5 Volume V, 2007 – 2012

This volume constitutes the last entry of the history of Howard Community College, at least as written by this author. This document is Volume V and it covers the life of the college from 2007 up to the summer of 2012, or as close as the data could provide. For those who might have read the previous volumes, they focused primarily with the years of the college’s presidential tenures. Volume I covered the formative years, starting with the mid 1960’s when there was no HCC, but plans for a community college to serve the county were under way. This volume was also devoted to the life of the college during the tenure of its first president, Dr. Alfred J. Smith, Jr., a period of 12 years.

The next two volumes covered the sixteen-year period during which time the president of HCC was Dr. Dwight Burrill. So far, this was the longest tenure of any of the college’s four presidents. Because of the length of his tour of duty, Volumes II and III deal with the first and second halves of his presidency.

Dr. Mary Ellen Duncan was the third president of HCC,ⁱ and the college’s history during her tenure is found in Volume IV. Dr. Duncan was president for 10 years, from 1998 to 2007.

Dr. Kathleen Hetherington was appointed as the fourth president of HCC in 2007. Thus, the life of the college beginning in 2007 proceeds to where this, the author’s final volume, ends.

The reader is asked to note that the phrase, “the life of the college,” has been used a few times. This is deliberate. HCC’s history is more than legislative issues, policies, interactions between the college and various local, state and federal agencies, etc. It is about students and the everyday activities, programs, interactions, challenges, and initiatives of faculty, staff, and administrative personnel that are the life of the college, as well as the presence of HCC in the community.

Howard Community College is not the only institution of higher education in the county. So, it may be of interest to the reader to learn a bit about the history of higher education in the county, to complete the picture, so to speak. To this end, an additional chapter on this subject has been added to this volume.  

So, on then to as close to the present, that is the summer of 2012 as of this writing, as we can get.

THE HCC LANDSCAPE IN 2007

It is useful to put the college into the context of what the surrounding world was like in 2007. On the world and national scene, the United States was still involved in Iraq and General David Patraeus, an expert in counter insurgency was appointed the top commander in Iraq. On this side of the Atlantic, a deranged individual shot and killed two students at Virginia Tech on April 16. In the realm of our nation’s economy, the housing bubble burst and the mortgage crisis surfaced very quickly. And in politics, then U.S. Senator, Barack Obama began his campaign in February for the Democratic nomination for President. Later that year TIME magazine named Russia’s Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year.

Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone and the clamor for such products erupted.  J.K. Rowling published her last Harry Potter book. By this time, she was one of the richest women in the world. In sports, there was enough scandal to go around. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants broke Hank Aaron’s homerun record, but was embroiled in the steroid scandal, and Atlanta Falcon’s quarterback Michael Vick admitted to funding illegal dog fighting. In film, the Oscar for best picture went to “The Departed,” and on TV, we began to see more and more weekly drama such as the CSI series programs on the screen.  TV news programs also began to provide more news items about obesity in America as a national problem.

Closer to home, the population of Maryland was about 5.6 million and that of Howard County was around 275,000.  The county’s economic health encouraged Trader Joe’s supermarket to locate an 11,000 square-foot grocery at the Gateway Overlook shopping Center.¹

The County Executive, elected in 2006, was Ken Ulman, the first native Columbian to achieve that office. There were 12 public high schools and 2 private high schools in the county that fed into the college,ⁱⁱ not to forget out-of-county, out-of-state, international, and any number of home-schooled youngsters who came to HCC.

The physical layout of the college in 2007 consisted of several buildings. They were the Clark Library Building, the Nursing Building, Administration Building (later to be named McCuan Hall), Smith Theatre, Instructional Lab Building (subsequently named English/Languages Building),ⁱⁱⁱ and the Horowitz Center for the Visual and Performing Arts.  Across the “lake” were the Athletic and Fitness Center and the Children’s Learning Center. The Hickory Ridge Building housed the Mathematics and Continuing Education Divisions, and there were the satellite facilities of the Laurel Learning Center and Gateway Building. We were big!

By March, 2007 the Rouse Company Foundation Student Services Hall (the RCF Building) was opened and the quad was completed. But there was more to the physical appearance of the college than just the buildings. By 2007, the area next to the Athletic and Fitness Center had a renovated track and new athletic fields, and to the north between the Center and the rest of the college was a better cared for pond, next to which were the outdoor Dreier Stage and the Lundy Bridge that crossed the stream. The Crist Fountain of Inspiration further beautified the pond, and the Quad was graced by the long fountain in front of what would later be named the Clark Library Building. The west entrance to the RCF Building had a circular approach for vehicles and the sidewalks were adorned by a series of plaques with quotations of famous people.

The members of the Board of Trustees of the college were:

Roger N. Caplan

Roberta E. Dillow

Dr. Patrick L. Huddie

Louis G. Hutt, Jr.

Katherine K. Rensin

T. James Truby

Mary Beth Tung

All of these trustees had a track record of being active in the community, either through their employment in corporations, law practice, consulting services, or having been involved with the college in such areas as the Commission on the Future, or the Howard Community College Educational Foundation. Thus, they were well equipped to understand the educational role of HCC and its place in the community.

Dr. Mary Ellen Duncan was in her last six months as president. Her immediate team included the following personnel:

Lynn C. Coleman, Vice President of Administration and Finance

Thomas J. Glaser, Vice President of Information Technology

Farida Guzdar, Executive Assistant to the President

Kathleen B. Hetherington, Executive Vice President

Zoe Irvin, Executive Director of Planning, Research, and Organizational Development

Ronald X. Roberson, Vice President of Academic Affairs

Erin Yun, Director of Board Relations/Special Projects

Each of these individuals had considerable experience in their fields that included prior administrative positions at the college or elsewhere. Indeed, the sum of experiences was impressive.  Coleman had been with the college since 1986, Glaser since 2000, Guzdar joined the college in 1989, Hetherington started at the college as Vice President of Student Services in 1999, having many years of prior experience at the Community College of Philadelphia. Irvin joined HCC in 1982 as a member of the Mathematics faculty. Roberson started at HCC as a member of the Arts and Humanities faculty in 1989, and Erin Yun was with HCC since 2002.

The spring 2007 headcount in credit enrollment was 6,734, which was some 300 students more than in the prior spring. Online classes were growing. The spring 2007 semester had 86 online courses scheduled with 1,129 students taking online classes. A decade earlier, the college had offered eight online classes with 60 students enrolled. Some of the patterns in enrollment continued; there were more female students than male students and, of all the full-time students, the median age was 19 years old. About 55% of the students were identified as “White.”  A decade earlier, this group was at a bit over 68%. The student population at HCC was growing in not only American-born members of minority groups, but also “foreign-born.” Not only did we have African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics, but also we had students from various African nations, native Asians (with Koreans making up a significant number), and students from various countries in South America and Europe. In fact, the college had 139 students representing 40 different countries. HCC was certainly becoming more international.

The college had more students in transfer programs than in occupational programs, and there were several academic programs for special student populations; these were The Frederick K. Schoenbrodt Honors Program, the Rouse Scholars Program, and the Silas Craft Collegians Program. Each had a program director from the academic area and personnel from the Student Services area to support these programs in functions such as registration, advising, transfer information, etc. Entry into each of these programs was selective. The Schoenbrodt Honors Program had an entry requirement of a 3.2 GPA, and that GPA had to be maintained to stay in the program. The Rouse Program had a rigorous application process and the original 2.5 GPA requirement for a student to stay in the program had been increased to 2.75. This created somewhat of a “disconnect” because students who were not accepted into the Rouse program either because they applied too late or because there was something unacceptable in their application could still enter the Schoenbrodt Program if they met the program’s GPA requirement. Hence, the “secondary” program had a higher requirement than the primary one.

There were two honor societies at the college; one was the Alpha Alpha Sigma chapter of the national two-year college honor society, Phi Theta Kappa. This chapter had been in operation at the college for several decades and was open to all students, by invitation, who had earned a 3.5 GPA. The other honor society was the Beta Epsilon chapter of the Alpha Beta Gamma international business honor society. Membership in this society required that a student be enrolled in a business curriculum and have attained a 3.0 GPA. This chapter was a relatively new one, having been introduced at HCC in 2006.

The Silas Craft Collegians, which had its first class in 2000, was in its eighth year in 2007 and had served 145 students.²  The program’s purpose was to focus “on recent high school graduates whose past performance does not reflect their true potential.”³ This program was a clear example of the college’s commitment to the community. Not only was HCC dedicated to having programs for high-achieving students such as the Schoenbrodt or Rouse programs provided, but the college recognized the need to provide opportunities to students, as the above quote states, to recognize that a student’s past track record did not determine potential nor should it be a predictor of future performance.

The organization of the college was growing and it also was changing.

The headcount of the core workforce on June 30, 2007, was 451 full-time and 32 part-time employees. The total headcount for the core workforce has increased by 17 percent between FY03 and FY07. During this same period, state-funded full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment increased 21 percent.⁴

The organizational structure of the college began to look a bit different too. It was not particularly noticeable on an organization chart, but the college’s growth necessitated some changes. By now, the classification of Associate Vice President, which had been the title of the head of the Continuing Education Division, was applied in other areas. The growth of the college, and all the services that it provided to students, and to the community, necessitated some organizational restructuring.  In the Student Services area, the positions of Director of Admissions and Advising, and that of Director of Academic Support, Counseling and Career Services were reclassified as Associate Vice President positions due to the increased responsibilities that were assigned to these positions. The head of the administration of the Human Resources Office was reclassified to Associate Vice President. Another case in point was the position of Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs. Originally, there was the position of Assistant to the Vice President of Academic Affairs. This was primarily a staff position with no supervisory authority. The position was reclassified to Associate Vice President, and two functions that had originally reported directly to the Academic Vice President (the Teaching and Learning Center that included the Library and the A/V function, and the Schoenbrodt Honors Program) were now put under the Associate Vice President.  As the number of adjunct faculty had been increasing, their hiring, communication with them, and their classroom observations and evaluation increased, so too the number of faculty coordinators increased.^iv Thus, the somewhat flat (horizontal) organizational structure that had been put in place during the tenure of the second president, Dr. Dwight Burrill, was becoming more vertical.

PASSING OF THE TORCH

It was quite early in the year, February 19 to be precise, that Dr. Mary Ellen Duncan, the third president of the college sent out an email to everyone at HCC. This email was for those who had missed the meeting that had been called for that morning. The Smith Theatre was packed because everyone knew that something important was going to be announced, and that is exactly what happened. Duncan announced her retirement as president of HCC, to be effective the end of June. At that same meeting, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Patrick Huddie, also spoke and announced the Board’s decision to appoint Dr. Kathleen Hetherington, the Executive Vice President and Vice President of Student Services as the next president of the college. Huddie gave the audience of HCC staff a thorough outline of the Board’s research and deliberations on how presidents may be selected. He highlighted the role of the Board. “The Board of Trustees reserves for itself, by law, the hiring and evaluation of the college presidents.”⁵  Huddie went on to explain the characteristics and qualifications that the Board was looking for in a president, and he concluded, “that the Board determined that it had a willing internal candidate who met all of (the) qualifications.”⁶ The regional newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, gave a similar perspective, and it should be noted that Hetherington’s appointment went beyond local newspaper coverage.  “‘The Board of trustees chose to forego a nationwide search and instead focused on finding a candidate internally. Hetherington was the preferred candidate throughout the process, which began with a plan for succession two years ago,’” Huddie said, ‘We are just delighted with her performance and her dedication to the institution.’ Several trustees said they wanted to avoid the costs and disruption of a wider search and were eager to keep Hetherington, who was being sought by other colleges.”⁷  While the announcement was unexpected, it was not a surprise since Hetherington, who had joined the college in 1999 as Vice President of Student Services, had been given more responsibilities over the past few years and subsequently had been appointed Executive Vice President in 2005.

