This case was written by Catherine H. Augustine, doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, under the supervision of Professor Marvin W. Peterson at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. The project was funded as part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's "Kellogg Forum on Higher Education Transformation" initiative. This case is designed as the basis for class discussion on managing change in higher education institution; it is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation.

• Introduction
• State Context
• College History
• Waterford - The Main Campus
• Acquiring Branch Campuses
  • Branch Campus 1 - Langston
  • Branch Campuses 2 and 3 - Longview & North Barrymore
    • Longview
    • North Barrymore
  • Branch Campus 4 - Barrymore Valley Technical Education Center, the "Arrowhead Campus"
• The Transformation
• Appendix A-1,1991 and 1995 Organizational Charts
• Appendix A-2, 1997 Organizational Chart Reflecting Change to a Matrix Organization
• Appendix A-3, Information on Transformation Community College Students, Faculty, and Budget,
  1991-1996

Reorganization at Transformation Community College:
Becoming a High Performance Institution (B)

Back to Educational Transformation Home Page

Introduction - Back to Top

Fostering a sense of college unity and cohesion while providing adequate local autonomy, given campus distances and distinctions, is an ongoing challenge.1

Transformation Community College (TCC) is one of the hundreds of community colleges throughout the country operating with a multi-campus structure. Leading such colleges can be challenging, as community colleges, by nature, cater to the needs of their local communities. When many miles separate campuses, as they do in the TCC system, local communities can be quite distinct from one another. The challenges of fostering college unity while providing for adequate local responsiveness were made all the more difficult for TCC by population growth verging on congestion; a regulatory state environment; strong community advocacy; and uneven methods (e.g., mergers, start-ups, spin-offs) of acquiring campuses. Nevertheless, the President of TCC was hopeful that he could overcome these challenges and transform TCC into a high performance institution that would meet individual community needs without compromising college-wide quality and effectiveness.

State Context

The ultimate authority for education in the state is the General Assembly. The General Assembly established the Commission on Higher Education in1965 as the statutory agency for planning and coordinating higher education in the state. The Commission on Higher Education then created governing boards for the diverse systems of education in the state. In 1967, the General Assembly and the Commission established a state system of community colleges and a corresponding governing board. This board acts as the governing board for the state system community colleges and has all of the authority, responsibility, and duties customarily exercised by governing boards of individual higher education institutions. Its responsibilities include hiring community college presidents, approving new facilities, setting tuition, approving curriculum proposals, and reviewing budget requests.

The proliferation of education managers at the state level has been the cause and effect of a multitude of state mandates. The state has been a leader in mandating student assessment initiatives on its campuses, spearheading reforms in teacher education, and developing a statewide master plan for higher education. Currently, with the election of a new Republican Governor, the state is instituting a system for performance funding. Several quality indicators have been developed. Scores on these indicators will eventually form the basis for 100% of the allocation of new money for colleges each year.

Higher education in this state can be characterized by the word "control." The state has not only exacted control through its mandates, but it also has a history of breaking up colleges as their enrollments increase. The implicit message in thus limiting college growth and expansion is that the state wants to maintain control of the delivery of education. Counties and cities share this desire for control of their local community colleges. The president of TCC characterizes the state as one where "local control is carried to advanced degrees." One of the reasons for this desire for local control is that each community believes it to be unique, having different needs than its neighbors. This feeling of being unique is deep-seated, stemming from a time when travel between communities was limited by rough terrain.

Despite this desire for local control, community colleges in the state system, which includes TCC, are not funded locally. They receive half of their operating budget from the state and half from tuition. The state's portion is based on enrollment projections, as opposed to actual registrations. Community college representatives provide these projections in the summer and the state money is released in July. If fall enrollments do not meet these projections, money must be returned to the state; if enrollments exceed projections, the state releases additional monies to the institution. The effect of this process is that community colleges report at least level enrollment projections.

Many community colleges are experiencing steady enrollment growth, since the state has been experiencing an estimated population growth of 23% over the past nine years. Construction of new housing developments is ongoing. The main highway running north-south is beginning to resemble the crowded interstates of Los Angeles. While there used to be few drivers on this highway, now, every morning, radio announcers warn of multiple accidents on a heavily traveled 25-mile stretch.

