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Unrelenting Change, Innovation, and Risk: Forging the Next Generation of Community Colleges Dr. Daniel J. Phelan Rowan & Littlefield. $26USD
Dr. Daniel J. Phelan, president of Jackson College in Jackson, Michigan, uses an extended metaphor of sailing to argue that community colleges have a crucial place in the future of academia, but rather than setting sail for the open sea, the administration, faculty, and staffneed to set their new course because the winds are changing. That is the extent of my sailing clichés, as I am not a sailor, which leads to the first fault of the book: while Dr. Phelan does include a list of sailing terminology and technology, I often lost sight of the main point by attempting to grasp the ins and outs of the metaphor.
Nonetheless, his argument is clear. By looking at both the business side and the educational side of academia, he is able to highlight many issues currently facing community colleges, and many of his arguments would be considered "radical" in this context. It does seem that, based on experience and research, community colleges continue to make the same mistakes over and over by vying for "better"- but only temporary-solutions. In other business models, this would be considered madness.
So if this all seems so obvious, why doesn't anything ever change? Dr. Phelan is also spot-on with(ProQuest: ... denotes text stops here in original.)
o if this all seems...