OPINIONS

by Roy Silver

	Discussions regarding higher
education reform in Kentucky have
primarily focused on governance. Any
informed decision about the role of our
community colleges has to be grounded in
an understanding mission. The vision
statement crafted and adopted by the
faculty, staff and administration of
Southeast Community College is
illustrative of the collective community
college mission.

	We are "the catalyst for
educational, community and economic
development, opening the door to a
brighter future."

	The typical student in the 14
community colleges within the University
of Kentucky system is 28 years old, and
two-thirds to three-quarters are female.
Our system is currently undergoing a
reorganization (within the University of
Kentucky). This promises to decentralize
decision-making and allow us to be more
responsive to the needs of the
communities we serve.

	In the book, The Community
Building College, the authors challenge
community colleges to become "a
community-building institution that aims
to improve all aspects of community
life." Our communities have a core of
common interests and common
organizations. Community Colleges are
obligated to provide leadership, in
partnership with other organizations, to
better articulate our common interests.

	Community colleges can affirm
the importance for the creation of a
learning community. Our programs
typically meet the needs of lifelong
learners. We are enmeshed in communities
struggling to overcome the burden of an
economy that falls short in its
production of sustainable employment
opportunities and schooling that
adequately trains. These conditions
frequently produce fragmentation and
division.

	Community colleges should
revitalize organizations and individuals
through a network of partnerships. We
partner with change drivers (e.g.,
business, education, government and
grassroots leaders). This can help with
the creation of a sustainable economy
and life long learning.

	At our best, community
colleges advocate an acceptance of
community as campus and client. The goal
is to provide programs that teach the
skills required to respond to community
problems and individual needs. We
champion the empowerment of citizens,
community renewal, extensive access,
technological innovations and ongoing
assessment.

	What community colleges
require from the state is a mechanism by
which we and communities construct a
collective image of the future. We can
transform this vision into programs and
services.

	An example is the Rural
Community College Initiative, funded by
the Ford Foundation. Southeast and
Hazard Community Colleges are part of
this undertaking.

	Using the initiative program,
community-building colleges developed a
strategic plan that is more an array of
suggested paths rooted in shared
community values. Community colleges are
positioned to remove the physical and
psychological obstacles to admission. We
can bring a unity of purpose to
economic, cultural, educational and
social planning.

	Southeast Community College
has established the Pine Mountain
Community Development Corp. in
partnership with area banks. It provides
small business loans and technical
assistance for the people of Bell,
Harlan and Letcher counties. We will
inaugurate the Southeast Scholars
Program, a scholarship fund wedded to a
mentoring program in partnership with
area middle schools and a leadership
academy that will broaden our leadership
base.

	Hazard is actively engaging
its community with a series of
"roundtable" public discussions. They
have opened the door for new
partnerships that are conceiving local
solutions for regional problems. In the
fall, the initiative program will be
brought to Prestonsburg and Somerset
Community Colleges.

	These colleges will have the
opportunity to initiate their own
process of community building.

	These important steps are
taking place within the present
structure. Will the changes produced by
a special legislative session further
the mission of the community building
college?

(Roy Silver is an associate
professor of sociology and team leader
of the Rural Community College
Initiative at Southeast Community
College in Cumberland.)

by Dorothy Thrash

	Where do we go from here?

	Students who attend the community
colleges across the state of Kentucky are
devastated over the prospect of losing their
status with the University of Kentucky.

	It’s not just the emblem that will
disappear from their degrees or transfers that
they will be losing--it’s the many benefits that
are already in place that are the most alarming.

	What will happen to the rich culture
of our communities we are expressing through
theater, music, and art?  The technological
advancements of Distance Learning as a path for
the future?  The intricate way our system draws
upon UK’s resources that are supportive of our
needs as students and the communities we serve? 
The pride and positive attitude of our elite
professors?

	It would take years and a lot of
revenue to replace what would be torn down if
the governor’s proposal passes in the General
Assembly.  He has said that we wouldn’t be
affected by such a move, but that is impossible
to predict or to believe.

