Community colleges have long been thought of as the "people's
college." For some thirty years, Oregonians have looked to their 16 community
colleges as the less expensive, more accessible route to a college education.
Oregon's community colleges have traditionally had the broad mission of
providing comprehensive educational opportunities to all adults who can profit
from the instruction. This foundation of open access, however, has recently
been challenged. Issues in Oregon's social, political, and economic
environments the past few years have resulted in substantial financial pressure
on the community colleges. This situation has prompted many Oregon
community college leaders to make tough operational decisions. Rightsizing
strategies encompassing all budget categories have been extensive across the
state. In many cases, community college leaders have been able to manage
decline successfully, maintaining the institution's broad mission. In other
cases, however, leaders have selected strategies in direct conflict with the stated mission of open access. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the consistency between the rightsizing behavior of Oregon's community college leaders and the community college mission of open educational access. The study employed a Tylerian objective-oriented evaluation methodology as a theoretical framework. In general, this approach compares the consistency between expected behaviors based on stated goals and demonstrated behaviors as measured via survey instrumentation. Frequency and statistical analyses were employed to address specific research questions developed to guide the study. Overall, there were substantial findings supporting the conclusion that Oregon community college leaders, in both past and planned rightsizing behaviors, were acting consistently with the mission of open educational access. / Graduation date: 1996
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/34749 |
| Date | 23 February 1996 |
| Creators | Beebe, Anthony E. |
| Contributors | Daugherty, Ronald D. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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