College History - Back to Top

Transformation Community College was the first community college created by the state board. In the fall of 1968 the college first opened its doors in temporary quarters with a temporary name. Nine years later, in the fall of 1977, the college moved to its first permanent site in Waterford. During these nine years, many full-time faculty and classified staff members were hired, many of which have stayed with the college for these past 30 years. In July 1984, the college changed its name to Transformation Community College, but remained part of a larger system of colleges until July 1985. The college then became an autonomous community college and began to develop its own sense of identity.

The college runs on an approximately 29 million dollar operating budget, 50% of which comes from the state. Most of the rest (46%) comes from tuition, with the remaining 4% from other sources, such as grants. Half of this operating budget goes to support instruction.

Since the college is governed by the state governing board, there is not a governing board unique to the institution. However, a seven-member Area Advisory Committee provides the TCC President with advice. Committee members are appointed by the state governing board upon recommendation of both TCC and the state governing board staff. While they have no governing authority, Area Advisory Committee members serve as a liaison between the college and the communities it serves.

The service area assigned to TCC by the state extends over 5,000 square miles, including five counties and 780,000 people. Distance learning extends college program delivery globally. Admitting anyone 18 years or older, TCC provides learning opportunities for new, continuing, and returning students in vocational-occupational programs and baccalaureate degree preparation. The college offers Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Associate of General Studies, and Associate of Applied Science degrees. In addition to vocational and transfer programs, TCC provides personal, professional, and workforce development opportunities.

The college also prides itself on the role it plays in enriching local communities. College employees are involved in a broad range of community activities, including organizing conferences, leading civic organizations, serving in youth and church organizations, and helping the homeless. During a recent self-study visit, the accreditation team could not help but notice that the college had developed a strong positive image in the communities it serves.

By 1996, TCC had grown to be the largest comprehensive, two-year, state-supported community college in the state with a fall enrollment of 11,000 students (see Appendix A-3 for further enrollment information). That year, of 41 associate degree programs and 56 certificate programs, TCC granted 1,316 degrees. Courses in these programs were taught by 177 full-time and 600 part-time faculty.

The college's enrollment growth has been contingent on the opening of several new campuses throughout its service area. Of these several sites, the campuses in Waterford, Fullerton, and the Barrymore area form the nucleus of the college. The histories of these campuses are both distinctive and important.

Waterford - The Main Campus - Back to Top

Waterford is the main campus of Transformation Community College, both literally, in terms of headquartering its executive staff, and colloquially, referred to as such by most campus employees. There are 428,000 square feet of campus buildings on the 87-acre site. From these buildings, the views of the foothills are beautifully distracting.

John Garrison was hired as president of TCC in 1991. While at this time TCC was already a multi-campus college, the President's office and the majority of the college employees were located at Waterford. The 14 year-old campus buildings were suffering from neglect and non-existent master planning. Offices such as those for student services had moved into new spaces as their employee ranks grew, regardless of the effects of these moves. Students therefore had to register on one side of the building and walk to the other side to apply for financial aid.

The people, like the buildings, had suffered a bit during prior administrations. Garrison followed a president who had spent much of his time in the community fostering economic development. This former president was highly directive, favoring a top-down leadership style facilitated by temporary dean assignments and no chief executive for instruction. The college had become dependent on his leadership. This president had been the gatekeeper to the external community and the absolute ruler of the internal community.

Garrison knew he was inheriting a college with problems, yet he had high hopes that he would be a successful president. He was born in the state in the 1940s and felt he was coming home to a state he knew well. Despite his local roots, Garrison credits an earlier move from to another state as a time of great personal and professional growth. Learning a new state context forced him to interact in a situation outside of his comfort zone. During his tenure in two other states, Garrison moved up the ranks from professor to dean to vice president to president and eventually became chancellor of a community college district. During this time, Garrison also earned a national reputation for his work with organizations like the American Council on Education and the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. In 1990, Garrison was named to oversee the American Association of Community Colleges' Minority Education Initiative.

Garrison was successful both nationally and locally. He prides himself on leaving colleges in better positions than they were in when he arrived. Garrison talks with pride not only about the places he has left, but also about the people he has launched. Those places and people are part of his legacy, which he planned to continue to build at Transformation Community College.

