Forty-two years after founding what is widely considered to be the nation’s pre-eminent program for developing community-college leaders, John E. Roueche is leaving the University of Texas here to try to start a new program at a private, for-profit university.
Mr. Roueche, 73, said he began exploring that possibility with National American University after watching support for the Community College Leadership Program he developed steadily erode.
“I decided I could not be part of what was happening to this program or lend my name to what I considered a suicide mission,” Mr. Roueche said in an interview on Wednesday.
On July 1, he will become president of National American University’s new Roueche Graduate Center, where he will work to create a doctoral program for community-college leaders.
Administrators within the University of Texas’ College of Education have said they remain committed to the community-college leadership specialization, but that their hands are tied by state budget cuts and a universitywide hiring freeze.
After Mr. Roueche’s departure, the community-college leadership program will be combined with the university’s programs for other college administrators in a renamed Higher Education Leadership Program.
“Far from being a diminution of the program, this will enhance it by making more faculty members available to teach” doctoral students specializing in community college leadership, said Norma V. Cantú, professor and chair of the university’s Department of Educational Administration. The community-college program is housed in that department.
National American University’s parent company, which has headquarters in Rapid City, S.D., announced Mr. Roueche’s hiring and the creation of the new graduate center this week.
The center will be located in Austin, where National American has two other general-education branches.
Mr. Roueche said that once he decided to leave the University of Texas, he agreed to help the for-profit institution explore the possibility of offering a doctoral program. He currently chairs the university’s National Community College Advisory Board.
He said that after carefully researching National American, he felt comfortable with its mission and its track record.
The university, which has an online division as well as campuses around the country, has worked with community colleges to help students transfer to four-year programs, he said.
Once the doctoral program is developed and accredited, he envisions offering 20 or more cohorts of about 22 students each who will meet face to face on weekends and online in between, much the way executive M.B.A. programs operate.
Discouraging Cuts
He said he is proud of the work he has accomplished at Texas but discouraged by what he perceives to be a lack of support for developing college administrators.
By the end of the summer, the Department of Educational Administration will have lost 16 full professors, compared with the number it had in 2001, he said. They were replaced with one full professor, two associates, “and a cadre of bright, hard-working young assistant professors” who don’t have the expertise to teach aspiring community-college leaders, he believes.
George R. Boggs, president and CEO emeritus of the American Association of Community Colleges, is a 1984 graduate of the program at Austin and will serve on the board of the doctoral program Mr. Roueche is planning to create.
Mr. Boggs said on Wednesday that he was saddened by what he considers the University of Texas’ failure to support its community-college program, which he considers “by far the strongest in the country.”
The program has prepared more community-college chancellors, presidents, and other leaders than any other program in the country, Mr. Boggs said.
This year’s class size has shrunk to four, down from 12 to 15 in recent years and 18 when he attended.
Ms. Cantú, who holds joint appointments in education and law, said keeping the program small “is a way to support the students we have and to make sure they graduate.”
But Mr. Boggs isn’t convinced.
“Community colleges are unique institutions with unique challenges, and to have a downsized program taught by people who don’t have expertise in these institutions will be a loss,” he said.
Challenges Ahead
Among the challenges two-year colleges face are a wave of impending presidential retirements, the need to diversify their leadership, and increased pressure to accommodate and graduate students at a time of declining state support, he said.
Mr. Boggs, who is also superintendent and president emeritus of Palomar College, a public, two-year college in San Marcos, Calif., said a program like the one planned at National American, with a significant online component, could be more accessible to working students.
“In a way, moving to this kind of university means there will be a lot more flexibility, and it won’t be burdened by the tradition and bureaucracy we see in a lot of traditional university programs,” he said.
Keeping the program affordable remains a concern, he added, given the high tuition rates many for-profit institutions charge.
Mr. Roueche’s departure from the Texas flagship follows years of friction with the College of Education’s dean, Manuel J. Justiz, who was unavailable for comment on Wednesday.
Two years ago, the Texas Association of Community Colleges filed a complaint with the state’s attorney general, alleging that the University of Texas at Austin had improperly diverted money and a professorship from the community-college leadership program to other parts of the School of Education.
“A lot of our donors have been very upset about the misuse of dollars that were given for a purpose the college no longer supports,” Mr. Roueche said.
Ms. Cantú said those charges were unsubstantiated and that no money has been misappropriated. She also said the latest developments won’t deter the work of centers that operated under the leadership program’s umbrella, including the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development and the Center for Community College Student Engagement.
Correction (5/31/2012, 7:04 a.m.): This article originally misstated the location of the headquarters of National American University’s parent company. It is in South Dakota, not North Dakota. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.
