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Overview: The Future of the Urban Community College
Author(s) -
Myran Gunder,
Parsons Michael H.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
new directions for community colleges
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1536-0733
pISSN - 0194-3081
DOI - 10.1002/cc.20054
Subject(s) - frontier , poverty , political science , redress , democracy , economic growth , public administration , community organizing , civil rights , sociology , law , politics , economics
We view this New Directions for Community Colleges sourcebook as a call to action for America's urban community colleges to become leaders on the frontier of a genuine multiracial democracy. It is a call to redress massive and persistent disparities that have created what Cornel West refers to as the “pathology of despair” in our inner cities. Leaders are challenged to transform the very nature of the urban community college just as those who came before us responded to the social revolution of the 1950s and 1960s amid the civil rights movement of that era. Today's urban college is at the front line of the next phase in this revolution, leading efforts to overcome the persistent and entrenched racial, educational, economic, and social inequities that threaten the vitality of our cities and our nation's democratic principles. Suburban and rural community colleges have a stake in this same experience, as they also serve areas of increasing diversity and poverty.