college, measuring effectiveness, governing, developing leadership, and teaching/learning. The programs include developmental/basic skills studies, the transfer experience, economic and workforce development, and English as a second language. The inclusion of recommendations, challenges, and questions for discussion will be of value to teachers and students. The inclusion of a chapter titled 'Global Adaptations' adds value as a text for future community college professionals. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and practitioners.
— Choice
The community college is changing so rapidly its record and its challenges are in constant need of updating. No one is better prepared for that update than Gail Mellow and Cynthia Heelan, two seasoned and substantive leaders from the trenches who are also respected scholars. Their seminal book on Minding the Dream has been the best new book written on the community college in this century; the second edition is even better and will stand as the go to source on community colleges for decades to come.
— Terry U. O'Banion Ph.D, President Emeritus, League for Innovation in the Community College, and Senior Professor of Practice, Kansas State University
The authors of Minding the Dream, are practitioners and insiders in the world of community colleges who are passionate about the community college as a movement for social justice. Mellow and Heelan both honor community college successes and fearlessly confront our challenges to future success. They challenge us using data generated by colleagues in the field, and they offer solutions that are tried and proven effective by current research. This book is a must read for current and new leaders in our field, and for those who care about the future of community colleges.
— Walter G Bumphus, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges
The authors of this volume, Dr. Gail Mellow and Dr. Cynthia Heelan, are two of the nation’s most respected community college leaders. This, the second edition of their seminal text, Minding the Dream: Process and Practice in the American Community College, marks the current state of the community college movement and provides a deliberate and data-based plan for progress. They provide a careful path forward, mindful of the pitfalls inherent in closing the gap between the American promise and the disappointing present-day limits on college opportunity.
— Anthony P. Carnevale, research professor and director, Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University