Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program/Concentration

Community College Leadership

Committee Director

Dr. Michelle Bartlett

Committee Member

Dr. James Bartlett

Committee Member

Dr. Ashton Cooper

Abstract

Leadership competency frameworks are widely used in community colleges to guide hiring, professional development, and succession planning. However, little is known about how leadership expectations evolve within these frameworks over time or how revisions reflect shifts in what the field values as legitimate leadership preparation. This study examined longitudinal change in the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Competencies for Community College Leaders across four editions published in 2005, 2013, 2018, and 2022.

Using a structured comparative document analysis, the study applied an extraction grid, a modification classification framework, and the Semantic Aspect Scale to identify additions, deletions, augmentations, separations, combinations, and the magnitude of conceptual change across editions. Findings indicate that leadership expectations evolved through layered expansion and high-magnitude reconceptualization rather than structural replacement. Core competency domains persisted across editions, additions accumulated over time, and semantic intensification raised expectations within retained categories. Deletions were comparatively limited and rarely eliminated underlying leadership functions. This asymmetrical pattern suggests that leadership expectations are cumulative but non linear, characterized by structural continuity alongside substantive recalibration.

Interpreted through Human Capital Theory, the competencies function as a codified statement of which leadership capacities the community college field treats as valuable, preserving some domains while expanding and reweighting others over time. By tracing documented modification patterns across seventeen years of national standards, this study demonstrates how leadership capital is preserved, expanded, and redefined within the community college sector.

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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25777/fzjn-ef79

ISBN

9798197808981

ORCID

0009-0006-0785-2742

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