Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2006

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Geography, Geology, and Anthropology

First Advisor

Robert Larson

Second Advisor

Gregory D. Bierly

Third Advisor

Brian Ceh

Abstract

In recent years community colleges have faced both internal and external challenges in maintaining the college mission. Primarily these challenges connect with funding challenges and the evolving nature of community college funding patterns. This comparative case study assesses two community colleges in contrasting settings within the same state. These colleges were identified by their contrasting service areas that were primarily either rural or urban in nature. Institutional data with combined interview data served as the primary data sources for constructing narratives of how each college's rural or urban location impacts strategic planning processes. Previous research on economic development suggests that regions and communities through developing local social networks can compete more effectively for local investment. This research extends this discussion to the organizational level like a community college to see iflocal social networks can be coordinated at the institutional level. Results suggest that community college can and do lead local economic development efforts. Community colleges through a variety of funding challenges evolve their mission to become more proactive in generating new sources of revenue. Collectively these processes are part of the evolving entrepreneurial mission of the community college. These entrepreneurial activities (i.e., fundraising, grant writing, student recruitment, lobbying, customized training, and partnerships) have literally evolved the very nature of community college geography. IV Results suggest that location does play a role to the degree in which these entrepreneurial activities are developed. Findings from this research suggest that community colleges serving poorer rural regions have clearly more to gain in developing these new social networks. These entrepreneurial activities drive colleges to think more regionally, nationally, and at times even globally. This expanded geography allows rural community colleges to tap into new potential funding sources and new student markets for recruiting. Urban colleges servicing high growth areas in terms of population and economic development have less need to construct these new policy networks. These colleges can often rely more on local wealth and growth to maintain the college's economic base. It is concluded that more studies need to be done comparing findings from this study across multiple states to assess how state funding processes impact the findings from this research.

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