Histories of the American community college have largely overlooked the humanistic education movement of the mid-20th century. This historiographical gap obscures leaders' ideological commitment to their institution's diverse mission during an era of rapid community college expansion. Advocates and critics of community colleges have consequently judged their leaders' actions, policies, and practices without sufficient context. The reason for humanistic education's omission from the historiography is twofold. First, the ideology faced considerable academic and social skepticism in the wake of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. This pressure caused many proponents of humanism to conceal their ideological practices under the veil of neoliberal discourse. Second, the sharp division between advocates' and critics' histories of the community college discouraged a reconsideration of the historical record. As both groups advanced their narrative, neither sought to clarify the resulting dichotomous accounts. In part, the lack of collaboration resulted from the disciplinary distance between these groups. Advocates for community colleges often published in practitioner journals, written by insiders for insiders. Some scholars accused these "insider" investigations of maintaining an overly optimistic and uncritical lens. Alternatively, university scholars often authored critical histories. These scholars wrote as "outsiders" -- a distance some practitioners suggested diminished the scholarship's legitimacy. Insider and outsider researchers merely talked over one another, creating binary depictions of the community college's purpose and their leaders' effectiveness. This dichotomy has had significant ramifications for the reputation of community colleges. As this dissertation will discuss, academic micro-discourses dominated discursive production, influencing meso and macro levels. The resulting preeminence of outsider narratives sustains hegemonic power structures, placing insider voices at the margins of the community college story. Discourse tracing provides a methodological approach to bridge this insider/outsider research divide. An investigation of mid- and late-20th-century community college discursive artifacts clarifies potential connotative misconceptions, which allows for a reinterpretation of institutional leaders' agency and autonomy. An account of the humanistic education movement demonstrates that the existing historiography overestimates the comprehensiveness of the late 20th-century neoliberal shift, and underestimates community college leaders' ability to withstand neoliberal pressures. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]