Upon his arrival at TCC, Garrison decided to drop out of the national community college scene and spend more time "tending the home fires" of the college, the surrounding communities, and the state. His goal in 1991 was to continue his "proven track record for creating high-performance organizations." From his first day of hire, Garrison made it clear that he wanted to make TCC the "showcase college of the future." He crafted this goal in spite of Waterford's enrollment declines, stagnant programs, declining technology, and dreary buildings.

As Garrison learned more about the institution, he came to believe that the most difficult part of recasting TCC as a high-performance community college would be changing the employees. He believed that there were some faculty, administrators, and classified staff who would have a tough time learning the values, attitudes, and skills needed to be contributors to the "high-performance community college." Part of the blame for this inadequacy was placed with the previous president who had valued control over employee development. Employees, however, were satisfied with their roles and performance, however inadequate these roles and performances may have seemed to the new president.

These inadequate performances evidenced themselves in outdated programs. There was no system for reviewing programs. Occupational programs suffered the most; employers in the community complained that graduates were lacking current occupational skills. Businesses would approach TCC in need of training only to find the training programs antiquated. Old programs stagnated and there was little initiative to bring on new programs. How could Garrison get these employees to see that the status quo was not acceptable?

During his first few months on campus, faculty and staff started to evaluate their new president. From his first day on campus, Garrison took every opportunity he could to talk about his vision of increasing the college's presence in workforce development efforts, especially in serving the new high technology businesses that were moving to the area. In so doing, he managed to stoke the ire of some of the faculty members. In his speeches and writings he called students "customers." He challenged the unwritten policy of only scheduling classes in the mornings and early afternoons, Monday through Thursday. Many "old guard" faculty members came to resent Garrison's language and ideas.

In the early 1990s, Garrison instituted as many changes as he could to move the college toward a high performance organization. By 1992 he had revamped the president's cabinet, hiring three new vice presidents for finance, instruction/student services, and for campus management of another campus. He also hired outsiders and promoted existing staff to associate vice presidential and executive director positions. Between 1992 and 1996, Garrison shifted the administrative structure several times, tweaking it each time he felt a part of it was not working properly. Appendix A1 presents the administrative structures for 1991 and 1995.

Garrison also created a governance council, with representatives from administration, faculty, students, and classified staff. The intention of this council was to gather feedback on, build collaboration for, and improve communication of new ideas. He lobbied for money from the state to renovate the buildings on the Waterford campus. The college won a technology grant, allowing for purchasing and upgrading badly needed computer equipment for instruction and administration. In 1996, Garrison established an institutional research office, symbolizing his goal of basing future decisions on objective data.

The college community embraced most of these changes. While building renovations might be disruptive, the outcomes were well worth it. New technologies were also appreciated. One of the reasons for the acceptance of many of these changes is that Garrison managed to communicate the need for change extremely effectively. He repeated a litany of increasing state pressures, competition from both the private and public sector, and the need to keep pace with changing technologies. Therefore, while most internal constituents acknowledged that the pace of change at the college was fast, they framed this change as necessary, rather than negative.

Even though faculty, classified staff, and administrators knew changes were necessary, these changes were not always easy to accept. Changes to the organizational structure were especially difficult to appreciate. Reassignments and changing supervisors led to negative attitudes and cynicism toward both the changes themselves and the instigator of the changes. In addition, there was a general perception that the changes were not carefully planned. Since most internal constituents were not part of the planning process, they saw many of the changes as "shot gun" approaches lacking a rationale. Faculty developed a "hunker down" position and collectively believed that they were close enough to retirement to wait out any changes Garrison could institute. Classified staff continued to focus on what they had always enjoyed about working at the college--their interactions with faculty and students.

During these early years of change, faculty and staff formed a more cohesive picture of their president. They began to realize that he was quite approachable. People became comfortable in relaying opinions and giving him advice. However, they soon came to believe that their advice went unheeded. Perhaps Garrison simply could not take into account the advice of several different constituents. Regardless, many employees began to believe that Garrison made up his mind before hearing their advice. As decisions to change often directly contradicted advice given to the president, internal constituents found the changes hard to accept. People who did not bother to give advice also felt estranged by the change process. If the changes involved their work, they saw the change as a punishment for wrongdoing.

Garrison's decision-making style contributed toward the general perception that he was a hands-off leader. Not only did he make decisions without building a consensus, but he would announce a major change and then let the people who were affected by it work out the details. He did not micro-manage. While some employees valued this trait, most believed he was out of touch with their day-to-day work routines. These employees wanted to see him more frequently; they wanted him to get to know them. Although they were welcome to come to his office, they wished he would walk around more and be more visible in general. This feeling of inaccessibility was exacerbated by the growth of off-site campuses.

