Staffing in the Two-Year College.

THE relationship between two-year colleges and four-year institutions has come through a first stage and, I think, is about to enter another. In the Northeast, the rise of the community college was simultaneous with the enlargement of entire state-university systems, the attempt to equalize educational opportunity, and, most recently, the decline both in the college-age population and in that group's literacy and literary background.1 This confluence helped to create a confusing, and often negative, image in academe of the role of community colleges, beclouding a more serious examination of the newest and largest American educational institution. Some of the criticism directed toward two-year colleges is based on social disdain and on competition for students and tax dollars, some is based on ignorance (for example, of what a twelfth grade reading level is), and some is necessary and well deserved. The barbs are particularly wounding when carried by the public media. Notice, for example, the reporter's language in this excerpt from the New York Times: "The new [competency] examinations have their origin in a decision of the Board of Higher Education in April 1976 to restructure the university to preserve open admissions at the community colleges and to emphasize educational quality at the senior college level."2 When such rhetoric and logic abound, the first qualification for being on the faculty of a community college must be personal courage. Without it, could one associate with such a cynical enterprise? The Times's premise is inaccurate both in its sweep and in its diction, for the truths about open enrollment and educational quality are not to be given in a neat opposing statement. And yet chairmen in four-year and university departments are obligated to pursue those truths if my faculty and I are to continue teaching and if those chairmen and their faculties are to continue to prepare future two-year-college faculty. Even among English department chairmen, who share background and goals, this will be difficult. Probably none has graduated from a two-year college. A few may have entered as faculty; most have had only indirect relationships. Though the two-year-college concept is still quite new, and still changing, there are means to gather information and dislodge stereotypes. The most important point graduate directors can make to prospective teachers is that each two-year college is different and that one must proceed cautiously before making judgments. The community college takes its characteristics from the community around it. My own college has much in common with Nassau and Rockland Community Colleges, less with North Country Community College and with the Carol M. Cloos*