In May, The Business Monthly, a local business-oriented tabloid issued a 20-page supplement titled “Salute to Howard Community College.” The entire supplement consisted of congratulatory inserts from various business enterprises and articles that covered the college’s many programs and initiatives. There were also a number of laudatory essays about Duncan, Hetherington, and Huddie.

As always, the summer was a busy time at HCC. The Kids on Campus program was a success with 4,485 youngsters participating. The college organized a community and student trip to Greece, and visitors from St. Clément’s University in the Republic of Macedonia came to HCC to develop some articulation relationships with the college. It was also the 20th anniversary of the Grand Prix and the fall semester saw a continued increase in credit students. The credit headcount was 7,523. This was higher than the prior fall’s by 362 students.

Continuing Education was moving into new territories. The motorcycle safety course that had been started in 2005 and run by the Continuing Education Division at HCC was anticipating an enrollment of 1,200 students over the spring, summer, and fall of 2007. The coursework included several evening classes followed by two five-hour days of practice driving. The fact that it was the second largest in the state proved the success of the program.⁸

The college was growing, as it always had, and it might be useful to give the reader even more of a sense of this growth. By the time that the 2007-2008 college catalogue was published in July, there were 177 “programs of study” listed. This included options, certificates, and letters of recognition. The catalogue was 244 pages and included 853 courses. The popularity and expansion of the Nursing program was also proving itself by having its first mid-year pinning ceremony. It meant that this was the first mid-year graduation of nursing students.

But, there was something else as 2007 reached the halfway point. The housing bubble had burst and within the next year global economic problems began to surface and then there was a sharp economic downturn around September of 2008. Unemployment rose, housing foreclosures did the same, and county and state budgets were hard hit. This definitely affected the college in a number of ways. Professional travel was limited, merit pay increases became much more modest, and all college programs had to tighten up. This was recession with all its challenges. If it is possible to see anything positive in this, enrollments in the college did not suffer at all. Indeed, it is the folk wisdom among educators that when the economy is experiencing hard times, enrollments are healthy. If HCC is any example, the folk wisdom is true. But, there was also a not-so-bright side for HCC. And, this brings up Belmont.^v

The college acquired the Belmont Conference Center through the Howard Community College Educational Foundation in 2004.⁹  The plan was to continue using Belmont as a conference center and catering large parties and weddings, but also to add “an educational piece, perhaps a culinary school and hospitality program.”¹⁰  This meant that Belmont would have to support itself financially in the business of renting out its facility and services for conferences and catered events. It also meant that the introduction of educational programs, such as the ones mentioned above, would require some physical alteration to the facility. Here is where two unforeseen problems appeared, one early on and the other within just a few years. While there was some community support for HCC’s purchase and plans for Belmont, there certainly was also caution that was recommended by some groups, and there was flat-out resistance from various elements of the community.

The first set of challenges occurred very soon after the purchase of Belmont. Residents of the area around Belmont objected to the college’s plan to add bedrooms to the conference center, renovate some of the buildings and, as part of a longer-range plan, “also include an observatory and planetarium, a new instruction building and a new access road. Many of the center’s neighbors object to that plan, saying it will bring increased traffic congestion and other growing pains and potentially ruin”¹¹ this historic site.  While the acquisition of Belmont may have been a very good idea, it was a complicated situation. As a historic site it fell under the responsibility of the Maryland Historical Trust, and under Howard County.  Over the next several years, the Howard County Council dealt with HCC’s plans for Belmont with caution.¹² The Maryland Environmental Trust recommended caution, while the Howard County Preservation Society, Howard County Bird Club, and Rockland Land Trust all opposed HCC’s plans. This certainly made things more complicated and challenging for the college. And then, the greater challenge came onto the scene; the economic recession. The conference center was not able to sustain itself financially. Revenues from renting out the facility for conferences and events fell. Within a few years, some hard decisions would have to be made.

The life of the college, however, went on. Fall 2007 credit enrollments were healthy, the Continuing Education Division was doing well, the campus was well cared for, and things were running smoothly.

 October 30, kicked off the weeklong celebration of the installation of the college’s fourth president, Dr. Kathleen Hetherington. It was also the day of the first presentation of the James Clark, Jr. medallion. The recipient was Padraic Kennedy. Kennedy had been a popular and effective president of the Columbia Association for several decades. He had been an active member of the HCC-sponsored group that planned the creation of the Columbia Festival of the Arts, chaired the HCC Grand Prix for several years, and had been on the HCC Educational Foundation board for a number of years.^vi The celebration, however, was the installation of the president.

So, the torch was passed officially, and that is the title of the chapter. This was not the changing of the guard, as chapters in previous volumes were titled. Those had to do with presidents leaving and being replaced by outside candidates. In this case, the college had an internal candidate who had 10 years of employment at HCC in a senior capacity, and whose responsibilities had increased over the years. Hetherington had a very close working relationship with the president, Dr. Mary Ellen Duncan, with the other vice presidents, with the staff of the area she managed, and with the faculty. She certainly knew the college quite well. The passing of the torch was a smooth transition.

As 2007 drew to a close, a very important art exhibit graced the college. This was “Rodin: In His Own Words, Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundations.” The exhibit was from November 2007 through January 2008. The importance of this exhibit for Howard Community College and for the community cannot be overstated. This exhibit toured four locations nationally, and HCC was one of them. The sculptures, of which there were over thirty bronzes, were originals, not casts. The bronzes were displayed with captions and Rodin’s own words on art and the artistic process. The exhibit was in the Rouse Company Foundation Gallery and occupied three rooms. Being able to get these bronzes was quite a coup for the college. Auguste Rodin was a late-19th and early 20th century sculptor who was world-renowned. He has even been compared to Michelangelo.¹³

THE TORCH HAS BEEN PASSED

In the national level, early January was an active and boisterous period. Democratic and Republican candidates, vying for their parties’ nominations to run for President had been at it with campaigning and debating their opponents within the same party. Then came the Iowa caucus in January followed by the New Hampshire Primary. The two upsets were that Mike Huckabee, the Republican ex-Governor of Arkansas came in first, and on the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama won over John Edwards, who came in second, and Senator Hillary Clinton who came in third. By the middle of February, the caucuses and primaries of both parties were getting more fascinating almost by the day. Edwards had withdrawn as a Democratic candidate, and Romney had withdrawn as a Republican candidate. The Democratic field was now Clinton vs. Obama, and it looked like McCain was going to be the Republican nominee, especially with Romney’s endorsement of McCain on February 14. On Sunday, February 24, Ralph Nader appeared on the interview show “Meet the Press” and announced that he was running for President as an independent.

Closer to home, the Bun Penny Delicatessen at the Columbia Mall announced that it was closing down after almost 38 years. Other stores had come and gone, but Bun Penny had been there from the opening of the Mall in 1971; so, it could be argued that it was an institution. Within a month, in March, the local grocery, Produce Galore, in Wilde Lake announced that it too was closing as of March 14. It had been a Columbia presence for 36 years.

In March, “HCC received a Silver Maryland Performance Excellence Award given by the University of Maryland and U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin.” HCC was the “only community college to have received this award. This was HCC’s third performance excellence award, having received bronze awards in 2002 and 2003.”¹⁴  On April 7 the college community got an email from Hetherington which stated, “HCC had received bronze and silver quality awards in past years, and a recent site visit suggested we were going to win another one.  We were hoping for the gold, but we did even better…” the college was awarded the prestigious U.S. Senate Productivity Award – “the highest possible in Maryland!”¹⁵

Howard Community College applied for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in May. The application document was 59 pages long, with a five- page organizational profile and a four-page glossary of Terms and Abbreviations. The 50-page narrative had 132 figures and charts, of which 34 were descriptive; that is, they described Vital Signs, key indicators of work, charts of strategic plans, offices that were responsible for carrying out plans, etc. The remaining 98 figures were mostly quantitative, statistical bar charts that showed what seemed like every possible category of information. Some of the charts showed student satisfaction, employee satisfaction, student enrollment patterns, employee turnover, results of surveys of leadership, student retention and transfer patterns, and much more. Just to give the reader a bit more of a dose of the detail to which the college had to delve into data, there were also data on the impact of the Step-Up Program on student GPA’s, crime statistics, percentage of minority employees at the college, bad debts as a percentage of tuition, etc. The incredible detail that had to be presented in the application required much work, primarily by the PROD Office, however, HCC’s culture had for a long time been one of serious planning and evaluating of programs and performance. Thus, the entire college had experience with many kinds of surveys, data collection and the analyses of such for its own purposes. Much of this experience was able to be translated into putting together this massive application.

In the meantime, the spring semester saw the credit enrollment headcount go over 7,000 – 7,040 to be precise. The combined Winter and Spring Schedule of Classes was 152 pages, and the summer 2008 Schedule of Classes was 112 pages.  Health Sciences, that had been growing in the number of programs offered and in the number of students, added Radiologic Technology (RADT) to its repertoire in the summer. Its first graduating class would be two years later, in May 2010.

Since the college was going to be evaluated for reaccreditation in 2011, to prepare for this, work began in August 2008. Teams of employees were formed to address the major categories that were required as part of the self-study.  There were five teams and a “Steering Team.”  It is here that the life of the college is clearly visible. The details of the self-study, and it was detailed, is less important than the involvement of the staff of the college. It is noteworthy that the effort began almost two years earlier than the evaluation. There were 88 individuals from various constituency groups, including students, who were involved on one or another of the teams.¹⁶ There were actually more people involved, since much of the data collection and various drafts required the services of many office staff personnel. And, of course, while all this was going on, teaching and all those resources needed to support student learning, continued as always before. The fall 2008 Schedule of Classes was 144 pages. The College catalogue for 2008-2009 was 272 pages. It was even bigger than the prior year’s. The student credit headcount was 7,905. The Continuing Education Division (ConEd) would produce an enrollment of 31,539 in the 2009 fiscal year, and in the fall of 2008, ConEd scheduled 56 new noncredit courses.¹⁷

On September 12, Hetherington’s weekly update announced that the Baldrige application that was submitted four months earlier, in May, was reviewed by the National Baldrige Program and rated a site visit. The visit was October 19-25. This meant that the college was among several finalists for the award. ¹⁸ On November 25, Hetherington sent an email to everybody at HCC. Hetherington stated that she “was told that we were not only viable candidates, but we were outstanding contenders to get to the final stage. The judges had a difficult decision to make. Eighty-five applicants were reviewed and of the 85 only 13 were chosen for a site visit. HCC was in the ‘education’ category (11 applicants of the 85 were in ‘education’) and only two educational organizations in the United States were selected for a site visit. In the end, however, the 2008 Baldrige Award was awarded to three other institutions.”¹⁹

Coming in as a finalist was no small feat. The application process was more than arduous; it was a daunting project. The application had to follow and respond to very precise and detailed criteria and questions. It took numerous staff members months to accomplish. The complexity and onerous nature of the application goes back to the 1990’s. The Baldrige Award started out for businesses in the 1980’s; however, educational institutions became eligible to apply in 1999. In that year, “the application procedures included twenty-three pages of specific criteria (Baldrige National Quality Program, 1999), following the same framework used for business organizations but with changes in issues and language. Over 16,000 applications were requested by educational institutions at all levels in 1999. Only sixteen institutions completed the application process; none of them were colleges or universities. No educational awards were given.”²⁰ So, in 2008, HCC did not get an award, but still the year ended well for HCC; being a finalist in a tough competition counts!

