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This essay describes the unique advantage community college students have of concentrating their liberal arts studies in the intimate environment of their two-year experience, sharing examples of successful strategies that emphasize and build community in the liberal arts tradition at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
The home page of University of California, Berkeley's College of Letters and Science suggests, "To be liberally educated is to be transformed." Similarly, community college students from diverse cultural backgrounds, vocational interests, and educational goals seek an education to transform themselves. As students of the liberal arts, former teachers at high schools, universities, and liberal arts colleges, and now community college faculty in both the English and Transitional (Reading) Studies Departments, we argue that our current community college students have the unique advantage of concentrating their liberal arts studies in the intimate environment of their two-year experience. Though recent state and national attention has focused on "back to work" and vocational skills enhancement at the community college, we argue for an integrated experience of education, identity, wholeness, and community. At Kalamazoo Valley Community College, where we teach, our students are similar to and different from other community college students throughout the country. To embed the points of this article into the context of our students' particular experience, we first offer a look at who we are and how we are like and unlike other community colleges.
At Home in Kalamazoo, Michigan
By some accounts, the city of Kalamazoo is as matchless and unique as its name. Recognized for innovative engineering, specialized medical equipment and pharmaceutical opportunities, and a revitalized downtown, Kalamazoo recently welcomed an extraordinary civic gift from generous (anonymous) benefactors who endowed the Kalamazoo Promise, an inimitable educational opportunity that provides college tuition to graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools. These attributes set Kalamazoo apart from other Michigan cities.Yet, Kalamazoo shares characteristics with other midsized, mid-Michigan towns: we too battle economic, cultural, and educational concerns within our southwest region of the Great Lakes State. About 75,000 citizens strong, Kalamazoo boasts three institutions of higher learning-Western Michigan University, a large public institution; Kalamazoo College, a small liberal arts college; and Kalamazoo Valley Community College. KVCC has welcomed students of the Promise, which since its inception with the KPS graduating class of...