Clifford Harbour | University of Wyoming (original) (raw)

Papers by Clifford Harbour

New Directions for Community Colleges, 2016

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2016

The Review of Higher Education, 2013

Abstract This article proposes a new paradigm to understand recent government policies that pose ... more Abstract This article proposes a new paradigm to understand recent government policies that pose new barriers to student participation and divert students out of public higher education. We explain how the classic diversion paradigm, exemplified by Clark (1960) and Brint and Karabel (1989), is unable to account for this new form of student diversion. We also show how Agamben's conceptualization of the “state of exception” and “the camp” offers a foundation for a new “abandonment paradigm” that explains the significance of policies ...

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2015

Community College Review, 2005

Community College Review, 2001

Community College Review, 2000

Community College Review, 2000

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2003

In this article, we report on the articles published in Community College Journal of Research and... more In this article, we report on the articles published in Community College Journal of Research and Practice (CCJRP) from 1990 to 2000 regarding Latinos at community colleges. Although research published in CCJRP has produced important findings, we contend there is a ...

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2003

This qualitative case study utilized interviews and evaluation of publically-available documents ... more This qualitative case study utilized interviews and evaluation of publically-available documents to investigate the process of succession planning in a moderately-sized public health office located in a metropolitan community in a frontier-rural state. Following analysis of the data, the results were compared to literature findings. Four public health directors, the County Health Officer and the Board of Health chairperson participated in the private, face-to-face interviews. These individuals were asked to participate because they have the ability to direct staff leadership development activities. A formal succession planning program did not exist at this agency; however, on an informal basis, leadership development was evident. Successes in promotion of leadership development included establishment of a cooperative and collegial work atmosphere. Barriers to the process of succession planning included a lack of stable funding, lack of understanding about the role of public health by the public, erosion of public health authority, inability to recruit trained personnel, low pay scales, and aging of the current workforce. The results of this study indicate that although formal succession planning programs may not exist within an agency, leadership development is still possible through proven adult education methods.

Objective: The purpose of this article is to explain how central points developed in Dewey's 1916... more Objective: The purpose of this article is to explain how central points developed in Dewey's 1916 Democracy and Education provide the rationale needed to adopt institutional and policy recommendations made by Grubb and Lazerson in their 2004 book, The Education Gospel: The Economic Power of Schooling. Method: The central points of Grubb and Lazerson's work, and the policy agenda offered to guide reforms, are reviewed. Results: The authors describe how a Deweyan view of education and democracy may provide the motivation and guidance needed to move forward on the Grubb and Lazerson agenda to benefit community college vocational education. Contributions: The argument advanced in this article reveals that a meaningful reconstruction of community college vocational education will require implementation of institutional reforms and public policy reforms. This reconstruction will also require, however, a normative vision to motivate policy makers, educators, and citizens.

This qualitative study explored the Lived University Campus Experiences of Low Income Students Pu... more This qualitative study explored the Lived University Campus
Experiences of Low Income Students Pursuing Baccalaureate
Degrees with Private Foundation Scholarship Assistance. The
findings emerged as the themes Experiences of Affirmation, Cautious Engagement, Vulnerability, and Transformation.
Experiences of Affirmation explained the positive words and acts
that established and strengthened participants' confidence in
their academic abilities. Supporting themes clarify the connection
of affirmation to participants' commitment to pursue
four-year degrees. Cautious Engagement described the guarded
manner in which participants' embraced college and college
choices, attitudes, and actions. Supporting themes connect their
behavior to accomplishing their college goals. Vulnerability
demonstrated participants' feelings of susceptibility to criticism
and loss of opportunity and depth of feeling about succeeding.
Transformation described how participants' were changed by the
lived experience of attending college through financial assistance
from a private foundation. Findings were consistent with theories
of student success and persistence.

