The Indiana Story

Introduction

In the years following World War II, thousands of veterans returned to college, and the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill) made it possible for many to have financial access to postsecondary education that would otherwise not have been available (Thelin, 2004). In fact, 2-year colleges of all types experienced phenomenal enrollment growth during the postwar years, and the democratic notion that Americans have access to postsecondary educational opportunities grew as more women, adult learners, people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, people with disabilities, and low-income individuals enrolled in college for the first time (Carroll, 1999; Medsker & Tillery, 1971; Toffelson, 1994). Between 1958 and 1968, as many as 500 new community colleges were established; in the fall semester of 1967 alone, 70 community colleges enrolled students for the first time (Gleazer, 1968). During the 1950s and 1960s, “whenever a community college was established in a locale where there had been no publicly supported college, the proportion of high school graduates in that area who began college immediately increased, sometimes by as much as 50 percent” (Cohen & Brawer, 2008, p. 18). By the late 1960s, the 2-year colleges’ share of total higher education enrollments rose to nearly 3 in 10 (up from 1 in 6 in 1955), and between 1960 and 1970, 2-year college enrollments more than tripled nationally, from 451,000 to 1,630,000 students throughout the United States (Brint & Karabel, 1989).

Although new community colleges proliferated in most states across the nation during the 1950s and 1960s, Dougherty (1994) established that six states did not develop any new community college institutions and instead opted for one of the following other policy strategies to expand higher education: developing a university branch structure combined with technical institutes (Indiana and Maine), establishing 2-year colleges organized under the state university system (Hawaii, Kentucky, Alaska), or establishing technical institutes but no community colleges or university branches (South Dakota). In addition, several states established both community colleges and 2-year university branches (e.g., Connecticut, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania). In another study, Katsinas, Johnson, and Snider (1999) investigated community college development in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, finding extensive variety in community college development and positing that state policies enabling the development of community colleges across the nation were integral to addressing the “access challenge of the ‘baby boom’” (p. 11). In Indiana, as Katsinas et al. concluded, state interests outweighed local interests, and comprehensive community colleges lacked the support they needed from university and state-level leaders:

Another key factor is the tradition of local governing board autonomy, which was very different across the five states. Local governing board autonomy is well embedded in the Michigan Constitution, and it was a key component to the Illinois Junior College Act of 1965. Indiana, on the other hand, decided to follow the lead of the most outstanding figure of higher education in perhaps the entire history of the Hoosier state, Herman B Wells, who served as the president of Indiana University from 1928 to 1961 and chancellor following his presidency into the 1970s. Wells’ steadfast opposition and great personal prestige probably doomed the development of comprehensive community colleges as a vehicle to address the access challenge posed by the “baby boom” in Indiana. There the interplay between state interest and local interests was decided strongly in favor of the state interest, and against the need to provide geographic access to the entire citizenry of the state. (p. 15)

An informative study by Lemmons is a good illustration. In the late 1960s to early 1970s, community members and educators sought to develop a community college in the city of Richmond, Indiana. However, even after all the necessary funds for the college were raised, state laws prevented the institution from developing, and an extension campus of Indiana University (IU East) was established instead. Lemmons concluded that President Wells of IU and President Hovde of Purdue University blocked the development of community colleges because they feared a decline in enrollments due to competition for students. Although both presidents opposed the development of new community colleges, they advocated for the development and expansion of the extension campus model (Katsinas et al., 1999; Lemmons, 2001).

This article explores Indiana’s extension campus model, which has been documented in the research and historical literature on community colleges (e.g., Dougherty, 1994; Katsinas et al., 1999; Lemmons, 2001; Metz & Gosetti, 1999). As community college institutions developed rapidly in other states, Indiana developed a system of extension campuses affiliated with Indiana and Purdue Universities. In this article, I explain how educational leaders were able to gain support for the extension model as an alternative to the establishment of comprehensive community colleges. To complete this analysis I conducted a review of the historical literature on community college development, examined archival documents, and explored oral histories and reports from the institutions whose leaders were debating community college development in the 1950s and 1960s—a significant time of growth for community colleges throughout the nation. To understand how the extension campus model won out over community colleges in the state of Indiana, two main questions were explored. First, how did state and educational leaders frame the issues and problems related to the expansion of post–high school educational opportunities? Second, why did policy actors in Indiana choose strategies that were different from those selected by most other states? Prior to this study, an analysis of archival sources had not been conducted to offer more accurate insights and understanding into the reasons community college development was opposed in Indiana.

