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Table of Contents: Community College Historians in the United States |
Introduction
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| America's community colleges have evolved far from their original roles as specialized extensions of high schools, confined to vocational training and courses to prepare students for transfer to four-year colleges and universities. There is no longer anything "junior" about the majority of U.S. two-year colleges. With more than half of America's undergraduate student enrollment, community colleges are now a cornerstone of undergraduate teaching and learning. (1) The missions and goals of two-year colleges are now multifaceted, serving the diverse needs of their local populations with increasingly sophisticated vocational training for the high-tech workplace, lifelong learning opportunities, and a multitude of specialized programs to directly and pervasively affect and improve the quality of life in their communities. On the eve of the twenty-first century, community colleges are equal and complementary partners in U.S. higher education.
The growing number of students receiving their undergraduate history education at two-year colleges has not been lost on the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH). As early as 1982 the AHA put two community college historians on the ballot for a position on their Teaching Division, thereby guaranteeing community college representation for the first time at a decisionmaking level.(2) In 1989 a community college historian was named to AHA's membership committee, and in 1992 the AHA conducted the first of several surveys of community college historians.(3) Seventy-five respondents focused on the need for the AHA to pay more attention to teaching. Most criticized the undervaluing of teaching within the historical profession and called on the AHA to use its resources for more publications and programs that addressed the needs of all teaching historians. Many respondents called for more attention to the special problems they faced in hiring as well as their heavy teaching loads. Others described a sense of isolation from the profession at large and asked that the AHA play a constructive role in helping community college faculty develop networks to lessen their professional isolation. One person asked the AHA to take the lead in establishing criteria for introductory courses. These same issues surfaced in 1993 when AHA Teaching Division member James Lorence (University of Wisconsin at Marathon County) distributed another survey. Of the eighty-three responses: • Forty-seven said "yes" to "I favor the AHA's development of a membership package designed to meet the instructional and professional needs of two-year faculty." • Thirty-three said "yes" to "I oppose the AHA's development of a membership package designed to meet the instructional and professional needs of two-year faculty." • Three had "no opinion." In the meantime at the OAH, President Lawrence Levine and Executive Director Arnita Jones met with community college faculty in December 1992 and April 1993 and identified the following concerns: • Historians in two-year colleges feel isolated from faculty colleagues in four-year institutions. • Community college historians need more opportunities, funding, and support for research and scholarly activities. • There is a lack of training in support of history teaching in graduate institutions, particularly as it relates to undergraduate and community college teaching. • There should be more involvement by organizations such as the OAH in recruitment, employment, and professional development opportunities on college campuses and in the profession at large. These same concerns were poignantly articulated in the December 1994 issue of the OAH's Council of Chairs Newsletter, which was devoted to community colleges. In her questionnaire Evelyn Edson (Piedmont Virginia Community College), who served on AHA's Nominating Committee (1992-94), asked two-year college faculty what they would like to tell their four-year college and university colleagues. Their responses revealed that many feel isolated, want interaction with their colleagues, and are eager to work together to strengthen the survey courses. Below is a summary of those responses: 1. Include us in the profession. Invite us to seminars and professional meetings. Put us on your mailing list. Often isolated in small departments, we need interaction with our professional colleagues and value the intellectual stimulation. 2. Help us facilitate the transfer process for our students, who too often have to repeat identical courses or deal with conflicting general education requirements....Let's get together and talk about what you expect from our graduates and transfers. 3. Take a good look at graduate education. Are your M.A.s and Ph.D.s ready to face a classroom occupied by a bewildering variety of ages, nationalities, and educational backgrounds? 4. Let's work together on the survey courses. How can we provide the most intellectually rigorous, the most current, and the most stimulating course for beginning history students, whether they go on to the major or leave college with this as their only exposure to college history? 5. Consider our papers for your conferences and journals and our applications for grants without prejudice. Academic snobbery deprives our profession of contributions that would enrich it. 6. And lastly, get to know your fellow historians at your neighborhood community college. We have much to learn from each other.