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The process used by community-college leaders in making decisions is very important, given the complexity and significance of their decisions to institutional quality and effectiveness. This article explores the degree to which leaders utilize research in their decision-making, the sources and usefulness of the research, and how the base of information for decision-making could be improved. While community colleges have not been institutions that focus on conducting research, there is a growing trend toward community-college institutional research. However, such research varies widely in quality and applicability outside of the institution conducting it. In 2002, the Community-College Leadership Initiatives conducted an investigation of decision-making practices of a group of leaders in 83 California community colleges. The results of the survey are presented and analyzed. The most important finding is that community-college leaders place a high priority on using research in their decision-making, however, they lack the time and resources to search for and review useful sources. This finding needs to be addressed by professional associations, researchers, conference planners, and others committed to strengthening the work of community-college leaders.

Leading community colleges has become more complex in the 21st century and demands a greater range of skills. Two significant trends have driven--and continue to drive--the expanding leadership challenges. The first is growth--increases in student enrollments caused by population expansion; workers' greater needs for job retraining; and employers' increasing demands for educated workers. All these factors impact community colleges more heavily than other sectors of higher education and demand agile leadership--from executives, from other administrators, and from faculty and staff.

Describes the increasing difficulty of community colleges to attract and train new leaders, along with the intensifying trend of turmoil within institutional governance. The Community College Leadership Development Initiatives (CCLDI) group was formed to assist in the resolution of these problematic trends through the strengthening of college leadership; focusing on skills training and the mastery of current substantive issues. (JS)

In 2000, the Community College Leadership Development Institute (CCLDI) set out to develop a leadership program based on the values and skills most needed by community college leaders. It held two design workshops to identify those underlying values and skills. The design workshop participants were trustees, CEOs, senior administrators, faculty and classified staff leaders from the regions served by Western Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges--California, Hawaii and the Western Pacific Islands. Following the design workshops, senior staff of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) assisted in the development of the leadership activities. The design participants agreed the training should aim to improve the organizational capacity to conduct the collective work of community colleges rather than solely the ability of individual leaders. To accomplish this aim, the designers envisioned four training components--(1) A leadership academy; (2) policy seminars; (3) executive coaching; and (4) research dissemination. The overall response to the program has been very positive and word-of-mouth referrals for the 2004 Academy are high. Based on the first two years of CCLDI programs, it is clear there is a great need and hunger for broad leadership development programs throughout community colleges.