What Happened to Revisioning Community College Leadership? A 20-Year Retrospective

• In Event: Gender Issues in Community College Settings

Abstract

Description: It has been 20 years since Amey and Twombly (1992) published their discourse analysis of community college leadership literature. Like other types of institutions of higher education, community colleges have historically had more white men as leaders (Twombly, 2000). Over the past generation, gender demographics in community colleges have changed. Women now constitute a third of all community college presidents (ACE, 2012). DiCroce (1995) had envisioned a scenario in the 21st century where “women’s leadership style” would become “the new leadership style” in the context of community college leadership (p. 88). Yet, Eddy and Cox (2008) discovered that even with more women as community college presidents, community colleges remained gendered organizations. The research presented for this session consists of a meta-analysis of community college leadership literature since 1990. Allan’s (2003, 2008) conception of discourse analysis provides the framework for the analysis of the literature. This study explores how community college literature is legitimating and producing the reality of community college leadership.

Background. Pamela Eddy’s research focuses on faculty work, leadership, and organizational systems. Eddy authored Community college leadership: A multidimensional model (2010) that focused attention gender. Tehmina Khwaja is a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a Ph.D. in Higher Education.

Authors

• Pamela L. Eddy, College of William and Mary

• Tehmina Khwaja, College of William and Mary