From Learning to Education: A New Paradigm for the Community College

For more than a century, community colleges have been an integral part of the undergraduate experience. Two-year college professionals have served students for more than five generations, and they have served the nation well. In a recent report on a survey commissioned by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Selingo (2004) wrote, "Nearly 93 percent of the respondents agreed that higher education institutions are one of the most valuable resources in the United States," and community colleges are among the resources we trust and value most (p. 1).The key to the growth and success of community colleges has been a long-standing commitment to students. In contrast to institutions with a wider range of duties, 2-year schools are single-mindedly devoted to student development. Thus, in the middle 1980s, when accrediting agencies and state legislatures moved to emphasize accountability through the ssessment of student learning (Lazerson, Wagener, & Shumanis, 2000, p. 14), community colleges were among the first to heed the call. In the 1990s, we began to focus on learning with a kind of zeal characteristic of social or political movements (O'Banion, 1998a, 1998b).Over the course of the past decade, the goal of increased student learning grew to the point where community colleges came to think of and refer to themselves as "learning colleges" (Barr & Tagg, 1995; O'Banion, 1997; Tagg, 2003). By the turn of the century, the words of Robert Barr and John Tagg (1995) had hardened into truisms: "Our mission is that of producing learning with every student by whatever means" (p. 9). Never before has learning been a more central focus in 2-year colleges. Yet the heightened focus on learning has channeled the efforts of educators toward purposes that are limited in scope. The focus on learning, in lieu of education, limits the approach of staff and faculty merely to encouraging cognitive as opposed to social, moral, or aesthetic development (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Today, the goal of "producing learning" is seen as customary, but learning and education are not one and the same. Learning is private and psychological, whereas education is both social and public. It is possible that learning may be produced by whatever means. Learning can even take place anytime or anywhere (O'Banion, 1997). However, education is a social institution, and the process of becoming an educated person is complex and multifaceted.As the Russian psychologist Pavlov demonstrated, dogs are capable of learning; so are ducks and mice and barnyard animals (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2005). Learning is easy to produce and equally simple to measure. The same cannot be said of education, however. Education is rich, diverse, and complicated. Nonetheless, a well-educated citizenry is crucial to maintaining the health and sovereignty of free and self-governing nations (Barber, 1992). At best, cognitive development can only be a partial goal for public colleges. Our primary objectives must be social and cultural in character. Postsecondary schools bear the responsibility of "providing the next generation with the capacities, beliefs, and commitments necessary to ensure society's goals" (Shapiro, 2005, p. 37).Shifting the focus of 2-year colleges away from the current emphasis on learning and toward a broad concern with education is consistent with the schools' historic function as a cornerstone of democracy (Griffith & Connor, 1994; Hanson, 2002; Rhoades & Valdez, 1996). In honor of its place in the nation's political fabric, the community college has been referred to as "democracy's college" (Diekhoff, 1950). A renewed institutional commitment to liberal or general education holds the promise of restoring our commitment to the once-proud designation, but the change also comes with potential benefits for colleges. The move from learning to education stands to make 2-year schools more competitive in the postsecondary marketplace. …