By By MICHELE GERLACH Publisher
When Dr. Mark Reynolds began teaching English at what was then Jefferson Davis State Junior College, the community college movement was in its infancy.
What he and his colleagues really set about doing was to create a profession.
That's the title he and co-author Sylvia Holladay-Hicks first chose for their book, which was published last month as "The Profession of English in the 2-Year College."
Reynolds, the former editor of the national journal "Teaching English in the Two-Year College," said Holladay-Hicks contacted him several years ago about collaborating on the book.
The book is a collection of essays from others who were involved in the evolution of teaching English in community colleges.
The hardest part was narrowing the book, Reynolds said. The project began with 42 essays on the subject, and each publisher who considered the book thought it was too long.
Eventually published by Boynton/Cook and released in January, the book is described in this way on website of Amazon.com, the online bookstore: "The 1960s: a time of protests and civil rights marches, sit-ins and speak-outs, free-love rallies and anti-establishment Yip-ins. Yet going largely unnoticed was another powerful revolution: the explosive growth of the two-year college. In The Profession of English in the Two-Year College, those on the front lines of this movement record how they successfully taught a new kind of student in a re-imagined postsecondary institution."
On Thursday, Reynolds presented a copy of the book to Cheryl Altemara, development officer for The University of Alabama Libraries. Dr. Reynolds earned two degrees from the University.