Adjunct Faculty in Community Colleges: An Academic Administrator's Guide to Recruiting, Supporting, and Retaining Great Teachers

Community College Review, Fall, 2005 by Clifford P. Harbour

Adjunct Faculty in Community Colleges: An Academic Administrator's Guide to Recruiting, Supporting, and Retaining Great Teachers Desna L. Wallin (Ed.). Anker Publishing: Bolton, MA. 2005, 227 pages. $39.95, Cloth, ISBN 1-882982-81-9.

Desna L. Wallin's book, Adjunct Faculty in Community Colleges." An Academic Administrator's Guide to Recruiting, Supporting, and Retaining Great Teachers, provides campus leaders with a new resource to improve institutional practice regarding employment of part-time faculty. This work is an edited volume published by Anker in 2005 and is comprised of 13 chapters written by community college presidents, academic administrators, faculty, and university researchers.

Community colleges are facing new challenges in the 21st century because of budgetary constraints, looming retirements in the faculty and leadership ranks, demands for new curricula and delivery modalities, and a student population that is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. These developments mean public two-year institutions must become more efficient and effective in providing educational programs and services to their communities. Many institutions have realized new efficiencies through increased use of adjunct faculty. Wallin's goal in publishing Adjunct Faculty in Community Colleges is to explain how campus leaders can now become more effective in selecting, developing, supporting, and retaining this critical human resource.

Wallin has organized the volume in three parts. Part One presents Wallin's excellent overview of the text, and this overview is supplemented by research reported by university scholars. Akroyd and Caison report on their analysis of recent data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. They describe how adjunct faculty compare with their full-time counterparts on factors such as demographics and job satisfaction. This work is complemented by research findings presented by Phillips and Campbell regarding faculty development at Florida's community colleges. Results from these two studies paint a picture of important similarities and differences concerning adjunct faculty and their full-time colleagues.

Akroyd and Caison's comparison of adjunct and full time instructors reveals that the two populations are quite similar regarding (a) age, gender, and academic qualifications, and (b) overall job satisfaction. But there are important differences in how these two populations perceive job security, advancement opportunities, and benefits. Adjunct faculty are significantly less satisfied with these aspects of their employment. To date, these lower levels of satisfaction have not significantly affected community colleges. Institutions have been able to replace departing adjuncts with new ones. However, Akroyd and Caison's research suggests practitioners should not overlook the possibility that a dissatisfied adjunct faculty could have serious implications for institutional stability.

Phillips and Campbell report on a statewide survey of mathematics and communications faculty at Florida community colleges regarding the value of certain professional development activities. These authors found that adjunct and full-time faculty agreed that new faculty orientation programs were a very valuable professional development activity. However, they differed, for example, on the importance of (a) travel money, (b) on campus workshops, and (c) access to professional development materials in the college library. The first two items were characterized as very valuable by full-time faculty but less so by adjuncts. Conversely, adjuncts regarded access to on campus professional development materials as more valuable than did their full-time counterparts.

These two chapters provide a sound introduction to critical similarities and differences to be considered by campus leaders working to improve the selection, development, support, and retention of adjuncts. In Parts Two and Three of the book, Wallin's contributors explain how these practices may be initiated or improved.

In Part Two, three sets of authors--Lyons, Gadberry and Burnstad, and Villadson and Anderson--offer helpful suggestions on how community colleges may select and retain quality adjunct faculty. Gadberry and Bumstad provide example documents that may be used in the application and screening process. Villadson and Anderson provide a fine overview of how a Texas community college systematically works to recruit and retain adjunct faculty. Lyons specifically addresses the issue of retention and proposes a model for integrating adjuncts into the culture of the college. Lyons explains how faculty and staff at one institution methodically reviewed the literature on adjunct faculty, conducted their own needs assessment survey, and then used these findings to develop a culture that used mentoring, social activities, and information resources to incorporate adjuncts into the daily life of the institution.

In Part Three, Wallin's contributors focus on the opportunities to develop and support adjunct faculty through technology and other means. Kauffman and Wagoner offer two very different but illuminating accounts of how adjuncts may be developed by online resources. Kauffman describes how a cohort of California community colleges collaborated to build 4faculty.org, an online professional development network designed to provide faculty with access to professional development modules. Kauffman found that although online resources like 4faculty.org are valuable to all faculty, adjuncts are especially well served when they can continue their development in a setting accommodating their irregular schedules. Wagoner's case study of a Florida community college and its online adjunct training environment shows how integration of adjuncts into the campus culture may be obtained by providing these faculty with access to the Internet, college e-mail, and web-based discussion boards. However, the author's account of the financial hurdles in maintaining such an endeavor confirms that even the best ideas may be set aside without dedicated revenue. Part Three also contains other informative chapters.