PARLEZ-VOUS?

The diversity of cultures in the United States, and by that I mean international, is significant. A recent National Public Radio (NPR) announcement was made that about 12% of the nation’s population falls into this category.²¹  Howard County has been growing over the years and so has its international population, although there do not seem to be any accurate data on the number of international people living in Howard County; but a few examples of their significant presence will make the point. There is a big enough Russian population in the area that a Russian school was organized to teach Russian youngsters who were becoming Americanized to hold on to some of their culture. The Russian language and literature are taught, as well as reading and writing in Cyrillic. A Chinese language school makes use of the college facilities on Sunday afternoons. Young Chinese people who either were born overseas or are first-generation Americans learn to read and write in Chinese and learn Chinese literature, music, art, etc. There are a number of Korean churches, Middle East grocery stores, a mosque, and various Asian stores and restaurants that cater to those ethnic populations.

The college’s interest, commitment and activities in the area of international education and cultural diversity had really existed for some time. As early as 1973, the college sponsored a winter trip to the Soviet Union, more precisely to visit Moscow and Leningrad. This was the first effort. Several years later, the Continuing Education Division began organizing and leading trips virtually to all parts of Europe; England, Ireland, France, Italy, and Greece. Toward the end of the last decade of the twentieth century the college went farther afield with trips to Egypt and China. HCC was really moving out. Many of the trips were organized for community participation, but there were some students who went along, and credit faculty developed learning experiences and objectives that, if the student accomplished the requirements, they could earn credit. By 2008 there were more study abroad programs for students than for community residents.

International education means a number of different things and has a number of different components to it. It is not only the offering of language and culture courses, but also serving students who are from other parts of the world. And, lest it be overlooked, it includes HCC staff going abroad to learn, teach, and interact with other societies and governments. But there is more to internationalizing and globalizing. The college’s interest in the world includes the fact that HCC’s world is also a campus of about 120 acres. The college began keeping closer records of international students in 2000, at which time there were some 597 international students from 81 countries. These students accounted for almost 11% of the total credit enrollment for fall 2000. By the fall of 2011 there were 1,403 students’ from 93 countries. The HCC credit headcount for fall 2011 was 10,081.  This meant that 14% of the college’s credit students were from other countries. The breakdown from major regions of the world looked like this:

AREA                                Number of Students      Countries Represented

Africa                                         464                                        24

Asia                                            615                                        23

Europe                                         71                                         17

Canada and the Caribbean         106                                        11

Oceania                                          2                                          1

South America                             94                                        11

Central America                           51                                          6²²

The three largest groups were Korea with 213, India with 117, and Cameroon with 111 students Thus, almost 1/3 of our students from abroad were from these three countries. These data are just the latest. The college had many foreign-born students for years, but it was with the rise of consciousness in American society that the recognition and the celebrating of diversity became a part of the life of the college.

Courses in various world languages had been offered since the beginning, and they were what many will recall as the usual fare for “back in the day.” There were French, Spanish, and German. On some occasions there was Russian. In fall 2007 the college offered 13 different languages^vii in the credit area with a total of 54 sections of these various courses. By 2011 there were still 13 different languages offered, except that Portuguese was not offered in that semester, but Hindi was, and there were 78 sections of credit language courses offered.  For the following year, 2012, the plan was to add Greek and Yoruba to the repertoire of world languages that HCC would offer. In addition to the language classes a number of the academic divisions offered courses about various cultures around the world, and various facets of these cultures. So, for example, there were Anthropology courses in World Cultures, Middle East Culture, and courses in the history of the different regions of the world – Asia, Africa, the Pacific Rim, etc. The Fine Arts Division offered World Dance, Asian Film, Russian Film, and a number of other film courses from various lands. There were courses in Middle Eastern Literature and Latin American Literature, as well as courses in Latin American culture. The Business Division regularly offered, and offers, a seminar in International Business, and the Social Sciences/Teacher Education Division has courses in International Economics and a Seminar in Global History.

The Continuing Education Division was active across a wide spectrum of language programs. It offered, and continues to offer, courses in English as a Second Language (ESL), computer classes for ESL students, citizenship preparation, American Sign Language, beginning through advanced courses in the historically popular European languages, and Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and Persian. Indeed, the Winter 2012 Noncredit Schedule has more pages devoted to ESL than to computer courses.

The Study Abroad program at HCC had been in operation for a number of years, but it was only in the past several years that it has really emerged as a major presence at HCC. The first real attempt to organize study abroad as a coordinated effort sprang from the college’s initiative to “internationalize the curriculum.” Dr. Rebecca Mihelcic, of the Business Division, had been interested in international issues for some time and had been teaching a seminar in international business. She had proposed that the college’s credit courses could be more relevant if there was some added content that addressed an international perspective. Thus, a literature class might add more non-English/American authors to its repertoire, science classes could better emphasize the contributions of non-western scientists, etc. While this was progressing, Prof. Cheryl Berman promoted language courses very aggressively and developed a language study program for HCC students in Mexico. It was a success, and the idea’s time had come. Prof. Mihelcic was appointed to coordinate both the internationalizing and the study abroad initiative. Collaborative study abroad trips were developed between HCC and Dickinson College, and a collaborative program with Northampton Community College and Delaware Technical Community College took students to Turkey. As things continued to develop, HCC also entered into various exchange agreements with various colleges in Europe and Asia. It was not until 2005 that a full-time Director of International Education was hired. The job and the position were considered important enough that the director reported to the academic vice president. Over the next several years the program grew, but it was not until 2009 that all the different parts of international education really seemed to come together. The first director left for a job in another state and a new director was appointed. Christele Cain knew the college well. She had been a student at HCC, knew many of the staff and faculty, and for four years had worked under the director of international education. Now she was the director.

The good relationship between Cain and the faculty led to a number of innovative prospects. The Fulbright Scholarships normally go to four-year schools. HCC got one in August 2011 and a faculty member from China came to the college for a year. Another scholar will be coming from Brazil in the near future. More HCC faculty began to avail themselves of the opportunity to travel abroad and either teach or study in another country. Some of the countries that have been visited by college staff and faculty, officially or on college business, are Brazil, China, Denmark, Ghana, India, Ireland, the Republic of Macedonia, Mexico, South Africa, Tanzania, the U.K., and others. There are a few programs that are worthy of remark because of their dramatic success.

In 2009, HCC students went to France on an archaeological dig. HCC’s Dr. Laura Cripps, an archaeologist by training, was able to establish a collaborative research program with the Center for European Archaeology at Bibracte, France. HCC “is the first U.S. institution to have been invited to do so.”  This program allowed HCC students to participate in an archaeological excavation of Iron Age Roman ruins, working “alongside undergraduates and postgraduates from prestigious universities from across Europe.”²³  By 2011, the college had participated in the excavations for three summers, and more such programs were in the plans.

It was also in 2009 that several HCC faculty travelled to Ghana. Professor Becky Mihelcic and nursing student Heather Fitzhugh accompanied nursing professors Beverly Lang and Laura Sessions to Kumasi,^viii Ghana, to visit, learn, and meet with Ghanaian health services personnel. They travelled to the countryside and visited hospitals and other facilities. The HCC visitors met with staff and students of the Premier Nurses Training College (PNTC). Lang and Sessions met with the Ghanaian faculty to discuss possible teacher and student exchange possibilities and ongoing needs of PNTC. Heather Fitzhugh visited with students and attended classes. The visit made it clear that their Ghanaian colleagues needed money and supplies to serve their people; so, upon their return, Lang, Sessions, and Fitzhugh and Mihelcic organized a number of fund raising and supply and material raising initiatives. College-level text and reference books were sent to Ghana, as well as much need supplies that included 200 thumb drives, and a number of used computers that are now being used by the students of PNTC, and it should be noted that one of the very valued gifts to the Ghanaians were nursing lab mannequins. An earlier visit to Ghana was made in December 2005 by Professors Georgene Butler and Sharon Pierce. They effectively blazed the trail for the subsequent visit and the ongoing communication between HCC and Kumasi.

In terms of more recent historical pursuit, Prof. Fred Campbell, one of HCC’s history faculty, worked with the Office of International Education and developed a study abroad program focusing on World War II. Campbell and his students travelled to England, France, and the Netherlands. “Students had the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank House, the Imperial War Museum, the Dutch Resistance Museum, the Jewish Historical Museum, HMS Belfast, the National Army Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the D-Day Beaches, etc.”²⁴

The program’s success in 2009 led to its continuation each year and in the spring of 2012 the World War II Study Abroad Program had a World War II veteran who participated in the Normandy invasion in 1944 accompany Prof. Campbell and his students.

Much of the information discussed above was crystallized in the college’s 2010 annual report to the community that was titled, “Taking on the World: How HCC Prepares Students for the Global Economy.”

Reflecting recommendations from HCC’s Commission on the Future, (the college) focused on competencies deemed critical for successful citizens and workplace–ready students. These include information literacy, critical thinking, communication, and conflict resolution abilities; an understanding of key economic concepts; the ability to understand the basic concepts of sustainability from an environmental perspective; and the social/cultural skills needed to interact with people from other cultures.²⁵

 

TECHNOLOGIES “R” US

Technology permeates HCC in the myriad number and diversity of types of equipment and devices that are at the college, and the various offices and operations that make use of technology and, not the least, the college’s many academic programs and course offerings that deal with technology in one way or another.

The importance of the college’s commitment to the use and management of a highly complex computer system was demonstrated in the year 2001 when the position of “Chief Information Technology Officer” was upgraded to Vice President of Information Technology. The use of computer technology at HCC encompasses a wide variety of functions. This includes systems that support the many business functions of the college such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, personnel records, the many budget areas of the school that include capital budgets, operating budgets, insurance, contracts, the Educational Foundation, etc.  The student services area has systems that support admissions, registration, student records, financial aid, academic support, athletics, student activities, and so forth. From the Office of Planning, Research, and Organizational Development (PROD) come reports on enrollment, projections, space utilization, responses to any number of local, state, and federal agencies, providing data for different proposals for which the college is applying, analyzing faculty data for the many outcome assessment projects, and more. All this requires the knowledge and use of the college’s Datatel computer systems and software. All offices have desktop computers, and laptop computers are available to staff who may be away from their offices but need access to the system. Last, but not least, it is to be noted that every student at HCC has an HCC email address.

