The black professional in the community college is a catalog of contradictions. His or her condition can only be described as tragic; and his or her plight is a travesty on the philosophy of the two-year college. The preliminary findings of one study in progress note that nearly half (409 or 47 per cent) of the 865 two-year institutions included in the sample do not have a single black faculty member or administrator. Eighty-nine of the remaining 456 colleges have only one black staff member. Similarly, there are a number of community colleges located in areas heavily populated by blacks that have no black educators on their staffs. Further, though two-year colleges claim to be the democratizing institutions of higher education, four-year institutions are doing significantly better in recruiting, selecting, and hiring black professionals. There is also overwhelming evidence that in many community colleges that have vocational and technical programs, not only are black professionals excluded, but black students are excluded from the programs as well
