Retention of adjunct faculty in community colleges

As community bodys struggle with keeping their disciplines and programs up-to-date, tender more courses to an ever-increasing learner population, and battle shrinking rolls adjunct faculty save the day (Roueche, Roueche, & Milliron, 1995) To retain quality part-time faculty members already occupyed in community colleges, as well as novel hires that offset retirement of full-time faculty, careful strategies are absolutely necessary. The authors discuss a number of auspicious strategies.

Introduction

Community colleges are challenged, level more so than in the past, to befitting greater demands with shrinking resources. The challenge has proceeded in the increased hiring of adjunct faculty. Steadily escalating enrollment and expanded program offerings in community corporations seem to be the greatest in quantity important reasons behind the rise in hiring part-time faculty (Leslie, 1998) Overall, from 1970 to 1995 the number of faculty members at two-year institutions grew by dint of 210 per cent, compared with 69 through cent at four-year institutions (Schneider, 1998) Banachowski (1996 p 1) indicates

In 1978 the American Association of Community and Junior communitys (AACJC) reported that part-timers comprised more than one-half of all faculty in two-year guilds (Leslie, Kellams, & Gunne, 1982 p 19) In 1980 nearly 60% of the faculty in two-year associations was employed part-time, 63% in 1990 and 65% by means of 1993.

In the past sum of two units decades there has also been a moderate but steady, evolution from the confine "part-time faculty" to the boundary "adjunct faculty." Cohen (1992) indicates:

The switch from the mete "part-time" to the term "adjunct" is symbolic of change to a perception that I believe is more appreciative and fair to adjunct faculty. They are, in Webster's bourns "something joined or added to another thing." When they've been at the same campus for ten years or more, when they teach as many as three sections by semester, or nine per year, there hardly looks to be anything partial about the service. (p 1)

However, at many community communitys the two terms convey arch differences in meaning. An adjunct faculty member is defined as individual employed on a per limit basis with no guarantee of being rehired for the nearest academic year or term. A part-time faculty member, upon the other hand, can be defined as individual who teaches from term to boundary and year to year literally becoming a "permanent" part-time faculty member. For the object of the following discussion, however, the bourns adjunct and part-time will be treated as the same to denote faculty hired upon a contingency basis.

Part-time faculty demographics

Part-time faculty members are, indeed, a diverse destiny Their characteristics differ depending on local conditions, institutional size, and other unique characteristics of a body There are, however, some general traits that describe the cluster In summarizing the findings of a observe performed by the Center for the research of Community Colleges (CSCC) as well as the National view of Postsecondary Faculty performed by dint of the National Center for Education Statistics in 1992-93 Leslie and Gappa (2002) give the following descriptions of part-time faculty members in community colleges:

1 Part-timers are equally likely to be men or women They are likely to be the pair older and younger than full-time faculty.

2 Part-time faculty average five to six years of teaching experience. above half of all part-time community guild faculty have five or more years experience at their popular institution.

3. Fifty-two percent of all part-time faculty members in community bodys hold a master's degree. Eleven percent clinch a doctorate degree. Part-time instructors are more likely to teach occupational or professional make subordinates for which a doctorate is not relevant.

4 greatest in quantity part-timers are "specialists, experts, and professionals" with their primary occupations outside of academe, those who tender to work simultaneously at different occupations, or those who are migrating from established careers outside of higher education. small in number part-timers are aspiring to become full-time faculty.

5 Fifty-one percent proffer to teach part-time for a variety of reasons of that kind as family caretaker responsibilities or being commonly place-bound and unable to participate in national searches. Two-thirds teach part-time to be "in the academic environment," and sixty-three percent work part-time to appendix their income.

6. Part-time faculty in community corporations are stable professionals with substantial experience and a genuine commitment to their work. They be fond of to teach. (p.60-63)

In addition, adjunct faculty not seldom provide student academic advising, participate in curriculum unfolding and even program coordination, as well as other administrative duties (Gappa, 1997)

Part-time faculty hiring

Community bodys have always relied heavily on part-time faculty for a variety of reasons. First, they save the community money-part-time faculty cost less than full-time faculty in salaries and benefits. "College can hire up to sum of two units dozen part-time faculty members for about the same amount as it take away froms to hire one full-time faculty member" (Stephens & Wright, 1999) next to the first they provide the college with flexibility in meeting the demands of enrollment particularly for novel skill-related technology courses. Third, part-time faculty members bring real world experience to the community community classroom (Banachowski, 1996).