Community college faculty and staff committed to the eradication of student marginalization may u... more Community college faculty and staff committed to the eradication of student marginalization may use a variety of contemporary strategies to address this form of oppression. We seek to complement these strategies by showing how the work of John Dewey may be used to justify the creation and development of democratic learning communities fundamentally opposed to student marginalization. Community colleges have long been recognized as enrolling a disproportionate share of fi rst-generation college students, low-income students, women, and students of color. Additionally, community colleges have sig-nifi cant enrollments of students who identify as immigrants; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT); and disabled. Many of these students have been marginalized in previous educational settings because of their status and identity. Many come to the community college, " democracy' s college " (Vaughan, 1985), hoping and expecting to live and study in a more diverse environment free of marginalization. Unfortunately, sometimes these hopes and expectations are not fulfi lled and the cycle of marginaliza-tion continues. Other chapters in this volume of New Directions for Community Colleges explain why marginalization of community college students occurs and how we can better identify and confront this form of oppression. Most of these works update and extend our understanding of student marginal-ization by focusing on students' identity and status as the qualities targeted by individual, institutional, and cultural oppression. The purpose of this chapter, however, is to address the subject of student marginalization at the community college from a different perspective. More specifi cally, the purpose of this work is to outline an ethical framework that could be used to create and justify democratic learning communities fundamentally opposed to student marginalization. This framework is based on core values

Institutional accountability programs may present ethical dilemmas for community college leaders.... more Institutional accountability programs may present ethical dilemmas for community college leaders. Some of these dilemmas may be resolved by relying on the authority of the traditional mission. However, in some instances, the mission may be inadequate to check this form of state encroachment. We propose that campus leaders review John Dewey' s philosophy of education to gain insights into how their institutions might negotiate dilemmas not addressed by the traditional mission. Community college leaders face a wide range of ethical challenges in managing their institutions. One of these challenges is negotiating the various accountability expectations imposed on the institution. Traditionally, community colleges were formally accountable through their governing boards to state legislatures, local voters, and the community for the proper expenditure of funds, administration of relevant state or local policies, and implementation of the institutional mission. However, the 1980s marked the beginning of a new era when state legislatures began systematically to create new accountability expectations concerning institutional performance. State institutional accountability programs have been classified as first-generation or second-generation (see Harbour and Jaquette, 2007). First-generation accountability programs include performance-reporting, performance-budgeting, and performance-funding initiatives (Burke, 2005). These programs typically require that institutions report their achievements on specific performance measures (such as student graduation rates, student transfer rates, and student pass rates on certain licensure examinations). Under performance-funding and performance-budgeting programs, some portion of state funding is linked directly (with respect to performance funding) or indirectly (with respect to performance budgeting) to institutional performance. Second-generation accountability mechanisms allocate some portion of state funding through market-based mechanisms such as 5 1

In this article, we propose a new paradigm for understanding recent state policies that pose new ... more In this article, we propose a new paradigm for understanding recent state policies that pose new barriers to student participation, diverting the most vulnerable students out of public higher education. The paradigm we propose is based on works by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and is significantly different from previous diversion theories developed by sociologists Burton Clark (1960) and Steven Brint and Jerome Karabel (1989). These earlier theories described how institutional practices and policies diverted students from one curriculum or institution into another. For example, Clark's (1960) case study at one junior college explained how faculty and staff used various academic and student development practices to " cool-out " students and divert them from transfer curricula into vocational curricula. Brint and Karabel's (1989) research examined a rich historical record, and they explained how community colleges secured their future by aggressively marketing vocational curricula that diverted students away from four-year colleges and universities.

In a narrative inquiry, five educators who taught college in prison share stories about working i... more In a narrative inquiry, five educators who taught college in prison share stories about working in this non-traditional learning environment that is often dangerous and frustrating. From the tension between the prison's emphasis on social control and the educators' concern for democratic classrooms, three broad themes emerged: working in borderlands, negotiating power relations, and making personal transformations. Large intact segments from transcripts of participant interviews form a dramatic text that illuminates how a selected group of educators made meaning of their experience teaching college courses to incarcerated students. A comparative analysis presented in a one act play brings together the individual participant voices to tell a collective story, which has meaning in the context of a shared emotional experience.

In this article, we present a new critique of the Completion Agenda as inscribed in Reclaiming th... more In this article, we present a new critique of the Completion Agenda as inscribed in Reclaiming the American dream, a policy document published in April 2012 by the American Association of Community Colleges. Our critique is grounded on the premise that community colleges should improve completion rates, but this should be motivated by a desire to empower students and prepare them for a richer life in an evolving democracy and not simply satisfy the national economic objectives commonly offered to justify the Completion Agenda. Accordingly, following our critique, we outline an alternative vision based on a text in the literature of democracy as problem solving, a body of work that remains largely unacknowledged in higher education research and scholarship. We specifically focus on Briggs (2008) who found that six different global communities were successful in addressing serious social and economic problems through an organic process grounded in a nontraditional view of democracy. Using Briggs' work as a model, we propose that community colleges adopt a new vision that prioritizes the empowerment of students and their communities.

