Maricopa Continued

Paul Elsner reviews the "lessons learned" while transitioning the ten Maricopa Community Colleges to learning colleges. He summarizes in this way:

• First,we have learned that collaboration and cross-functional team processes require incredible amounts of support.
• Second, we have learned that the CEO plays an important role in creating a learner-centered institution.
• Third, we have learned that it is critically important to involve students in the change processes.
• Fourth, we have learned that it is also critical to involve faculty at every step of the long process.
• Finally, we have learned that Maricopa must rely on both internal resources and external consultants to assist with creating a new learning-centered system. (pp. 186 - 187)

He also says, "Once in a while, there are periods in the development of an institution that can be called the 'defining years.' ... Higher education, including community colleges, has been in a fixed place for too long. Institutions of higher education must be shaken out of their comfortable roles if they are to deal with the changes other social institutions are facing" (p. 185).

Have you ever been involved in an institution during its "defining years?" What was the experience like? What were the lessons learned?

Maricopa Community College

Although it was relatively successful, the Maricopa Community College District undertook conversations to become more learner centered to better position itself for the future. The staff and stakeholders decided not to use "old" and "new," but instead "traditional" and "desired" to describe the transition. Key elements of Maricopa's shift are outlined below:

• First, learning is a process which is lifelong for everybody and should be measured in a consistent, ongoing manner focused on improvement.
• Second, everyone is an active learner and teacher through collaboration, shared responsibility and mutual respect.
• Third, the learning process includes the larger community through the development of alliances, relationships and opportunities for mutual benefit.
• Fourth, learning occurs in a flexible and appropriate environment. (pp. 173 - 174)

These elements were developed through roundtables and framed all future decisions. In what way have you, or have you not, experienced any of the elements above? It could be as a student, a teacher, or any other type of stakeholder.

Lane Community College

Jerry Moskus notes that Lane Community College's transition to a learning college is just that: a transition. The process moves slowly in some ways, quickly in others. It doesn't happen all at once. For example, while faculty were highly involved with the school's redesign, some obstacles remain, including tensions with the union over managerial roles. In addition, departments remain firmly entrenched and cross-department "clusters" never really caught on.

One area of collaboration, however, is the college's Fast Forward Program, "... a learning community in which a cohort of students pursues a multicultural/interdisciplinary series of courses leading to the Oregon Transfer Degree" (p. 160). While I've heard of such programs at four-year colleges and universities, I think the idea of cohorts in a community college could greatly increase retention.

Moskus sums up Lane's transition this way: "While 'grand plans' have totally transformed some community colleges, the culture of Lane Community college is averse to such systematic, top-down schemes. The best way to achieve change at Lane has proven to be gradually, through groups and individuals who champion a cause and spread their enthusiasm to others" (p. 162).

• Do you think Lane's approach is unique to that school, or do you think gradual change is best for any organization?
• Have you ever been part of a "grassroots" effort to make change in an organization?
• Have you ever been selected as a leader to help with an organization's transition?

And then the school blew up!

Lee Howser. President of Jackson Community College. I love this guy! He explains what happened after the school took a hard look at the realities it faced:

"Once 'mess formulation' is completed and the story is told about the need to redesign, interactive design calls for assuming that the system 'blew up last night,' and that only the environment remains intact.Designers, however, can remember what they loved about the system and keep best practices and systems. The rest of the system is designed from a clean sheet of paper, leaving the 'mess' behind" (p. 131).

I have never participated in a process like this. Usually, the types of discussions I've had about changing an organization have been hampered by naysayers. This process "blows up" the obstacles, but it keeps the opportunities. What a refreshing approach.

Another reason I love Howser: He tells his faculty, "For 25 years, I have heard you say to the JCC administration, 'Give us leadership, but don't tell us what to do.' Here is your chance to design your world and realize your dreams" (p. 132). Who wouldn't want to work for a guy like that?!

P.S. (The title to this post is a link to Jackson Community College's website.)

An a-ha moment

Sometimes it takes me awhile to catch on. I just realized that this is a book by an administrator for administrators. I keep reading it from the perspective of a teacher, and that is not who O'Banion's target audience is. All of the case studies in the book are written by chancellors, superintendents, and presidents. This would be a great book for someone in the community college leadership Ph.D program. I keep wanting it to be more like Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do, but that's just not going to happen. I find it pretty ironic that O'Banion keeps pounding on the "putting the student first" message, but there's not one word from a student in this book -- at least so far.

I'm reading the chapter written by Lee Howser and Carole Schwinn of Jackson Community College in Michigan, and I like the tone so far. Howser, the new president, has a self-deprecating wit and has successfully carried his "boiling frog" analogy through the chapter. In other words, when taking over the college, he realized he didn't have the sense to jump out of the pot; the temperature just kept getting hotter. In his quest to remake the college, which ultimately was successful, Howser introduces the idea of interactive design. The process, he says, begins with "'formulation of the mess,' or an understanding of the set of interacting problems" faced by the college (p. 129). I love the mess imagery. Although Jackson could have stood on its laurels for quite some time, it didn't. Instead, the college looked critically at the challenges facing it and discovered:

• Faculty and staff were aging. Who was going to take over?
• Equipment was aging. Some was 30 years old.
• Curriculum was not being updated.
• Enrollment was dropping.
• The area was losing jobs.
• Employee morale was decreasing.

This no-holds-barred approach helped Jackson reinvent itself from the ground up. Have you ever been involved with an organization that went through a similar "formulation of the mess" process? If so, how did it go? What was the result?

Total Quality Management

I'm always wary when business models are suggested for educational settings. Oberle explains the basic tenets of Total Quality Management:

• Commitment to quality improvement throughout the organization.
• Attack the system rather than the employee.
• Strip down the work process.
• Identify your customers and satisfy their requirements.
• Eliminate waste.
• Instill pride in teamwork.
• Create an atmosphere for innovation and continual improvement. (as cited in O'Banion, 1997, p. 97 - 98).

I think O'Banion's purpose in addressing TQM is to say that it is insufficient to transform community colleges. " ... the basic teaching and learning approaches of traditional education have remained fairly impervious to TQM" (p. 98). Only his approach, the "learning college," is the answer. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is because the learning college principles are specifically tailored to education.

What's more confusing is the first "case study" in the book. While it's refreshing to get into actual examples of learning colleges, Sinclair Community College cites -- you guessed it -- TQM as " ... the primary strategy for making further progress toward becoming a learning college" (p. 109).

Honestly, while Sinclair's case study is laden with education-ease, its effort seems truly to be one of turning values into action (p. 113).

So, my questions are:

1. What has your experience with TQM been?
2. Would you agree or disagree that it is appropriate for educational settings? Why or why not?