What has been described above is from the perspective of the users. It is important to note what the responsibilities of the staff of the information technology division were. There were many!  There are approximately 50 people employed in the Information Technology (IT) area. Their main task is the management of the major component that is the underlying network; that is, the control and care of all the system resources. This means that all the resources, software, communication links, and hardware, must be reliable, accessible, and must be secure from hackers, SPAM, and phishing. Of great importance is the ability to ensure that the system not crash. Disaster recovery is an essential part of IT’s plan of operation. At HCC, the IT division supports all that has been mentioned above.

Computer systems are also the foundation for online courses at HCC.  Here is the college’s description:

Online courses are conducted over the Internet and typically do not have regular meetings in a physical space. Students need Windows 98 or above and a PC or Macintosh with at least a 56k modem, an Internet service provider, and a web browser. Course materials are available online at a dedicated course website. Class activities, including most instructor/student communications, are conducted via the course website.²⁶

As the cost of textbooks had been going up at what some consider an alarming rate, some faculty at HCC had begun to develop their own materials, or purchase materials, as is stated above, that are available online. The Mathematics Division has been using available online materials for several years, where students have been able to purchase access codes to such materials. While this did carry a cost, it cut the cost to the student by almost half.²⁷ Economics Professor John Bouman had organized both of the introductory economics courses (ECON 101 and 102) so that all course materials are available online to students registered in his classes. These resources are also available to Bouman’s students who register for his online courses. There is no cost to the students, and they need not buy a textbook. In the English/World Languages Division, English Professor Jude Okpala developed an E-text for the basic English composition course, English 121. Students in that course – a major core course – did not have need to buy a textbook. Instructors no longer had to rely on published materials, but could create their own text, have it available to students via the system, and thus, significantly help students financially.

There are 47 academic programs of study listed in the college’s 2011-2012 catalogue that have the word “technology”, some computer-related word in their title, or some other term that clearly has technology implied.²⁸ To offer just a few examples, there are programs of study such as Bio-Medical Engineering, Electronics, Network Security, etc. Within a number of these programs, obviously, there are technology-oriented courses. Some examples are Music Technology in Society, Digital Imaging, Surgical Technology, Introduction to eBay, Wireless Communications, etc. A major program that began relatively recently is the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Program. The importance for students to develop knowledge and skills in these areas has been covered in newspapers, radio and TV news programs. To prove the point, in Howard County, the Director of the Applied Physics Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Ralph Semmel, made a strong case for the need for people to be educated in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“The United States faces tremendous technological threats from other countries and our lead (in those areas) is evaporating,” Semmel explained. “We have a vested interest in STEM because that’s where we’ll get our employees of the future.”²⁹

 HCC’s introduction of the STEM Program in 2011 was the timely response to this need, and in the fall of 2012, the college will also introduce a STEM honors program. All the programs and courses discussed above require modern classrooms, which brings us to HCC’s classroom environment.

All the classrooms of the college are linked to a central system that allows an instructor, in whatever classroom the instructor is teaching to access various software, and even personal files such as Power Point presentations, photos and pictures, charts, film, syllabi, and more. All these can be projected onto a screen at the front of the classroom. Document readers allow just that, to project a page of a document onto the screen. More recently, the development of a “Learning Studio” will allow even more technology to be used in enhancing student learning. The Learning Studio, using equipment designed by the Herman Miller Company, is described as “a technology-rich, pedagogically-supported classroom designed to support a variety of disciplines, teaching, and learning styles.”³⁰  The Learning Studio was described as having the following benefits:

Multiple display areas

Modular furniture

Interactive Captive Devices

Multiple collaboration options

Touch-screen control panel

Dual monitor instructor’s station

Wireless mouse and keyboard capability³¹

In addition to having traditional classrooms, labs, and the Learning Studio, there also is what might be called the “ether” classroom. This is the area of online courses. Students no longer attend formal classes, other than an orientation meeting at the beginning of the semester, and all their learning is achieved independently of location. The older term for this was “distance learning.” The increasing importance of this type of learning can be seen in the Fall 2012 Schedule of Credit Classes that lists 140 online sections and 91 hybrid sections (these are courses that are taught partly online and partly in classrooms).

If one can argue that the classroom (real or virtual) is the most important room at the college, the library must come in as a close second. The growth and spread of technology has affected the HCC Library. The college library offers workshops on the use of all its resources through the Information Literacy workshops that are conducted by the library staff. Technology has also permeated the library. In the five-year period, from 2005 to 2010 things changed in the library. Consider these stats:³²

FY        Print        Ereserves       Databases      Door Count        Off-Campus

2005      40,673        21,094              433,494          246,001                20,964

2006      32,968        26,982              462,998          248,015                22,471

2007      31,652        37,498              499,601          161,124                20,281

2008      31,511        51,439              832,406          205,942                22,788

2009      31,227        59,610           1,091,946          146,276^ix              24,761

2010      31,945        47,792^x          1,350,220         249,186                 44,265

If nothing else, these numbers show the decline in print materials, which include circulation, reserves, and shelf count – that is, materials that were taken off shelves and used in the library. All the other areas of increase were dramatic and have to do with technology, especially the use of computers.

Another aspect of HCC’s active involvement in technology and its use is in the area of communication, specifically radio and television. The college began offering courses in Mass Media a number of years ago, but it was not until 2006 that a television curriculum was developed. The college had a TV studio for several decades, and a TV channel that it shared with the county’s Department of Education, but the studio’s primary purpose had been for instructional support, with only occasional production of programs for its cable TV viewing. In the mid-1990s the focus of the TV studio changed from instructional support to program production. The college developed a monthly schedule of programs, which it currently publicizes. Some of these programs are “canned” and acquired from other sources. Others are produced by the college, such as “In Focus: Howard Community College,” an interview program hosted by HCC’s president, Dr. Kathleen Hetherington. In 2007, the TV operation at HCC got two independent channels: Channel 96 on Comcast and Channel 41 on Verizon. Things were happening. A year later, in 2008, the TV studio entered into an agreement with ORAD Hi-Tec Systems, whose specialty is in the area of developing real-time image processing and virtual reality. HCC launched green screen technology in its TV studio.³³  A year later, the college introduced a Radio curriculum, and a year after that, in 2010, an Internet radio station was established at the college.

AS THE DECADE ENDS

The year 2009 began with another successful spring semester. Enrollment was healthy, with a bit over 7,600 credit headcount. The college was moving ahead briskly in the area of technological training. The professional development calendar for the end of the 2009 spring semester had 24 workshops scheduled, of which 12 dealt with technology; there were 14 if one included the workshops on Information Literacy and the Use of the Flip Cam. Among the workshops were several on Clickers, CE6, and on social networking systems, such as Facebook, MySpace, Ning, and YouTube. Not only was HCC not standing still, it was exploring technological innovations as they were emerging.

That summer, The Chronicle of Higher Education named HCC a “Great College to Work For.”  This was quite an achievement and an honor since this “national recognition is based on the results of a survey completed in March and April by more than 41,000 faculty and staff at two- and four-year institutions.”³⁴

The college’s ownership of Belmont since 2004 had been a period of wonderful potential but fraught with challenges.^xi There was active resistance from some community members and groups, and this ate into the time that HCC had to deal with such issues, but the greater problem was that the recession hit and Belmont could not sustain itself financially which, by the way, was the original plan, that Belmont pay its own way.  Thus, on August 26, “the Howard Community College Board of Trustees voted to commence a search for a buyer of the Belmont Conference Center. The decision was a very difficult one for the board to make, and followed a review and discussion of issues related to Belmont.”³⁵ The following day T. James Truby, Chair of the college’s Board of Trustees issued an email to all staff and students explaining how the recession necessitated putting Belmont up for sale.³⁶ It was, indeed, a difficult decision, but in view of the economic conditions, a necessary one. The life of the college continued, just as it had before the Belmont decision.

The end of June was filled with events both international and national. Elections in Iran were contested with demonstrations and violent putdowns by the government. The United States began its pullback of military forces from Iraqi cities. In the U.S. Al Franken, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator from Minnesota was finally declared the winner by the state’s Supreme Court 237 days after the election. He defeated the incumbent Republican senator Norm Coleman. The Supreme Court of the United States got its first Hispanic woman, Sonia Sotomayor.  President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October. The entertainer Michael Jackson died, as did Farah Fawcett, one of the original cast members of the TV show Charlie’s Angels. Walter Cronkite, described by his colleague and competitor Tom Brokaw as the “gold standard” of journalism, died in July.

The Swine Flu popped up in the first half of 2009 and its origin was traced to Mexico where several hundred people had caught it and several dozen died. It spread to several states on this side of the border and appears to have hit individuals who had visited Mexico. Around May the virus had peaked and lost strength. The crisis was over, and things returned to normal.

On a local level, April was the last month of Columbia Association President Maggie Brown’s employment. Her contract had ended and a new president was hired. The new president was Phillip Nelson. He had been the city manager of Troy, Michigan, and his salary as CA president would be $200,000 a year.³⁷

At HCC, the combined winter and spring 2009 Schedule of Classes was 176 pages, and the summer 2009 schedule was 120 pages. The number of courses, course sections, and variety of courses continued to increase.

On May 16 the College celebrated the 35th anniversary (1974 – 2009) of the graduation of the first nursing class. Several of the alumni of that class came as well as several past professors and directors of HCC’s Nursing Program. A week later, graduation was on Friday, May 22 at 2 p.m. The guest speaker was U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings who was awarded an honorary A.A. Degree. There were some 300 graduates, the largest graduating class yet. It was also the graduation of the first class of HCC’s Police Science AAS degree program that was a partnership with the Howard County Police Academy. “The new program allows those accepted into the county’s police academy to earn an associate’s degree while concurrently completing the academy’s training requirements.”³⁸ Congressman Cummings gave a rousing motivational speech. His highly animated presentation was interrupted by applause several times. The ceremony also awarded the 2009 Distinguished Alumnus recognition to Paul N. Hajek who was the Academy Director of the Maryland Police Entry Level Training Program. Hajek was himself a 1987 graduate of HCC.

The commencement ceremony was held on campus, as it had been for the past several years, under a huge tent that was set up in the field immediately next to the main thoroughfare in Columbia, Little Patuxent Parkway. This was the same field on which the annual Grand Prix had been held since 1987.

The graduation, with all the career and transfer goals of the students certainly heightened the consciousness of the significant contribution that community colleges can make. This was brought to the public’s attention even more clearly in two ways. The role of community colleges at a time of national, indeed world, economic hard times came into focus with President Obama’s support of the importance of community colleges.

