Having come into community colleges as an adjunct instructor 25 years ago, Linda Bowman notes that much has changed since then. Demographics are shifting, high school enrollments are declining, state budgets are tightening, and community colleges are grappling with greater competition from public and private/nonprofit, as well as from for-profit institutions. Community colleges have received greater attention, federal investment, and pressure to address the problem of access without success and the devastating attainment gap. With the focus on performance, on reexamining their work--unbundling, tearing down silos, focusing on data, increasing intrusion--Bowman realizes that the experiences for which she almost apologized earlier in her career have evolved to becoming valuable keys to the success of community colleges today. She maintains that those practices that community college educators once looked down upon are now models for the practices today's community colleges are seeking to adopt. She provides a list of 12 practices formerly used that are emulated now, and briefly discusses each one in a "then and now" format.