ERIC Number: EJ998075
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Dec
Pages: 12
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0098-6291
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The End of the Community College English Profession
Kroll, Keith
Teaching English in the Two-Year College, v40 n2 p118-129 Dec 2012
In "After 40 Years, Has the Grand Experiment Failed?" Trum Simmons answers the question he poses in the essay's title by describing a community college teaching career that many "Teaching English in the Two-Year College" (TETYC) readers will find familiar: the diversity of community college students; student success and failure; conflicted relationships with colleagues and administrators; the decline of faculty governance; the unrelenting drift of the community college's mission toward a business model; and the internal struggle over what it is exactly one accomplished during one's teaching career. At the end of the essay, Simmons writes, "Depending on how you look at it, the community-college movement has been a great success, or is an overly idealistic idea whose time has come and gone. Since we are good at constantly reinventing ourselves, we probably will prevail, but in what form I don't know. The grand experiment continues" (Simmons). In this essay the author would like to suggest the "form" the community college will take over the next twenty years--change comes slowly to the community college--and in this way offer another answer to the question Trum Simmons asks. As a result of neoliberalism, the "grand experiment" of the community college, as that of "Democracy's college," is coming to an end. And with that ending comes the end of the community college's academic function--that is, to provide an "education"--and concomitantly the community college English profession. (Contains 14 notes.)
Descriptors: Community Colleges, Teaching (Occupation), College Instruction, College English, English Instruction, Student Diversity, College Students, Academic Achievement, Academic Failure, Institutional Mission, Commercialization, Teacher Administrator Relationship, College Faculty, Governance, Democracy, Neoliberalism
National Council of Teachers of English. 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096. Tel: 877-369-6283; Tel: 217-328-3870; Web site: http://www.ncte.org/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Two Year Colleges
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A