(4) In the spring of 1994 the OAH established an ad hoc task force on two-year community colleges.(5) The seven members developed three goals: • Increase contact among community college historians and with their colleagues in four-year institutions and research universities. • Increase opportunities for community college historians to engage in research and scholarship by facilitating greater access to funding, and by persuading community college administrators and trustees of the important links between teaching and scholarship. • Maintain appropriate standards of professional practices within community colleges. In October 1994 the task force conducted a nationwide survey of community college historians. This report is the outgrowth of that survey, which was designed by Charles A. Zappia (San Diego Mesa College, currently a member and 1999 chair-designate of OAH's Committee on Teaching ), who interprets the results in his essay, "Improving History Teaching and the Status of the Community College Historian." The conclusions of this first comprehensive national survey convinced the task force and executive directors of the OAH and AHA, with the assistance of the Community College Humanities Association (CCHA), to jointly produce a publication focusing on issues of interest to community college faculty and to the historical profession at large. In "What Is a Community College: A Primer for Four-Year College and University Historians," David B. Mock (Tallahassee Community College) promotes greater understanding of two-year colleges. Constance M. Carroll (president of San Diego Mesa College) shares her views in "The Importance of Teaching History at a Community College: A President's Perspective." In the October 1994 issue of Perspectives, the newsletter of the AHA, James J. Lorence summarized a panel discussion with teaching faculty entitled "Teaching History at Two-Year Institutions: A Status Report and View of the Future," which has been revised for this publication. Evelyn Edson's revised 1994 OAH Newsletter contribution, "Historical Scholarship and the Community College Teacher," is also included, as is an updated submission from David S. Trask entitled, "The Survey Course: The Specialty of the Community College Historian." Trask (Guilford Technical College) is the first community college faculty elected to AHA's Council, and he completed his three-year term in 1998.(6) Judith Jeffrey Howard (National Endowment for the Humanities) reviews the impact of the NEH on historians and history in community colleges in "The National Endowment for the Humanities and Community College Historians: A Program Officer's Perspective." Two articles describe the community college job market: Nadine Ishitani Hata's "Perspectives on the Community College Job Market: What to Expect" and David A. Berry's "Community Colleges and Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty." Berry (Essex Community College) is executive director of CCHA. The bibliography of materials that are relevant to community colleges was compiled by George Stevens (Dutchess Community College), who previously served on OAH's Committee on Teaching as member (1992-96) and chair (1995-96). In the absence of a comprehensive listing of community college historians, the AHA, OAH, and CCHA have created a roster from their membership rolls and the respondents to Charles Zappia's survey. It is our hope that through this mechanism, community college historians will reach out to each other and that links will be forged among teachers of undergraduate courses at all levels. Notes 1. See Kent A. Phillippe, National Profile of Community Colleges: Trends and Statistics, 1997-98 (Washington, D.C.: -American Association of Community Colleges, 1997), 7. 2. The candidates were Nadine Ishitani Hata of El Camino College, who was elected, and Sherrin Wyntjes of Mount Ida Junior College. 3. Nadine Hata's 1992 AHA survey was distributed to members who identified themselves as two-year college historians, to community college historians who attended the 1991 AHA annual meeting, and to those historians who attended other historians' gatherings in California. The survey asked: (a) How might the AHA better serve your needs; (b) What should be the top priority for the AHA in regard to historians at two-year institutions; (c) Would you be willing to serve on a panel or participate in an annual meeting panel; (d) Are you a member of the AHA; and (e) Other comments. 4. Evelyn Edson, "An Introduction to the Newsletter," OAH Council of Chairs Newsletter (December 1994): 2. 5. Arnita A. Jones, "Annual Report of the Executive Secretary," OAH Newsletter (May 1994): 16. The task force members were Nadine Ishitani Hata, chair; Elizabeth Kessel (Anne Arundel Community College); Lawrence Levine (University of California at Berkeley); Myron Marty (Drake University); John McLeod (Miami-Dade Community College); George Stevens (Dutchess Community College); and Charles Zappia (San Diego Mesa College). In April 1997 the task force was replaced by a new standing committee, the Committee on Community Colleges, whose purpose is to continue the task force's activities, to help fully integrate community college historians into the OAH, and to address professional issues and concerns relating to historians in two-year colleges. 6. David Trask's replacement was Nadine Ishitani Hata, whose term will expire in 2001. |
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