We believe it’s time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future. Our community colleges can serve as 21st-century job training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future. We can reallocate funding to help them modernize their facilities, increase the quality of online courses and ultimately meet the goal of graduating 5 million more Americans from community colleges by 2020.³⁹

Secondly, TIME magazine published an article entitled, “Can Community Colleges Save the U.S. Economy?”⁴⁰ There was more to further the presence and prominence of community colleges in American society.  Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, had been teaching at a community college in Virginia as an adjunct faculty member. She was asked by President Obama to head a group to promote community colleges. By mid-July the Obama administration planned to allocate $12 billion directly to community colleges and broke it down to $9 billion for competitive grants for new programs, $2.5 billion for campus construction grants, and $500 million for the development of on-line courses. While all this seemed positive the economy in Maryland was still in rough shape and many institutions had to give budgeted money back. HCC had received an increase of $690,000 for FY 2010 but then had to return about $650,000 to the State. And to compound the challenge to the college, credit enrollment for fall 2009 had jumped by over 10%! Of the top 10 colleges that Howard County’s 2009 high school graduates chose to attend HCC was in first place with 681 students. The University of Maryland was a pretty distant second with 364.⁴¹ All this in 2009!

Looking back to 1986, a summer program for children had been initiated at HCC. The program was called “Serendipity” and it began with four classes and under 40 students. The program was coordinated by Sara Baum of the Continuing Education Division under the direction of Helen Mitchell who, at that time, was Associate Dean of Continuing Education. The program changed its name a few times over the years; one such name was “Summer Sizzlers.” The name that was finally settled on was “Kids on Campus” and within some twenty years of hard work the program grew and by 2009, even as the U.S. faced recession, unemployment, and economic anxiety, the program had 1,600 young summer students. Sara Baum, of the Continuing Education Office has coordinated the program since its inception.

A number of changes and exciting and beautiful things were happening.  The college’s annual equestrian competition, the Grand Prix changed its location from the open field on Little Patuxent Parkway to the Marama Farm in Clarksville. The name of the event would also be changed the following year from the “Columbia Grand Prix” to the “Howard Community College Grand Prix.” Upon reflection, it was time for this change of name since HCC had been the primary planner and coordinator of the event for over two decades. The college had been sponsoring, organizing, and coordinating the event for 20 years and, while its original name might have been more of a draw in earlier years, the college’s standing in the community and its presence in equestrian circles had become well known. The complexity and importance of this event meant that HCC’s Development Office regularly spent a year working on the following year’s equestrian show.

The fall semester’s credit enrollment was healthy, as always. The fall 2009 credit headcount was 8,778. This was 873 students more than in the previous fall. The female-to-male ratio was no longer 2 to 1 as it had been in past years. With female students at 5,017, there were 3,760 males. Minority students represented 43% of the total credit student body. Things were changing.

By the end of the year we were coming to the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Who could believe that? LIFE magazine titled its special issue of the first decade of the 21st century “the decade that changed the world.” On the other hand, TIME magazine’s December 7 issue titled its cover page as these first 10 years being “The Decade From Hell.”⁴²

The early part of 2010 witnessed some terrible and troublesome events. In January a devastating earthquake hit Haiti and a year later the country was still trying to get out from under the deaths, destruction, and diseases that the earthquake wrought.

 In April, there was a massive explosion on one of the BP Oil Company oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico and tens of thousands of gallons of oil began leaking forcefully into the Gulf each hour, 24-7. This lasted for over three months, polluting the Gulf, damaging the fishing and shrimping economies of several Gulf states and, of course, being an incredible environmental concern. In July, Amazon.com announced that sales of e-books were greater than those of print books. If we add this phenomenon to all the smartphones and information and social networking systems, we need no longer to talk about these as the wave of the future. The wave is here and now, and has been for almost a decade.

A number of well-known individuals passed away in this year; Senator Robert Byrd, Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of a U.S. senator and Vice Presidential nominee in 2004, and three celebrity entertainers of the “50’s; the pop singer Eddie Fisher, singer Lena Horne, and actor Tony Curtis.

The 2010 census showed that Maryland had a population of 5,773,552. Howard County’s population was 287,085, and its ethnic/racial mix was:

55.5% White

25.3% Black/African American

11.4% Asian

7.9% Hispanic

These data show that the county’s mix of majority to minority groups was 55% to 45%, and that is diversity!  Columbia’s population was 99,615. The “planned city” was one-third of the county’s population.

In January, the Columbia community was going through meetings that included the Columbia Association, the Full Spectrum Housing Coalition, the Interfaith Coalition for Affordable Housing, General Growth Properties, Inc., the County Council, and the office of the County Executive. The issue was “the struggle over how to rezone central Columbia for transformation into an urbanized downtown fast approaching a final Howard County Council vote” while “the thorny issue of affordable housing remains in dispute.”⁴³  For all of these “thorny issues” the Columbia – Ellicott City environment was listed in the August issue of Money Magazine as one of the most desirable places to live in the U.S. In fact, Columbia-Ellicott City was listed in second place of America’s top 100 places to live.⁴⁴ This article not only made Howard Countians proud of their turf, but it also kept the place on the map, since in 2008 this area was number 8 in the list of the 100 most desirable places to live. The article also mentioned that the proximity of the Fort Meade Army Base and National Security Agency (NSA) with their 8,000 jobs was a positive feature and that “the government plans to move thousands more positions there by next year.”⁴⁵ This could impact the college. And the college recognized this several years earlier by participating in the county’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) committee.

At HCC, the college was considering a $2-per-credit increase for FY 2011 depending on “possible state and county budget cuts.”⁴⁶ Once again, the credit enrollment was off the charts. The college had 8,500 student credit enrollments. This was the first spring semester that went over 8,000 students. The ethnic/racial mix of students at HCC approximated the county’s population. The comparison was:

Ethnicity                             Howard County          Howard Community College

White                                       55.5%                                 50.2%

Black/African American,      25.3%                                  25.4%

Asian                                        11.4%                                   12.5%

Hispanic                                  7.9%                                     4.4%

2 or more races                      N/A                                     2.4%

Unknown                                 N/A                                     4.6%

The college’s data tell several things. The ethnic demographics of the college had changed from several years earlier when the “White” category was over 60%, and minorities, cumulatively, were minority. By 2010, the mix was pretty evenly divided, and it reflected the county’s ethnic demographics and, another element of this was proof that the college’s commitment to diversity was working.

The ever-increasing student enrollment affected parking and, lest anyone shrug their shoulders and complain that employees always grouse about parking, access to the school by its constituency is always a serious matter. Thus, parking, more than usual was a problem. To top things off, by the second week of the spring semester the entire mid-Atlantic area was hit by the biggest snowstorm in decades. Howard County got almost three feet of snow. The college was closed from Friday afternoon, February 5 through Tuesday, February 9. The major problem after it stopped snowing was to clear the parking areas and that was a major effort that simply could not get done in a day. And more snow was predicted for the afternoon of February 9, and that is exactly what happened.  It snowed all afternoon and throughout the night. By the morning of the 10th, it was still coming down hard and the college had to stay closed. With this new snowfall, it was the largest accumulation of the white powder since such records began to be kept. The college was closed for over a week and had to extend the spring semester by a week; so, the end of the semester went to May 21 with final exams the following week.

The spring 2010 semester was Professor Ronald Roberson’s last six months as Vice President of Academic Affairs. He had started at the college as an art instructor in 1989, became Chairperson of the Humanities Division in 1993, and was appointed as the head academic officer at HCC in 1999. His tenure in that position was the longest of any instructional dean. He served for 11 years in that capacity. That same semester a national search was conducted for his replacement. Of the final list of candidates who came from various parts of the country, Dr. Sharon Pierce, an internal candidate was selected to be the next Vice President of Academic Affairs.

The 39th graduation was held on May 27 at the usual time, 2 p.m. It was the last welcome by T. James Truby, who was stepping down as Chair of the college’s Board of Trustees, and it was also Roberson’s last Recognition of Honor Graduates.

The end of 2010 was the usual time for TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year.”  Not surprisingly, it was Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of the social network known as Facebook.

THE HCC LANDSCAPE IN 2011-2012

The year 2011 began with international crises in the Middle East. The death of an individual in Tunisia created a demonstration in the capital of Tunis that grew into a revolution. This information spread over North Africa via social networks and rebellions began in Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen. By the middle of February the government in Egypt collapsed and by the end of the month there was a civil war in Libya.  Within a month a major earthquake hit Japan followed by an incredible tsunami, and this was followed by a Japanese nuclear plant’s reactors being severely damaged. The death and destruction of the quake and tsunami was stunning, to which must be added the fear of a nuclear meltdown.

Continuing on the world stage, Prince William and Kate Middleton got married in Westminster Abbey on April 29 and according to the media the TV viewing public numbered in the billions. On a somewhat smaller scale a number of faculty and staff at HCC decided to celebrate the wedding by having a British afternoon tea with all the trimmings, cucumber sandwiches, scones, etc. But several days later, on May 2, all the TV and radio stations broke in with an announcement from President Obama that Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaida terrorist leader, who had been hunted for a decade, had been killed in Pakistan by Navy Seals.

As the year wore on and the Republican candidate debates were at the forefront of news, both New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Sarah Palin announced that they would not run for the presidency but, at that point in time, there were still eight candidates vying for the Republican candidacy. Steve Jobs, a world figure in technology, died of pancreatic cancer in early October, and the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed by Libyan revolutionaries that same month, and demonstrations and rebellion broke out in Syria. The Middle East was in turmoil and not all the countries in that area were experiencing an “Arab Spring.”

Howard County demonstrated its environmental interest by the completion of the Robinson Nature Center, which opened in September on Cedar Lane in Columbia. The Center was named after James and Anne Robinson, whose foundation sold their property to the county. Waverly Woods, a major development off Route 99 in Howard County was in its finishing stages.⁴⁷ The county’s support of intellectual and educational pursuits was demonstrated by the major expansion of the Charles E. Miller Branch and Historical Center of the county’s public library system. The grand opening was held on Saturday, December 17 with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Local elected officials and Congressman Elijah Cummings participated in the event.

The Board of Trustees of the college had changed some from 2007. There were still three members of the Board whose terms were still in effect. These were Roberta E. Dillow, Dr. Patrick L. Huddie, and Katherine K. Rensin. The composition of the Board at the beginning of 2011 was:

Edmund S. Coale, III

Roberta E. Dillow, Vice Chair of the Board

Kevin J. Doyle

Mary S. Esmond

Dr. Patrick L. Huddie

Katherine S. Rensin, Chair of the Board

Hetherington was well into her fourth year as president, and her immediate team now included the following staff:

Lynn C. Coleman, Vice President of Administration and Finance

Linda E. Emmerich, Executive Associate to the President^xii

Nancy S. Gainer, Executive Director of Public Relations and Marketing

Thomas J. Glaser, Vice President of Information Technology

Farida P. Guzdar, Executive Assistant to the President

Zoe Irvin, Executive Director of Planning, Research and Organizational Development

Missy Mattey, Director of Development, Executive Director of Educational Foundation

Cynthia J. Peterka, Vice President of Student Services

Sharon J. Pierce, Vice President of Academic Affairs^xiii

By January, the college’s growth could be seen in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Health Sciences Building, and recognition of the tenth anniversary of the Laurel College Center.  The event for the Health Sciences Building was held in the morning of Monday, January 23. It was a clear, sunny and cold day. The temperature that morning in Howard County was about 8 degrees. The Health Sciences Building would be next to the RCF Building, and it would be quite close to the county hospital and its several medical buildings. Thus, the relationship between HCC’s health science programs and the hospital could be advantageous to both.^xiv  While the next project was not a building, and somewhat on a lesser scale, HCC set up a satellite café in the Science Technology Building. Lest this latter event be taken lightly, it demonstrated two things; one was the overcrowding of the Café on the Quad and the other, proceeding from the first, was proof that the college was big. The building that housed the Café on the Quad was at the opposite end of the Clark Library Building, Galleria, and the Science/Technology Building. This Satellite Café facility allowed students to get a bite to eat and a drink on the run from one classroom to another.

