Causes of Conflicts in Community Colleges

Table of Contents

Community colleges serve a large number of society members, and there multiple types of activities which take place in the colleges. It is a complex institution, with various activities and programs. The community colleges undergo tremendous changes, making them complex. With new generations, the colleges have added new functions. These changes were initially aimed at enhancing wide range of programs, services, and even modes of education. The transformation seems to come with relative costs, and need for designed comprehensiveness. Community college missions conflicted with one another on the operation and curriculum issues. The conflicting issues included, financing, economic issues, state policy, and even internal factors like faculty, leadership, and the colleges’ history.

Conflict is a situation that occurs when a group of people fails to meet a common interest, and a proper solution is not sought to solve the situation. Conflicts bring a negative impact to the involved persons community, or organizations. Several factors cause conflict and these factors include; religious factors, differences in economy, ethnic animosities, beliefs, racial factors, differences in values, and even attitudes about issues. These conflicts may affect a large or a small group, or they may even be among groups, nations, communities, and individuals. A report, which was carried out, by the National Field Study of Community colleges across fifteen community colleges revealed that the cause of the conflict in the community colleges were both internal and external factors. The internal factors included conflicts on the curriculum and their operation, leadership, history of the colleges, and faculty.

Types of conflicts that Occur in Community Colleges

Conflicts that occur in community colleges are of various types including; competition for scarce resources, governance conflicts, difference in beliefs, and ethnic differences among many. Resources conflicts occur as a result of competition for the same resources, for example, housing, territory, income, and jobs, and natural resources such as water. In the community colleges, employees may be competing for the scarce jobs and income, and the students compete for housing, and water. If they are not fairly distributed, it results in conflicts. For the case of governance, conflict occurs when the subjects want to be independent to the governor, whereby the government doesn’t meet their needs. Political and religious belief of persons in the community colleges may clash which result in conflicts since each group wants to be recognized by the other group, so they may enforce one of the groups to follow the other, resulting in conflicts. Ethnicity gives people a sense of belonging, and identity, but if a given group does not respect others ethnicity, it results in conflicts. The Existing Perceptions among the Various Stakeholders in Relation to Conflicts in Community Colleges

Stakeholders are those persons who have an interested in a system. For an organization, the stake holders have rights to effect achievements of the institution, through proper policies and management. Stakeholders, therefore, should play a key role in conflict resolution. Stakeholders identify many ideas which give, the community colleges information on conflict resolution. They bring clear picture of the happenings in the institution, enhancing identification of the problem. Stakeholders have varied perception from all the affected areas, planning, evaluation, and implementation, to make the solutions applicable to the issues work. They integrate the whole college community to offer fair and equal handling of the situation and the intended solution. Stakeholders strengthen the positions of the moral, political, ethical, and social wellbeing to enhance good environment of the community college since they are not biased to any side. Credibility in the institution is the main aim of the stake holders and, therefore; they are always ready to assist the organization to get the best solution for the conflicts. Enhancement of friendship, strengthening of the social relationships, and fair distribution of resources among the community college members is the ultimate goal of the community college stakeholders.

The Implications of Conflicts in Community Colleges

Conflicts in the community colleges are an implication of various barriers and situations in the colleges. Most of the colleges’ students have low income, minority, and first generation. Racism is common in colleges, and; therefore, the conflicts display some of the views that the students have. Variation in the culture is also dominant in the colleges even as much as tolerance to the cultural difference programs is being put into practice. Students religious believes seem to vary a lot and the students or even other members of the college community do not tolerate other individual’s beliefs or religion, they just want to get rid of them and maintain their indigenous religions, and they will never want to accommodate the other one. Therefore, there are great differences among the community colleges’ members due to the various aspects of everyday life which vary, and this can only be solved if the concerned issues are handled.

References

Community College Research Center, (2009). Multiple Missions and Roles of Community Colleges. Retrieved from, http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Collection.asp?cid=8 On, December 29, 2012.

LearnPeace,(2010).UnderstandingConflict.Retrievedfrom,http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/conflict/st_conflict1.html On, December 29, 2012.

Community Tool Box, (2008). Identifying analyzing stakeholders and their interests. Retrieved from, http://.ku.edu//tablecontents/chapter7_section8_main.aspx On, December 29, 2012.

Jeremy C. Sanchez, (2010). Evaluating Intercultural Conflict Management of Community. Retrievedfrom,http://repositories.tdl.org/ttuir/bitstream/handle/2346/10447/31295019600732.pdf?sequence=1 On, December 29, 2012.

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