New Directions for Community Colleges, 2016

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2016

The Review of Higher Education, 2013

Abstract This article proposes a new paradigm to understand recent government policies that pose ... more Abstract This article proposes a new paradigm to understand recent government policies that pose new barriers to student participation and divert students out of public higher education. We explain how the classic diversion paradigm, exemplified by Clark (1960) and Brint and Karabel (1989), is unable to account for this new form of student diversion. We also show how Agamben's conceptualization of the “state of exception” and “the camp” offers a foundation for a new “abandonment paradigm” that explains the significance of policies ...

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2015

Community College Review, 2005

Community College Review, 2001

Community College Review, 2000

Community College Review, 2000

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2003

In this article, we report on the articles published in Community College Journal of Research and... more In this article, we report on the articles published in Community College Journal of Research and Practice (CCJRP) from 1990 to 2000 regarding Latinos at community colleges. Although research published in CCJRP has produced important findings, we contend there is a ...

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2003

This qualitative case study utilized interviews and evaluation of publically-available documents ... more This qualitative case study utilized interviews and evaluation of publically-available documents to investigate the process of succession planning in a moderately-sized public health office located in a metropolitan community in a frontier-rural state. Following analysis of the data, the results were compared to literature findings. Four public health directors, the County Health Officer and the Board of Health chairperson participated in the private, face-to-face interviews. These individuals were asked to participate because they have the ability to direct staff leadership development activities. A formal succession planning program did not exist at this agency; however, on an informal basis, leadership development was evident. Successes in promotion of leadership development included establishment of a cooperative and collegial work atmosphere. Barriers to the process of succession planning included a lack of stable funding, lack of understanding about the role of public health by the public, erosion of public health authority, inability to recruit trained personnel, low pay scales, and aging of the current workforce. The results of this study indicate that although formal succession planning programs may not exist within an agency, leadership development is still possible through proven adult education methods.

Objective: The purpose of this article is to explain how central points developed in Dewey's 1916... more Objective: The purpose of this article is to explain how central points developed in Dewey's 1916 Democracy and Education provide the rationale needed to adopt institutional and policy recommendations made by Grubb and Lazerson in their 2004 book, The Education Gospel: The Economic Power of Schooling. Method: The central points of Grubb and Lazerson's work, and the policy agenda offered to guide reforms, are reviewed. Results: The authors describe how a Deweyan view of education and democracy may provide the motivation and guidance needed to move forward on the Grubb and Lazerson agenda to benefit community college vocational education. Contributions: The argument advanced in this article reveals that a meaningful reconstruction of community college vocational education will require implementation of institutional reforms and public policy reforms. This reconstruction will also require, however, a normative vision to motivate policy makers, educators, and citizens.

This qualitative study explored the Lived University Campus Experiences of Low Income Students Pu... more This qualitative study explored the Lived University Campus
Experiences of Low Income Students Pursuing Baccalaureate
Degrees with Private Foundation Scholarship Assistance. The
findings emerged as the themes Experiences of Affirmation, Cautious Engagement, Vulnerability, and Transformation.
Experiences of Affirmation explained the positive words and acts
that established and strengthened participants' confidence in
their academic abilities. Supporting themes clarify the connection
of affirmation to participants' commitment to pursue
four-year degrees. Cautious Engagement described the guarded
manner in which participants' embraced college and college
choices, attitudes, and actions. Supporting themes connect their
behavior to accomplishing their college goals. Vulnerability
demonstrated participants' feelings of susceptibility to criticism
and loss of opportunity and depth of feeling about succeeding.
Transformation described how participants' were changed by the
lived experience of attending college through financial assistance
from a private foundation. Findings were consistent with theories
of student success and persistence.

Community college faculty and staff committed to the eradication of student marginalization may u... more Community college faculty and staff committed to the eradication of student marginalization may use a variety of contemporary strategies to address this form of oppression. We seek to complement these strategies by showing how the work of John Dewey may be used to justify the creation and development of democratic learning communities fundamentally opposed to student marginalization. Community colleges have long been recognized as enrolling a disproportionate share of fi rst-generation college students, low-income students, women, and students of color. Additionally, community colleges have sig-nifi cant enrollments of students who identify as immigrants; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT); and disabled. Many of these students have been marginalized in previous educational settings because of their status and identity. Many come to the community college, " democracy' s college " (Vaughan, 1985), hoping and expecting to live and study in a more diverse environment free of marginalization. Unfortunately, sometimes these hopes and expectations are not fulfi lled and the cycle of marginaliza-tion continues. Other chapters in this volume of New Directions for Community Colleges explain why marginalization of community college students occurs and how we can better identify and confront this form of oppression. Most of these works update and extend our understanding of student marginal-ization by focusing on students' identity and status as the qualities targeted by individual, institutional, and cultural oppression. The purpose of this chapter, however, is to address the subject of student marginalization at the community college from a different perspective. More specifi cally, the purpose of this work is to outline an ethical framework that could be used to create and justify democratic learning communities fundamentally opposed to student marginalization. This framework is based on core values