The spring 2011 semester saw the student credit headcount go over 9,000 – 9,121 to be precise, up by 621 over the prior spring, and that was not all. While some of the student characteristics continued as before; that is, there were more female than male students, the females were older than the males – in both the full-time and part-time student categories, the racial/ethnic mix continued to show White students no longer the majority. This category represented 47% of the credit student population. The three other predominant categories were Asian at 12.9%, Black at 26.9%, and Hispanic at 6.9%.

By early April 2011, construction of a second parking garage was almost finished.  This was no small construction project. The continuing problem of parking was aggravated by the construction of the Health Sciences Building. The paved parking area had to be broken up and removed, and then the ground had to be leveled; and not to forget all the trees that had to be removed. So, while the construction was going on, parking was more of a problem than ever. To relieve some of this difficulty, the college had instituted a shuttle bus service allowing students and employees to park at the Wilde Lake Village Center parking lot and take the shuttle bus to campus. The parking garage next to the Hickory Ridge Building passed the final inspections on May 10 and the garage opened to everyone the next day.

The college just kept getting bigger. It was 40 years old, but it did not look its age. The grounds were cared for and were quite lovely and clean. The various buildings, especially the Clark Library Building and the Nursing Building, which were the two oldest, the first being almost 41 years old, and the latter being 35 years old, did not show their age because of the care and renovations that were done as needed. No one walking around the facilities would find peeling paint, chipped walls, rust, or any other signs of age. Indeed, one would not find some of the distinctive aging signs of schools – old-looking halls and classrooms. There were no packing boxes in halls because there was no room in offices. Nor were there broken old tablet armchairs stacked in corners of functioning classrooms or outside of classrooms in halls. The place was neat and clean!  So were the college’s main meeting and ceremonial facilities such as The Smith Theatre, Monteabaro Recital Hall, RCF 400, the Burrill Galleria, the Kittleman Room, and other sizeable meeting places on campus. These places were used very often, both for community events, but also for HCC staff and student ceremonies. Anyone visiting HCC, and anyone working at HCC took pride in its appearance.

The May 3 Phi Theta Kappa induction ceremony had the highest number of students, 80, accepted into HCC’s chapter of the honor society. This, and the number of relatives and friends who came to see the induction of a loved one, meant that the induction ceremony was too large for the college’s biggest room, RCF 400. The ceremony was moved to the Smith Theatre with the reception in the Grand Lobby of the Horowitz Center for the Performing and Visual Arts.

Commencement was held at 2 P.M. on Thursday, May 26. It was the 40th graduation at the college. As in the past few years the college’s use of the Merriweather Post Pavilion was not able to be worked out; so, the ceremony was held in a very large tent that was erected the first few times in the college’s parking lot on Little Patuxent Parkway, and in the past two years in the parking lot adjoining Duncan Hall.  The college always had a way of coming through when there was a problem, except for the heat. As always, it was a really hot day, and the tent was packed – just about all the full-time faculty, college staff, and friends and family of the graduates were in attendance.  “For the 2010-2011 academic year, there are a total of 1,175 candidates for May commencement, with approximately 400 candidates expected to participate in the annual ceremony. With continued enrollment increases, the Class of 2011 represents the highest number of graduates at a time when the college is celebrating its 40th anniversary.”⁴⁸  The student speaker, Ms. Jaimie Wilder, was on her way to St. Mary’s College. She had been a very good student and an active participant in student life at HCC.  She was a member of the college’s chapter of the national honor society Phi Theta Kappa, was a Schoenbrodt Honors Program scholar, and had received scholarships to travel in Europe and was a participant in several archaeological excavations in France that were organized and managed by Howard Community College. Wilder had also served as a vice president of the Student Government Association.

The guest speaker was Dr. Walter Bumphus, President and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges. His was a familiar name to some HCC staff. Some years back, 1978-1991, Bumphus had been employed at the college as Dean of Student Services and, when administrative titles were changed, he was Vice president of Student Services from 1987 to 1991.^xv  Subsequently he had positions as a president and chancellor of various community colleges, and most recently had been appointed President and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges. As someone commented, “he got there from here.”

On Tuesday, May 31 HCC became a smokeless campus. That meant that smoking was prohibited anywhere on campus. This had been a long time coming. Going back through a number of years, to the earlier years of HCC Student Handbooks, the college’s policy had been that there was no smoking in classrooms, and that was all. Later, in the late ‘90’s and then into the 21st century the policy tightened up a bit. “HCC has designated smoking areas on campus as follows: exterior rear of Nursing building, exterior of Clark Library building near L100, portion of the ELB (sic) porch facing the RCF Hall.”⁴⁹  Students could be fined $20 for smoking in undesignated areas. The decision to prohibit smoking was based on input from the college community. A question on the issue was included on both the student and staff annual surveys, and the results showed strong support for banning smoking. On May 31, we got there!

In June, the college was notified that it had been reaccredited for another 10 years, with the next Self-Study Evaluation planned for 2020-2021, and a Periodic Review to be held in 2016. As part of the reaccreditation, The Middle States Commission on Higher Education took the following action:

To reaffirm accreditation and to commend the institution for the quality the self-study report and the quality of the self-study process. To request a progress report, due April 1, 2013, documenting progress in the development and implementation of a five-year hiring plan to adequately support, within budget projections, institutional goals for academic and student excellence in the context of increasing enrollment (Standard 3). The Periodic Review Report is June 1, 2016.⁵⁰

The 2011-2012 college catalogue was published in early summer. It was an 8 ½ x 11 document, most of which was printed with three columns of information per page. It was 296 pages long. It was big, but then, HCC was growing, ever growing. HCC was also growing in the programs that responded to community needs and in the initiatives that had become a part of the school. With over 9,000 students in the spring, we all knew that we would break 10,000 soon. The Continuing Education office’s summer program, called “Kids on Campus” (that has already been mentioned in the pages above) had a 49-page catalog/schedule of courses. That summer it enrolled 3,209 students, and had attracted students “from 351 different Maryland schools, including almost every school in Howard County, several states other than MD and DC and a couple of schools in foreign countries.”⁵¹  To think, that the program began in 1986 with 4 courses and less than 100 students!

The college was reaccredited, courses in the spring had gone well, summer courses were doing well, and finally it looked like the Belmont issue was resolved. It took a while. “Faced with budgetary strains, the college put the Belmont estate on the market in September 2009. HCC had planned on operating it until a buyer was found, but when the economic recession caused a decline in business, the college closed the center Dec. 31, 2010.”⁵²  The local papers reported that the county was going to purchase Belmont, but it was not that simple, and the property was still in HCC’s hands. The county was certainly interested and proposed that it have the right of first refusal as it studied the matter further. And study there was. A member of the Howard County Council “said she is going to wait until after the study period to take a position on the county’s decision to buy Belmont.”⁵³ Another year was to pass before the matter was concluded.

Just before the fall 2011 semester began, there was something that absolutely shook the county, literally! A 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook Howard County on August 23. HCC also had a momentous event. The fall 2011 semester enrollment saw HCC break the 10,000 mark. Credit enrollment was 10,081. While we were already big according to state criteria, this number really made us aware that we were in the major leagues. And there were some changes that could be seen. Day-class enrollment had increased more significantly than evening enrollment, our students continued to be on the young side, and student diversity was increasing. The White student population accounted for 47% of the total, while Asian, Black/African American, and Hispanic/Latino represented 48%, while 3% of the students fit into the newer category of “two or more races.”

Another indicator of the college’s continued growth and reach is that 2011 was the 10th anniversary of the Laurel College Center. The celebration was held on November 3 and, speaking of growth, the college was listed in Community College Week as one of the fastest growing public community colleges in the country. The listing of the fastest growing schools was based on the size of the school. HCC was number 43 in the category of schools having enrollments of 5,000 to 9,999. There were only two other community colleges that were listed. Both were in the category of schools having enrollments over 10,000. These were the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), and Prince Georges Community College (PGCC).⁵⁵  Thus, there were only three Maryland schools in this national listing, and HCC was one of them.

All of this growth and expansion had its impact on the college’s organization. As mentioned earlier, there were positions that were reclassified because of their increased responsibilities and, within the academic area; the role of faculty coordinators became more important. This was a matter of necessity. As the college grew, but had limited resources, more adjunct faculty were needed to teach the ever-increasing number of courses that the college offered because of the ever-increasing numbers of students at HCC. Faculty coordinators had more managerial responsibilities, and so, their teaching loads had to be adjusted to give them time to work with full-time colleagues and with the adjunct faculty within their disciplines. Here are some data, from fall 2011 that illustrate the most recent full-time to part-time faculty ratios, and the number of coordinators per division:^xvi

Division                        F/T Faculty     Adjunct Faculty     Coordinators

Science                              22                            83                        4

English/World Lang        31                            86                       11

Soc. Sci/Teach. Ed          23                            96                        9

Bus/Comp                        18                            100                      11

Math                                  21                            90                        13

Fine Arts/Hum                23                           130                       18

Allied Health                    21                            71                          9

TOTAL                             159                           656                     75

Faculty coordinators’ responsibilities are generally calculated to allow for a one course teaching reduction per year, or two, depending on the amount of responsibilities and the number of adjuncts to be supervised. Consequently, the number of teaching reductions allocated to coordinators affects the number of adjunct faculty that need to be employed.

In spring 2012, Columbia continued to plan the redesign of its downtown and some of the community meetings of this planning were held at HCC. There were other events in the county. After some 43 years, the Forest Diner on Route 40 closed on May 28. After so many years – older than HCC by just a few years, it was a landmark and a frequent meeting and dining center for Howard Countians.

Just the week before, Howard Community College celebrated its forty-first commencement on May 22. The college was able to move the celebration back to the Merriweather Post Pavilion, after several years of commencements having been held in a large temporary tent on campus. This commencement was noteworthy for three reasons (not including a return to the Pavilion).

The 2012 graduating class was the biggest so far, over 1,000 graduates. This was not the only unique feature of the graduation. It was also the first time that the commencement speaker was a member of the HCC faculty; this was philosophy professor, Dr. Helen Mitchell. Finally, the college conferred honorary Associate in Arts degrees to two individuals; one was Professor Emeritus Daniel Friedman. He had been with the college since its opening in October 1970, until his retirement in 2011. He had been in various leadership positions both academically and as a participant in planning and designing some of the college’s buildings. Dr. Charles Leonard had been on an advisory panel in the late 1960’s that offered guidance on developing a community college in the county. He also served on the college’s Board of Trustees, and later he taught for the Science Division as an adjunct faculty member.

