"They Can't Keep Us From Talking": Understanding Community College Professional Staff as Grassroots Leaders

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to add to the documentation of grassroots change efforts present at community colleges from the perspectives of professional staff grassroots leaders. Professional staff have largely been absent from scholarly discussions of professional identity, leadership, and change processes, yet represent over half of the higher education workforce. Through a single-site qualitative case study with 17 community college professional staff grassroots leaders, this study explored how professional staff understand their professional selves in relation to the grassroots change process; their understanding of the opportunities and challenges within that process; and the actions they took to capitalize on opportunities and mitigate challenges toward creating status-quo change at their community college. Findings indicate that grassroots leaders' understanding of their overall institutional climate towards change impacted how they viewed themselves, the range of possibilities for change, and influenced the actions they took when attempting to accomplish it. Their workplace identity as members of the professional staff shaped their relationships with institutional structures at the college as well as the range of tactics employed to capitalize on the opportunities for change as well as to mitigate challenges toward their change-based work. This study’s results can be used to inform future institutional practices to further support both professional staff as leaders and grassroots change efforts more broadly on community college campuses.