Abstract
Keywords
Community college presidents play a vital role in making decisions and enacting policies that impact the wellbeing of students (Eddy, 2003; Hornak & Garza Mitchell, 2016; Nevarez & Wood, 2010). Long before the COVID-19 pandemic topics such as students’ basic needs insecurities and community college presidential leadership were already at the forefront of community college research (e.g., Eddy, 2013; Eddy & Garza Mitchell, 2017; Goldrick-Rab & Kendall, 2016). However, community college leaders are being pressed to swiftly reframe their policies and practices to respond to the long-term residual effects of the pandemic (Jaschik, 2020). As communities across the country continue to feel the burden of social and economic uncertainty, it becomes more difficult for community colleges to address the holistic needs of their students, including but not limited to food, housing, technology, and childcare needs (Baker-Smith et al., 2020). Although most community colleges espouse to support students’ holistic development (Patton et al., 2016), it is increasingly evident that institutional agents, namely individuals who hold positions of authority (e.g., college presidents) (Stanton-Salazar, 2011), need to also attend to students’ basic needs (Stebleton et al., 2020). As a result, this study examines how public community college presidents make informed decisions about responding to the holistic needs of their students (Stebleton et al., 2020) and shares strategies used to address student challenges (Eddy, 2010, 2013).
Although systematic efforts have been made to develop guidelines for essential leadership competencies for community college leaders (e.g., American Association of Community Colleges [AACC], 2018 Competencies for Community College Leaders), research remains nascent about how these competencies play out in the decision-making process of community college leaders (Eddy, 2012; Floyd, 2018; Helfgot & Culp, 2005). Some scholars have explored the role that the AACC competencies play in community college leader preparation and the challenges associated with their responsibilities (e.g., Eddy, 2013; McNair et al., 2011). However, community college presidents must be equipped to address sudden changes in labor markets and students’ needs, as well as comprehensive budget cuts at local and state levels (Smith & Miller, 2015). Understanding leaders must grapple with a complex leadership landscape, the following research questions framed this qualitative study:
How do community college presidents make informed decisions about addressing the holistic needs of their students in times of uncertainty?
What strategies do community college presidents employ to support the holistic needs of their students?
Research on community college presidential leadership, challenges, and decision making has grown in recent decades (e.g., Eddy, 2003, 2012; Eddy & Garza Mitchell, 2017; Gumport, 2003; Hornak & Garza Mitchell, 2016). At the same time, because the higher education landscape is changing rapidly, it is difficult to get a sense for how community college leaders adapt to the needs of their students and institutions. One of the challenges of conducting research with community college presidents is the logistical complication involved in the process, such as time and access to participants (Burmicky et al., 2021). The process of recruiting high-ranking individuals to participate in methodologically robust research studies is known as “elite interview research” (Davies, 2001), an approach that has been primarily applied to fields such as journalism and political science but has been adapted to educational research (e.g., Harvey, 2011; Kezar, 2003; McClure & McNaughtan, 2021). By gaining access to secondary focus group data on community college presidents in Texas, we had the opportunity to conduct an in-depth analysis using elite interview data about their first-hand accounts on presidential leadership (Davies, 2001).
Background
Some scholarship on community college presidents has explored how leaders frame their decision-making process to respond to complex issues affecting today’s community college students (Camacho et al., 2021; Eddy & Garza Mitchell, 2017; Hornak & Garza Mitchell, 2016). For example, similar to our study, Hornak and Garza Mitchell (2016) interviewed 13 community college presidents from one U.S. state about their decision-making processes. Their findings revealed “many of the decisions made by the presidents pertained to financial issues, enrollment surges, and programmatic offerings” (Hornak & Garza Mitchell, 2016, p. 125). Furthermore, their study made connections about how community college presidents leverage their personal belief system to inform their decision-making process.
