David F. Ayers

Conservation and education: prominent themes in zoo mission statements

In this study, the authors examine the mission statements of 136 zoos in the United States that the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) has accredited, and report on the predominant themes of education and conservation in the statements. To explore the relation between these two themes, the authors present a literature review of the roles and purposes of zoos and discuss how the literature compares with the roles and purposes of zoos as found in the zoo mission statements. They conclude that with more than 134 million visitors a year, zoos are in a unique position to provide environmental education and conservation education to large numbers of people.

Neoliberal Ideology in Community College Mission Statements: A Critical Discourse Analysis

This critical discourse analysis focuses on neoliberal discursive representations of the community college mission. The community colleges role in reproducing social inequality is explained as a neoliberal discursive project in which meanings of education are reconstituted to secure the interests of the powerful. As such, the community college mission becomes defined in economic instead of democratic terms. The author calls for a counter-hegemonic discourse that represents the community college as an opportunity for emancipation.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Online Learning: Implications for the Globalized Community College

Implicit in the open-door mission of the community college is the mandate that every learning experience should offer full equity and inclusion for all learners, including those of diverse cultural backgrounds. This mission is paramount, given the cultural diversity represented among learners served by the globalized community college. This paper presents a cross-section of research, practice, and discourse focused on expanding our knowledge and understanding of the diverse learning needs of community college learners. The relevance of the literature to the planning, design, and implementation of distance-learning is discussed. In the end, the authors offer distance-learning instructional strategies that may accommodate the unique needs of Hispanic/Latino learners. Implications for community college educators are discussed.

Mission Priorities of Community Colleges in the Southern United States

Executive-level administrators must provide strategic leadership of the institutional mission if their community colleges are to adapt and respond to learner needs in a rapidly changing environment. Through a content analysis of mission statements from 102 community colleges in the United States, this study reveals 7 salient themes regarding the mission priorities of contemporary community colleges in the southern United States. Confidence intervals indicate the probable proportions of community college mission statements reflecting each salient theme.

Organizational Climate in Its Semiotic Aspect: A Postmodern Community College Undergoes Renewal

A study at a community college undergoing renewal provided an opportunity to explore how members of various institutional subsystems differ in the ways they make meaning of organizational climate conditions. The researcher identifies and describes competing discourses relating to the signs and symbols of power, collaboration, technology, and shared vision.

A Critical Realist Orientation to Learner Needs

The objective of this essay is to propose critical realism as a philosophical middle way between two sets of ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions regarding learner needs. Key concepts of critical realism, a tradition in the philosophy of science, are introduced and applied toward an analysis of learner needs, resulting in novel ontological and epistemological assertions about learner needs. Retroduction is offered as a methodology for interrogating needs as a function of broad and complex social processes.

Manifestations of neoliberal discourses within a local job‐training program

The purpose of conducting this study was to understand how neoliberal discourses manifest within the local context of a short‐term, job‐training program offered at a two‐year college in the USA. Ethnographic data were collected at the local site through interviews, observations and document analysis. We then situated these data within a global context represented by a corpus of purposively selected national and international policy texts. Focusing on three components of discourse as social action—genres, representations and identities—the data analysis illuminated three interrelated themes relating to how institutional actors translated neoliberal discourses available at the global scale into practice. The ideological consequences for learners as well as examples of counter‐hegemonic resistance are discussed.

Security, Dignity, Caring Relationships, and Meaningful Work Needs Motivating Participation in a Job-Training Program

Researchers asked 17 participants in a job-training program to describe their personal struggles following an economic restructuring. Examined through a critical theoretical lens, findings indicate that the learners enrolled in the program to reclaim security, dignity, meaningful work, and caring relationships. Program planners at community colleges are therefore urged to employ democratic program planning models, ask learners about their educational needs as they see them, and listen compassionately to their responses.

Developing Climates for Renewal in the Community College: A Case Study of Dissipative Self-Organization.

To sustain relevance in the twenty-first century, community college programs must evolve in cadence with the shifting needs of information-age learners. Focusing on a rural community college in the Southeastern United States, this case study explored relationships among organizational climate conditions and the colleges capacity to recognize and respond to changes in learner needs. Data collection techniques included participant-observation, document analysis, and interviews. A theoretical framework stemming from both dissipative self-organizing systems and organizational climate structured the interpretation of the qualitative data. Four salient themes emerged - identifying organizational structure, empowerment, communication/interdependence, and shared vision - as organizational climate conditions that set the stage for effective information processing and efficient organizational renewal. The findings point to the dissipative self-organization paradigm as a useful framework for interpreting organizational renewal in rural community colleges facing severe environmental turbulence.

UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT AND CLIMATE IN A COMMUNITY COLLEGE

This study examined the relationship between community college organizational climate and the conflict communication styles of individuals and job groups within the college. More specifically, this study investigated the relationships of employee perceptions concerning organizational communications, collaboration, formal influence, structure, focus on students, and work design/technology to their self-identified affinities for seeking solutions, control, or avoidance in conflict situations with their immediate supervisors. Effective leadership strategies are explored based on these relationships.