This article begins with an overview of the historical case study design and notes the significance of this inquiry. Next, a synthesis of historical literature and archival documents is presented to offer background information on community college development and describe how national, state, and institutional leaders framed the issues and problems related to the expansion of post–high school educational opportunities. The merits of both community colleges and extension campuses are explored from the perspectives of those individuals and groups who were directly involved in higher education policy making in Indiana. Following this discussion, the article explains how the extension campus model gained support as an alternative to the establishment of new community colleges in Indiana and concludes with a brief discussion of the insights this study offers for educational policy and practice.

Historical Case Study Approach

A historical case study design was used to explore perspectives from various levels of education, as well as from state government, business, and local communities. The case study design allowed for the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods as well as for the use of historical and contemporary sources of evidence (Yin, 2009). Merriam (1998) has noted that “to understand an event and apply that knowledge to current practice means understanding the context of the event, the assumptions behind it, and perhaps the event’s impact on the institution or participants” (p. 34). Thus, one of the main strengths of the case study approach, particularly for this study, was its ability to illuminate the social, economic, and political influences that led to the development of extension campuses.

Analysis of archival documents was the main method for examining the development of Indiana’s approach to 2-year education and to expanding post–high school educational opportunities. Documents were collected from the Indianapolis Times newspaper (for 1945-1964), from the Indianapolis News and Star (for 1950-1970), and from the archives of IU, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, Vincennes University, and Purdue University. The archival data relied on for this study included public records, oral histories, institutional reports, meeting notes and minutes, personal documents, memoirs, and mission statements. Because it was not possible to interview the key actors from this time, personal correspondence and oral histories were particularly valuable for understanding their perspectives.

As suggested by Yin (2009), all of the documents and sources of evidence were recorded into a case study database. Having read each document carefully, I highlighted specific sections of documents and later transcribed these sections and my notes into the database, which recorded the citation information from the archival library, the date, the subject, and the keywords that I developed for each document. The case study database was useful for organizing the data and locating documents by a specific individual or by other keywords or factors of interest. The data collection and analysis focused on identifying narratives or policy stories to explore the assumptions underlying the policy development process (Roe, 1994; Stone, 2002). Mills (2007) has noted that “the stories people tell about policy matters typically present accounts, connections, and metaphors as ways of framing the issues and defining the policy debate” (p. 164); these stories are also meant to influence how others perceive the effects of policies and proposals. Therefore, I was aware that narratives of state and institutional leaders were told for the specific purposes of framing and influencing policy debates (Stone, 2002). Similarly, Birnbaum and Shushok (2001) have explained:

Different constituencies construct stories, or narratives, about who should go to college, what should be taught, the social obligation of institutions, and the proper way to make decisions. Since these are questions of values rather than facts, perceptions of public confidence and judgments of institutional success are influenced more by ideology than data. As the stories of some groups become dominant, the stories of other groups become marginalized. (p. 73)

Focusing on policy narratives reveals how educational policies are evaluated, why some policy strategies are pursued, and why others are not (Hutcheson, 2010; Mills, 2007; Stone, 2002). Before describing these narratives and illuminating key findings and themes from the debates among policy actors, I will briefly discuss the national and state contexts that have shaped the development of community colleges, extension campuses, and, in general, post–high school educational opportunity in Indiana.

