Function of Community Colleges

Generally, with certain reservations, the authors are optimistic about the community college's fulfillment of this collegiate function:

We are encouraged by the way the collegiate connection has been maintained, but we think it should be strengthened. The liberal arts and practices that promote transfer can be at the heart of a college even while it remains open to all (xiv).

The liberal arts curriculum is one of the operations of the

community college bearing on the collegiate function. The other has to do with the "activities that support student flow into and through the community college and on into the universities" (xi).

The difficulties confronted by the community college today are far more complex than in the past, simply because the community college is today asked to perform many more tasks for both the educational system and society at large than it

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college as "guardian of the status quo" (60). In other words, it is one of the functions of the community college to effectively serve the needs of the community in educational and cultural terms, but it is not its function to serve as a forum for radically altering that community or society at large with respect, for example, to "rent control, nuclear weaponry, toxic waste disposal, fetal rights" (60), etc. The authors argue that the collegiate function of the community college if the faculty took a more active role in shaping the curriculum so that it would apply more appropriately to the needs of the average student. The problem at the community college level is that the faculty is not required to participate in academic research and is therefore not as aware as university professors of new ideas, theories, models, etc. It is up to the faculty to take the steps and make the effort required to achieve such awareness. The authors write that As codified by university professors, the liberal arts have tended toward esoterica and reductionism. By translating knowledge stemming from the disciplines into forms usable by lay persons, the community college faculty would make a real contribution (86). The authors may be somewhat un
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Remedial English, Student Transfer, community college, collegiate function, liberal arts, function community, community colleges, collegiate function community, transfer function, educational system, function community college, Francisco Jossey-Bass, school community college, liberal arts curriculum, arts curriculum, school community, lower schools, Florence Brawer, Brawer Collegiate, Function Community, Collegiate Function, Community Colleges, student entering community,
Approximate Word count = 1452
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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