This book examines seven higher education organizations, exploring their interconnected lines: organizational change and organizational stability. These lines are nested within historical, social, cultural, and political contexts of two nations-the US and Canada-two provinces and three states: Alberta, British Columbia, California, Hawai'i, and Washington. The author studies the development of the community college and the development of the university from community college origins, bringing to the forefront these seven individual stories. Addressing continuity and discontinuity and identity preservation and identity change, as well as individual organizations' responses to government policy, Levin analyzes and illuminates those policies with neoliberal assumptions and values.

John S. Levin is Professor of Higher Education at the University of California, Riverside, USA, where he directs the California Community College Collaborative (C4) and holds the Bank of America Professor of Education Leadership Endowed Chair. Levin is a former community college faculty member and administrator, and has held positions at three universities, including one as dean.