National Context

The concept of the community college (or junior college) was put forth as early as 1851 by Henry Tappan, president of the University of Michigan; in 1859 by William Mitchell, a University of Georgia trustee; and in 1869 by William Folwell, president of the University of Minnesota (Cohen & Brawer, 2008). The often-told story in the community college historiography is that university leaders, who were either educated in or exposed to higher education in Germany, sought to bring a European model of higher education to the United States by creating greater organization and uniformity in higher education. The rationale behind cultivating 2-year colleges was the idea that the first 2 years of undergraduate studies could be best performed as part of precollegiate or secondary education. At the same time, leaders believed that 4-year universities could benefit by being able to set research as their primary purpose (Eaton, 2006).

In their historical work on junior colleges, Medsker and Tillery (1971) suggested that the early junior colleges were established to provide an interim education for those who could not enter a college or university immediately after high school due to academic, financial, or other personal reasons. They described the value of community colleges, particularly for students who had not developed clear educational and vocational goals. Similarly, Pedersen described the community college as a center where students could make key educational and career decisions prior to moving into immediate employment or to senior colleges. Local community conditions and interests were also instrumental to the development of the earliest community colleges, which often operated in high school facilities (Pedersen, 2000). Schools and higher education institutions were increasingly looked upon by society to resolve social issues such as unemployment or racial integration. Society’s increased reliance on postsecondary education to resolve its pressing social problems were important influences on the early development and organization of community colleges (Cohen & Brawer, 2008; Wattenbarger & Witt, 1995). Between 1920 and 1940, the number of community colleges across the nation had grown fivefold (Dougherty, 1994). Community colleges grew swiftly during the 1920s, 1930s, and then again more rapidly between the 1950s and early 1970s. Throughout the 1950s, the demand for postsecondary education was further energized with the expansion of the middle class, the rapid expansion of suburban areas, the steady increase in family wealth, and the growing opinion among families that higher education offered a ticket to upward and social mobility. The need to provide training for employees and the increasing educational demands of a technical economy were other major stimulants in the expansion of community colleges (Blocker, Plummer, & Richardson, 1965).

In the years following the end of World War II, postsecondary education was seen as a strategy for preventing the labor market from being flooded by returning GIs (Gumport, Iannozzi, Shaman, & Zemsky, 1997). Postsecondary education’s various challenges received greater media and public attention as individuals’ environments became increasingly filled with “powerful educational forces such as newspapers, books, magazines, radio and television, libraries and museums, concerts and art galleries” (President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School, 1957, p. 2). National-level committees, including the President’s Commission on Higher Education, which issued its report in 1947 and was often referred to as the “Truman Commission,” and the President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School, which issued reports in 1956 and 1957, provided venues for debating the need for community colleges in U.S. postsecondary education and raised media and public attention to the educational policy problems faced by the federal government. Meanwhile, educational leaders discussed the development and expansion of additional institutions to meet the new waves of baby boom students. The National Education Association and the Educational Policies Commission, which President Wells chaired from 1955 to 1958, were two key national-level groups that facilitated these discussions throughout various regions of the country.

Although referred to less often than the Truman Commission, particularly in relation to community college development, the President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School was an initiative intended to raise national awareness of educational challenges and needs under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had a few years earlier served as Columbia University’s president. Building on the work of the Truman Commission, the President’s Committee concluded that there was a significant need to expand the capacities of postsecondary institutions and “other post-high school institutions” (President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School, 1957, p. 6). According to the President’s Committee, the demands confronting higher education in the late 1950s would “require great expansion of the overall capacity of existing colleges and universities and of other post-high school institutions, with improvement rather than sacrifice of quality” (President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School, 1957, p. 6). Four subcommittees organized under the Committee each concluded that despite the emphasis on the community college’s role in preparing students for transfer to 4-year institutions, “the primary function and contribution of the 2-year college has been to offer a terminal program aimed at providing general education and training for the sub-professions and occupations of a highly technical nature” (Preliminary Judgments, 1956, p. 2). The Committee suggested a range of educational opportunities, including extended secondary work, apprenticeships, 2-year general study programs, technical training for subprofessional positions, 4-year liberal arts courses, and a variety of adult education programs.