	When new administrators take over,
they will decide what will be available and what
won’t.  With the desire being vocational-tech,
the courses that don’t apply to vocational,
those that are academic, could be eliminated. 
What happens to many students who graduate from
high school but can’t do college level work? 
What happens to the economically disadvantaged
students who desire to go to college but are
unable to leave their community right after
graduation?  What happens to the many support
systems that are created to help many strive for
the G.E.D. and for other goals?  It may not seem
like much on the surface, but these are people
who return to their homes and are able to
encourage their children to do better.  These
are people who are positive about their goals
and how far they want to advance in life.  These
are success stories that continue to be told and
worked toward yearly at the community colleges.

	If the governor had presented us
with a letter from UK stating that they were
tired of the relationship they had with the
community college system, if he could have shown
us letters of dissatisfied administrators and
students saying that they wanted to leave UK,
then I would have a reason to consider the
governor’s proposal, but he has none of this to
offer.  What does he offer in support of his
proposal?  The endorsement of other universities
across the state.

	Everyone has enemies, and they come
out of the woodwork when you’re being attacked,
hoping to get what they always wanted but never
had a vehicle (the governor’s proposal) to do it
with; now they have a way to hurt you.  I don’t
want to forget about our fair-weather friends
(Judas mentalities).  You know the type;
everyone has at least one or two.  They eat your
bread, smile in your face, and they use you to
further their interests.  But when trouble
comes, they jump ship and sympathize with the
enemy.  I have respect for those who speak out
for what they believe in.  I don’t have any
respect for disloyal attitudes put into
practice.

	There are many points to reflect
upon when I think of what our governor proposes
for our future.  One is the fact that he
presents us with no evidence that this move is
better for the students and our community.  Has
it been tried before?  If so, where are the
success stories?

	The last time I checked with the
secondary school system, I found parents and
students devastated, saying, “What can we do?” 
There were going to be cuts in the curriculum,
other classes were going to be limited, and
teachers were going to be overloaded. Some were
even losing their jobs.  Why was this happening,
I asked myself.  The answer was that there
wasn’t enough money to pay for them.

	If the quality of education is being
chipped away on the secondary level, what makes
the governor think he has the revenue to support
our institutions of higher learning?  Oh, I
forgot, this won’t be his problem seven years
from now.

	I am sure that the parents who sued
the governor, legislature, superintendent of
public instruction and the state school board to
get better funding for their poor school
districts didn’t want money to be thrown away by
tearing down one system to build another.

	Seven years later and millions of
dollars spent, we still have the same problems:
a lack of quality education in our secondary
school system.  Could we consider this as a
success story?  I don’t think so.  The General
Assembly, on April 11, 1990, signed into law the
Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) with the
hope of solving problems in education.  I don’t
believe they would repeat this by choosing
another unproven plan.

	Why destroy what has already been
proven to work and spend millions on what the
governor says may work?  The risk could have
disastrous consequences economically for our
state.

	What about the ethical principles
that are being ignored by our governor and his
friends?  Who would seek the rewards of someone
else’s labor?

	Who would, after you giving birth to
a child and nourishing that child into an adult
who was a service to others, come between you
and that child and then, without a second
thought, cut all ties in your relationship
without even warning?  Only an insensitive,
uncaring, and, let me add, a master thief, could
describe such a person.

	The University of Kentucky has
labored to make the community colleges
institutions that this state can be proud of. 
Now that they have done all the work, they are
expected to bow out and let someone else destroy
all that they have accomplished.  They are
expected to abandon their hope for the future of
us all and embrace an idea, a vision, a thought. 
What may sound good or look good can prove not
to be good at all.

	For the governor to use the prospect
of colleges getting more money to lure them into
backing his plan is an insult to our
intelligence.  When I’ve had to listen to high
school students say, “I might as well quit, we
don’t have anything anyway,” I dread the thought
of hearing and seeing the same pain on the faces
of my fellow students at Southeast.

	Will we stand by and see so many
lives affected just to find out?

	I began with a question: “Where do
we go from here?”  My answer?

	“Frankfort, that’s where we go.”