A little earlier, on May 18 the college had its first student induction into the national allied health honor society, Alpha Eta. HCC now had three honor societies and two honors programs, with a third, the STEM honors program in the wings, to begin in fall, 2012. And speaking of fall 2012, the Schedule of Credit Classes was published in the early spring and was 124 pages. It was quite typical in its format. Courses were listed alphabetically, followed by a course description, which was then followed by the days and hours of the sections of the course. The second printing of the Schedule came out at the end of May. It was 108 pages long, but there were 38 pages of information that was quite detailed. The schedule of classes and sections began only on page 39. The difference was that the new printing did not have course descriptions, and that conserved a considerable amount of space that allowed for more information to be provided to the interested student. Not only are courses (and sections) identified by their day and time of meeting, but they are also identified if they are online, hybrid, fast track, or open entry.

Finally, “having completed its environmental studies, Howard County Government has informed the college that it will purchase Belmont. The college is pleased that Howard County Government will be acquiring the Belmont property. A jewel of Eastern Howard County as well as a beautiful historical landmark, the estate will be enjoyed by all those in Howard County as it was when the college owned the property.”⁵⁵ HCC’s venture in purchasing Belmont was bold and noble. Circumstances were against it though. It is unfortunate that the use and plans that HCC had for Belmont were not able to realize Belmont’s potential.

“THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY”

The title of this chapter comes from Hamlet’s soliloquy about the unknown; but, there was a Star Trek film in the early ‘90’s with the above title. In the film some negotiators from different worlds were dining, and one of them offered a toast to the undiscovered country, meaning a toast to the future. Being at HCC for over forty years, and writing its history, the author  has explored the college’s past and has experienced, as have many others, quite a few changes and initiatives over the years. This chapter will deal with some thoughts about some possible futures at HCC based on past and present trends and activities.

A recent NPR radio discussion dealt with adjunct faculties.⁵⁶  The gist of this broadcast was that the use of adjuncts was a necessity for schools^xvii given budgetary problems, and that the use of adjunct faculty was on the increase. At HCC, the ratio of full-time to part-time faculty is approximately 60% part-time to 40% full-time. This is not particularly just a challenge to HCC, it is a nationwide issue. The recommendation made in the latest Middle States accreditation report was less a criticism of the college than a statement of understanding of the problem that faces just about all institutions of higher education. Some detail of this situation was already presented above and need not be repeated, other than to note that the growth of the college will necessitate an ongoing assessment of the fulltime to adjunct faculty ratio that must also take into account the presence of coordinators. This brings up the college’s organizational structure, which has also been alluded to earlier.

There have certainly been many employees who have managerial^xviii positions at HCC who have been hired from outside; but, many HCC employees in such positions have come up through the ranks, or have moved from one major functional area to another. This meant several things. As HCC grew, many individuals who already supervised small groups of employees now had employees under them who became supervisors of groups of employees under them, this meant that delegation of responsibility, authority, communication, and reporting relationships were more complex. Such first-line supervisors came up from the level of operating employees, and the person that they had reported to previously, was now in charge of people who were in charge of other people. They were now middle managers. The question that all organizations face in such circumstances is how individuals who move up in organizations are prepared for such new positions. In the college’s first two decades there were some mandatory management development programs for anyone who had supervisory responsibilities. This applied mostly to employees who were Directors, Coordinators,^xix and Chairs. At that time, just about all these positions were first-line supervisory. As the college continues to grow, administrative positions will increase and the need for management development will increase too.

The college is about students. A pedagogically grounded faculty is essential, both full-time and adjunct. To recollect the earlier years of the college, a prescribed program of development was mandatory. This was called “the Systems Approach.” A set of specific, ordered workshops was established and all faculty had to go through them. A faculty member could not be promoted without having gone through this training and applying what was learned by implementing highly outcomes-oriented material to a course. The 1980’s saw a relaxation to all of the above, but a greater encouragement of the use of technology. Dr. Dwight Burrill, the second president of HCC, observed that it might have been a mistake to focus on technology at the expense of pedagogy.⁵⁷  Recently, history Professor Mark Tacyn, who is a chair of a faculty learning community, became convinced that there was a need to promote pedagogical training for faculty. In spring, 2012 he organized and coordinated two introductory workshops on Bloom’s Taxonomy,^xx and plans to continue such training in fall, 2012, since HCC does not have this as required faculty development.

Yes, HCC is about students, but it is also about community. While Loyola and Hopkins are vital educational institutions in the county, their focus is strictly on offering courses – and they do so successfully. Howard Community College is also a cultural center within the county. The college’s Rep Stage and Arts Collective are major theatrical presenters. In the 2011-2012 season Rep Stage offered four performances, and the Salon Series, while the Arts Collective offered eight theatrical performances. Art exhibits seem to go on all the time. Some exhibits are the works of community artists, while others are those of faculty and students. Outside groups use the college’s facilities. The Candlelight Concert Society offered 12 concerts, four of which were for children. The Chinese School that uses HCC’s facilities on Sundays is also an example of the college being a center that draws the community.

Civic events have been offered for a number of years. The Social Sciences Division offers a panel discussion each year on the U.S. Constitution.  More recently, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Jim Yardley spoke about his recent book. The presentation was made in the Monteabaro Recital Hall. An audience of slightly over 120 attended. The following week, history Professor Fred Campbell organized a presentation on D-Day. The major presenter was a World War II veteran, and one of the people in the audience was a woman who had been in the French resistance. The Monteabaro Hall was filled over capacity. I counted over 150 in the audience.

The implications of the size of an institution on the institution’s culture can be profound. As organizations get bigger, some of the problems that arise are those of distance between management and labor, distance among colleagues, a sense of lessened value because one is now a small cog in a big wheel, rigid adherence to procedures, etc. It appears to me that the college has the means and existing mechanisms to avoid the ills of bigness. Frequent communication from the senior administration is beneficial, and the manner in which it has been done – transparent, as the word has become popular in our lexicon – fosters a trusting relationship. This is important. HCC has also implemented the concept of cross-functional teams. When there is an institutional task, members of a team to work on the task are drawn from varied departments and divisions. Similarly, in one of the areas of employee participation and development, the college has learning communities. This again allows staff from across divisional and functional areas to interact with one another. Thus, a sense of isolation and alienation need not occur.

The commitment and dedication of HCC’s people has been proven over and over. As we move into the undiscovered country, it will be up to the leadership of this school, and there are leaders at all levels of responsibility, to continue as successfully into the future as the college has been in the past!

With this volume, the project to put forth a history of Howard Community College is concluded.

Respectfully submitted,

Vladimir G. Marinich

Professor of Social Sciences

June, 2012

APPENDIX A
Higher Education in Howard County

Howard County is a paradise when it comes to higher education. As Howard County grew so did the presence of various colleges and universities. This has been going on since Columbia’s birth; although when Columbia first started over four decades ago there were some bumpy moments and not all the schools that were on the scene at that time survived.

By May 1965, the planning of Columbia had progressed to the point that on May 28-29 a meeting was held of the “College Advisory Group for Columbia” in the Village of Cross Keys.⁵⁸ Sometime before this meeting, perhaps in 1964, James Rouse had already been thinking about “educational facilities over and above the senior year in high school.”⁵⁹  Rouse wondered about the type of post-secondary education in Columbia. “Should we have a two-year junior college, or a four-year liberal arts college? Or do we move toward a trimester system that would make it possible for a student to receive a BA degree in three years? Another possibility might be to encourage the establishment of a public junior college in Columbia, and then add a private ‘senior college’ for junior and senior year on a trimester system.”⁶⁰  Rouse continued by mentioning vocational education, adult education, and life-long learning as major elements of “the fullest possible development of an individual.”⁶¹  As it turned out all of Rouse’s ideas got put into motion.

Over the next four years, Howard County and Columbia would see the emergence of several colleges, almost literally popping up. One would be a public college and the others would be private colleges. The public one was Howard Community College (HCC), and its function was to serve the Howard County community. It would be the county’s college, but located in Columbia. The other schools had different goals. Antioch College, the Johns Hopkins University, and Loyola College were extensions of home campuses; Antioch’s main campus was in Ohio and Loyola’s and Hopkins’ were in Baltimore. Antioch’s goal, and culture, was one of social activism, thus its presence in Columbia would be to educate and solve social problems. Loyola’s and Hopkins’ goals were more traditional. They would start by offering business programs and later MBA and M.Ed. degrees.  Another private college was Dag Hammarskjold College. While its purpose was to have an international flavor, its presence in Columbia was important. Here is its view:

Such a college offers a significant opportunity for foreign and national guests who come to the college to study at first hand the life style of Columbia, the planning and development process, the structure and operation of its institutions. The education of future leaders from many countries in this setting could inspire them to spread the lessons learned in Columbia to the nations of the earth.⁶²

The proposal to establish Dag Hammarskjold College in Columbia goes back to 1967. The college plan was to raise $3 million for construction within 18 months and to purchase a 100 acre parcel from the Rouse Company on which to build. Antioch College, in the meantime, was proceeding with meetings with the Rouse Company and by the end of 1968 opened a “Field Studies Center” in Columbia. As Mitchell and Stebenne so correctly state in their book New City Upon a Hill, “this could have been a good match.”⁶³ Indeed, the recollection of some who were around at the time was that having Antioch and Dag Hammarskjold in Howard County and as part of Columbia was a match made in heaven. Well, as it turned out, it wasn’t. Problems showed up almost from the start.

Antioch College with its original social activist vision was not meant for Columbia. Columbia was to be the result of a dream for an ideal community. But, as one of Rouse’s biographers said, “Columbia was not a good place for Antioch students with a strong social conscience; conditions were not bad enough for them to be useful,”⁶⁴ and indeed a number of Antioch’s social programs transferred to Baltimore and Washington D.C. pretty early on.

In 1969 Dag Hammarskjold College was still planning and organizing to open. The college would not open its doors to students until 1972. The college’s major challenge was raising revenue for its operation, and that would be an on-going problem that eventually would do Dag Hammarskjold College in.

Howard Community College seemed to have the best chance of survival. It was supported by the State of Maryland and by the county. But like many community colleges of that day, there was the taint that they were not quite institutions of higher education; they were places where students went who could not get into real colleges. They were, as many community colleges were called, high schools with ashtrays. In addition, some thought that the college would serve primarily the Columbia community. Nevertheless, HCC was and would be the community’s college.

The goals and the culture of each of these colleges can be summed up by some simple historical examples. The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead was a consultant and visitor to Dag Hammarskjold College, James Rouse visited and spoke at Howard Community College from time to time, and the 1974 graduation ceremony speaker at the Columbia campus of Antioch College was Father Phillip Berrigan. This alone shows the differences in the cultures of the colleges.

Loyola College, in the meantime, had expanded into Columbia to offer graduate courses mostly in business and education. Loyola’s classes were first held in the Banneker Building and after about a year or two in the NCR Instruction Center of the American Cities Building.

