Our Niche in History
Our Niche in History
by Joan C. Lomax
How to compress over two decades of Montgomery College experience and experiences into 600 words! How to extrapolate from dozens of boxes and shelves of folders, grade books, MC catalogs, memoranda, annual reports, committee actions, syllabi, lecture notes, research projects, and media assignments in three pages! Not easy!
These were years of professional growth, participation in shaping a system of collegiate governance, recognition of the unquestioned dedication of us as a faculty to provide for the youth of Montgomery County the best possible college-level academic instruction. The following observations are necessarily eclectic; the documentation, personalized; and, unfortunately, lack the broader dimensions of our collective impact as the faculty of Montgomery College.
We were an academic faculty: The “High School plus Two” was not part of our image. We entered a college environment, a pattern set by the first faculty in the 1940’s. Our support was resolute for our own collegiate Board of Trustees, established on January 1, 1969. Our commitments were to provide excellence in classroom instruction consonant with objectives of higher educational institutions and to work together to support and initiate actions which would provide optimal instructional environment.
We helped create a collegiate system of governance: The first proposals for the positions of faculty dean and academic dean at the Rockville Campus were faculty initiated. We served as members of the Faculty Senate and defended our proposals before the Trustees. Our Curriculum Committee established criteria for technical and career programs with academic cores. We reviewed plans for campus structures and resolved issues of grievance, contract, rank, and tenure. We screened candidates for the position of campus dean and established criteria for our honors programs and courses. We developed budget and growth programs for our disciplines.
We enriched students’ learning experience and interacted with student organizations: Remember Earth Day? Remember the Law Day Lectures (unexpectedly coinciding with the U.S. Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona, drastically expanding the constitutional “right to counsel”)? Remember the School of Politics co-sponsored by Montgomery County and Montgomery College?
Through our initiative the first student was appointed to a Montgomery College Advisory Committee, and we successfully negotiated the first congressional credit internship for our students.
Responding to societal changes, we offered such courses as “Current Suburban Complex” and “Women in Politics”; we joined the students in their symposium on Student Rights and Responsibilities.
We were recognized as professional college educators locally, in the area, and nationally: We wrote texts and edited manuscripts for publishers and authors in our disciplines; we composed articles and participated in federal grant research projects. We conducted joint activities: forums, colloquia, annual meetings of our professional organizations. We held offices in these societies.
We made, of course, great proposals that never did “fly”: That Montgomery College–Rockville become the County’s four-year institution of higher education (politely discussed in a community forum in 1970); that we offer specially designed introductory courses for foreign students from foreign countries; that the County Political Research and Documents Center be established in the Rockville Campus library to serve as a repository for historical County documentary collections.
These and other proposals are buried under fading charts projecting ambitious plans for the future of my department.
Takoma Park and Rockville Campuses: Department of History and Political Science, 1963–1967; Department of Political Science, Geography, and Public Service, 1967–1981; chairman, 1967–1972; Professor Emerita.