Acquiring Branch Campuses - Back to Top

On each of TCC's campuses, as approved by the accrediting association, students are able to complete all of the associate degree requirements. This arrangement has been necessary because, due to the distances among campuses, there is not much cross enrollment. Even in cases where the distance between campuses does not seem far to an outsider, TCC employees are quick to argue that recent traffic increases have made such drives intolerable. The distance among campuses has contributed to distinct feelings of individuality on each campus. Employees on campuses located "in the country" do not believe that Waterford representatives, with their "city" orientation, can understand their needs. These feelings of individuality have, over the years, accelerated into feelings of competition. Waterford begrudged new campuses from the very beginning as professional development, travel, and other money was diverted to meet new campus start-up costs.

Branch Campus 1 - Langston

The community support expressed through the active participation of multiple community leaders is quite remarkable.2

During the 1980s, the Langston County Vocational Technical Center in Fullerton was facing a dismal future. Support for such secondary vo-tech centers was quickly diminishing in the state. In a state where centralized entities play an important role in education, institutions have a tough time surviving without state support. As early as 1981, representatives from this agricultural based vo-tech center, which was founded in 1972, considered transforming into a community college. Becoming a community college seemed to be the perfect solution for this struggling center, which was surrounded by an actively supportive community. Business people from the community routinely attended class presentations and prided themselves on hiring the center's graduates. Competition for these graduates grew as new business and new residents relocated to Fullerton at a rapid rate.

Leaders of the three building vo-tech center conducted a feasibility study in the mid-1980s to determine if it could sustain itself as a community college. The results of the study did not indicate success. Representatives from the center therefore decided to go shopping for a potential adoptive parent.

The first community college they approached, which was closest to Fullerton, rejected their advances. The chief administrator of the vo-tech and his staff were demoralized and pessimistic regarding the center's survival. However, a prominent state board member took note of the attempts to find an adoptive partner. Together, this man and the vo-tech center leadership approached TCC. The staff at Waterford, which is located 60 miles south of Fullerton, were reluctant to involve themselves with the vo-tech center. However, the state board member assured both TCC and the vo-tech center that the center would become its own, autonomous community college when it reached a 2,000 full-time equivalent postsecondary student enrollment. This guarantee, coupled with increasing pressure from the state, led to TCC's adoption of the Langston County Vocational Technical Center in 1988. At first, TCC did not want to call the Langston center "Transformation Community College," but they eventually conceded that they would have to make Langston a full-fledged campus.

The vo-tech center staff considered TCC their "white knight." It was a big plus to align with an established community college. The merger was a great and exciting time for Langston staff who anxiously busied themselves with integrating degree programs on their campus. Since most of the staff knew that TCC had been a reluctant parent, they wanted to prove to this new parent that they could both survive and thrive.

Under the merger, Langston maintained some aspects of its former self. It continued nine vocational high school programs, including auto mechanics, forestry, medical prep, and hospitality. The three local school districts continued to fund these secondary programs and the staff attached to them. These districts also remained co-owners of the Langston campus property.

The tight-knit community surrounding the Langston campus happily embraced the change from a vo-tech center to a community college. New college employees were quickly and easily integrated into the small town. Campus employees mingled with community members on a daily basis as they cheered for their children at soccer games, frequented the local shops, and served on community boards. The community loved the new institution, considering it their institution.

The Langston campus was indeed meeting a community need. Their student enrollment in postsecondary courses grew 10-15% every 15 weeks. Transfer-oriented courses like math and English filled up first, demonstrating the need for such general education courses.

Such rapid enrollment growth had not been anticipated. At Langston, the need for services such as financial aid and career counseling grew faster than the willingness of administrators at Waterford to provide for such services. Waterford, on the other hand, was realizing the financial benefits that accrued to a college whose funding was based on enrollment. Despite these seeming inequalities, the staff at Langston worked with a "depression mentality." They used what they had to get the job done. They did not think to ask Waterford for more help; they were too busy proving to their parent that they were competent.

