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

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore how public community college presidents draw upon data, their core values, and lived experiences to make decisions about how they can best respond to the holistic needs of their students. Method: Utilizing secondary elite focus group data with 15 community college presidents in Texas, we employed a general qualitative approach to analyze the data through a conceptual framework that integrates community college leadership and holistic student development theory. Results: Our findings revealed that community college presidents make decisions primarily through select data sources such as external survey organizations and their own core belief systems. Although community college presidents agreed on the most pressing day-to-day issues affecting community college students today, the way in which they framed their decisions and perceptions varied across individuals and institutional contexts. As such, common strategies for addressing holistic student support are presented in this study. Contributions: The residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to impact community colleges in the short and long term. As a result, community college presidents are pressed to develop leadership competencies to enhance their decision-making process. This study offers timely implications closely tied to community college leadership and student development theory to inform how community college leaders can enact relevant, data-driven policies, and practices to support their students holistically.

Exploring How Community College Presidents Make Human Resources Decisions for Financial Aid Departments in an Era of Uncertainty

Community college presidents play a critical role in making decisions that shape the organizational cultures and policies of their institutions. This study explored the perceptions of 15 public community college presidents in Texas. Using focus groups and grounded theory methods, this research applied analytical frameworks focused on human resources in education to examine how community college presidents make decisions about financial aid departments. In doing so, this study also shares mechanisms that community college presidents use to encourage professional development for financial aid staff. Findings show that the decision-making process of community college presidents is highly influenced by the “culture of compliance” that many financial aid departments experience as a result of state and federal regulations. The findings also highlight the need for presidents to engage in relationship building within and outside of the institution to encourage professional development opportunities for staff. Implications for higher education practice are offered.

Leading at the crossroads: Understanding how identity influences presidential communication for Black community college presidents

Research on leadership is historically biased, with little consideration for different experiences of leaders of color. In this study, we applied the integrated race and leadership framework (Ospina Foldy, 2009) and utilized a case study approach focused on the context of institutional communication to analyze the experiences of six Black community college presidents. The study was guided by the overarching question of how racial identity guided what and how presidents communicated. Our findings indicate that these presidents of color viewed their communication through a social justice lens, while also recognizing their responsibility to the institution. Five themes were identified that highlight the strategies and approaches these presidents take when communicating to their campus, including: 1) a consciousness of who is listening, 2) a sense of racial battle fatigue, 3) a focus on local impact, 4) connection and support from the community, and 5) the skill of racial and social adaptation.

The Community College Presidency

The breadth of issues faced by community college presidents today cannot be overstated. While the importance of the position has remained since the creation of community colleges, the roles they play, types of challenges they face, and how they influence and lead their institutions have changed throughout the decades. The roles of presidents today can be examined under four categories: financial officer, community representative, political representative, and academic officer. Through each of these lenses, this chapter explores how presidents lead their institutions under these roles, the responsibility of each role, and the challenges facing contemporary and future community college presidents.

Internal Conflict: Community College Presidents and Developmental Education

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the perceptions of community college presidents re- garding developmental education. A mixed method sampling technique combining convenience and purpose- ful sampling was used to identify five presidents in North Carolina and three presidents in Virginia to participate in the study. Results of the study could prove significant for community college leaders in terms of supporting academically underprepared students from the president’s perspective and understanding methods to improve developmental education. The primary source of data was from semi-structured interviews lasting approxi- mately one hour conducted with each president.