League for Innovation in the Community College March 2018 | Page 7

Terry O’Banion
Rufus Glasper
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sk Terry O’Banion to identify the most important work the League for
Innovation has done in its 50 years and he leads with helping community
colleges become “national leaders in information technology” before
revealing his top choice: leadership development.
O’Banion shared stories of the League’s history, including initiatives in community
college leadership, during a conversation with League President and CEO, Rufus
Glasper, early this year. The former and current CEOs met at the organization’s office in
Chandler, Arizona, to launch the League’s fiftieth anniversary celebration.
Founded in 1968 by B. Lamar Johnson, the League for Innovation in the Community
College started as a group of 12 community college presidents at institutions that,
according to O’Banion, Johnson had identified “as among the most innovative
colleges in the country.” O’Banion, who served as League President and CEO for 23
years, described how, in a decade when the number of community colleges doubled,
Johnson studied innovation at two-year institutions and wrote about it in his seminal
book, Islands of Innovation.
In O’Banion’s words, “the League was established, really, on the interest in innovation.”
Members “saw themselves as leading innovation, and they did not want to get into
policy and politics” so they focused on “innovations around projects, programs, and
practices.” That, O’Banion explained, became “the stamp of the League for Innovation.”
Bringing the conversation forward a half-century, Glasper noted that the League for
MARCH 2018
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