Hornak and Garza Mitchell’s (2016) study drew directly from Eddy’s (2003) scholarship on community college leadership, specifically on earlier studies about leaders’ personal values, sensemaking, and decision-making processes. For example, Eddy (2010) constructed a leadership model informed by her prior research on community college presidents. This model, Multidimensional Leadership, is one of the few frameworks solely constructed on community college presidential leadership (e.g., Eddy, 2003, 2005; Eddy & Garza Mitchell, 2017). Eddy’s model is grounded on core principles that challenge traditional leadership theories in community colleges and acknowledges the complexity of contemporary colleges and the “constant need to deal with chaos and change” (Eddy & Khwaja, 2019, p. 56). Multidimensional Leadership also recognizes that leadership is ever-evolving and that there is no one-size-fits-all model (Eddy, 2010). For our study, we were intentional about integrating various elements of this research on community college presidential leadership to understand what informs the decision-making process of our participants (Nevarez & Wood, 2010).
Intricately connected to community college research is the growing body of literature on students’ holistic needs (Freudenberg et al., 2019; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2019; Hallett & Crutchfield, 2017; Hallett & Freas, 2018; Henry, 2017). With the rising challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, students are likely to face more barriers related to basic needs, particularly food, housing, and homelessness insecurity, among others (e.g., transportation, technology, childcare; Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2016; Goldrick-Rab et al., 2019). What is evident from this research is that a substantial percentage of college students do not have access to reliable food and housing; however, what is particularly concerning is community college students are more likely to experience basic needs insecurity compared to their peers at bachelor’s degree granting institutions (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2019). In fact, recent survey data from the HOPE Center for College, Community, and Justice revealed the following rates on participating community college students from 171 institutions over the past 5 years: (a) 42% to 56% have remained food insecure, 46% to 60% have remained housing insecure, and 12% to 18% have remained homeless (Baker-Smith et al., 2020). These findings show the prevalence of basic needs insecurity among community college students, and the urgency for community college leaders to act swiftly considering the mercurial nature of our times. Additionally, it is important to note that when looking at rates of basic needs insecurity, scholarship indicates that students of color and first-generation college students are more likely to be concentrated in the community college sector (de Brey et al., 2019; Leo, 2021; Ma & Baum, 2014; Wood & Harris, 2018). Research also reveals basic needs insecurities are “fluid and interconnected” (Baker-Smith et al., 2020, p. 15), highlighting that student may experience such insecurities (i.e., housing, food, homelessness) simultaneously or separately throughout their college career.
Conceptual Framework
We drew upon three different models or theories focused on community college presidential leadership and holistic student development to frame our analysis. To examine decision making, we drew from Hornak and Garza Mitchell’s (2016) decision-making framework to understand how community college presidents leverage their core belief structures for making institutional-level decisions. In applying this decision-making framework, we supplemented our conceptual framework with Eddy’s (2010) concept of Multidimensional Leadership to make more clear and robust connections between community college leadership theory and our data. Although this model consists of five core principles, we used the following two as a part of our analytical lens:
There is no universal model for leadership: this principle challenges leaders to think outside of traditional approaches, practices, and strategies for leading. This principle is helpful to broadening our thinking around leadership concepts in tumultuous times because it moves beyond “hegemonic norms” that are often presented in leadership theories and models (Eddy, 2010, p. 33).
Leaders adhere to their core belief structures: to make decisions, leaders align their personal values with the college’s mission, vision, and values. This principle is helpful to understand how presidents create “shared meaning among constituents about decisions, values, and goals” (Eddy, 2010, p.121).
Lastly, to keep holistic student support at the forefront of this study, we employed Stebleton et al.’s (2020) perspective on holistic student development. Because most research on students’ basic needs and financial insecurity stems from disciplines outside of higher education, this body of literature frequently obscures “student well-being and, ultimately, student development” (Stebleton et al., 2020, p. 731). This framework incorporates perspectives from student development research (Patton et al., 2016) to argue scholars must attend to students from a holistic approach, including their basic needs, as well as psychological and intellectual domains. To focus on academics, holistic student development emphasizes students must first have their basic needs met to embrace their role as students. As Stebleton et al. (2020) noted, drawing upon the work of Maslow (1943), it is hard for individuals to be successful and to engage in productive developmental journeys if they have issues related to their basic needs. Stebleton et al.’s (2020) work was critical to this research because it challenged us to understand how the presidents we interviewed attended to students on their campuses from a holistic approach.
