Four Aspects of a Community College President Research Paper

Four Aspects of a Community College President - Research Paper Example Such responsibilities become even more important when considering the fact that the personality traits to complete the jobs are far and few between (Dearlove, 1997). Community college Presidents require the ability to communicate enthusiastically and energetically the role of the college to internal/external constituencies to achieve a sense of common purpose. Moreover, they must possess the ability to provide for the common purpose of the students, teachers, and community at large. Additionally, Presidents require the ability to provide for the fostering of excellence in all college offerings through enthusiasm, vision and innovation. The President must also demonstrate the capacity to assume a leadership role in involving the college in the economic growth of the community. This means that the President must have a commitment to keep the college technologically up to date while expressing a level of sensitivity to the unique needs of faculty, staff and students. In this paper I wil l focus on 4 primary tasks for the President: 1. The CEO Contracts and Performance Evaluations 2. Institutional Advancements 3. Politics and Media (Damage Control) 4. Institutional Governance The President of a community college must function as a CEO and provide regular evaluations of the faculty and other individuals that help make up the organization. In fact, the Community College's mission statement cannot be realized without a competent, motivated, and efficient workforce. The performance evaluation is a necessary component to any performance management and professional development program for employees. Performance evaluations are intended to support skill building of each employee and to encourage an efficient and effective operation (Brubacher, 1982). They are extremely important not only for identifying weak links within an organizational structure, but also for identifying the strong points that are responsible for much success. Meaning that performance evaluations will n ot only show individuals how to improve where their staff is lacking, but also it can indicate where an organization is succeeding. In fact, performance evaluations are created for 3 primary reasons. The first is that it measures the extent to which the employee's performance meets the requirements of the position. It is the opportunity to appraise past performance by recognizing and supporting good performance and identifying areas that might require improvement. The second purpose of performance evaluations are to establish goals for the future. This is important because it allows institutions to identify a method through which they can advance their human resources and consequentially the organization as a collective institution. The third and final objective of the performance evaluations is to strengthen the relationship between the supervisor and the employee. This is done so by opening channels of communication and creating opportunities to assess the employee, the position a nd plan for the future of the departmental human resources (Brubacher, 1982). These goals are best accomplished through interactive review of the position description, identifying opportunities for performance growth and focusing on enhancement of all areas of performance. While there are many professors at a single community college, most Presidents do not personally interview each professor, instead they select department heads who are in control of each of their departments. Beyond the presidents specific roles,