Community College Faculty Competencies

Much has been written about the characteristics of effective college teachers. However, skill sets have not yet been defined with any level of specificity. Also, instructors at community colleges have unique working conditions and challenges that influence how they teach. This paper illustrates the use of three studies conducted to build and validate a framework for defining the competencies of effective community college faculty. The project's culmination was a set of skills used to redesign one university's master's in education (MAEd) program in two-year college teaching. Although participants in all three studies identified subject matter expertise as an important competency, they emphasized several other skill sets as being important for meaningful student learning. Those skills are related to the use of authentic activities and multiple instructional delivery models, multiple ways of assessing student learning, and skills that are necessary outside the classroom in their teaching roles. Participants also emphasized interpersonal and affective components of effective teaching.     

A National Survey of Community College Baccalaureate Institutions

This study utilized original survey data and a national sample of community college baccalaureate (CCB) institutions to examine how offering baccalaureate programs impacts these colleges and the students they serve. An increasing number of these colleges plan to offer their baccalaureate programs online, and programs in technology are projected to experience the greatest growth. The data suggest that student needs, and not institutional revenue or prestige, are the primary motivation for offering bachelor's degrees. The challenges experienced when establishing the CCB programs were more likely to come from external than internal factors. Collectively, thousands of students have already graduated from these programs. Results from this study can be used by policymakers and college administrators to make data-driven decisions regarding baccalaureate programming at the community college.     

Hiring and Developing Quality Community College Faculty

There is a likely community college teacher shortage on the horizon. Thus, community colleges not only need to focus on hiring quality instructors who emphasize teaching excellence, but institutions need to invest time and resources developing quality faculty plans to address faculty needs and provide adequate faculty development programs. When Iowa's community college licensure law was repealed in 2003, 15 area community colleges were left with the task of developing their own quality faculty plans. The Quality Faculty Plan design and one-year implementation is assessed.     

Part-Time Faculty and Community College Student Success

With the Completion Agenda taking such political prominence, community colleges are experiencing even more pressure to find ways to promote and improve student success. One way that has been suggested is to limit the reliance on part-time faculty under the premise that the employment status of faculty has a direct influence on student success. The tacit assumption is that full-time faculty are more engaged with their home institution, and this engagement translates into the engagement of the students taught. The present study examined employment status of faculty on the success of students enrolled in four, two-course sequences. Using Pearson chi-square and binary logistic regression analyses, it was concluded that employment status of the faculty has no statistical influence on student success as has been previously claimed. These results suggest that community colleges should not assume that hiring more full-time faculty will improve student success and, instead, should possibly consider utilizing funds otherwise allocated to hiring new full-time faculty on the development and compensation of part-time faculty.     

Technology Usage Among Community College Faculty

Community colleges are increasing their use of part-time faculty who are taking a leading role in utilizing technology for instructional purposes. Part-time faculty are less likely than their full-time counterparts to use technology for instructional purposes and are less likely to teach non-face-to-face classes. For community colleges to be successful in expanding technology-based education, they must promote technology use by all faculty. This quantitative, national study reports factors found to predict faculty use of technology for instructional purposes.     

Reading Across the Curriculum at an Urban Community College: Student and Faculty Perspectives on Reading

Research indicates that there has been a decline in college reading over the past decades, yet few studies have been conducted at community colleges. The aim of this exploratory study was to gain a broad view of what reading across the curriculum looks like at one urban community college from the perspectives of students and faculty. A survey was administered to students to gather information on their reading practices, beliefs, and attitudes. A second survey was distributed to full-time faculty to gather information on assignments, practices, and beliefs regarding reading. Findings indicate that many students do not complete assigned readings. Further, women students spend more time on reading and attend class more often having completed assigned reading than men. There are discrepancies between students’ and faculty’s assessments of students’ reading abilities, whether reading is essential to course success and between the kinds of readings commonly assigned and those students enjoy reading. The study identified areas for further research on reading in community college including the relationship between gender, reading compliance, and community college outcomes; the effectiveness of reading compliance strategies; the relationship between PowerPoint use and student reading; and students’ use of active reading strategies. The findings also point out the need for pedagogical innovation in the teaching of reading in community college, namely through the implementation of reading across the curriculum programs.     

美国社区学院授予学士学位现象分析

美国社区学院作为其高等教育体系中极具特色的教育形态,在高等教育大众化、普及化的历史进程中发挥了重要作用.社区学院是以转学教育和职业教育为主,其授予的学位以副学士学位为主.随着经济和科技的迅速发展,美国当代社会对高层次、高学历人才的需求不断加大.美国部分社区学院开始在其校内通过各种方式实施学士学位课程并授予学士学位,此举在改善和提升社区学院的学术质量、自身形象和地位上初见成效,为社区学院的未来发展探索出了一条新路.     

Faculty perspectives and practice in an Urban Community College

This article explores faculty perspectives and practice at one Urban Community College in the United States. Data were gathered as part of a larger ethnography on the culture which lower class black students produce in an urban institution. My goal here is to describe elements of faculty culture, explore reasons why faculty culture takes the shape and form that it does, and discuss the ways in which this culture may be linked to institutional outcomes. In so doing. I offer a framework through which the structural genesis of faculty-student conflict and the relationship between faculty culture and institutional outcomes may be viewed.     

Unionization and Perceived Control Among Community College Faculty

The research reported in this paper examined what role working in a union or nonunion college has in influencing faculty perceptions of control over their work. Using data from the 1993, 1999, and 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, this study explored the relative importance of variables in influencing perceived control among full-time teaching faculty in unionized and nonunionized community colleges. Union status was not found to be predictive of perceived control.     

Community College Faculty Development Program and Student Achievement

Community college administrators look for strategies to help students. GRASP (Gaining Retention and Achievement for Students Program) is a semester-long faculty development program that coaches community college instructors about simple, effective teaching strategies that promote student academic achievement. GRASP is founded on the belief that academic achievement is based on good teaching, which begins with faculty development. The major assumption for GRASP is that faculty are the single most important factor for student success. GRASP was offered at Doña Ana Community College (DACC). Located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, just 40 miles from the border of Mexico, DACC has a student population that is 70% minority. Results for GRASP indicate that overall student success improved by 7.9%, and that overall student retention improved by 4.0% for students participating in GRASP.     

Developmental Needs of Community College Adjunct Faculty

Abstract

This survey was a result of the efforts of the New Jersey Consortium on the Community College to identify and articulate the faculty/staff development needs of the 17 community colleges of New Jersey.

In depth interviews were conducted with administrators, faculty and students at all the colleges. Follow up questionnaires were completed at each community college. A two day workshop was then conducted to identify and assign priorities to specific needs. The needs were ordered in one of three categories: Fulfilling the Goals of the Community College, Teaching/Learning Needs, and Managerial Needs.

The workshop that dealt with “Ways of Meeting Part-Time Faculty Needs” identified eight essential goal related needs while stressing the need for adjunct faculty to understand the philosophy and function of the community college. Within the teaching/learning category the workshop group amplified the need for adjunct faculty to understand how learning occurs. The primary managerial need identified was for each community college to develop strong teaching/learning support systems. The workshop participants viewed the establishment of a continuous program of adjunct supervision as essential for the support of effective instruction.     

Anatomy of a Community College Faculty Diversity Program

Diversifying the faculty in community colleges, especially with faculty of color, continues to be problematic as we move through the first decade of the 21st Century. National statistics show that overwhelmingly the faculty continues to be Caucasian, even at a time when more and more students are coming from diverse ethnic backgrounds. This seemingly intractable problem is particularly acute in California, where the majority of community college students are students of color, but not the faculty. A faculty diversity program that has been in existence for 17 years has made important progress in changing the situation in southern California. This comprehensive program recruits, trains, and places interns in 10 community colleges in cooperation with a regional university. The results of the program demonstrate that substantial numbers of faculty of color are being prepared by the program and that they are getting hired in community colleges as adjunct and full-time faculty. Community colleges can be and should be proactive in identifying, developing, and hiring faculty of color. They shouldn't wait for other societal institutions to do the job for them. By working cooperatively with other local colleges, community based organizations that involve communities of color, and nearby universities, they have the opportunity to make significant inroads into diversifying their faculty. This program can and should be replicated in other parts of the country as a way to nurture the next generation of community college faculty leaders.     

Predictors of Timely Baccalaureate Attainment for Underrepresented Minority Community College Transfer Students

For many underrepresented minority students, the path to the baccalaureate degree begins with initial enrollment at a community college. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of students interested in transferring actually do transfer to a 4-year institution. Of these transfers, few graduate with a baccalaureate degree within 6 years of initial matriculation at their community college. This study was completed to see if the graduation rates for underrepresented minority community college transfer students vary depending on the type of receiving institution. In addition, an analysis was conducted to determine if the factors that best predict timely graduation for these transfers vary by ethnicity. Results from a suite of logistic regression models indicated that the factors that predict timely graduation for underrepresented minority transfers were not the same for each ethnicity. The most predictive factor for African-American transfers was enrollment in a 4-year transfer program at the community college. For Hispanic transfers, obtaining some type of credential before transferring was most predictive of timely graduating with a baccalaureate degree. On the other hand, the Grade Point Average (GPA) at the receiving 4-year institution was most predictive of timely graduation for Asian transfer students. The study was not able to conclusively determine the types of institutions that were the most successful graduating minority community college transfers.     

The Relationship between Faculty Confirmation and Community College Student Self-Efficacy

Nearly half of all college students in the United States begin at community colleges, including higher numbers of students coming from backgrounds which have been historically underrepresented in higher education. Despite record numbers of new students enrolling at community colleges, the number of students who are retained at the institution long enough to be deemed successful, either through transferring or graduating, remains largely unchanged. One theory is that some students enter college with less confidence in their ability to be successful, hastening their departure. Faculty members are in a unique position to impact student self-efficacy, which ultimately may impact student success. This exploratory study quantitatively assessed whether a relationship exists between confirmation behaviors employed by faculty members in the classroom and changes in reported academic self-efficacy of students. The research was conducted through a causal comparative matched pair design with Midwestern community college students during their first semester. The results support a relationship between change in self-efficacy and perceived faculty confirmation (r_s = .212, n = 70, p = .039*), particularly for female students (r_s = .331, n = 35, p = .026*) and for those students where neither parent completed a degree higher than high school (r_s = .316, n = 46, p = .016*).     

美国社区学院兼职教师聘任制度述评

美国社区学院兼职教师的来源非常广泛,包括社会各科专家、大学校长、教授和一些自由职业者。大量聘用这些人员可以为学院节约成本,增强学院的灵活性,使得学院与社会保持紧密联系。但过多使用兼职教师也会给学院带来一些负面影响,比如由于兼职教师年龄结构的不合理性,导致整体师资队伍质量下降,教师科研水平降低,尤其是对课堂教学效果产生的影响最大。通过介绍美国社区学院兼职教师的聘任制度,分析其优势和不足,希冀提出一些对我国高职院校兼职教师的聘任工作的启示。     

Content-driven Faculty Development in Community College Early Childhood Education Programs

Community colleges are key providers of early childhood teacher and paraprofessional education, and their programs include content knowledge that helps future educators work effectively with young children with and without disabilities in inclusive environments. In this article, we describe the Advancing Community College Efforts in Paraprofessional Training (ACCEPT) Project, a multi-year collaboration to infuse special education content into four North Carolina early childhood workforce education associate degree programs. The goals of the project included creating a climate that fostered and encouraged ongoing community college and university faculty collaboration around the planning, delivery, and assessment of special education content infused within multiple early childhood program courses. Project objectives are presented within the framework employed by Murray (1995, 1998, 1999, 2000) that includes climate, structure, connections with rewards, faculty ownership, colleague support, and perceived value by administrators. Implications for practice include the importance of content, project standards, and faculty ownership.     

The Status of Women and Minorities Among Community College Faculty

This article uses data from the 1993 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty to examine the status of women and minorities among faculty employed at public 2-year colleges nationwide. A variety of outcomes are considered including: employment status, salary, rank, and tenure status. The analyses show that human capital, structural, and market characteristics appear to explain the observed differences in the employment experiences of women and men faculty at public 2-year colleges and some, but not all, of the observed racial/ethnic group differences. When compared with the results of other research, this study suggests fundamental differences in the reward structures for faculty at public 2- and 4-year institutions. Implications of the analyses are discussed.