Study Design
We conducted this study by engaging in secondary data analysis of existing elite qualitative data (Davies, 2001). For this current investigation, we employed a general qualitative approach guided by a social constructionist and interpretivist paradigm (Crotty, 1998). A social constructionist approach asserts “all [emphasis in original] meaningful reality, precisely as meaningful reality, is socially constructed” (Crotty, 1998, p. 55). Social constructionism challenges researchers to understand how people make meaning of their experiences with attention to contextual factors. Moreover, by embracing interpretivism, we strove to understand how participants made sense of and interpreted their realities.
Participant Recruitment and Data Collection
We used secondary data from a large grant-funded project spearheaded by a statewide nongovernmental educational policy agency that advocates for public community colleges, the Texas Association of Community Colleges (TACC). TACC was sponsored by the Greater Texas Foundation (GTF), which is committed to advancing postsecondary enrollment and completion in Texas. As higher education researchers, we were brought to the project to develop, conduct, and analyze the focus groups. Fifty Texas community college presidents were contacted by the agency’s CEO to participate in this study. By engaging in purposeful sampling to recruit participants who could speak to the research questions (Creswell & Poth, 2018), 15 community college presidents were chosen based on institutional diversity, specifically by enrollment size, locale (e.g., city, rural), and region (e.g., North, South). Table 1 reflects the profiles of institutions that participated in the focus groups.
Institutional Profiles.
After participants were selected, we conducted the focus groups. Because this study took place less than two months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in the U.S., we conducted the focus groups in person. The application of focus groups was useful to provide a dynamic for participants to make sense of their perceptions and situated knowledges while building on each other’s experiences, in addition to contrasting different regional and institutional contexts (Feldon & Tofel-Grehl, 2018; Gilflores & Alonso, 1995). Focus groups also provided a data collection approach and level of peer engagement that is less common, especially since much of the research on college presidents has been through surveys and individual interviews (e.g., Gagliardi et al., 2017; Smith & Miller, 2015).
Focus group interviews lasted 2 hours each. Participants were randomly preassigned into two different focus groups given the group’s size. Smaller size focus groups allowed for participants to spend more time discussing each question and interacting with each other (Gilflores & Alonso, 1995). We completed reflective memos immediately after the focus groups took place. These memos captured first-hand insights on participants’ responses and engagement (Miles et al., 2020). These memos were helpful to raise important questions about key preliminary themes that emerged from synthesizing large amounts of data (Miles et al., 2020).
Data Analysis
To engage in secondary data analysis, we followed a general qualitative approach that allowed us to construct meaning by attempting to interpret the experiences of the participants (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Stebleton et al., 2020). Our approach to coding provided a systematic and inductive way to make meaning of the data (Miles et al., 2020). We began by individually participating in initial coding, which involved us going line by line in the focus group transcripts. In initial coding, we were interested in staying close to participants’ words and statements, remaining open to what they shared relevant to their experiences. Following this step, we then developed focus codes, which requires researchers to make “decisions about which initial codes make the most analytic sense” (Charmaz, 2014, p. 138). We concluded our coding process by engaging in theoretical coding, which consisted of comparing our focused codes to concepts rooted in decision making and holistic student development (Eddy, 2010; Hornak & Garza Mitchell, 2016; Stebleton et al., 2020). Once we individually went through these coding steps, we came together to discuss patterns we saw emerging in the data, leading to the development of our findings.
Data Confidentiality and Anonymity
A carefully written confidentiality statement was drafted and shared with participants prior to participating in the study (Harvey, 2011; Kezar, 2003). The purpose of this statement was to ensure participants knew their answers were being kept confidential in a safe university-sponsored data repository and that all audio recordings would be destroyed after the transcription process (Harvey, 2011). Instead of using pseudonyms for reporting findings, we used institutional profile descriptions whenever we used relevant quotes to de-identify or protect participants’ anonymity. For the purpose of consistency, in what follows, we refer to our participants as “executives,” which is inclusive of community college presidents, chancellors, and CEOs.
