Article Title
Innovating in Higher Education -- Challenges and Responses within a Conservative Context
Abstract
This article presents a case study of a community college – Ivy Tech-Bloomington (IN) – to illustrate challenges faced by postsecondary institutions around the world. Ivy Tech-Bloomington has faced reduced state funding and increased pressure to emphasize the instrumental value of education – namely, “workforce development” – with constructive responses that diverge in many ways from dominant trends in higher education. Inspired by a vision of serving the common good, of helping those students most likely to fail, and valuing the role of the arts and humanities, the leadership of Ivy Tech-Bloomington has accomplished many of its goals in an otherwise hostile climate. It has been able to do so by skillfully employing a logic and language understandable to state officials and education system administrators, but grounded in a distinctly different set of values. The campus leadership also has been able to mobilize public support for its strategic initiative.
Recommended Citation
Whikehart, John and Arnove, Robert F.
(2015)
"Innovating in Higher Education -- Challenges and Responses within a Conservative Context,"
International Journal of Leadership and Change: Vol. 3:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijlc/vol3/iss1/3