Faculty and staff at Langston were not the only people working hard to ensure that this merger would work. Some Waterford faculty expended much time and energy into helping Langston faculty. Although these efforts took time away from their own campus needs, many Waterford faculty found it exciting and energizing to help Langston faculty develop new programs.

In 1992, Garrison hired Edward Remington to be the vice president for the Langston campus. Remington had been a vice president in a community college system in another state that was ten times the size of TCC. Since it was public knowledge that the Langston campus would eventually be an autonomous college, many believed that Remington accepted the vice presidency with the intention of soon becoming a president. Remington added new energy to the campus and created a vision of "what could be." Langston employees grew more excited and optimistic under Remington's leadership. They relished the legitimization process and were proud of the campus growth.

Langston staff finally had their own "father"--there was no longer a need to prove anything to their stepparent. A family feeling pervaded the campus. Langston faculty and classified staff glorified their deans and their campus vice president--an unusual sentiment among higher education faculty. Langston employees believed that they were different from Waterford staff; their campus was smaller, they maintained their vo-tech roots, and they were situated in a rural environment. They had different businesses in their service area, meaning that they needed to develop their own workforce development and vocational programming. Rather than feeling inadequate about these campus aspects, they were proud of them. The Langston culture was imbued with a sense of pride. They continued their entrepreneurial endeavors, not to prove their case to Waterford, but because they believed they were filling a true community need. This need was evidenced by the rapid enrollment growth they were experiencing. They became indignant that Waterford appeared to know how Langston should best function.

Community members also revered Remington. Under his leadership, the reputation of TCC grew stronger throughout the community of Fullerton. Remington further strengthened the relationship between Langston campus staff and community members. Together, the Langston campus and the community jointly funded a beautiful new library building for the Langston campus. The campus grew from its original three buildings to 175,000-sq. ft. of space in seven buildings. Each new building further improved the morale of the Langston staff.

Remington eradicated the depression mentality and encouraged staff to defend their legitimate need for resources. As a member of the president's cabinet, he was an ardent defender of Langston, a voice that had been lacking prior to his hire. Nonetheless, money continued to be tight and needed staff positions were not forthcoming. Langston staff resented having to get things "OK'd" by Waterford and felt they were continually being stuck with the short end of the stick. They desperately needed staff in areas like admissions, but believed Waterford was instead using the money brought in by Langston to fund its own services, programs, and staff. Although Langston had been subsumed with its budget intact, all the new money that Langston brought in went first to Waterford, where a college-wide budget was developed. Langston's budget was historic-based as opposed to FTE based, meaning that they would get new money each year based on a percentage increase from the budget they had the prior year, regardless of the number of new students they enrolled.

While students remained unaware of these feelings of unrest, not surprisingly, community members soon learned of Langston employees' dissatisfaction. They too became concerned. The community members and the Langston employees continued to complain to each other, together forming a bond based on spiraling feelings of unrest. They were the "in group" and Waterford was the "out group"--the city cousin who bullied the less sophisticated country cousin. Community and staff members simultaneously grew more devoted to Remington and less respectful of Waterford leaders. Problems on the Langston campus were blamed on Waterford. Langston leaders could do no wrong; Waterford leaders could do nothing right.

By 1995 the conceptual transformation of the campus to a comprehensive community college was complete. Nonetheless, appropriate and adequate classroom and laboratory facilities were barely available and, in some cases, missing. Throughout the campus, the general consensus was that, although it would not be easy, it would be worth it to try to be an autonomous college. After all, the Langston campus, with an FTE enrollment of approximately 8,000, was now bigger than some of the other community colleges in the state. They had surpassed the 2,000 FTE mark without any movement toward autonomy on behalf of Waterford. Langston staff reasoned that Langston had initially benefited greatly from the merger, then Waterford had reaped similar benefits through the additional money they received from Langston's enrollment growth. Both campuses had benefited and now that the score was tied, they should end the game.

Community members reinforced this desire. The school districts decided that they too thought it was time to have their own community college. Langston staff considered the need for their own college not only as their rightful destiny, but also as the dream of their leader, Edward Remington. Classified staff, faculty and deans were utterly loyal to Remington and wanted him to get his presidency as much as they wanted to get out from under the control of Waterford.

No matter how ready Langston constituents felt, President Garrison was not ready to relinquish the campus. He did not believe that the campus was far enough along in its development to sustain itself. As part of a larger college, both Waterford and Langston experienced economies of scale that they would lose without each other. While Garrison did not want to relinquish the financial benefits of keeping the Langston campus, neither did he want to be known as the president who launched a new college before it was ready for such a launching.

