Richard M. Romano Dissertation of the Year Award
The annual CSCC Dissertation of the Year Award honors doctoral students who graduated during the previous calendar year, and whose dissertations have explored community college-related topics and exhibited exemplary skills in research and scholarship. Further, the dissertation should demonstrate excellence in scholarly inquiry, illustrate originality of thought, and include significant findings that make a substantial contribution to the extant literature on community colleges; that shed new light on how issues and challenges facing community colleges are researched, theorized, and interpreted; and/or that potentially could have an important effect on community college policy and/or practice.
Barbara K. Townsend Emerging Scholar Award
The late Dr. Barbara K. Townsend was a professor of higher education and director of the Center for Community College Research at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She received a bachelor’s degree in 1965 and a master’s degree in 1967 from the State University of New York at Albany in English and an Ed.D. degree in higher education in 1984 from the College of William and Mary.
Dr. Townsend taught at Towson State University, State University of New York at Buffalo, and Thomas Nelson Community College. She was a graduate faculty member and administrator at Loyola University Chicago and the University of Memphis.
Dr. Townsend’s agenda was driven by an interest in baccalaureate attainment, particularly for women and minoritized students. The core of her research was a focus on community college as a major vehicle for facilitating this attainment, including through the community college baccalaureate. In addition to more than 50 journal publications, Dr. Townsend co-authored work with her students and professor colleagues. Her publications include the authoring and editing of books and monographs such as Community College Faculty: Overlooked and Undervalued (2007); Community College Missions in the 21st Century (2006); ASHE Reader on Community Colleges, 3rd Ed. (2006); The Role of Community Colleges in Teacher Education (2003); Community Colleges: Policy in the Future Context (2000); Two-Year Colleges for Women and Minorities (1999); and Creating Distinctiveness: Lessons from Uncommon Colleges and Universities (1992).
A longtime member of CSCC, Dr. Townsend served as the president of the organization from 1999 to 2000. In 2001 she was the recipient of the CSCC Senior Scholar Award and received the Distinguished Service Award in 2009. The CSCC Emerging Scholar Award was named for Dr. Townsend in 2009. This award recognizes a new scholar for outstanding theoretical and/or applied research that contributes to the professional body of knowledge about community college; demonstrated excellence in teaching, advising, and/or mentoring; and integration of knowledge of teaching and service.
Senior Scholar Award
The Senior Scholar Award is given to advanced associate or full professors or faculty members with an equivalent rank. These scholars contribute to the national body of knowledge about community colleges and demonstrate excellence in teaching, advising, and/or mentoring. Honorees of this award integrate a knowledge of teaching and service and have contributed to significant new discoveries in community college research or practice, or have demonstrated research that impacts community college practice.
Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer Distinguished Service Award
Dr. Arthur M. Cohen has been a professor of higher education at UCLA since 1964 and was named a professor emeritus in 2004. He earned a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in history from the University of Miami in 1949 and 1955, respectively. In 1964 he earned a doctorate in higher education from Florida State University. Dr. Cohen co-founded the Center for the Study of Community Colleges at UCLA in 1964 with Dr. John V. Lombardi and his late wife, Dr. Florence B. Brawer, and was president of the center from 1974 to 2007. Dr. Cohen was the director of the ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges from 1966 to 2003, served on the editorial boards of numerous journals, and is the author of many significant books on the community colleges, including his first book in 1969, Dateline ’79: Heretical Concepts for the Community College. His research focuses on the role and function of American community colleges and the history of higher education.
Dr. Florence B. Brawer was a research educationist at UCLA, a psychometrist, and a counselor. Dr. Brawer earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1944 from the University of Michigan as well as an M.A. and Ed.D. in educational psychology from UCLA in 1962 and 1967, respectively. She was the co-editor of Developments in the Rorschach Technique, Volume 3 from 1970 and New Perspective of Personality Development in College Students from 1973. In addition, Dr. Brawer served as research director for the Center for the Study of Community Colleges. She passed away in 2014 at the age of 91.
Together, Drs. Cohen and Brawer wrote Confronting Identity: The Community College Instructor (1972), The Two-Year College Instructor Today (1977), The Collegiate Function of Community Colleges (1987), and six editions of The American Community College. With the assistance of ERIC staff members, Cohen and Brawer also wrote A Constant Variable: New Perspectives on the Community College (1971) and College Responses to Community Demands (1975). Drs. Cohen and Brawer also edited several series of monographs published by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges and the ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges, and in 1973 initiated the Jossey-Bass series New Directions for Community Colleges.
The CSCC Distinguished Service Award was renamed the Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer Distinguished Award in 2014.