2020 Reports

Exploring the State of the Humanities in Community Colleges

Bickerstaff, Susan E.; Brock, Thomas; Moussa, Adnan; Ran, Xiaotao

Drawing on research literature and a set of informal interviews with humanities faculty and leaders of relevant initiatives, this paper first discusses what is known about humanities coursework in community colleges. It then outlines three key challenges facing humanities education in this higher education sector:

1. an oversimplified identification of community colleges as providers primarily of vocational education,
2. limited professional supports for community college humanities faculty, and
3. weak humanities transfer pathways between community colleges and destination four-year colleges.

The paper goes on to describe current efforts that attempt to address these challenges and concludes with a call for future research intended to enhance our understanding of the humanities in community colleges and the ways humanities education in community colleges might be strengthened and improved.