An Evolutionary Response to Adult Learners: The Urban Small College

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the emergence of a new species of institution-the urban small college-which is distinguished in part by degree programs for adults. The discussion is intended to be a useful resource for academic and student service personnel a t these small colleges who, usually without any training in adult education, must develop programs for local, working adults and integrate them with their existing curricula and services for traditional-aged, residential students. Five specific recommen-dations are made based on a transcript study of graduates a t an urban small college in Portland, Oregon.... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Charles Darwin (1964, p. 490) In 1636, The General Court of Massachusetts chartered Harvard College, the first college in North America (Rudolf, 1977). Three hun-dred and fifty years later, the Carnegie classification counted 3,389 institutions of higher education in the United States and arranged these schools into an institutional typology comprising 10 distinct categories (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1987). Like Darwin's biosphere, the American higher education system continues to evolve "forms most beautiful and most wonderful." Within each of these 10 Carnegie categories, the system may also be developing urban and nonurban forms. For example, work continues on the concept of the urban public university (Grobman, 1988; Kinnick & Ricks, 1990). Emerging after World War I1 and providing important educational functions in the local metropolitan environment, research suggests that these universities often manifest different characteris-tics than their nonurban counterparts. Perhaps urban and nonurban community colleges also differ importantly. Douglas L. Robertson is Assistant Professor of postsecondary education at Portlan