Sustainability in Community Colleges

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Sustainability in Community Colleges

Introduction

There is a need to conduct a description and to enforce improvement related to the understanding of the meaning of institutionalized sustainability. The task is to assess the role of a college president who has a vital role in maintaining sustainability on a community college campus. As the number of environmental threats to the world appears to escalate, the issue of sustainability is becoming an increasingly important topic. As these environmental issues become more evident, institutions of higher education are becoming significant players within society for addressing many of these issues.

Higher education in the United States has become an extremely influential aspect of society and thus provides a strong context for influencing sustainable practices. Many environmentalists, such as Cortese in 2003, believe that institutions of higher education must take the lead in influencing societal behavior. Understanding the role that college presidents play in community colleges that are exemplary in institutionalizing sustainability is significant because: (a) There is a need to support sustainability initiatives, (b) higher education has a significant role in supporting sustainability, (c) institutionalization is the next challenge in implementing sustainability, (d) presidential leadership is essential to the institutionalization of sustainability, and (e) there is a lack of research on presidents' role in institutionalizing sustainability in community colleges. Therefore, all these issues will be discussed in detail.

Literature Review

In order to study and better understand the role that a college president plays in institutionalizing sustainability on a community college campus, the concept of sustainability will first be probed for its various meanings and connotations. This section provides a review of the literature concerning the meaning of sustainability. It begins with a brief history of environmentalism, followed by a history of the use of the term sustainability. This is followed by an overview of the definitions of sustainability, since it is a word that has multiple definitions and uses. This section will conclude with the definition of sustainability that was used in this study and the reasons for selection of this definition. The purpose of this section is to provide a review of the literature concerning the meaning of sustainability. Implications will be drawn for the design of this study (Barlett, 2004).

The study was based on an interpretive philosophical approach, which supports the importance of a historical understanding. A key concept of interpretive social science concerns the belief that social reality is constructed by those who live it. Social reality always has a history upon which it has been built. Any social activity has a history, is part of a tradition that transcends the individuals currently engaged in the activity. Therefore, for a study based on sustainability, there is an inherent value in understanding the history of sustainability. All three of the research questions concern sustainability, so therefore a good foundational understanding of the history of sustainability will provide solid footing for an interpretive study concerning sustainability. To understand the usage of the term sustainability, it is beneficial to review the ...