Researcher Positionalities
Scholars engaging in qualitative inquiry recognize that the researcher serves as the “key instrument” (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p. 43), meaning they influence every part of the research process. For this reason, we find it important to highlight our own positionalities and how they played a role in this study. The first author identifies as an immigrant cisgender Latino man who has worked as a higher education practitioner for over a decade. Through a scholar-practitioner approach, his research is focused on understanding how minoritized leaders in higher education, particularly college presidents, make sense of their leadership preparation and institutional contexts. In this study, he considered how data spoke uniquely to the role of the college president and how these leaders perceived institutional challenges and student issues. The second author identifies as a queer cisgender Latino man who grew up in a working-class family. His research has been dedicated to uplifting the voices of minoritized communities in higher education, striving toward systemic change that addresses how structural forms of oppression shape people’s realities. As someone interested in understanding how institutions disproportionately minoritize certain groups, he was particularly attuned to the role of structural barriers participants discussed while analyzing data.
Findings
Guided by our research questions, we report our key findings under the following three categories: (1) how community college executives make decisions related to holistic student support, (2) how community college executives think of holistic student support, and (3) strategies that community college executives use for holistic student support.
How Community College Executives Make Decisions Related to Holistic Student Support
Community college executives make decisions about supporting students holistically primarily through select data sources and their core belief systems (e.g., personal values and experiences). The main data sources listed were surveys (including institutional surveys and external surveys), student advisory groups, focus groups, faculty input, and firsthand interactions with frontline staff.
Most participants shared extensively about the types of surveys and organizations with whom they partner to inform their decision making on how to best support students holistically. The most common organizations and external surveys were the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), especially SENSE (Survey of Entering Student Engagement), surveys administered by local education nonprofits (e.g., Trellis Foundation), and data from the HOPE Center for Community, College, and Justice, particularly the use of Edquity. 1
In terms of relying on institutional data, student advisory groups and student focus groups were the most common tools. Most of the participants talked about meeting regularly with student advisory groups and conducting focus groups to get insights about pressing issues on campus, including day-to-day challenges. A few used town hall-style meetings occasionally. Lastly, consulting with faculty and frontline staff was common. For example, participants talked about getting key information—such as “anecdotal information”—about their students directly from faculty and student services personnel who have frequent and firsthand interactions with students.
A community college executive in rural Texas explained how her perceptions of student issues, and her ability to assist students, were informed by focus group data and her interactions with faculty: I do student focus groups on all three of our campuses each semester. That’s something that we’ve really been focusing on the last few years is, to students and faculty, if we don’t know, we can’t do anything about it. We’re in a situation now where faculty, if they have a student that they know has a certain financial issue, they call my office or they email and then we try to connect resources. And students are starting to come forward.
Similarly, a community college executive in North Central Texas further elaborated on how he connects anecdotal data “everyone hears” with “real data” about the “real need”: We’ve also done the HOPE Lab. I don’t know how many of you have participated in that, but that’s another survey we did in addition to Trellis. But that’s another way we’re trying to get at the real data of what the real need is because anecdotally we hear the same things everyone hears, we think it’s childcare, we think it’s food, but is it, is it gas money? So, we’re still trying to glean that.
In addition to understanding how data sources inform community college executives’ decision making on holistic student support, we learned that their processes and outcomes varied across participants.
Broadly, whether informed by data or their personal values, community college executives agreed on ordinary day-to-day issues affecting students: food, housing, transportation (i.e., public transportation, reliable vehicles, commuting), technology, childcare, full-time employment responsibilities, and livable wages; however, participants’ perceptions differed on what causes these issues or barriers. For example, several participants talked about the lack of safety structures to support students’ holistic needs. Others talked about barriers imposed by bureaucratic processes and systems (e.g., FAFSA) and intricate issues that exist with completing these forms while some executives referenced sociocultural barriers that inhibit students from pursuing higher education. An executive from a large urban community college district articulated these perspectives in greater detail: We see about 15% of students that we know are eligible will never get aid, even if they complete all the paperwork because of the way their parents have done their taxes. We’ve identified 10 specific issues with their taxes. But the majority of the problem, particularly in immigrant communities where English isn’t the primary language spoken at home, their tax preparers will tell the parents to file separately, not married and separately, but separately. Of course, the student fills out their FAFSA application, they are checking married. It’s an unresolvable issue when it’s flagged for verification in the process. There is no way to solve that problem, meaning that they will have to wait until they’re 26 years old to really be able to declare themselves as independent.
