April 7, 2017 – Iowa Western Community College

Iowa Western Community College is clean shiny and new.  Even thought it was established in 1966 the buildings are so well kept and manicured they look like they have not been used.  Parking lots were filled and I saw small numbers of students in classes so I know that’s not true, but contrasting the wear and tear on urban vs. suburban campuses can be striking.  The administrative wing of the college has a lovely indoor water feature and a wall gallery highlighting successful graduates.  Not famous graduates, but successful members of the community who had attended the college.  These were displayed in the administrative hallway while professional portraits of donors hung in the hallway outside the foundation offices. Iowa Western is also a Community College with residency; there are multiple housing complexes on campus.  Having experienced this before in Mississippi, I knew right what to do, instead of talking to faculty or administration I went in search of the cafeteria.  As a former homeless dumpster diver who survived my college days living on the cheep, I know the best deal in town for an all you can eat buffet is a residency cafeteria.  Shure enough, the cafeteria for the college, run by the college culinary program provides and all you can eat lunch for $7.50, good food too... 

As I dinned I noticed a lot of the students appeared to be athletes or involved in sports, and the same status groups prevalent in high school are still present at local colleges.  Athletes sit with athletes; racial groups tend to aggregate and so on…  What I did not notice at this college was faculty and staff eating lunch with the students, perhaps this was just my timing…

            As I left the college to make more freeway miles I found myself thinking of the college I had visited one day earlier.  If the oldest Community College in the nation was initially founded in order to bring the costs associated with going away to college down by bringing the college to the community, then why are community colleges then developing residency programs which drive those costs right back up again?  Having visited multiple community colleges, mostly in rural areas with residency programs, I wonder what the rationale for the college is.  I know from previous visits that some colleges attract students from far away, and they recruit for their programs.  Students will end up paying or taking out more aid to pay for their housing and board.  Isn’t this the same as going to a regular college?  Or has the regular college residency model just been reproduced at the community level.  If we are going to be a college we have to offer students all the conveniences like residency options and gym facilities.  But that makes community college no different than a regular college just perhaps with lower scholastic entrance requirements and more CTE programs?

            Perhaps colleges are just capitalizing on the fact that the community experience just feels better.  As my barista pointed out the best “college” experience she had was at the community level.  What colleges should be asking themselves is: How much should they be capitalizing upon their community?  Is the community the client or the product and was this distinction clear before the decision was made to include amenities like housing? 

In my experience, these decisions are incremental and not conceived in regard to long-term consequences on the intuitional mission.

            Ready to talk about about developing that CCSF civic center (or Gough, or Balboa) property yet!