Integrating Community Development into Community Colleges: A Consideration

In recent years, the importance of community college outreach roles has been increasingly recognized and often encouraged through legislative mandates and professional association commitments, if not through consistent funding. The inclusion of community development into community college outreach programs increases the potential value of the community college to its communities. This paper discusses the integration of community development into two typical community college outreach programs: community services and community education programs.Due to the relatively recent interest by some community colleges to incorporate community development into outreach programs, there are no specific models depicting this integration. Many of the attempts to implement community development within the context of community college, community service, and community education programs are experimental. Therefore, this discussion should be viewed as a beginning exploration of the possibilities in and difficulties of attempting to incorporate community development into the community colleges.