Both Lamp and Mirror

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By DEBORAH M. DICROCE

In many ways, the recent report by the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education simply affirms what American higher education has been grappling with for quite some time: that it is both the lamp and the mirror for the world in which we live, that it sheds light upon as well as reflects the increasingly complex issues that we must confront.

The world is getting simultaneously smaller and more global. Technology is racing along at a frantic pace. The knowledge-based economy is not just a theory anymore; it is a reality, and information is power. The organizational hierarchy is giving way to an organizational web. Competition has an interdependency to it that it did not have in the past, and it seems that everyone is looking to collaborate and form strategic alliances.

With this new complexity, higher education's multiple stakeholders have called for a reframing of the educational enterprise itself. Be more collaborative and learning-centered, more connected to work-force demand and expectations, more accountable for student success, they tell us. Blur the boundaries of institutional type, particularly between community colleges and four-year institutions, with more-efficient transfer processes and explicit articulation agreements. Operate with nimble responsiveness in curriculum development and delivery — and be entrepreneurial and innovative about it. Focus on results and outcomes. Increase internal efficiencies. Embrace the public's right to know with a transparent openness. And leave no adult (or child) behind.

The call for systemic change has been clarion, to be sure. And, especially over the past few years, higher education has responded with a newfound seriousness. But has our response been serious enough?

The commission says, "No, not quite yet." I agree — but less because, as the commission might imply, we are traveling in the wrong direction, and more because our journey has just begun.

Indeed, there is not a college or university in the land that has not at least started to wade around in the educational muck inherent in the findings and recommendations of the commission. For example, in 2003, Virginia community colleges began an ambitious strategic plan for all 23 of our colleges. Called Dateline 09, the plan establishes targets in such areas as expanded outreach; retention, persistence, and graduation rates; and cost containment and management. The targets are benchmarked to the 90th percentile of an established national peer group, and goals have been established at both the state-system and local-college levels for measuring how well we are doing. The plan also includes the state's broader initiatives in economic development and, more recently, in early-childhood development. A recent mid-journey analysis shows that we have made considerable progress toward every target, while also revealing that the road to some of the targets is proving to be far rougher than to others. But fundamentally the analysis has served as a powerful affirmation that we are heading the right way.

In Virginia and elsewhere, there is simply no denying the frightening statistics that the commission cites on completion rates and collegiate preparedness. Nor can we ignore the almost tragic disconnect between the critical-skill competencies of too many of our graduates and the expectations of their employers. Adding to those sobering realities, recent projections by the Department of Labor predict that, by 2014, the fields of health care, education, and computer and mathematical science alone will have almost five million job openings.

The commission is right to question whether our diverse higher-education system is strategically positioned to meet such work-force demands. What I find most "on target" about the commission's work is the recurring call for a more holistic approach to expanding student access and success while cultivating a "culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement" in the development of new pedagogies, curricula, and technologies — tied directly to those areas where we are most disconnected in meeting work-force demand.

The commission is right, as well, to see that the challenge does not belong solely to higher education. Higher education's many stakeholders — including policy makers and philanthropic investors — can do much to help. For example, the commission's call for the federal government to make the financial-aid system more user-friendly and need-based would constitute a giant step forward.

I am disappointed, however, that the commission did not sufficiently recognize the role that community colleges play as the "on ramp" to higher education for millions of Americans, and as key partners in producing a world-class work force. Equally glaring is the report's failure to mention our heavy reliance on state and local support or the resulting obstacles to carrying out its recommendations. Those two oversights should be considered as Secretary Spellings and the commission move this important work to the implementation phase.

But move it must, for all of our sakes.

Deborah M. DiCroce is president of Tidewater Community College.