Description/Abstract:
A PLAN OF ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION FOR PUERTO RICO JUNIOR COLLEGE
STATEMENT OF THE PROJECT
Puerto Rico Junior College, founded in 1949, has increased its enrollment from nine to over eleven hundred full-time students. From one building, it has moved to a new campus. The urgency of day to day business has left little time for formulating the most effective administrative organization.
This project assesses current practices and formulates plans for an expanding administrative organization, for only within the framework of sound administrative organization and well-formulated practices lies optimum opportunity for the College to serve its public.
PROCEDURE FOLLOWED
This project has six distinct steps. First, since no history of the College exists, interviews with the founding president were conducted. Detailed examinations of all official documents of the College were made. From this research, the history of the College emerged.
This project, secondly, examines the social and economic background of Puerto Rico. This is essential if one is to understand some of the motivating forces that are responsible for many of the current policies of the College.
Thirdly, this project describes the present administrative organization and practices of the College. After the objective description, a step-by-step analysis of present administrative practices is presented with deviations from stated policies cited.
The fourth step is the establishment of basic principles of junior college administration. The principles are basic in their universality of application in any junior colleges. Another criterion of the principles is that, together, they cover what junior college literature and practical experience and training of the author point out to be persistent administrative problems in junior colleges. One further criterion used on the proposed principles, is that while they are universally acceptable, they must be specifically sound and acceptable for Puerto Rico Junior College.
The fifth step is the presentation of a proposed administrative organization and set of practices for the College. This proposition is made weighing the history and background of the College, the social and economic background and present status of the island, the identification of sound principles and practices for junior colleges, and existing situations at the College.
The sixth step contains a suggested list of administrative, matters which should be given immediate priority, and another for long-range consideration.
This project has the limitation that it makes no attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of its proposals.
CONCLUSIONS
While there are numerous points of difference between Puerto Rico Junior College and sister institutions of the Continental United States, there is no basis for supposing that different principles of administration apply in Puerto Rico. Differences lie only in minor details of practice. The set of principles formulated for junior colleges in general may be adopted by Puerto Rico Junior College.