Mitchell R. Williams

The Reliance on and Demand for Adjunct Faculty Members in America’s Rural, Suburban, and Urban Community Colleges

Drawing on a survey of chief academic officers at 347 community colleges nationwide, this study examined the impact of institutional type (rural, suburban, urban) on reliance on and demand for adjunct faculty members. Findings indicated that rural institutions rely less on adjuncts, whereas both rural and urban institutions report high levels of unmet demand within specific disciplines.

Challenges Facing Rural Community Colleges: Issues and Problems Today and Over the Past 30 Years

For over 30 years, researchers and practitioners have identified challenges unique to small, rural community colleges. The purpose of this study was to examine the distinctive problems facing rural community colleges today and the challenges those institutions must address to fulfill their mission in rural America. There are 5 current challenges commonly identified by 10 rural community college administrators in Kansas: technology use, grant writing, an evolving student population and corresponding changes to the mission, funding inequalities between institutions, and hiring qualified people. Identified challenges were compared with problems described in the literature from the last 30 years.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ENROLLMENT AS A FUNCTION OF ECONOMIC INDICATORS

This study investigated the ability of national economic trends to predict enrollment in community colleges. Data from government documents and source books were used in a correlational analysis to explore the relationship between the national economy and enrollment in community colleges. The results indicated that Unemployment Rate, Gross Domestic Product, Dollars Disposable Income, and Personal Consumption Expenditures are good indicators of trends in community college enrollment. The Consumer Price Index and the Average Hourly Earnings of Production Workers were not significantly correlated to Total Enrollment or to Per Capita Community College Enrollment.

Community College Student Success Courses: The Student Perspective

This study explores student success courses from the student perspective to answer three questions: What topics do students find the most useful? What teaching methods do the students find most helpful? How can these courses be customized to better serve the students? The purpose of this study is to interview students from a number of community colleges, exploring these topics from the student perspective with the goal of orientation course enhancement. Although students reported the skills and information provided in these orientations classes to be useful, the usefulness of specific topics varied according to the precollege preparation of each student. The authors offer suggestions for creating specialized orientation programs and courses to fit the needs of the diverse community college population.