Community College Faculty - Statistical Data Included

Black Issues in Higher Education, August 17, 2000 by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Though pursuing research can be difficult at two-year colleges, many scholars of color are drawn by the opportunities to teach an increasingly diverse student population

COLUMBUS, GA.

Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Marilyn Howard fit the classic profile of the community college student. A first-generation college student from a working-class family, Howard did well all through elementary and secondary school, but lacked academic guidance or traditional preparation for higher education. It was not until she attended Columbus State Community College here, then a technical institute, that Howard was able to tap into her intellectual potential and, in the process, gain a lifelong appreciation for the two-year school.

Today, Howard is the picture-book community college professor. She thrives on mentoring students from diverse and nontraditional backgrounds as they develop their talents and discover their niche. And she is dedicated to life in the classroom.

"I wanted to teach," says Howard, who is a history professor at Columbus State.

"I like to do research and I like to write, but I think of myself as a teacher. The community college is one of the last bastions of teaching in higher education."

Like many of the nation's minority faculty, Howard, who is African American, was drawn to a career on a two-year campus because of her own experiences as a student, the comfort of the diverse environment and, ultimately, her belief in the open-access mission on which community colleges are built.

Although there is conflicting data about just how many faculty of color make their professional homes at two-year institutions, community colleges have long attracted African American, Hispanic and American Indian academics. Drawn by the diversity of the student body, the employment opportunities and the potential for gaining experience in the classroom, many professors of color begin their higher education careers at two-year schools.

A POPULAR LAUNCH PAD

A recent study on faculty at public community colleges, commissioned by the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington, D.C., asserts that about a third of minority faculty in all of higher education and some 44 percent of the part-time ranks are employed at two-year schools.

Tronie Rifkin, of the Evaluation and Training Center in Los Angeles, authored the study. She argues that until recently, "community colleges were more likely than other sectors to employ women and minorities as members of the faculty." Recently, however, "the supposed lead that community colleges had in the proportion of minorities that teach at their institutions is shrinking," she writes.

This new trend is attributed, in part, to more aggressive efforts by universities to diversify their ranks. While nearly one in five new faculty hires at research and doctorate degree-granting institutions are identified as people who come from racially or ethnically under-represented groups, the latest federal statistics indicate that just 15 percent of those hired at community colleges are faculty of color.

But it is generally agreed that many two-year schools, particularly those in urban areas and diverse suburbs, appear to be well ahead of their four-year counterparts in creating a diverse professorial corps.

Surveys have echoed the reasons highlighted by Howard.

"The missions of teaching and service are attractive to minority faculty," says Ronald Opp, an associate professor of education at the University of Toledo who has studied community college faculty. "Community colleges are attracting more students of color, and, in turn, that attracts more faculty of color."

Opp points out that the requirements to teach at two-year institutions -- generally a master's degree -- draw minority faculty who cannot or choose not to seek a doctorate in their discipline. That goes for their White colleagues as well.

In 1997, for example, about two-thirds of full-time faculty in public community colleges held master's degrees, while just one-fifth had earned doctorates. The percentages are nearly the opposite at their four-year counterparts.

But, like Howard, many faculty members with the qualifications to pursue work at senior-level institutions still opt for community college positions. Not diverted by the seeming greater prestige afforded their four-year colleagues, many faculty of color say they have found their passion at the two-year institutions.

Several years ago, like many of her peers beginning careers in cancer research, Dr. Nouna Bakhiet had to decide whether to go to work in industry or at a university laboratory. While she was completing her postdoctoral work at a research center in La Jolla, Calif., Bakhiet decided to gain some experience and extra income teaching introductory biology courses at a community college nearby.

"I fell in love with the system," says Bakhiet, now a professor at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif. "I was drawn to the all-teaching environment and the flexibility to do research as well." She has since been driven by her desire to help prepare undergraduates early for life in the lab. As part of a program sponsored in part by the National Institutes of Health, she introduces biology and chemistry majors to research techniques much earlier than they would experience them otherwise.