Comments on Letting Leno Have It (Gently)

• Posted by Larry on September 29, 2005 at 7:35am EDT

• The big irony of this is that people look down upon community colleges, and I know very few professors that would let their kids attend one. Sure they say that they “would” but, in reality, they don’t. Other peoples’ kids can go.

  Naturally community college administrators can choose to undertake a PR stunt, but maybe a better thing would be to show a near 100% acceptance rate into “prestigious” schools and spectacular academic records of their graduates – including professors.

  Or they can go on a road trip.

• Posted by Cal on September 29, 2005 at 9:02am EDT

• Who cares where professor's children go to school? That is as anecdotal and myopia-ridden as you can get. Millions of Americans have had their horizons broadened and have gained entry into prestigious academic halls through this route. Dr. Young would do well to compile and publish a list of outstanding achievers among community college graduates.

  Have a happy day!

• Posted by Alan on September 29, 2005 at 9:14am EDT

• Larry said...

  >>Naturally community college administrators can choose to undertake a PR stunt, but maybe a better thing would be to show a near 100% acceptance rate into “prestigious” schools and spectacular academic records of their graduates – including professors.

  That has been done, is being done, and will continue to be done. It is the PR stunt (as you refer to it) that gets the media's attention to those numbers... otherwise they are largely ignored. Right or wrong, this is often what has to be done in today's media world to get the word out.

• Community Colleges
• Posted by Russell Kitchner on September 29, 2005 at 9:24am EDT

• Regrettably, this discussion thread will likely reflect the general lack of awareness regarding the historical mission of community colleges, which are a distinctively American institution. While many of their former students and graduates successfully, and often with distinction, move on in pursuit of more advanced degrees, many others distinguish themselves by being better prepared to serve the needs of their families and communities. In essence, this was the vision of William Rainey Harper in proposing the original concept. Perhaps no other form of higher education has contributed more to the well-being of individuals and society than our Nation's community colleges, and they typically do so without fanfare. That said, humility has its place, and occasionally it is well to come out from behind the curtain and take a bow. Ms. Young's efforts are both noteworthy and appropriate in this regard.

• Posted by Jeff on September 29, 2005 at 9:24am EDT

• With all due respect, Larry, what "people" are you talking about? Only 28% of American adults have a bachelor's degree. For millions of people, community colleges represent an important steppingstone, not only to four-year colleges, but also directly into careers in nursing and healthcare, the technology industries and other vital fields.

• Posted by James on September 29, 2005 at 1:37pm EDT

• Larry wrote,
  “The big irony of this is that people look down upon community colleges, and I know very few professors that would let their kids attend one. Sure they say that they “would” but, in reality, they don’t. Other peoples’ kids can go.”

  I attended a community college, as did my oldest and youngest children. I taught at a community college while in graduate school. I taught the same classes at the community college that I taught at the university I attended. I had no teaching experience when I started teaching at the university. I had several years teaching experience when I started teaching at the community college. This, and my experiences with community college transfers convinces me that community college students get, at least, as good an education as they get at universities.

  Community colleges are the best educational bargain in the nation. The only thing they lack is snob appeal. Many of us can live without that.

• Posted by Larry on September 29, 2005 at 1:41pm EDT

• Okay, I really don’t want to sound like I am trolling, but here goes.

  Contrary to the best wishes of many of us, the USA is still quite an elitist country. By and large, people who succeed have college degrees, and most of them have advanced degrees. Having an advanced degree from a “good” school is usually required to make it into certain areas of “greatness.” (I sort of disagree with the last part, but my classmates think I am a Marxist.)

  As some posters note, community colleges might have more modest goals: providing some amount of education to people that might otherwise not be able to get a any education, or by helping people “contribute” to “communities” (two words that can mean just about anything.) But, this isn’t what most academics and, quite frankly, most Americans consider valuable. They consider objective success, degrees, and money to be valuable. They look at “elites” and wonder why it is that community colleges, while providing credits that are technically transferrable are filled with people that couldn’t make the cut.

  Sure, community colleges might do good things. But, that doesn’t mean that the students are just as good as students in real schools and students that will go on to do great things, themselves. Instead, it means that community colleges need to accept the fact that they are admitting students that couldn’t get in to 4-year institutions.

  (By the same token, I think that the “general studies” programs at various schools, e.g., NYU’s GSP, and BU’s College of General Studies need to come to grips with the fact that they are admitting people that couldn’t make the cut, and exist solely to increase cash flow without lowering overall test scores.)

