We conceived the idea for this book at the conclusion of an especially invigorating professional event: the 1988 International Conference on Teaching Excellence in Austin, Texas. Standing outside the hotel where that gathering had taken place, we reflected on what each of us owed to community colleges.

For one of us, a community college education some 20 years before had helped transform a youth's uncertainty and limited vision into a sense of self-confidence and hope for the future. The essay on page 224 describes this transformation. For the other of us, mid-life exposure to the community college as a teacher and administrator reconfirmed a conviction that equity, community progress, and international fellowship can be approached in this nation. Collecting the essays in this book has been a way for us to show convincingly just how widespread, representative, and important these kinds of experiences have become all over the United States.