For the President’s Committee and proponents of community college expansion, the phenomenal growth of community colleges in other parts of the country was testimony to their ability to meet diverse student needs. In New York, the Board of Regents proposed the building of 10 new 2-year colleges to meet the predicted enrollment growth (Regents Propose, 1956; University of the State of New York, 1957). Studies in California, where the community college had developed most widely, offered evidence that students transferring to the junior year of senior institutions had done at least as well as students who had entered the senior institution as freshmen (President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School, 1957). And in Illinois, where the first legislation permitting the establishment of junior colleges was enacted in 1931, policy makers and higher education planners described the community college as becoming an integral part of the system of free public education and an upward extension of secondary education typically sensitive to the educational needs of its community, particularly if it is locally controlled (Illinois Higher Education Commission, 1957).

State Context

Interestingly, there have been two higher education institutions founded by U.S. Presidents. Vincennes University (VU) was the first one, founded in 1801 by President William Henry Harrison, and the other institution was the University of Virginia, founded by President Thomas Jefferson in 1819. Initially established as a private institution and later given status as a public university in 1953, VU was founded with the mission to “provide the citizens of the State the services of a comprehensive junior college” (Beckes, 1972, p. 4). Comprehensive community colleges, however, did not expand outside of the small town of Vincennes, located 120 miles southwest of the capitol in Indianapolis. Some of Indiana’s most populous cities, such as Indianapolis, Gary, and Fort Wayne, did not establish comprehensive community colleges. Isaac Beckes, who served as VU President from 1950 to 1980, suggested that the public junior college idea was neither well understood nor accepted in Indiana (Beckes, 1972).

It is impossible to pinpoint exactly where, when, and in which state the extension campus movement began because many universities throughout the United States have long been involved in providing extension work in one form or another. In response to requests from community members, professors went out to meet classes or other groups in areas distant from the main university. These activities increased, and the general public became more knowledgeable and interested in higher education. Educators who saw the future potential and possibilities for growth of extension work organized a meeting in Philadelphia during the summer of 1890 to consider “the possibility of promoting university extension with firm institutional support” (Cavanaugh, 1961, p. 4). The national meeting in Philadelphia gave much-needed support for the extension campus innovation in states across the nation. Present at the conference were leaders William Rainey Harper and John D. Rockefeller, who later became the founders of the University of Chicago and who have been frequently credited (particularly Harper) for supporting the establishment of the nation’s first junior college in Joliet, Illinois (Cohen & Brawer, 2008).

Indiana University Professor James A. Woodburn returned to his college from the Philadelphia meeting with the idea of university extension. Shortly thereafter, in 1891, IU’s first extension classes were offered, and in 1912 the Extension Division was created (Wells, 1922-2001; D. F. Carmony to Wells, August 26, 1954). As all levels of education expanded throughout the postwar years, Indiana’s extension movement grew particularly during the last half of the 19th century. As Donald F. Carmony, an IU history professor, explained in the Division’s annual report sent to Wells, a number of state universities in the Midwest had pioneered extension work by organizing extension classes in local communities away from their “parent campuses” (Division of Adult Education and Public Services, 1954, p. 1). It was the “general and substantial advance in public education at all levels” (p. 1) that further fostered the growth of the extension movement.

The parent campuses for the Indiana extension movement were Indiana and Purdue Universities. IU was established initially as the Indiana State Seminary after the Constitution of Indiana was adopted in 1816, while Purdue University was established in 1865 as a land grant university dedicated to teaching agriculture and the mechanic arts. Robert E. Cavanaugh, who served as the Director of the Extension Division from 1921 to 1946, wrote an informative history, Indiana University Extension: Its Origins, Progress, Pitfalls, and Personalities. Cavanaugh’s insights revealed that formalizing extension work was of “great importance” to enabling the university to “measure up to its responsibilities” by providing a way for students to “pursue a study schedule that would enable them to build up a record of university credits as an encouragement for them to finish for a degree later” (Cavanaugh, 1961, p. 2). However, it is important to note that some of the extension campuses eventually began offering 3- and 4-year degrees, as well as graduate courses and degrees; clearly, the extension campus could not be equated to a comprehensive community college.