At HCC, in October 1965, after meetings with the Maryland State Department of Education, Howard County’s Board of Education “passed a resolution indicating intention to form a community college and move forward with that project.”⁶⁵  The original thinking was to open the college in 1967 with late afternoon and evening classes held in one of the existing high schools.  The County Commissioners authorized the Board of Education to be the college’s Board of Trustees, and on March 18, 1966, Howard Community College received authorization by the Howard County Commissioners. Three days later the State of Maryland approved the establishment of the college. Howard Community College would be the fourteenth community college in Maryland.

The county had four public high schools at the time: Atholton, Glenelg, Howard, and Mt. Hebron.  There was also one private nonsectarian school, Glenelg Country School that opened in 1954, although the high school portion of the school did not begin operations until 1985.

The ultimate location of the site for the future community college was not without discussion and debate. Dr. Edward Cochran, who was on the original Board of Trustees recalls, “The Rouse Company had a particular site to recommend to the Board, and the other folks who thought it should be in Ellicott City or whatever did not have specific sites. They just had a feeling that it ought to be somewhere else.”⁶⁶  The Rouse Company’s recommended site may not originally have been where the college now stands. Again, Cochran recalled that the Rouse Company had other plans for the frontage on Little Patuxent Parkway; The Rouse Company wanted the front of the college, along Little Patuxent Parkway, to be reserved for commercial properties. The Board refused to agree to this, and the Rouse Company eventually relented.

The site for the college was finally accepted and in June 1966 the land was purchased for $300,000. Thus, the myth that the college got the land for $5 is just that, a myth or, in today’s parlance, an urban legend. The breakdown of the cost was that the county and federal funds would each pay 25%, and the state would pick up the rest. There was also some discussion that the location of the college in this area near Columbia’s future downtown would place it “adjacent to the ‘future private college’ expected to be built in Columbia.” ⁶⁷According to a map that was in the Columbia Welcome Center the other college was Dag Hammarskjold and it was to be located between HCC and the hospital on Little Patuxent Parkway that was yet to be built.

The projected opening of the college for 1967, with classes in high schools, was postponed when the Board of Trustees was informed in late 1966 that Catonsville Community College would be able to continue to take Howard County’s students. As a result, the Board decided to plan for a campus and an opening date of fall 1970.

Construction of the college’s single building began in the summer of 1969, and this was also when the senior staff of the college was hired. While the college building was under construction, the senior staff operated out of the Board of Education Building on Freetown Road. As a historical perspective of Howard County, prior to being occupied by the county Board of Education, this building had been Harriet Tubman High School, an all-black segregated school until its closing in the fall of 1965.

Antioch College began its operations in October 1969, just a few months after HCC’s groundbreaking. Classrooms and administrative offices were in the Oakland Manor building and the garden apartments of Tillbury Woods on Harpers Farm Road and Hannibal Grove in Running Brook would serve as housing for students. Loyola also began operations in 1969 as already mentioned, with classes in the American Cities Building.

Alfred J. Smith, Jr., who had been hired in mid-1969 as the first president of HCC, had more than his share of work to do between his start as president and the opening of the school that would happen just a little over a year later. The schedule and  progress of construction had to be monitored, college policies had to be developed and approved by the Board, the entire educational program had to be established, which included admissions, records, financial aid, the transfer and career programs, courses, and the catalog and Fall 1970 schedule of classes had to be put together and published.  There was a lot of trailblazing to be done.

Not the least of Smith’s responsibilities was getting the county acquainted with the college that was to become a presence in the community within a year, but also to let the population know that this was a real institution of higher education.

Not only that, but there were some Howard County residents who perceived the college more as a part of Columbia rather than a part of the county; so, explaining that away took some work. With all of Smith’s efforts and challenges, there was still Catonsville Community College that had been the draw for the county’s high school graduates. So, pitting a college that did not exist yet against an established one just across the county line was a formidable job of marketing and public relations.

Howard Community College opened on Monday, October 12, 1970 in its just- constructed one-building facility in Columbia, Maryland. HCC could claim “the distinction as the first Maryland community college to begin with its own, new campus and was the fourteenth community college in the statewide system.” ⁶⁸ The 1970-1971 academic year began with 10 full-time teaching faculty, one librarian, and about 14 part-time faculty. There was a total of 594 students who enrolled that fall; 240 of whom were full-time students and 354 part-time.

By the mid-1970’s things were not going well for either Antioch or Dag Hammarskjold, although HCC, Loyola, and Johns Hopkins were faring better. Antioch’s program of social work had already moved out of Columbia but a Human Ecology Center had been planned to be “housed in an innovative air-supported structure in Columbia.” This became known as “the bubble.” Unfortunately this structure had problems, not the least of which was that the air temperature inside was up to 130 degrees in summer and not more than 50 in winter. The “bubble” did not last. By 1979 the Human Ecology Center moved to Baltimore. The college also lost state aid and enrollments declined.

Dag Hammarskjold was having difficulties with funding, enrollments, and faculty. In January 1974 the president of Dag Hammarskjold, Dr. Robert McCan wrote that the college had updated its economic model and that “most of the pieces have been put in place, except for the major funding needed to move ahead briskly. . .”⁶⁹  By October, the college was into the second year of its 10-year plan to raise $8 million; it raised $1 million. And on October 21, 1974, the Baltimore Sun had an article titled, “Columbia College Nears Failure.”  Enrollment of international students did not meet expectations and there was some discord among faculty. Some were dedicated to innovative course content and a more liberal and flexible relationship between students and faculty while others believed in a more rigorously traditional set of standards and content of courses. The Rouse Company’s subsidiary, Howard Research and Development Corporation, which had donated Oakland Manor to the college, got it back and Dag Hammarskjold College closed up.

Loyola and Johns Hopkins had started in a more modest way in Columbia. Both began their operations by offering a limited number of courses. Loyola’s presence in Columbia began with classes held in the Banneker Building for a short time and then moving to Sterrett Place as the college’s enrollment grew. The courses were graduate-level, mostly in business and education. Hopkins started by having classes in several rooms in the Harpers Choice Village Center. Some of the early courses were graduate level in Management, Labor Relations, Business, etc.

By the 1980’s Loyola and Hopkins were well established in Columbia and their enrollments were solid and growing and their focus was on upper division and graduate courses. Thus, the combination of these schools and HCC was one where there was little or no competition. HCC’s challenge was to attract high school graduates to choose HCC over going to four-year schools to complete their freshman and sophomore years. HCC also attracted adult learners; those who had been out of the workforce and wanted to learn skills to get back into it, people who wanted to upgrade their skills, those who were looking to change their careers, those who wanted to get the degree that they had not been able to get in past years, and those who just wanted be in a classroom again.

The 80’s decade was one that saw HCC’s enrollments grow at an almost constant rate.  HCC’s relationship with the county was good and the college provided much support to the county’s cultural interests. The Smith Theatre was not only the venue for performances but community groups such as Pro Cantare and Candlelight Concerts also used it. In the academic area, a significant accomplishment was the development of Honors study. HCC’s history professor, Dr. Larry   had been working on the development of an honors course that would explore the concept of community using Columbia as the model. HCC’s Board of Trustees found this to be an exciting and worthwhile project and they supported Madaras by providing him with the necessary resources. This course was taught several times and just as important; it was the beginning of the honors program at the college.

HCC’s community involvement was also on a grand scale. In the second half of the 80’s the college was a leading supporter of the Columbia Festival of the Arts and an organizer and sponsor of the equestrian Grand Prix, which was to become the college’s major fundraising event.

The 90’s was a period of growth and continued academic and cultural service to Columbia and the county. In academics, honors courses continued to be taught and HCC introduced the Rouse Scholars Program that was designed to attract and challenge high quality high school graduates. The college also created the Rep Stage Company, thus making HCC’s theatre a professional theatrical producing organization.

The 21st century began with HCC creating the Silas Craft Collegians Program in 2000. This was a program for higher risk students, but that still led to an A.A. degree. In 2005, the Fred K. Schoenbrodt Honors Program was created to serve both full-time and part-time students.  In addition, by the middle of the decade the college established an International Education program.

The colleges that continue to be active in Columbia are successful. Enrollments are good as are the schools’ facilities, but like most successful schools the enrollments expand faster than spaces. Over the years Johns Hopkins’ growth required a major space and the university is currently housed on Alexander Bell Drive. Loyola is leasing space on McGaw Road and its facilities consist of 23 classrooms, a number of computer labs, and an enrollment of about 2,000 per semester. HCC’s credit enrollment exceeds 10, 000 students. Thus, the county and Columbia had colleges that served the community well. The community college provided students with the first two years of college before they went on to a senior institution, and HCC did so at a lower cost. In addition, HCC had agreements with Hopkins that HCC’s honors students would get very favorable consideration when applying to Hopkins to finish their baccalaureate degrees.  HCC also provided a large number of non-credit courses as part of its life-long learning program. The prevalence of an educated population in Howard County allowed Loyola and Hopkins to offer upper division and graduate courses to residents of the area. So, the existing, and surviving colleges pretty much covered most the bases, and then, some.  The Laurel College Center began in 2001 as a state-designated Regional Higher Education Center. Its founders were the county’s community college and Prince Georges Community College. A group of four-year schools joined in the partnership. These were Morgan State University, Notre Dame of Maryland University, Towson University, the University of Maryland College Park, and the University of Maryland University College. While the Center is just across the border in Prince Georges County, residents of Howard County avail themselves of its proximity to homes and work, and make for a smoother transition from a two-year to a four-year school, since several of the four-year schools operate in the Laurel facility. This was not the only educational coalition. “Through an agreement between Howard, Carroll, and Frederick Community Colleges, students can complete classes and programs in a number of high-demand health care occupations at the new state-of-the-art Mount Airy College Center for Health Care Education.”⁷⁰

The early experiences of Antioch and Dag Hammarskjold were unfortunate. Antioch’s problem was simply a bad fit with Columbia. The city was not a problem area to be resolved but an opportunity to be pursued and, as mentioned before, Antioch’s interests were in social problem solving. Dag Hammarskjold was unfortunate in a different way. It was an idea whose time had not yet come. It would not be for about another two decades that our consciousness would be raised about diversity and globalization, and indeed anyone who follows international events these days will recognize the importance of a global perspective. Perhaps if Dag Hammarskjold had started in the late 1990’s the overall climate might have been more favorable for its success. But that did not happen and it turned out that Howard Community College at the beginning of the 21st century filled this niche with its program of study abroad, faculty and student exchanges, academic programs focusing on international studies, international business, history of world regions, and general overseas trips designed for the community.

The success of the various colleges that are in Howard County is a testimonial to the community that supports them. With minor exception, James Rouse had it right!

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Organizational Chart 2007

APPENDIX E
Chronology of High Schools
in Howard County

1951           Howard High School

1958           Glenelg

1965           Mt. Hebron

1966           Atholton

1971           Wilde Lake

1973           Oakland Mills

1976           Hammond

1977           Centennial

1985           Glenelg Country School^xxi

1991           Chapelgate Christian Academy^xxii

1994           River Hill

1996           Long Reach

2002           Reservoir

2005           Marriotts Ridge