Two other executives provided examples based on their own life experiences as college students, which consequently shaped their beliefs about what inhibits students from accessing financial resources: One time I asked my father how much he made. I said it one time . . .and it [was] absolutely taboo . . . probably the bigger umbrella across it all is the relative socioeconomic level . . . I think that’s safe to assume, but absolutely taboo to [ask for parents’ financial] information.
This quote highlighted how this participant’s life experiences helped him understand the struggles (or “taboos”) that many first-generation low-income students navigate in order to complete important documents such as FAFSA. This event shaped his beliefs and core values, which consequently informed his decision making-process about addressing students’ holistic needs.
The second executive followed up with a similar example, highlighting additional barriers associated with being a first-generation college student and finances: As a first-generation college student, I remember distinctly sitting at the dining room table and saying to my dad, “I think they’re going to give me some money if you would share your W2 with me for me to go to college.” And he said, “Well, then you better go get a job.”
These examples, including their own experiences as students, shaped participants’ core belief systems, which consequently informed their perceptions about what the barriers they believe inhibit community college students from accessing financial resources.
Other concerns that informed participants’ decision making about meeting student needs holistically is the various struggles associated with just making it to class. Specifically, participants reiterated that providing more access to child care and transportation are a top priority. An executive from a large community college system explained: One of the things we did was we held a coordinating board [to have] the students come in and talk about their issues and their concerns around financial aid. And what they brought to the table was very interesting. The top two items were childcare and transportation, and maybe those shouldn’t have been a surprise, but we thought we had plenty of resources out there.
These pressing issues heavily informed the way in which executives approached their agenda to serve students holistically. Considering these findings, we dedicate the next section to how our participants thought of holistic student support.
How Community College Executives Think of Holistic Student Support
We identified key barriers that community college executives think to be the most pressing for their students: systemic, sociocultural, and institutional. In terms of systemic barriers, community college presidents discussed key challenges that inhibit students from accessing and maintaining adequate financial aid. In addition to ordinary day-to-day challenges, the biggest hurdle was the complexity and anxiety associated with completing government forms. Federal and state forms such as FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and filing for taxes were by far the most prevalent examples. According to several executives, these forms are time consuming, intimidating, and difficult to understand. Moreover, they often require additional documentation that can deter students from filing them, particularly more vulnerable students such as undocumented students, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students (also known as DACAmented students), and students whose primary language is not English. For example, a community college executive from North Central Texas explained this concern: The fear of submitting paperwork for undocumented students is growing and growing, and the concern is that you’re going to chase me, you’re going to find me and what does this mean? Because there’s just a tremendous amount of DACA and undocumented students in Texas.
This executive called attention to the vulnerable positions bureaucratic systems place on community college students, especially as it relates to their minoritized social identities. Furthermore, community college executives articulated the issues related to the perceived value of postsecondary education among students and families, which we label “sociocultural barriers.”
Participants talked about how many students question the value of postsecondary education, especially when it comes to justifying the cost and sacrifice it takes to complete a degree and having to miss work. For instance, many students choose to work instead of getting additional education to take care of their basic needs and their family’s basic needs. Other participants also mentioned perceptions of “sticker price versus net price” value. Specifically, it is not easy for students and families to understand the actual cost of attending college since sticker price does not always equate to net price, especially after accounting for available aid. As shared by one participant, while many students perceive college to be expensive, the reality is very few pay the entire sticker price: I think that related to [the issue of college affordability] is that there’s so much media attention on the cost of higher ed. Especially for first college generation students, they hear that over and over again, “Oh, you’re going to go $100,000 in debt.” As we know, it’s really more complicated than that.
Another executive of a small coastal community college also offered his take on the issue of value perception and affordability: I think tied to [college affordability] is the amount of cash that these [students] work off. This is a “cash basis society,” a cash society that adds to this problem. Our Pell numbers are still dreadfully low at 38%. We’re probably lower than everybody in here, I suspect. The amount of cash we have during registration is unacceptable.
