The impact of the preponderance of part-time faculty on the mission of the community college.

Abstract

Increasing demand coupled with declining resources make it impossible for community colleges to realize their comprehensive mission without employing part-time faculty. This study examined the impact of the part-time faculty upon the mission of the community college by interviewing board members, administrators, national experts, and by surveying full-time and part-time faculty. Empirical data were gathered regarding load and student credit hours generated in each mission function by part-time and full-time faculty. Financial allocations associated with salary were reviewed. Responses from those interviewed were determined to be imbedded in four themes: position within the organization, the concept of "appropriateness," mission support activities other than teaching, and the personal goals of faculty. Experts, board members and administrators indicated that the use of part-time faculty was more acceptable in some mission functions than in others. They endorsed the use of part-timers in the community/continuing education and occupational/career functions but they had strong reservations about their use in the transfer function. They indicated that while part-timers had limited impact on the counseling/guidance function they had strong impact on the remedial/developmental, occupational/career, and community/ continuing education functions. Intergroup faculty responses were more divergent. For all mission functions, the full-timers indicated that part-timers had less impact than part-timers indicated for themselves. Based on direct instruction, the empirical data evidenced that the impact of part-time faculty varied with the mission function. Ranked from least to greatest part-time faculty impact, the mission functions were: counseling/guidance; community-continuing education; general education; academic transfer; occupational/career; and, most heavily impacted, remedial/developmental. Financial data affirmed that the use of part-time faculty had saved millions of dollars and that it costs two-and-one-half times as much for a full-timer to generate one credit hour of instruction as it does for a part-timer. Full-time and part-time faculty did not differ greatly in their goals for teaching students. However, full-timers placed higher intrinsic value on participation in collegial activities than did part-timers.