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Post date: Mar 07, 2017 1:35:38 AM
The college has history, having started as a single building with attached houseboat some 50 years or so ago. It is now made up of 20 or so buildings including the Tennessee Williams art center. So named because one of his plays premiered here. And the walls and grounds of the college are decorated with art installations from the colleges ceramics program. It is quite neat to see how a few influential people with skills can over time influence the ascetics and identity of a place. Student poetry was on display as were a large collection of shells and corals in the science laboratory hallways.
Today I ventured to reach my southernmost goalpost by traveling onto the Florida Keys. The Keys being a string of islands connected by one roadway are for all intent, a long dead end to a rider, with the plan being to ride to the southernmost island (Key West) visit the Community College that is there, and then return by the same road retracing steps. From where I landed last night it was a good two and a half hour ride to get to Key West (you can’t move fast when you are on the only highway to a densely populated and touristy place. Land is at a premium so I blindly booked reservations at of the two campsites on the farthest island before leaving the mainland. The winds picked up as I traveled but this time they were coming from behind me making the ride much more bearable than the day before. I tried to snap photos of the environment and the choppy blue waters but the best views are from the tops of bridges where one is discouraged from stopping for artistic license.
Florida Keys Community College
First sign I saw upon reaching Key West was for the College. So a quick right turn and a half a mile later there I was. The college is small only ~1500 students many of whom are not from the keys. It is, never the less, part of the public college system in Florida. I was mistaken about this fact before arriving. As you might expect, just like the other colleges I visited, the environment heavily influences this ones programs and it is clear the students who come here are focused on area specific industries.
Marine Science is big with the college having programs focused on practical experience in the various industries that work in the water. The college has a highly desirable residency option and the residency halls are located on a spit of land that also houses the diving educational programs beyond a lagoon that is used for diving practice. No other college I have encountered so far has an actual decompression chamber mixed in among the recreational facilities for students.
Being naturally drawn to the science labs good fortune smiled upon me finding the marine biology lab open. One of the programs at the college is Aquatic husbandry (training for people going into the salt or fresh water aquarium industry) the Lab had established a breeding program for clownfish (you know like the cartoon “Finding Nemo”). There were three species of clown fish being housed and bred in one room off the main lab, the room next door was devoted to growing all the algae necessary to feed the fish in captivity. The main lab set up as a classroom also housed multiple aquarium tanks set up to catch eggs from fish that were caught offshore that open spawn. The really cool part was that just like in the CCSF biology storeroom the lab was also occupied by a few really enthusiastic lab aids and a lab tech that kept the programs and systems functioning. It was clear in this environment everybody knew everybody else and they were very excited to share their world and work with the outsider who had just walked in (this is the essence of good science!).
The lab manager pointed me in the direction of the office of the professor who teaches the program. After having an opportunity to eavesdrop on her counseling session and having a just a few minutes to speak with her about the college, before her next meeting, I was impressed. This was a busy person. At FKCC instructors teach 5 classes and are also expected to mentor about 100 students with counseling duties. On the positive from my brief encounter it was clear that professors were allowed to move in directions they choose. (She had taken on writing a grant and was taking additional classes herself on the weekend). They hire full timers as experts and allow them to move independently within reason. But the flip side of this coin is if you want to take something on you have to figure out how to get the work done yourself and at some point there is no more time. The situation was too familiar to me personally, and yet we all want what’s best for our students and we want to develop innovative programs and services. Nobody else is going to do it for you, so we keep trying to add more onto our already filled plates. At least I could see a similar phenotype this far away from home. On a management level the equation seems simple. Select tenured professorate that has already shown themselves to be hard, self-motivated, workers and then let them run themselves into the ground, by giving them a full load of baseline expectations and letting them pile more on… sound familiar anyone?
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