Cavanaugh (1961) also described the role of the IU presidents in the development of the extension campuses. President William Lowe Bryan (1902 to 1937)—even before Herman B Wells—provided encouragement and financial support for extension work during his administration. President Bryan advocated for a democratic education for citizens everywhere, and he was cautious of any regulations on entrance and graduation that could “discourage any student, young or old, from enrolling in courses offered by the Division of University Extension anywhere” (p. 27). President Bryan was “impressed by the account of John W. Carr, Indiana University’s oldest living alumnus . . . of the participation of men and women from all walks of life in the evening schools of Bayonne, New Jersey, where Mr. Carr was at the time superintendent of schools” (p. 28).

Herman B Wells came to IU in 1930 as a faculty member in the department of economics and had shown interest in the development of the extension campuses, even during the “informal phases” of its development (Cavanaugh, 1961, p. 28). In 1935, he became the Dean of the School of Business Administration, and, following President Bryan’s retirement in 1937, Wells was offered the position of acting president and became the youngest university president in the nation. In 1938, he became IU’s permanent president up until 1962. During his administration, the number of extension centers increased from 3 to 10 (Cavanaugh, 1961).

Although President Wells and IU have largely been given credit for advancing the extension campus model, Purdue University had long been involved in the expansion of these campuses throughout the state, which they called university centers. John Hicks served as the executive assistant to Purdue University President Hovde beginning in 1955 and remained in the Purdue University president’s office through 1987. He was also chairman of the Indiana Post High School Education Commission in 1961 and 1962. As Hicks (1990) recalled,

In the mid-fifties we realized that we were going to have to develop these regional campuses, if the people in the heavily populated areas of the state were to be adequately served. . . . Purdue, IU, Ball State, and Indiana State were the four state universities at that time, and none of ‘em were in the very heavily populated areas. . . . At the end of World War II and right thereafter—we had begun to develop what we then called extension centers in these places, really to give educational opportunity to the people in those areas who couldn’t afford to come down to Bloomington or West Lafayette, or who were working and simply only wanted to go part-time. (p. 5)

Thus, the establishment of extension campuses allowed students to remain at home with part-time or even full-time employment during a time when there was increased attention on the issue of educational opportunity for those Indiana high school graduates who had little or no opportunity to go onto higher education. Extension campuses could provide educational opportunity to Indiana’s more populated cities, particularly for the students who were not able to afford the cost of relocating to either IU or Purdue, which were both located approximately 60 miles south and north, respectively, from the state’s most central and populated capital city. And even though the state legislature “showed no real evidence of being interested in putting money into this in those early days, and up through most of the fifties” (Hicks, 1990, p. 5), IU and Purdue continued in their pursuit of developing these campuses. ¹

Exploring Narratives: Community College Debates in the Midwest

During the 1950s, the Extension Division became one of the leading extension programs in the country, and its programs were carried out through nine established extension centers and six educational bureaus. In general, IU understood its adult education aims as being focused on “stimulating,” “teaching,” and “guiding” adults in ways that could help them “recognize and accept their responsibilities to each other” (Division of Adult Education and Public Services, 1954, p. 6), and the Division’s 1953-1954 annual report emphasized the importance of utilizing appropriate “adult education methods and materials” to support students as they learned how to solve “personal, institutional, and community problems” (p. 6). Each center varied in its course offerings, the levels of courses offered, and in their selection of noncredit courses for adults (Wells, 1922-2001; Wells to R. Eckert, February 3, 1956). The centers were administered from Bloomington through IU’s Extension Division and the corresponding departments, which had the authority to approve staff, curricula, and textbooks. Wells posited that university support for the extension campuses was vital and that “through central backing and control exercised from the parent campus, the centers enjoy prestige comparable to that of the University as a whole” (Wells, 1922-2001; Wells to R. Eckert, February 3, 1956, p. 2). Moreover, Wells was most vocal in advocating that the extension model could provide sufficient geographic and financial access to higher education for high school graduates, without any need for establishing new postsecondary institutions.