According to this statement, because students do not have sufficient “cash” to afford college, they immediately rule out the possibility of attending. Furthermore, because the “sticker price” seems so high, students are not able to consider what the actual cost would be after accounting for federal aid (e.g., Pell Grant), which, according to this executive, is also not sufficient.
Lastly, participants talked about institutional barriers. Particularly, these executives talked about struggles many students experience with not being able to get answers about their questions regarding financial aid. According to participants, financial aid officers feel limited in their ability to serve their students holistically. They mentioned financial aid directors’ jobs have become highly transactional out of the responsibility they feel to “package students in and out.” As a result, there was a theme that emerged from the discussion on having a “culture of compliance,” which is related to the fear of being audited or punished for not “follow[ing] the rules.” An executive from an urban community college district offered an example: Well, in some ways we do it to [financial aid officers] because no one likes a bad audit. We’re at risk. And then you have to deal with a board. So, perfection is the only thing, which means that if we err, we err on the side of the bureaucracy and compliance as opposed to helping individuals.
According to participants, while many financial aid officers get into this profession with the goal of helping students, they are unable to assist students through a holistic approach because of the fear of the culture of compliance imposed by bureaucratic systems of operation.
Strategies Community College Presidents Use for Holistic Student Support
Participants offered tangible strategies for supporting their students holistically. Although these strategies varied, there were some consistent efforts. The most common strategy community college executives used to meet their students’ holistic needs was private aid (e.g., emergency funds and scholarships). Because community college students are often affected by unforeseen circumstances (e.g., public health crisis, natural disasters, transportation), institutions rely on supporting students through readily available private aid. For example, an executive in a rural community college noted how she used emergency aid to keep students enrolled: I know in my case, the idea of having emergency aid is a new idea in the sense that we haven’t historically always had that fund. In fact, we didn’t start getting emergency aid until [Hurricane] Harvey hit. And then we saw what an impact it made on keeping students enrolled. We packaged the award of foundation scholarships and financial aid out of the same office. If one’s not eligible for the other, we can just shift them right into private scholarship mode [e.g., emergency aid] without leaving the office. But we have made our emergency aid fund and our food pantry funds to be made within a quick response time and very little paperwork because it’s all private dollars.
Community college executives in the study commonly used private aid to meet their students’ basic needs. According to participants, private aid typically comes from local donors or private foundation dollars. At the same time, although executives talked about the critical need for available private aid, they also talked about the importance of having flexibility for how to use these funds. An executive from an urban community college in East Texas explained some challenges that exist with private aid: “I have a lot of donors who’d like to do specific scholarships, named scholarships, all those criteria. However, I don’t want that. I need the flexibility to move something.” The topic of flexibility was very salient throughout the focus groups. Participants emphasized the importance of not only having flexibility on how dollars ought to be spent but when they ought to be spent. Because students’ basic needs are so fluid, participants heavily emphasized the need to have this type of flexibility to better support their student body.
Lastly, due to students facing daily barriers that inhibit them from seeking help from financial aid officers, participants articulated the need to centralize their student services offices. Examples included having a “one-stop-shop” model where students can get all their services and advising in one place. Furthermore, several participants also suggested fundraising offices (e.g., advancement/development) and enrollment offices (e.g., admissions and financial aid) housed under the same division to work more jointly in their efforts to serve students holistically. This is consistent with new emerging models of student support professionals in community colleges, which include but are not limited to proactive student-success coaching models (i.e., academic, retention, career) through various “touch-points” and interventions (Hall et al., 2021).
In the end, participants expressed being overwhelmed by the daily challenges their students face and their limited ability to know how to respond to them. Participants also expressed, while data centers and foundations have helped them to know more about students’ basic needs, there is not enough research on this area. Similarly, though most participants talked about the surge of “promise programs”
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as a response to tackling affordability issues, many discussed their challenges. A community college executive from East Texas stated: There is absolutely no way I could remotely be similar to what the larger districts are doing with promise programs. . . .There’s no way I can collect because my out-of-district tuition has to be higher to have three campuses they don’t pay taxes for. I can’t get even my tuition where I’d like it to be for dual credit to start with. It would be very difficult. However, having money to pilot them on a smaller scale would be pretty awesome.