By 1996, the relationship between Waterford and Langston was extremely contentious. Constituents on both campuses remained in a competitive stance with each other. Because constituents on both campuses believed that Langston would eventually become an autonomous college, neither side had truly fostered a sense of the college as a whole. As time went on and Garrison did not relinquish the campus, he needed to find a way to instill in everyone's mind that Transformation Community College was, indeed, one college.

Branch Campuses 2 and 3 - Longview & North Barrymore

Longview

From 1982 until the fall of 1994, TCC offered outreach programs at Longview High School and other Longview locations. In 1994, the Longview community decided that it wanted its own community college campus, where students could take all the courses needed for an associate's degree. January of 1995 marked the opening of the Longview campus, the result of a partnership involving the City of Longview, its citizens, area businesses, and TCC. Community and business members donated money, time, and expertise to open this campus.

With the help of the community, the Longview campus was constructed in 15,000 square feet of a shopping mall. This space was divided into seven classrooms, a computer lab, a testing area, a science lab, and a few offices. With the opening of this campus, the number of credit course offerings expanded significantly. More than 70 courses were available in the first semester in this new location. While some full-time faculty drove up from Waterford to teach at the Longview campus, most of the Longview employees lived in Longview. Some say that living in Longview was an expected term of employment on the behalf of the community members.

Longview, like Langston, is a growing community. The influx of new businesses is changing the culture of Longview from an agricultural town to a more economically broad-based community. According to Longview residents, new high technology firms open their doors every month. Yet, Longview constituents claim that their city has maintained the spirit of a small town. Community members stress that Longview has a strong, unique personality, and that it is important for the Longview campus to meet the community's unique needs.

During the first year of its operation, the Longview campus, as was Langston, was weak in offering student services such as advising, counseling, and financial aid to its population of approximately 1,200 FTE students. Nonetheless, the leaders of the campus and the active community members firmly believed that the campus would succeed. As at Langston, staff at the Longview campus worked under a depression mentality. Staff members were excited about the new campus and really enjoyed their work. They worked together well and did not complain about their lack of resources.

Although it is occasionally rumored that Longview wants to break away from TCC, community members stress that they want performance, not separation. In 1996 this performance was hampered somewhat by TCC's budgeting process. Like Langston, Longview's budget was developed in Waterford and was not FTE-based. Therefore, enrollment growth outpaced funding increases. However, unlike Langston, Longview constituents, both internal to and external to the campus, continued to work hard without shedding their depression mind-sets. They believed in what they were doing and did not demand more resources; they simply did the best they could with what they had.

North Barrymore

In 1983, TCC had begun offering classes in Barrymore at a junior high school facility. Enrollment there increased each semester. In 1990, realizing that one-tenth of TCC's students were from Barrymore, the state board approved the opening of a new TCC Barrymore campus in an office building. By 1996 this campus had outgrown its facility. Originally, TCC leaders thought of merging the Barrymore facility with the Longview facility. After all, these locations are only separated by approximately ten miles. However, community members in both Barrymore and Longview wanted their own facility. Each community wanted its own institution to meet its unique needs.

After a long search for a suitable replacement, the Barrymore campus moved to a stand-alone facility and was named the "North Barrymore Campus." This new location has twice as much classroom space as the old one had. The course schedule for North Barrymore's first semester offered 107 day and 56 evening classes in business, arts and humanities, social science, natural science, mathematics, and computers for its population of approximately 150 FTE students. Faculty and staff at the North Barrymore campus have always felt part of TCC, since this campus grew out of the college itself, rather than from a pre-existing institution. While community support is strong at North Barrymore, community members are not interested in supporting a stand-alone college.

Branch Campus 4 - Barrymore Valley Technical Education Center, the "Arrowhead Campus"

Just as the Langston County vo-tech center had faced a lack of support in the 1980s, the Barrymore Valley Technical Education Center was also in trouble. The countrywide trend in eliminating vo-tech centers had taken hold in the state. In July of 1995, the school board that ran the vo-tech center narrowly approved, by a hostile 4 to 3 vote, to merge with TCC. Garrison moved a dean from Waterford to this campus, which became the Barrymore Arrowhead Campus. In its first semester of operation, this campus attracted approximately 200 full-time equivalent postsecondary students.