Institutional accountability programs may present ethical dilemmas for community college leaders.... more Institutional accountability programs may present ethical dilemmas for community college leaders. Some of these dilemmas may be resolved by relying on the authority of the traditional mission. However, in some instances, the mission may be inadequate to check this form of state encroachment. We propose that campus leaders review John Dewey' s philosophy of education to gain insights into how their institutions might negotiate dilemmas not addressed by the traditional mission. Community college leaders face a wide range of ethical challenges in managing their institutions. One of these challenges is negotiating the various accountability expectations imposed on the institution. Traditionally, community colleges were formally accountable through their governing boards to state legislatures, local voters, and the community for the proper expenditure of funds, administration of relevant state or local policies, and implementation of the institutional mission. However, the 1980s marked the beginning of a new era when state legislatures began systematically to create new accountability expectations concerning institutional performance. State institutional accountability programs have been classified as first-generation or second-generation (see Harbour and Jaquette, 2007). First-generation accountability programs include performance-reporting, performance-budgeting, and performance-funding initiatives (Burke, 2005). These programs typically require that institutions report their achievements on specific performance measures (such as student graduation rates, student transfer rates, and student pass rates on certain licensure examinations). Under performance-funding and performance-budgeting programs, some portion of state funding is linked directly (with respect to performance funding) or indirectly (with respect to performance budgeting) to institutional performance. Second-generation accountability mechanisms allocate some portion of state funding through market-based mechanisms such as 5 1

In this article, we propose a new paradigm for understanding recent state policies that pose new ... more In this article, we propose a new paradigm for understanding recent state policies that pose new barriers to student participation, diverting the most vulnerable students out of public higher education. The paradigm we propose is based on works by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and is significantly different from previous diversion theories developed by sociologists Burton Clark (1960) and Steven Brint and Jerome Karabel (1989). These earlier theories described how institutional practices and policies diverted students from one curriculum or institution into another. For example, Clark's (1960) case study at one junior college explained how faculty and staff used various academic and student development practices to " cool-out " students and divert them from transfer curricula into vocational curricula. Brint and Karabel's (1989) research examined a rich historical record, and they explained how community colleges secured their future by aggressively marketing vocational curricula that diverted students away from four-year colleges and universities.

In a narrative inquiry, five educators who taught college in prison share stories about working i... more In a narrative inquiry, five educators who taught college in prison share stories about working in this non-traditional learning environment that is often dangerous and frustrating. From the tension between the prison's emphasis on social control and the educators' concern for democratic classrooms, three broad themes emerged: working in borderlands, negotiating power relations, and making personal transformations. Large intact segments from transcripts of participant interviews form a dramatic text that illuminates how a selected group of educators made meaning of their experience teaching college courses to incarcerated students. A comparative analysis presented in a one act play brings together the individual participant voices to tell a collective story, which has meaning in the context of a shared emotional experience.

In this article, we present a new critique of the Completion Agenda as inscribed in Reclaiming th... more In this article, we present a new critique of the Completion Agenda as inscribed in Reclaiming the American dream, a policy document published in April 2012 by the American Association of Community Colleges. Our critique is grounded on the premise that community colleges should improve completion rates, but this should be motivated by a desire to empower students and prepare them for a richer life in an evolving democracy and not simply satisfy the national economic objectives commonly offered to justify the Completion Agenda. Accordingly, following our critique, we outline an alternative vision based on a text in the literature of democracy as problem solving, a body of work that remains largely unacknowledged in higher education research and scholarship. We specifically focus on Briggs (2008) who found that six different global communities were successful in addressing serious social and economic problems through an organic process grounded in a nontraditional view of democracy. Using Briggs' work as a model, we propose that community colleges adopt a new vision that prioritizes the empowerment of students and their communities.