“New Institutions or Larger Ones?”

Another notable debate pertaining to the expansion of the community college concept was a 1956 federal Bill for Community Colleges proposed by Senator Clifford P. Case of New Jersey (Wells, 1922-2001; C. P. Case to Wells, May 6, 1957). The bill proposed the increased federal investment in building community college institutions, and had it passed, funds would have been distributed to states choosing to take part in the national drive to build community colleges. Emphasizing that the comprehensive community college innovation received endorsements from numerous state and national groups, Senator Case outlined two main functions of community colleges: (a) to provide, at a low cost, 2 years of college credit education and college preparation for the final 2 years at a 4-year college, and (b) to provide a terminal, 2-year program of post–high school general education with opportunities for vocational training focusing on the subprofessions and on occupations of a technical nature.

Senator Case and President Wells debated the 1956 bill and the question of whether the federal government should fund the building of new postsecondary institutions. President Wells advanced the university’s extension campus model as an alternative to the establishment of entirely new community colleges. Wells was unabashedly critical of the bill and argued that in places where there was an imbalance between public and private institutions, such as in New Jersey, community colleges were needed. Wells believed that the situation in New Jersey was not typical and that its state legislature was to blame for creating the problem in that state:

After considerable study I have come to the conclusion that many of the sections of the country have all or nearly all of the institutions needed to provide traditional collegiate opportunities during the next decade or so. For instance, in 17 states every city with a population of 25,000 or more has a coeducational institution offering either two or four years of college. The problem we face is one of developing these existing institutions in such a fashion that they will be able to expand to care for increased student populations during the next two decades. The creation of new institutions in areas already served by existing colleges would be the most expensive way to provide for the rising tide of students. (Wells, 1922-2001; Wells to C. P. Case, April 19, 1957, p. 1)

President Wells posited that the state of Indiana needed to provide “opportunities for higher learning to all qualified youth, without forcing too many public institutions on state government which would dilute unnecessarily state support of now existing public institutions” (Wells, 1922-2001; Wells to R. Eckert, February 3, 1956, para. 3). He also argued that policy makers pay attention to the pressing challenges and concerns facing state governments, such as the issues of insufficient classroom space (even for those students already enrolled at that time), laboratory space, as well as the problem of teacher salaries at both the K-12 and postsecondary levels.

As these discussions have revealed, the main issue was the question of new institutions or larger ones. Lewis, Pinnell, and Wells (1957) provided additional insights and details into this perspective through an important planning document distributed widely throughout the state by, again, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and by Wells through his colleagues. The report, Needs, Resources, and Priorities in Higher Educational Planning, highlighted key issues that connected the challenges occurring at that time to the community college debates growing throughout Indiana:

New institutions, which, to begin with, necessarily are small, are economically inefficient. They would offer none of the opportunities for the economies of scale that must be sought in operating budgets. On the capital side they would be enormously costly. . . . Further, the problem of staffing additional institutions which do not offer the research opportunities, the libraries, the opportunities for personal advancement so important to attracting additional college teachers would be enormous. Experience indicates that the prestige of an institution is a valuable aid in attracting new people into the teaching profession. And prestige is not gained in a short period of time. (Lewis et al., 1957, p. 440)

According to Wells and his colleagues, the extension campuses could benefit from being affiliated with the state universities of IU and Purdue. And as they highlighted key issues that connected the challenges at that time to the community college debates growing throughout Indiana, Wells and his colleagues, repeating some of the statistics highlighted by Wells in his 1954 Chamber of Commerce pamphlet, argued that the state of Indiana had widespread geographical distribution of college facilities:

Sixty-seven percent of all high school graduates can begin college in their own counties. Ninety-two percent can begin college within twenty-five miles or less. The development of existing institutions would be far more efficient and economical than starting new ones. . . . . [W]e should be on guard against repeating a mistake already made in education at the secondary level. The tremendous expansion of small, uneconomical high schools has created a problem which we are now slowly and laboriously attempting to solve. (Lewis et al., 1957, p. 441)

