Soon after I first began writing about community colleges in 2005, I was introduced to Dr. John Roueche, who, by then, had reached the pinnacle of his fame within community college circles. By all accounts, Roueche had built the Community College Leadership Program (CCLP) at the University of Texas at Austin into the premier producer of community college presidents over the past 42 years.
Dr. Roueche was one of my first calls when seeking commentary for many stories, and I always found him to be very easygoing and patient, as he schooled me from his wealth of knowledge on community college issues, going back to before 1958 when he graduated from Mitchell Community College in Statesville, N.C.
However, at the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) conference last month in Orlando, Fla., I had the opportunity to speak with many of Dr. Roueche’s former students, who informed me that his laid-back persona belies his tough-as-nails approach to academics.
“He has high expectations and has been able to help us all understand that that is how people succeed. When you have high expectations of people and hold them to those high expectations, then they tend to rise to the occasion,” says Dr. Belle Wheelan, a CCLP graduate who now serves as president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
Dr. Cindy Miles, a CCLP graduate who serves as chancellor of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District in El Cajon, Calif., puts it more bluntly.
“He was very hard on us. I was 40 years old when I went in that program. I was an adult, and I left that classroom crying, there were times. It was very challenging.”
Yet, affection for and loyalty toward Roueche run very deep among his graduates who all cite the care and concern he shows for them as individuals, which extends far beyond the confines of the classroom. Dr. Richard Rhodes, a CCLP grad who now serves as president of Austin (Texas) Community College, waxed emotional when talking about how Roueche looked out for his son as a doting father would when he arrived on the UT-Austin campus as a freshman.
