World Community College^SM

by Dr. Steve Eskow
President, The Pangaea Network

World Community College will begin as a consortium of U.S. community colleges committed to offering U.S. students, businesses, and organizations an opportunity to study, work, and serve with their counterparts around the nation and around the world.

As soon as feasible, invitations to join will be extended to non-U.S. educational institutions and organizations and to non-formal educational agencies in the U.S.

A.  Services of World Community College

World Community College offers member colleges a large and rich set of services, including:

1.  Hosting and software services for global-local distance learning.

2.  Faculty and staff development programs.

3.  Local, national, and international student recruitment and marketing services for both distance education and on-campus programs.

4.  Linkage services to U.S. and international agencies and foundations that support international education.

5.  A variety of consulting services in instructional and curriculum design.

B.  World Community College: The Key Assumptions

Community colleges, committed as they are to preparing local students for work and citizenship, and helping local business learn what they need to know to grow and prosper, now need to make those changes in their perspectives and their practices that acknowledge these facts:

1.  The economy for which community colleges are preparing local students is a global economy.

2.  Local businesses need to learn how to find allies and markets in a global economy if they are to grow and prosper.

The community college paradox, then, is that the college can no longer serve its community well if it does act as the link between local students and local enterprise and the world economy.

World Community College will be a consortium devoted to helping its member develop the capacity to link the education of local students and organizations to opportunities for learning and service around the nation and the world.

1.  The new communication technologies—the Internet and the World Wide Web—now make it possible to end the distinction between community education and international education: local students in any U.S. institutions can be in online classes with students in other U.S. communities, and students around the world.

2.  The new communication technologies allow us to move instruction into our own U.S. underserved and unserved communities as well as those around the world.

3.  There are instructional strategies—the use of learning contracts, for example—that allow community college students to leave campus and community for productive work, study, and service abroad.

4.  There are U.S. and international organizations, agencies, and foundations that will help us with funds and services to make such global-local education and service possible.

(a)  Church, synagogue, and mosque networks will bring our message to those around the world that need the instruction.

(b)  Multinational corporations will create internship opportunities for students who want work experience in another culture.

(c)  International service organizations will create opportunities for students to serve abroad, and learn from that service.

(d)  U.S. and international organizations such as USAID, World Bank and UNESCO will be approached for support.

(e)  Foundations committed to international education and service such as Lilly and Kellogg will be asked to support.

(f)  Ministries of education and foreign universities will be asked to help.

5.  The activities and services of World Community College must respect the current fiscal realities of the U.S. colleges as well the cultural integrity of the nations whose students and institutions they serve. It is assumed that the international services of the member colleges will be self-supporting, and not divert funds and staff energy and creativity from their primary mission of community education and service.

 

All programs of World Community College must be designed to enhance the education of local students and local businesses in the course of the new focus on globalizing the college.

C.  Activities of World Community College

1.  Distance Learning: Linking local students, businesses, and institutions to the world.

The college uses the new communication technologies to put local students in online classes with students around the U.S. and around the world; helps local business come online to search for national and global allies and customers; and helps community schools, churches, civic associations come online to create virtual communities.

2.  "Learning Away": Creating work, study and service opportunities in the U.S. and abroad for local students.

The new "Learning Away" program of the community colleges allows students to include a semester or year studying elsewhere, while they use their computers to continue to take courses at the local college, and to be in touch with their mentors.

3.  Bringing foreign students to U.S. community colleges.

Foreign students in community college classrooms can teach their native languages to American students while they learn English, and they can help local business and industry learn of opportunities to do business in their countries.

4.  Faculty and student exchanges.

5.  Internationalizing the community college curricula.

D.  Services the WCC Sponsor* Will Provide to Members

1.  The distance learning technology: all hosting hardware and software.

(a)  A "virtual campus" for each community college: All "buildings," with "furnishings," and the functions of chat and conferencing and course authoring that faculty and student need for instruction and discussion.

(b)  The " Community College Commons," complete with a well-stocked library, a counseling center, a student center, a college store, a media center, and much more.

(Note: Colleges that now have a distance learning system in place on campus, or are using a private service such as AOL or Real Education, may use these services in place of those offered to WCC members as part of the package of services.)

2.  Staff and faculty in-service education.

Member institutions will be able to send faculty and staff to workshops and consultancies on such topics as:

(a)  Distance learning: course authoring; library and counseling services online, etc.

(b)  "Learning contracts": for institutions and faculty interested in this pedagogy for insuring the quality of study, service and work abroad.

(c)  Internationalizing the various disciplines and programs.

3.  Student recruitment and marketing.

Member institutions will benefit from an extensive program of marketing in the U.S. and abroad, through a number of channels developed over the last decade. The marketing program will include:

(a)  Workshops and consultancies on marketing distance learning locally.

(b)  Prepared materials for local marketing, including ads, brochures, and seminar materials.

(c)  Online marketing campaigns to individuals and affinity groups of potential students.

(d)  Representation to state and national agencies: Social services; Voc Rehab; Federal Bureau of Prisons, etc.

(e)  Representation to major national and international whose tuition assistance programs cover distance learning.

(f)  Representation to the embassies of the world, and to agencies such as USAID and World Bank.

(g)  Connections to such supporting agencies as the Stanley Foundation, the College Consortium for International Study, CAEL, The National Society for Experiential Education, etc.

(h)  Assistance in developing and strengthening of services to international students on campus: ESL; foreign student advising, etc.