Book Review: Pamela L. Eddy Community College Leadership: A Multidimensional Model for Leading Change. Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2010. 206 pp. $29.95 (paper). ISBN: 978 1 57922 416 5

Pamela L Eddy Community College Leadership: A Multidimensional Model for Leading Change. Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2010. 206 pp. $29.95 (paper). ISBN: 978 I 57922 416 5.Leading community colleges is not a simple task. As Pamela Eddy points out in her book, Community College Leadership: A Multidimensional Model for Leading Change, community colleges are complex organizations with multiple functions that require everevolving leadership skills. To support this conclusion, Eddy outlines many of the challenges faced by community colleges: changes in leadership; "demands from the state, the local community, and campus constituents"; and other pressures that result from accreditation, accountability, and reduced funding (p. 14). These challenges, she suggests, create a need for a type of leader with a different set of skills than those needed in the past.Eddy describes the need for this new type of leader in nine case studies reported in the second half of the book. Thus, her book "aims to help higher education scholars and practitioners better understand and evaluate leadership at community colleges" (p. 14). By better understanding community college leadership, practitioners can help focus professional development activities that will equip future leaders with the skills needed in the 21st century. Similarly, she asserts that higher education scholars can evaluate their graduate programs to ensure they address the types of skills needed for community college leadership.An underlying premise of the book is that "leadership is multidimensional, with the various dimensions existing on continua that reflect the evolution of a leader's understanding of what it means to lead" (p. 2). These multiple dimensions, including leaders' core beliefs, how leaders make sense of the world, and how they respond to new opportunities, are part of a complex matrix of skills necessary to successfully lead community colleges. Eddy offers the multidimensional model as a "dynamic means of thinking about leadership at community colleges" by expanding our conceptions of leadership beyond the "historic White male model" and relying on the "concepts of lifelong learning" to illustrate that leadership is not static (p. 138). The multidimensional model of leadership is grounded in five assumptions or, as Eddy describes them, propositions: (a) There is no universal model for leadership; (b) multidimensional leadership is necessary in complex organizations; (c) leaders rely on their underlying cognitive schema in making leadership decisions; (d) leaders often adhere to their core belief structure; and (e) leaders are learners. These propositions are discussed in detail in chapter 1 and then woven together with the research findings in subsequent chapters to support a rich interpretation of the multidimensional model of leadership.The model Eddy presents includes five areas: leadership schema, gender, communication, sense making and framing, and competencies. Although the leadership schema stays "rooted" (p. 146), the other aspects are flexible and subject to change "as leaders learn and as they process feedback from their current actions" (p. 1 46). This fluid model of leadership clearly emerges from the case studies and illustrates the need for community college leaders to continuously adapt their skills.The nine case studies presented in the book "serve as examples of leadership in action" (p. 7) and offer opportunities for readers to learn from the experiences of the presidents under study. The college sites were selected by Eddy because they were engaged in major change initiatives and each had a relatively new president. Of the nine presidents studied, four were women and five were men; eight were White and one was Black. To increase the ethnic diversity, she interviewed "additional minority presidents ... to provide a broader appreciation of issues emanating because of race and color" (p. 7). In each of the case studies, Eddy described the traits of the leaders, how they engaged in the practice of leadership, how they made meaning of their experiences, and how they used prior experiences to construct their leadership. …