League for Innovation in the Community College January 2019 | Page 11

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The development of talent is the
prime responsibility of a higher
education institution.
based upon their opportunities and their achievements made
possible through opportunities, which include their capacities.
The New and Improved Mission of the
Community College
Thus, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds with
financial stress are not the same as students from more Such an approach—the development of talent—has been in
privileged backgrounds: The two have differing capacities, at practice at community colleges for decades, and continues
least when they enter college. The role of the institution, in this into the present. As I have noted in my books on community
case the community college, is to enable individuals to achieve colleges, college leaders at various levels—chancellors,
that which they are capable of achieving, or their potential. presidents, deans—and rank-and-file faculty and staff have
This view is not dissimilar to one proposed by Alexander viewed the development of individual students as their
Astin in the 1980s: The development of talent is the prime major responsibility and, indeed, calling. Although individual
responsibility of a higher education institution. development is both laudable and necessary, the development
of talent, or the focus on opportunity through the development
The Capabilities Approach can be used as a normative of talent, for groups or classes of students is also necessary.
framework for the assessment of institutions of higher Indeed, the development of talent for groups of students is
education—assessments focused upon elements social imperative not only to equalize opportunities in a society, but
institutions and policies should aim to equalize. The also to fulfill the promise of democracy. Whether the group or
Capabilities Approach argues that equality and social class is based upon gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity,
arrangements should be evaluated based upon essential, language of communication, religious beliefs, immigration
or real, opportunities people have to achieve the valued status, ability/disability, age, or other identity groupings, the
activities and ends that are integral to their well-being. The community college can focus its attention on opportunities
judgement, then, is on what people are actually able to do that groups or classes of people have to achieve the valued
in a given context and, hence, the sets of capabilities, or activities and ends that are integral to their well-being.
opportunities, available to them, rather than the activities they
can enjoy at any given time. In other words, the fundamental Thus, community college mission can on the one hand
question is whether or not individuals have access to the same articulate what is already practiced—the development of talent
opportunities, not whether or not they participate at the same of individuals—and on the other hand take up the concept of
levels and with the same essential freedom. This orientation mission as an ideal or calling for societal groups, particularly
either obliterates the traditional community college concept the most disadvantaged. Such a mission is an antidote to what
of access or redefines access. Within the context of higher Douglas Massey, in Categorically Unequal: The American
education, the Capabilities Approach moves the conversation Stratification System (2007), expresses as the categorical
from one focused on participation to one focused on access inequality prevalent in U.S. society.
and opportunity, particularly political and structural access
as opportunities.
John S. Levin is Professor of Higher Education, Graduate
School of Education, University of California, Riverside.
WINTER/SPRING 2019
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