The Community College Problem of 'Part-Time': Faculty & Students

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Now SCUPers can connect on Facebook and on LinkedIn.

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SCUP Ad: Join a related SCUP Virtual Conversation (audiocast) on Wednesday, December 9 at 1 pm Eastern time. (Free to SCUP members, only $49 to others.) It's based on a recent article from Planning for Higher Education with the same title, Intellectual Entrepreneurship: An Authentic Foundation for Higher Education Reform by Gary D. Beckman and Richard A. Cherwitz, which is a call to engage both faculty and students and empower them to become change agents. More about the audiocast here.

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Each year, the information coming from CCSSE (Community College Survey of Student Engagement) brings more understanding about student engagement and the related efforts of college and university leadership. This year, the focus is on, among other things, the influence of "part-time": Meaning part-time faculty and part-time students. Data brings up the question expressed here, as shared in an Inside Higher Ed article:

'We should be acknowledging the elephant in the room,'McClenney said. 'Disengaged faculty doesn’t change students. We hire part-time faculty almost exclusively under the understanding that we’re just paying them to show up for three hours in a classroom. Why is that? Is it possible to hire adjunct faculty with a different set of expectations, including that they participate in professional development and other services? What I don’t have are glib, easy answers, but the survey does raise these questions.'

Here's the entire 2009 report, Making Connections: Dimensions of Student Engagement (PDF).