Although this executive described issues related to getting promise programs off the ground, she suggested doing smaller scale programs that could potentially serve as a strategy for providing broader access and more holistic support to students. At the same time, financial support such as matching programs were suggested, as well as external assistance from larger private foundations given the lack of appropriate federal and state funds.
Parameters of the Study
In this study we examined secondary elite qualitative data to examine how community college executives think and act about serving the needs of their students holistically. Seizing this opportunity to interview elite participants was consistent with our methodology, which allowed us to use a general qualitative approach to delve deeper into the perspectives of our participants who are currently being pressed to make difficult decisions about the future of their institutions. Guided by a social constructionist and interpretivist paradigm, a general qualitative approach was effective to apply community college leadership and student development theory to our coding strategy and to maximize the opportunity to pull out valuable and timely insights from focus group data that are difficult to come across.
Second, consistent with qualitative research, our findings are not meant to be transferable to all community college sectors as not only are community colleges not homogeneous, but their leaders and students vary significantly from various regions of the country (Eddy, 2003, 2013). As the mission and service of community colleges evolve over time, so do the challenges presidents face (Hornak & Garza Mitchell, 2016). Understanding how community college presidents make decisions about issues affecting students has the potential to offer additional context to practitioners and scholars for how decisions are made.
Discussion and Implications
As scholar-practitioners, we were challenged about our own assumptions about presidential decision making and holistic student support. Participants pointed to the ways community college students overcome many systemic barriers and challenges that inhibit their educational goals. At the same time, there were many factors that informed their decision-making processes. In what follows, we discuss key findings and tie them to implications for community college leadership, theory, and practice.
First, findings from this study revealed how community college presidents frame their decision-making process to better understand how to serve students holistically. What this point underscores is, as community college institutional agents strive to support students holistically, as purported by our framework (Stebleton et al., 2020), it is certainly worth continuing to address structural conditions that inhibit professionals from meeting students’ basic needs. The community college executives echoed the issues students face in obtaining basic needs (Freudenberg et al., 2019; Hallett & Crutchfield, 2017; Hallett & Freas, 2018; Henry, 2017) while also discussing problems students may face. For instance, executives emphasized how government forms can present a hindrance to students, especially to those who hold minoritized identities, such as identifying as undocumented. Moreover, the culture of compliance present within financial aid offices prevents these administrators from assisting students in the ways they might like. Connecting this back to existing literature underscores that community college students may not only experience basic needs insecurity more so than those at bachelor’s degree granting institutions (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2019) but that there are structural problems that may lead to basic needs insecurity. Considering the social and economic effects of the pandemic, it is important for community college leaders to develop competencies to think beyond traditional ways of leading (Eddy, 2010) and make decisions that demonstrate holistic student care.
For example, participants in this study discussed the necessity for hiring frontline staff who possess cultural and emotional competency to serve students holistically, including but not limited to having the ability to understand the needs of first-generation college students, non-English speakers, immigrant, and undocumented students, among other identities. Furthermore, presidents highlighted their increasing reliance on flexible emergency funds and private scholarships. As students experience more unexpected difficulties that hinder their educational success (e.g., global pandemic), it is imperative for community college leaders to possess entrepreneurial and philanthropic competencies (AACC, 2018) to make up for the loss of federal and state funding and ensure that their students can meet their most basic needs. Unfortunately, this phenomenon highlights the pervasive neoliberal policies and bureaucratic structures that continue to influence higher education and its executive leadership, with executives feeling more pressure to act as chief fundraising officers rather than having the space to attend to the educational needs of their colleges (Jackson, 2013). As pressures continue to mount, it is critical for scholars to conduct future research that looks at the ways in which community college executives take care of their mental and emotional wellbeing, especially as presidential turnover continues to rise (Gagliardi et al., 2017; Skinner, 2010)
Findings from this study revealed how community college executives rely on data-driven decision making as well as their own core belief system. In terms of relying on data, this particular finding presented unique benefits and challenges. First, our data indicate that community college executives are striving to make data-driven decisions, especially for identifying key issues facing their students. Data-driven decision making can enhance executives’ ability to improve outcomes at their home institutions (Cox et al., 2017). This study also confirmed that community college presidents rely heavily on deeply personal experiences that shape their belief systems, a central principle of Eddy’s (2010) Multidimensional Leadership framework. This is also consistent with Hornak and Garza Mitchell’s (2016) research, which revealed community college presidents rely on both data and “their own personal value systems” (p. 125). For example, this study found community college presidents prefer not only certain forms of data collection (e.g., surveys, focus groups) but also certain data collection centers and organizations (e.g., CCSSE; HOPE Lab). This practice is helpful in making data-driven decisions because it allows for executives not to rely on a single source of information, but it also exposes inequities in community college leadership. Specifically, smaller and/or rural community colleges with fewer resources and smaller budgets may not be able to afford these services (Eddy, 2012), particularly for contracting with data collection centers and using sophisticated applications (e.g., Edquity) that can assist them in obtaining a more holistic picture of their students. As such, as highlighted by Eddy’s (2010) Multidimensional Leadership framework, it is imperative for community college executives to develop robust and reliable institutional systems for gathering sources of data (e.g., surveys, focus groups, advisory groups) as a means for not solely relying on external data sources or anecdotal information. This is especially relevant for rural community college executives or historically underfunded institutions that are more vulnerable to the residual effects of the pandemic (Eddy, 2012; Kelchen et al., 2020).