The three members who had voted against the merger continued to campaign for its undoing, fearing that TCC would neglect the secondary offerings at the campus. Therefore, 1996 was a tough year for TCC as it spent both financial and emotional resources on creating a viable campus in Barrymore while assuring the community that the college would not neglect the secondary educational focus.

The Transformation - Back to Top

The current [matrix] administrative structure presents TCC as a single institution, serving its wide geographical area with common policies, centralized decision-making on programs and budget, and a "one college" orientation in its marketing and operational practices. 3

Since Garrison's hiring, he had been thinking, writing, and talking about the necessity to move toward a "high performance organization."4 As a method for attaining this goal, he first introduced the idea of creating a matrix organization in 1992. He wanted front line personnel to have more responsibility and he wanted greater college-wide collaboration. A matrix organization would meet these needs, as staff would work in college-wide functional teams, based on their responsibilities. Garrison's hope was that lateral and bottom-up reporting would replace vertical and top-down arrangements. In 1993, Garrison continued to describe a matrix organization as leading to better collaboration, improved communications, and empowered decision-making. That year, he introduced the idea of the matrix structure at the annual college-wide in-service program and it was discussed at the Administrative Retreat.

In 1994, Garrison believed that TCC was "making progress toward a high-performance organization, but [was] not quite there yet." Garrison was especially concerned with what he saw as poor college-wide coordination. Courses and programs were introduced at different campuses with no college-wide direction. Garrison encouraged faculty and staff at different campuses to discuss program needs with each other, but these discussions were limited. Programs that needed to be reviewed by external accrediting associations, such as Nursing and Business, were coordinated college-wide, but these programs were few and far between. Practices such as faculty evaluation, adjunct faculty development, and program review varied by campus. Some campuses were strong in these areas while others were quite weak. The newer campuses were growing rapidly and the programs and services introduced on these campuses were struggling to keep up with the number of new students in need of them. Meanwhile, programs, faculty, and staff at Waterford were aging and growing more expensive each year.

By July of 1995, Garrison felt that he and his staff were ready to start the transition toward a matrix organization. As President, Garrison had the prerogative to make such organizational changes without seeking approval from either the statewide board or his local Area Advisory Committee. He assigned one of his vice presidents to take on instructional services college-wide and another to take on student services college-wide. These campus vice presidents now had college-wide responsibilities in addition to their site responsibilities for monitoring expenses and purchase orders; for managing marketing, community affairs, and facilities planning; and for administering personnel benefits such as sick leave, travel, and annual leave. All of these day-to-day decisions concerning the campus were still to be made by the campus vice president. The only change brought by the matrix was that these campus vice presidents now had both college-wide and campus duties.

In January 1996, Garrison announced at the all college in-service that the transition to a full matrix organization would begin in earnest, to continue through June 30, 1997 (see Appendix A-2 for an organizational chart). Numerous faculty, classified staff, and administrative teams were created to plan and guide the transformation. In August of 1996 the deans moved to their matrix responsibilities. This change was at the heart of the transformation. Deans would no longer head programs on their own campuses. Instead they would be responsible for college-wide programs, handling all issues affecting college-wide delivery of curriculum and instruction such as new program requests, suggestions for program closure, and personnel issues. Within their programmatic areas, they became responsible for coordinating faculty, strategic planning, ensuring curriculum quality, establishing productivity levels and standards, and budget planning for all campuses.

Some of these deans also retained logistical campus responsibilities for day-to-day management activities assisting the campus vice presidents in such duties as administering purchase orders, sick leave, travel, and annual leave. These deans also held campus faculty meetings and resolved conflicts on their sites. Deans, campus vice presidents, and associate vice presidents were to collaborate as the Dean's Council to direct the college's instructional offerings. This Dean's Council made its recommendations to the college-wide Vice President for Instructional Services.

While each campus retained department chairs for their campus programs, these chairs were expected to work with chairs from other campuses in standardizing programs and courses. On their own campus, department chairs were to be responsible for day-to-day instructional delivery; evaluation and support; improvement in instruction; faculty in-service and induction; adjunct faculty development; and schedule development. All the college department chairs formed a "chair council" that met college-wide.