President Wells also wrote about these concerns to Kenneth E. Oberholtzer, Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools and a member of the President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School. In an effort to convince the President’s Committee that an extension campus was much less expensive to operate compared to a locally controlled unit, such as a community college, one of the main questions Wells posed pertained to the necessary size a community would need to be to successfully support a community college type of program (Wells, 1922-2001; Wells to K. E. Oberholtzer, February 15, 1957). In his letter to Oberholtzer, Wells described the Kokomo extension campus, which had succeeded a former locally controlled junior college. Once IU began overseeing the Kokomo campus, its enrollment more than tripled, and Wells argued that IU was “doing a better job of exploiting the potential that was done by the locally controlled junior college” (p. 1). Interestingly, management scholar Peter Drucker had also proposed that the “giant universities” (Drucker, 1956, para. 34) collaborate with, in particular, small private colleges that were in need of university support to survive during a time of teacher shortage. Drucker’s article was published in the popular magazine, Harper’s, and was found in President Hovde’s files on the President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School.

The Association for Land Grant Colleges and Universities provided further support for Indiana’s approach and was opposed to the expansion of community college institutions. The association had earlier opposed a 1956 proposal (Senate Bill No. 4301) for developing post–high school vocational schools because it believed that the development of such schools would spread already limited financial resources for higher education. President Wells’ and Hovde’s opinions regarding the expansion of community colleges were familiar to the members of the association and were heard years earlier at their 1954 convention, at which Purdue University President Hovde gave a speech titled, Educational Planning for National Maturity:

During the past five years as we watched the national birth rate increase steadily above the already high rates of the war years, we have been aware of its inevitable impact on higher education. The first trickle of the coming flood of students has already entered our institutions and time for preparation is almost gone. However late the hour, plans must be made and action begun to implement them. This is the motivating theme of the 1954 meeting of our Association. (Hovde, 1955, para. 2)

The concerns on the minds of those within the Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities pertained to higher education’s role in protecting national security, the impending demand for higher education in the postwar years, and the continuing climb of the birth rate in the future. As the chief executive for Purdue University, a well-respected land grant institution, President Hovde sought to spur the membership’s thinking about how the group might deal with the challenges awaiting their own institutions in the near future. An overarching theme of Hovde’s speech emphasized a need to focus educational planning on ways to support the United States along its path toward becoming a mature nation, and this responsibility, according to Hovde, rested on the 4-year land grant colleges and research universities (Hovde, 1955).

A February 1959 joint resolution of the Indiana Senate (Senate Joint Resolution 9) addressed some of the criticisms about the duplication of services, which were growing at that time, and mandated that the State Budget Committee hold a hearing when either IU or Purdue requested funds for establishing a new extension center. The resolution also ordered that the State Budget Committee report any potential plans to develop new extension campuses to the private institution “whose area the state schools intend to invade” (Favor Curtailment of Extension Centers, 1959, para. 1). This arrangement curtailed plans to expand the extension movement and presented new challenges for advocates of community college development who may have been trying to garner the support needed to establish new institutions in Indiana.

Despite these challenges, Indiana and Purdue Universities were able to gain the support from the 31 other institutions in the state for the continued expansion of extension campuses through the Indiana Conference of Higher Education. As noted above, agreements established by the 1960 Indiana Plan were intended to minimize competition between individual institutions and between groups of institutions. Under the Indiana Plan, IU and Purdue University agreed that prior to establishing any new extension campuses, approval would need to be obtained from the institution in the area.

Presidents Wells and Hovde directed attention to what they defined as problems and issues more worthy than funding the building of new institutions. They posited that educational opportunity in Indiana could be sufficiently provided through its existing institutions—the research university (IU) and the land grant institution (Purdue University)—and through collaborations between public and private institutions, which could be fostered through the development of extension campuses. In addition, an entirely new system of institutions emerged when, in 1963, with support from the Indiana State Chamber of Commerce and the Indiana Manufacturer’s Association, the Indiana State Legislature established the Indiana Vocational Technical College (or “Ivy Tech”) with the primary purpose of providing noncredit vocational, technical, and semitechnical training for the citizens of Indiana.