• Posted by Dm Scott , former community college instructor on September 29, 2005 at 3:54pm EDT

• The sad truth is that community colleges in California have descended from the mission assigned to them by the Master Plan for Higher Education -- to give a lower-division that is better than than offered in a huge university more focused on graduate students. When I went to a California Community College in the early 1960's, I received an education: That is, I was "led out", into the world of scholars and academia, through excellent classes in philosophy, history, literature and the like.

  By the time I became an instructor in a community college, the schools had become vocational training centers and bragged about it. The event that got the highest praise on our campus was the establishment of an auto shop program funded by Toyota. Academics got little attention.

  The original concept of Community Colleges was a fine one. The current idea, that they become vocational training institutions for students who often have trouble reading or writing is unfortunately a reflection of our dumbed-down, neocon, culture, run by a military-industrial complex that fears smart people and uses every means -- from the debasement of education into training to politically-correct, gender based hiring and promotion to make sure that intellectual leadership is not developed.

  Sad state of affairs, and in this sense, Leno is correct.

• Real Schools?
• Posted by Dan Mitchell , professor at De Anza College on September 29, 2005 at 4:00pm EDT

• Larry wrote:

  "But, that doesn’t mean that the students are just as good as students in real schools and students that will go on to do great things, themselves. Instead, it means that community colleges need to accept the fact that they are admitting students that couldn’t get in to 4-year institutions."

  "Real schools?" Yes, Larry, I do regard that as trolling.

  Community colleges are real schools and they provide real opportunities for real learning to real students.

  Community colleges are not better or worse than four year colleges and universities. They are different in some ways. Certainly, one community college role is to provide education/training to those who need it for their jobs. Another is to provide occupational/vocational programs. A third is to provide lower-division transfer programs.

  I'll stick to the latter for now. The college at which I teach (De Anza College - http://www.deanza.edu/) has conducted studies tracking students who transfer to four-year institutions in our state. These studies have demonstrated that our graduates who are accepted into, for example, UC-Berkeley, the UC system, or CUS campuses do as well or slightly better than "native" students who did their lower division work on those campuses.

  I'm sure you can think of some reasons why this might be the case. One is that we put all of our efforts into lower division education. Our classes are taught b qualified faculty members whose focus is teaching and teaching alone. In general, our lower division course sections are smaller.

  By the way, we do "accept the fact that [we] are admitting students that couldn’t get in to 4-year institutions." In some cases this is the case for academic reasons. But in many more cases it is because our students cannot afford to go away to college, or because they come from families that do not have a tradition of college attendance, or because job family responsibilites prevent them from moving away, or a multitude of other reasons unrelated to academic capacity.

  There is much more that one could say, but let me simply suggest that you take the time to learn the facts about community colleges and their role in American education.

  Dan Mitchell

• Posted by Larry on September 29, 2005 at 4:43pm EDT

• I am glad to see that Mr. Scott has offered an explanation as to why community colleges are treated the way they are. Indeed, even though I never thought about it the way he did, I find myself being persuaded by him (minus the rhetoric about the “neo-conservatives”), as it ties together a lot of the grips I have about academe.

  As to what Professor Mitchell says, he seems to be taken aback – and condemn as “trolling” – any explanation for what Mr. Leno says, and Mr. Scott alludes to. Besides people that are proponents of the current state of community colleges, Mr. Scott, most people do not regard community colleges are “real schools.” They are viewed as dumping grounds or a way for kids that go to real school to get credits that require less effort. Whether or not this view is justified is another question, but the perception exists, and most “elites” will not send their kids to these places.

  As much as it pains me to say it, “elites” are people that matter, and most people want to be “elite.”

  I appreciate your passionate defense of your employer. I am sure that they are glad you are doing this. But, to that end “facts” about community colleges are whatever you want (or I) want them to be, because they will be colored by our political perceptions. “Tracking” of students is notoriously unreliable. As to their “role” in American education, it seems that Mr. Scott has provided me with a cynical idea of what that role is.

• Com-Colleges: Opportunity for Non-Traditional Students
• Posted by Astrid , Ph.D. Candidate at SUNY Albany on September 29, 2005 at 4:43pm EDT

• Community Colleges are a truly American and great invention because they give non-traditional students like me, the chance to change careers in later life. Larry might not be aware of this fact but Com-Colleges have a high rate of non-traditional students and many of those, are women with and without children who, would otherwise not have the opportunity to work on their education. That's exactly why I started at a Com-College. It allowed me to figure out what I wanted to do and I was able to adjust my course load with the increasing ability of my language knowledge (English is not my first language). Presently, I am working on my dissertation and I owe a lot to my professors at the Com-College. Only ignorance and false presumptions about Com-College Students can lead to comments like Leno's and Larry's. I know, that for many women Com-Colleges provide an excellent second start that a four-year college would never provide.