The move to the matrix also affected faculty and classified staff duties. Individual full-time faculty members were asked to travel to other campuses to work with part-time faculty in their programs. Classified staff had to learn which deans were responsible for which issues. Most people discovered that they reported to more than one "boss," dependent on how many functional responsibilities they had.

The functional management structure inherent in the matrix was accompanied by a functional budget. The campuses no longer had their historic-based budgets. Instead, all the money that came in from the state went to the President's cabinet first. The cabinet then made college-wide strategic decisions on how to spend the money. Each cabinet member conferred with people in his or her respective function before making budget decisions. In other words, the Vice President for Instruction would meet with the deans to decide how much money they needed and how they would spend it.

Garrison instituted the matrix structure for at least eight reasons. First, he believed that the matrix would provide a responsive management system to support decision-making at the level directly related to the responsibility. Collaboration around making decisions at the lowest functional level was at the heart of this matrix structure. Second, Garrison needed a way to save money. As new campuses were opening, Garrison did not have adequate staff for them. He did not want to hire someone to direct career placement, for example, at each campus, when a flexible, dynamic, college-wide team could handle this function. Although the matrix organization maintained functional line authority, the ultimate goal was to attend to the real work of the organization by ad hoc groups that would form to address specific projects and problems. Due to this flattening of the organization and the reduced need for duplicate administrators on all campuses, the matrix form of organizing would be more cost effective. Third, the matrix structure would reduce the number of people considering pending decisions. Teams would make decisions under their purview without looking to their supervisors for guidance. Decisions would be made more quickly. Fourth, if the people actually doing the work were able to make decisions about their work, this change should restructure the focus of accountability within the organization. People at lower levels would be held more accountable for their work. Fifth, Garrison needed to change people's orientation from campus-based to college-wide. Working cross campus should reign in the unhealthy competition among campuses and contribute toward a college-wide esprit de corps and sense of collegiality. As it stood, faculty, classified staff, and administrators were feeling comfortable working within the confines of their own campus. They were insulated from some of the changes that were taking place in the business world and at the state level. These changes were impacting TCC's ability to be competitive. While Garrison recognized the need for campus diversity, that need was not as pressing as the one for multi-campus collaboration and coordination. He hoped that diversity would survive, nonetheless, through the actions of the vice presidents and deans who retained campus responsibilities. Sixth, Garrison needed to send a message to his staff that they could not count on the status quo. He needed to shake the organization up a bit--to get people out of their comfort zone. Seventh, Garrison believed that the matrix would lead to improved program quality. Programs that were weaker on one campus would become stronger as the faculty and staff running the program worked with faculty and staff in the same, only stronger, programs at other campuses. Finally, college-wide policies should also become more consistent as various campus representatives worked together toward revising and crafting them.

Garrison had seen this structure work before in business and he himself had implemented it successfully in another state. He fully believed in this proven organizational model and its ability to focus resources as needed. His local Area Advisory Council, which was staffed with business leaders, too thought the matrix organization could work well for TCC. Since Garrison had been talking about using the matrix organization to transform into a high performance institution since 1992, he did not expect that he needed to do much justifying. In his opinion, he implemented the transformation in a "matter of fact" way, as if all involved would understand its benefits. He did not spend a lot of time explaining why this transformation was necessary.

College staff did understand the goals of reducing staff and function duplication, allowing for a broader vision of the college as a whole, and improving program and policy quality and consistency. Internal constituents knew there was a need to save money and they agreed that there was not a cohesive vision of the whole college. Many TCC employees agreed with these intentions for implementing the matrix structure. However, some constituents ascribed additional purposes to Garrison's matrix transformation. They saw the transformation as an elaborate ruse to draw attention away from the "Langston issue." Faculty at Waterford wondered why Garrison did not simply fire Edward Remington. While some saw the transformation as the next best way to reign in Remington, others saw it as a cop-out. Despite these mixed opinions, Garrison had high expectations that the matrix structure would work and would propel TCC toward the high performance institution he knew it could be.

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1. 1996-1998 Report of the Self Study Presented to Regional Accrediting Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Front Range Community College.

2. Report of a Visit to Front Range Community College, Waterford, Colorado, April 13-15, 1998, for the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the Regional Accrediting Association of Colleges and Schools.

3. Report and Recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Future of Transformation Community College - Langston County Campus, June 1997.

4. Transformation Community College Strategic Plan, FY 1994-97