Conclusion

This analysis explored the archival documents and narratives of the policy process to go beyond existing anecdotal tales of why community colleges failed to develop in Indiana. From this historical case study we learn that Presidents Wells and Hovde persuaded state policy actors, including members of the Indiana Conference of Higher Education, that it was not efficient to invest funds in creating new colleges and that the state needed to consider how to better utilize and improve upon the already existing resources and facilities in Indiana. Ultimately, university leaders convinced state policy actors that the extension campuses could adequately meet future enrollment growth without investing any additional state or tax dollars into building new “brick-and-mortar” institutions of any type, community college or otherwise. Access to postsecondary education in Indiana was defined as having access to a 4-year university and its various institutional resources to offer a quality education. These were issues that were highlighted by both the Truman Commission (President’s Commission on Higher Education, 1947) and the President’s Committee on Education Beyond the High School (1956, 1957).

The literature reviewed earlier in this article illuminated the past and ongoing debates among historians regarding the roles, motivations, and interests of 4-year university leaders in shaping community college development. Brint and Karabel (1989) argued in their widely cited book, The Diverted Dream, that university leaders created the community college concept to intentionally divert students away from 4-year institutions. Pointing to low educational completion and graduation rates, Brint and Karabel argued that the development of community college institutions has provided a method for keeping academically underprepared students out of the elite 4-year institutions, both public and private. However, Ratcliff (1994) has also suggested that the role of 4-year university leaders in the development of the initial junior college movement has been perhaps the most frequently recounted and overemphasized aspect of community college history. In the case of Indiana, 4-year educational leaders actually opposed the establishment of community colleges and instead advocated for the support of its growing extension campus model. An established private sector prevented the development of a statewide system, supporting Cohen and Brawer’s (2008) proposition that it was much easier for community colleges to develop in states in which there was “little competition from the private sector” (p. 20).

Providing insights for historical and policy studies of community colleges, this article offers understanding into the development of a unique postsecondary education system. The findings shed light on the history of community colleges, which has been an overlooked area in the higher and postsecondary education literature (Hutcheson, 1999). Wells and others believed in more than the simple idea that extension campuses could adequately meet future enrollment growth. Rather, these institutional leaders argued that as the historically designated public state institutions, they ought to be the main entities with the chief responsibility of providing access to postsecondary education. Although the plan that Wells and his colleagues formulated seemed to offer a logical way to provide access to higher education and, in particular, access to a bachelor’s degree through the extension campus model, Wells and colleagues did not carefully factor into their overall strategy some of the basic realities of how students choose to go to college and the pressures that, over time, would influence extension campuses to grow further away from a comprehensive community college mission.

Furthermore, entering the 1960s, newspapers and the public in general continued to criticize both systems regarding the duplication of services. The establishment of the Indiana Commission on Higher Education in 1972 raised attention to concerns regarding the state’s critical need to improve the availability of post–high school educational opportunities for students desiring other postsecondary options besides attending a 4-year institution. Although Indiana had succeeded in providing higher-than-average opportunities (compared to other states) for students to pursue a 4-year bachelor’s degree, the problem of transfer within the Indiana postsecondary education system helped to create the support needed to eventually pursue the development of a statewide community college system (Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana). Fully implemented in 2005, the development of this new system, as Parkhurst had earlier suggested, involved individuals from multiple levels of government, business, and education.

The findings described in this article aim to provide a historical perspective on educational policy and practice for Indiana’s postsecondary education system. For audiences outside of Indiana and abroad, this study offers knowledge for states and educational systems considering the development or expansion of similar types of extension campuses, community colleges, vocational colleges, or other types of open-access systems. Government and educational leaders can benefit from learning about the social, economic, and political factors that shaped the development of Indiana’s post–high school educational opportunities.