Reimagining Community College: Measuring Faculty's Perspective on Disruption and Change Resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Higher education is at an inflection point in its long history due to various disruptions within the enterprise (e.g., demographic shifts, elimination of state funding, lack of trust within local communities). The most recent disruption, the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in broad and systemic pivots across all types of higher education institutions. While many institutions struggled with the impacts of this global disruption, some four-year institutions had made systemic changes before the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., increasing online course and degree offerings, engaging in alternative revenue enterprises, providing necessary educational supports to the local community) resulting in what has been called the academic enterprise. However, community colleges have been acutely affected by the pandemic due to significant decreases in enrollment and other disruptions such as decreased state funding. Community colleges differ from four-year institutions including demographics, funding sources, educational intent of students, and overall mission and focus. How community colleges respond to the COVID-19 disruption will significantly affect the future of two-year institutions. The purpose of this research study was to understand how residential faculty at a large community college, Plateau Community College (PCC), both understand and operationalize concepts of the academic enterprise within their institution as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Key findings indicate female residential faculty were more positive in understanding and operationalizing concepts of the academic enterprise, and residential faculty who were older were less positive about the concepts. The results, discussion, and recommendations provide information and insight to institutional leaders as community colleges begin to reimagine their place in the higher education ecosystem as a result of disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic