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Table of Contents: Community College Historians in the United States |
Community Colleges and Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty
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Community colleges have been appropriately described as "democracy's colleges," because they are part of the great democratization movement of U.S. higher education that began in 1901 and exploded in the past three decades.(1) The number of community colleges mushroomed in the 1960s and 1970s. Although many of these were junior and technical colleges, the trend was to favor community colleges--"multipurpose" or "comprehensive" institutions offering the first two years of the four-year undergraduate degree, vocational programs, certificate programs, and varied continuing-education programs. Today there are more than 1,100 public and private community colleges (1,581, including branch campuses), serving more than 5.2 million students taking credit classes and an additional 5 million taking noncredit courses. These more than 10 million students encompass 46 percent of all first-year students in higher education. Although the media-driven stereotype of the community college is a small, rural institution of, say, two thousand students, the reality is that most community colleges are larger than the typical liberal arts college and that many large, urban colleges (such as Miami-Dade Community College, the City College of San Francisco, or the Community College of Philadelphia) house anywhere from 45,000 to 110,000 students--twice as large as the largest private university in the nation. We in the community college world have long prided ourselves on the quality of our institutions, characterized by small classes, an excellent, committed teaching faculty, and solid academic programs. For many of us the transfer function is the driving mission of the community college, the defining function that helped us to hire appropriate faculty, craft a curriculum, and empower students to launch themselves into fulfilling and meaningful academic lives and careers. About 24 percent of community college students transfer to four-year colleges and universities--a constant and impressive figure, particularly considering the many reasons students choose to attend community colleges. The Community College Humanities Association (CCHA) is dedicated to strengthening the humanities in community colleges, a goal that fully supports the collegiate function. Strong transfer programs are at the heart of this endeavor: to preserve or strengthen the number of credits required for degrees, to increase course offerings, to add faculty, to provide a coherent and sequenced curriculum, and to provide opportunities for faculty development, including the goals of pursuing scholarship and research in the disciplines. An important goal has been to maintain or implement strong history requirements as a key component of the general education curriculum. New Challenges to the Humanities But now there are new challenges to the humanities, including history, in community colleges. There is a new emphasis on vocationalism ("work first," the impact of the Welfare Reform Act) and on the factory or corporate model of student training ("just enough, just in time"). Although some educators stress the "ladder" approach--whereby students obtain short-term training that leads to jobs and then, at a later point in their careers, they return to college to complete associate and baccalaureate degrees--others argue that the new vocationalism works to reduce student expectations, weaken the general education curriculum, and shift college resources to temporary and short-term programs. In addition, new approaches to credentialing students--including some approaches that employ new technologies in inappropriate ways and other approaches that are driven by bottom-line economies--threaten the viability of humanities education in community colleges. One of the most serious threats is the dramatic increase in the number of part-time and adjunct faculty at community colleges. In the fall of 1993 there were 103,992 full-time faculty and 185,198 part-time faculty in community colleges. The number of part-time faculty has tripled since 1973. At four-year colleges and universities the number of part-time faculty doubled from 20 percent in the early 1970s to roughly 40 percent in 1993. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics and AACP Policy Documents and Reports of 1995 put the adjunct/part-time ratio at 38 percent for four-year colleges and universities and 64 percent at two-year colleges; the AACP lists the two-year rate at 52 percent, National Education Association (NEA) at 55 percent, the American Council on Education (ACE) at 64 percent. At least three interrelated factors have driven up the numbers of adjunct faculty at community colleges. There has always been a need for specialized faculty in a wide range of disciplines and fields--the lawyer who teaches part-time in the paralegal program; the real estate agent who teaches part-time in the real estate program; the diplomat's spouse who teaches in the foreign language program. But in the humanities the part-time faculty member was more often than not the aspiring young professional, the graduate student or new Ph.D. seeking experience and ultimately a full-time job. The need for scheduling flexibility was determined by budget or FTE-driven (full-time equivalent) course enrollments and schedules. Courses that enrolled a minimum number of students could be quickly and easily staffed. If enrollments were insufficient, part-time faculty could be easily reassigned or let go. Part-time faculty enabled administrators to make decisions virtually on the first day of classes. We all know the horror stories of adjunct faculty who are informed on the first day of classes that they will not have a class to teach. The absence of contractual obligations to adjunct faculty, who are paid on a fee-per-course system, also provides a scheduling and job cushion for full-time faculty. Most significant, however, has been the declining share of state funds for community colleges. A parallel process has been occurring in university graduate programs, which continue to produce a steady stream of M.A., ABD, and Ph.D. students in order to maintain the graduate enrollments of professors who increasingly opt to emphasize research over teaching (especially introductory level teaching) and to fill teaching slots for introductory courses with graduate assistants. What seemed to begin as a temporary measure--the horrible exploitation of adjunct faculty--has become a permanent, structural part of the community college landscape. As student enrollments increased in the 1970s and 1980s, state funds fell from approximately 50 percent of community college revenues in 1980 to 39 percent in 1994. For the reasons cited above, college administrations and faculty were not alarmed; many embraced the standard wisdom of a number of college presidents and community college experts who trumpeted the news that reliance on part-time faculty was a positive feature of community college staffing. The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) stated in a recent Fact/Profile brochure, "Part-time faculty allow community colleges to keep tuition low, helping fulfill the institutions' mission of maximizing access."(2) Cause for Concern The numbers are dramatic. But what do they mean for community colleges and the humanities? A 1997 survey of the use of adjunct faculty in community colleges by the CCHA shows there is cause for concern. The core disciplines of the humanities, especially history, literature, and philosophy, have not fared well. The complexity of reporting patterns and the fluidity of community college faculty staffing pose problems for assessing the data's reliability. But even a rough calculation of reported returns from approximately 163 colleges in 43 states reveals that in the five-year period from 1991-92 to 1996-97 the number of full-time faculty declined 3 percent in the humanities, while the number of part-time faculty increased a whooping 14 percent! The largest percentage of increases has occurred in English and literature, English as a second language, and remedial courses. But there are also substantial increases in history, philosophy, art history and art, music history and music, and religion. Anomalies stand out. The Community College of Vermont, for example, has always been an exclusively adjunct-faculty institution—it was designed that way. Several states (Colorado, for example) have very high percentages of adjunct faculty. Some states have tried to grapple with the problem. The California legislature approved a bill in 1990 (assembly bill 1725), requiring 75 percent of all course hours to be taught by full-time faculty. Although widely flouted by colleges, this bill seems to have mitigated against the wholesale and widespread increase in the number of part-time faculty. Janice Albert has reported, however, that some departments are privileged over others, so that more than half of the English classes are taught by adjunct faculty at her institution, Chabot College, and that in some key transfer courses, more than 75 percent of courses are adjunct-taught. The excessive reliance on part-time faculty systematically undercuts the very strengths of community college education, especially the empowerment mission of community colleges and the quality of the collegiate function. Part-time faculty are excellent instructors, but they are not integrated into the ongoing activities of the full-time faculty and the life of the institution. Although 133 community colleges report that adjunct faculty are invited to department and faculty meetings, only half this number invite part-timers to serve on committees. Part-time faculty are not available to students for the personal, "open-door" accessibility of community college faculty or for academic advising. At the same time, full-time faculty experience increased work pressures fulfilling the normal functions of their academic departments and college committees. Burdened faculty have less time to advise and consult with students. Everyone loses. The most important impact will be on the curriculum. This is particularly true in the humanities. Adjunct faculty can teach courses, but they cannot shape or maintain a curriculum—a coherent and sequenced set of courses. An engaged and involved full-time faculty is needed to shape and maintain a curriculum. Recommendations for Future Action A number of recommendations for future action are particularly applicable to community colleges. The issue needs to be hotly debated, so that college administrators and boards of trustees, state governments, students, and the public are informed and knowledgeable. The 1997 CCHA survey asked respondents if they were concerned about full-time/part-time faculty ratios. Many respondents expressed concern, but many more did not, accepting the situation as a given. One dean at a Tennessee institution wrote that he was not concerned about the ratio, declaring, "We maintain one of the lower ratios [76 percent!] in our system." State legislators (indeed, all who are responsible for funding for community colleges: students, parents, city, county, and state governments) need to be made aware of the long-term consequences of the excessive use of part-time faculty and the impact on the quality of education. At least two immediate courses of action need to be taken to address the problem: (1) increase the number of full-time, tenured line positions by establishing and enforcing full-time/part-time ratios--perhaps using the California model as a standard; and (2) index part-time salaries to full-time salaries, including the provision of benefits.(3) These actions hinge on a bold affirmation of the importance of undergraduate education and the teaching-learning process and a corresponding increase or reallocation of state and institutional resources. The different sectors of the higher education community must continue to cooperate with each other. Although professional associations have taken a lead (especially the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association, and the American Council of Learned Societies), college faculty on the local level need to continue this momentum. Accreditation bodies need to take bold steps to maintain the quality of general education curriculums as well as the full- to part-time faculty ratios. Accreditation bodies can have an enormous impact on community colleges. Their policies need to change to reflect the aforementioned guidelines. Faculty at all levels of higher education should reaffirm the importance of undergraduate education and the teaching of introductory courses. Faculty involvement with students and student learning is essential, and students need to work with faculty who share collegial commitments and who are dedicated to undergraduate education. If we heed these recommendations, we can rededicate ourselves to reaffirm the quality of "democracy's colleges." Notes 1. "Alternatives to Universities," 1991, quoted in Marlene Griffith and Ann Connor, Democracy's Open Door: The Community College in America's Future (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1994). 2. American Association of Community Colleges, Fact/Profile brochure, 1996, p. 10. 3. For a complete statement of the problem as well as a comprehensive set of recommendations for future action, see the "Statement from the Conference on the Growing Use of Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty," based on the September 26-28, 1997, conference in Washington, D.C. This document is available on the American Historical Association's web site at http://www.theaha.org |
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