• Posted by Larry on September 30, 2005 at 10:36am EDT

• Astrid, I think this is the first time that I have been referred to in the same sentence as Mr. Leno. While I am happy that you are finding your way, America doesn’t really value a prolonged period of self-discovery. People that take off too much time are considered suspect and irresponsible. Americans are expected to go to college in their teens. Is there an intrinsic good in being a “non-traditional” student? Perhaps there is a reason that they are not valued by “real” schools. Perhaps a perceived lack of responsibility on the part of these people (such as having kids early) indicates to many that they are not really fit to handle academics.

• A mix of classes
• Posted by Blake on September 30, 2005 at 3:13pm EDT

• My son will be graduating soon from a state university, but about half of the class credits have been earned at a two year community college. Here in Springfield, Missouri there is a close coordination of MSU and OTC, many classes are transferrable, and having a choice of two campuses makes scheduling somewhat easier. State programs like A-Plus that allow high school students to get both college and high school credits for some classes, and also to earn scholarship credits for use at a two year college make it inevitable that the two-year school grows in influence. My personal experience was a state college all the way so I am biased that way, and time will tell what the effect on my Son's resume is. I am happy with the education he has gotten at both campuses.

• Expactations of Americans
• Posted by Asa Bradley , Instructor on October 2, 2005 at 6:01am EDT

• Larry,

  I'm not sure who the people that are part of this "elite" that you speak of are, but I know for sure that success in America is measured in how much money you make and how famous you are. If you look at many of the people we consider successfull in America today, Bill Gates comes to mind, many of them do not have degrees from "elite" schools.

  I'm also surprised that you seem to think that "America doesn’t really value a prolonged period of self-discovery." In my experience, America allows a much longer period of self discovery for their students than most other developed nations. In most European countries, you are supposed to know what your major in college is going to be at the age of 15 and then your studies are concentrated to only subjects relevant to that major. Even when you get to university, you do not take any of the general education courses that are part of the under graduate degree requirements here.

  I think that you should also look at how many community college students transfer to 4 year institutions rather than stopping after 2 years. You may be right in your opinions of how the public views our 2 year institutions, but isn't it our role as educators to change that view and correct it to what is currently happening?

• Posted by Larry on October 2, 2005 at 11:41am EDT

• Asa,

  I am unsure what “expactations” are, and what they mean in the community college context. While Bill Gates may not have a degree from an “elite” school he hardly was born into a humble background (his father is the “Gates” of Preston, Gates, and Ellis), it is doubtful his parents would have let him go to the community colleges of this day.

  While it is true that Americans are allowed to “find themselves” in a longer period of time than Europeans might, most people are considered slackers if they don't have their act together by 25. If they have a kid they are generally considered to be irresponsible (but there are exceptions.) Once when turns 30 or so, they are a “non-traditional” student and a lot of doors close. Granted, we pretend that they are kept open, but not too many graduate programs want to recruit a class of 30-year-olds. (Again, there are exceptions for, perhaps, MBAs). Sure we pretend that they are more “mature,” but when it comes down to it, non-traditional students are mocked behind closed doors.

  I would be interested in seeing real statistics about transfer rates to 4-year institutions. However, I know that they are the kind of statistics that institutions will cook.

  Finally, I think that community colleges should, as the above poster alluded to, should be more serious about liberal arts. A community college should teach challenging liberal arts course (with a real chance of the student getting an F for not doing the work – which would be more challenging than most 4-year programs), that so that, if they are good for anything, they can provide the country with at least some intellectual leadership rather than 1) vocationally-trained high-school dropouts; or 2) people that bluffed their way through classes.

• Posted by William Dash on October 8, 2005 at 8:17pm EDT

• A local community college gave me the opportunity to look beyond myself and create a plan for my life. A few of the professors there had PhDs, most only had Master's degrees, yet the quality of teaching was up par with that at the three elite colleges I went on to attend (granted, I only took first and second-year courses). What I most appreciate was the fact that my CC professors took an interest in me and did so in a way my professors at the elite schools rarely did.

  Anyhow, as I head out in to the Academy myself (teaching at an elite New England university) I will not forget the role that a community college played in my life.

• Community College
• Posted by Myra Gonzales , professor/counselor at San Diego Mesa College on October 13, 2005 at 7:55pm EDT

• Larry, you are a piece of work. For you to say what you did about non-traditional students is ludicrious. I teach at a community college in California and also taught at a PAC-10 school. The older student in college is a more engaged student. They want to learn and are not only interested in what will be on the test. They bring their life experiences to the table which usually brings depth to classroom discussions. They don't "brown nose" for the good grades, but work very hard in class, while usually raising a family and working. You need to get pass your stereotypes you have.