The contradictory faculty: Part-time faculty at community colleges

Abstract

Because of community colleges' diverse motivations for hiring part-time faculty, the multiple and at times conflicting missions of various two-year institutions, and the heterogeneity of part-timers themselves, contradictory descriptions of part-time faculty are found in the literature. This study sought to unify contradictory categorizations of part-time faculty in three specific areas: the general demographics of part-time faculty; the existence of a bifurcated or dual faculty labor market in community colleges; and satisfaction of part-time faculty. The study was a quantitative analysis of community college faculty data from both the 1993 and 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. Given the evidence that community colleges are increasingly globalized institutions, the study sought to discover if part-time faculty could be better conceptualized in terms of temporary labor in the New Economy. Therefore, two-year faculty were disaggregated into seven groups based on college mission and relative employment opportunities outside of academe. It is argued that a gulf exists for temporary labor in the New Economy. Some temporary labor is valued by the institutions that hire them because of the skill and expertise they bring. This group has numerous options outside of the employing institution to capitalize on their skills and expertise. On the other side of the gulf of temporary labor is the group that does not possess rare, highly-valued skills and abilities. These part-timers do not have numerous opportunities in multiple industries. This lack of employment options causes these part-timers to seek, sometimes desperately so, full-time, stable employment with the institution where they are employed. The findings from this study indicate that these two types of part-timers exist simultaneously on community college campuses and they can be distinguished by the disaggregation employed by this study. The study presented evidence that adds nuance to an understanding of part-time faculty in three areas: demographics, particularly in terms of gender and academic training; labor market conditions, including income, professional development opportunities, conceptions of institutional employment, and the status and sector of outside employment; and satisfaction with the demands and rewards of part-time employment.