The culture of compliance finding exposes a serious problem that hinders community college executives and their administrators from serving their students holistically (Burmicky et al., 2021; McKinnon-Crowley, 2021). As participants expressed, this culture is a larger systemic issue that affects daily operations. For example, the fear of being audited, or “messing up,” was very connected to financial aid officers’ ability to address intricate financial concerns through a holistic approach, resulting in highly transactional interactions. Developing financial capability programs has been linked to community colleges’ ability to build capacity and achieve student success (Broun et al., 2014). As potential opportunities for government assistance become available (e.g., CARES Act), it is critical for community college leaders to foster a sense of security and stability among their financial staff so that they can feel confident about their ability to assist students as new government regulations change over time.
Participants expressed their desire to provide professional development opportunities for financial aid staff to serve students holistically. For example, some executives talked about wanting to set aside professional development funds for financial aid officers to attend more student development-centered conferences and not simply financial aid and compliance conferences. However, they were also aware of the limited amount of time their staff have to attend such conferences, especially since student caseloads are high. Because “no one likes a bad audit” (urban community college executive), this study identified tensions community college administrators experience in serving their students holistically while upholding federal regulations. As suggested by Eddy (2010) and Hornak and Garza Mitchell (2016), it is important for leaders to think critically about empowering their staff to challenge pervasive practices and ideologies that keep their colleges from serving students with the level of care and compassion they deserve. Although budgets are expected to shrink and, in some cases, disappear (Jaschik, 2020) it is important for frontline staff to be able to access professional development opportunities that allow them to reconnect with restorative student development practices and philosophies (Patton et al., 2016) and not just the day-to-day complexities associated with their roles.
Conclusion
This project served as a catalyst for understanding how community college executives draw upon data, their core values, and lived experiences to better serve the holistic needs of their students.
Through the application of community college leadership and student development theory, we closely examined why and how community college presidents use data to make critical decisions that impact their students holistically, including access to basic needs such as daycare, transportation, food, and housing. In addition, we explored how community college executives think of holistic student support, which we found to be closely tied to their application of data and its alignment to their personal core values and lived experiences. Although many findings are consistent with prior research (e.g., Eddy, 2010; Hornak & Garza Mitchell, 2016), our study offered a much closer look at how community college executives use and make sense of data in connection to their lived experiences to make critical long-term decisions about the wellbeing of their students and colleges.
Lastly, our study shared specific implications with value to community college research and practice. Specifically, our finding of a culture of compliance poses a serious challenge that hinders community college presidents and their frontline administrators from serving their students holistically. This particular finding provides further evidence for leaders to ponder as they engage in future decisions about community college administration while they uphold federal guidelines and regulations that ultimately impact students the most.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Victor B. Sáenz for directing this research project. The authors also wish to acknowledge Dr. Wonsun Ryu for assisting in the data collection process.
Author Note
Jorge Burmicky is now affiliated to Howard University, USA and Antonio Duran is now affiliated to Florida International University, FL, USA.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
