Susan B. Twombly

Community College Faculty What We Know and Need to Know

This review of existing literature about community college faculty members speculates about why they have received so little scholarly attention, summarizes the nature of existing research, including its methodology and topics, and suggests what else needs to be known about them.

Re-Visioning Leadership in Community Colleges

The authors apply discourse analysis to the images of leadership found in the literature about community and junior colleges, in the context of organizational life cycle theory. They found: (1) the discourse of community college organizational development reinforces the ideology of a specific small group of male writers and (2) the effect of such writing systematically promotes an image of leaders as “commanders,” excluding those who do not fit that image. This favored image, they conclude, is inappropriate for community colleges at the renewal stage of organizational development.

Faculty Life at Community Colleges: The Perspective of Women with Children.

This article explores the dynamics of how female faculty members at 2-year colleges balance the demands of their faculty jobs with motherhood. Results suggest that the community college appears to be a place that offers women the opportunity to balance their interests in teaching at the postsecondary level with the demands of having a family. This is not to say, however, that academic life at the community college is devoid of challenges for women faculty with young children. Some of these challenges include not having enough time, feeling guilty about not being able to give 100% to all of ones roles, concerns about tenure, inequity at work, and inequity at home.

Values, Policies, and Practices Affecting the Hiring Process for Full-Time Arts and Sciences Faculty in Community Colleges

Case studies of three colleges are used to identify the values, policies, and practices that drive the faculty hiring process in community colleges. Commitment to teaching as a primary value results in a preference for individuals with the masters degree, a de-emphasis on the status of degree-granting institution, and a reliance on evidence of teaching skills. Although community colleges advertise nationally, they tend to hire regionally defined broadly.

Dimensions of the Community College Faculty Labor Market

This study uses NSOPF-93 data to identify characteristics of the community college faculty labor market and to assess facultyÕs propensity to retire or change jobs. The authors conclude that retirements will probably be gradual and that the market fits neither a classic or internal labor market definition. The labor market is, however, well suited to the characteristics of the community college.

International Faculty: Experiences of Academic Life and Productivity in U.S. Universities

Using the 2003 Survey of Doctoral Recipients, we examined satisfaction and research productivity of international faculty as compared to U.S. faculty. The study found that foreign-born, foreign-educated faculty are significantly more productive than their U.S. counterparts after controlling for personal, professional, and institutional variables. No significant difference in the productivity was found between foreign-born U.S.-educated and U.S. faculty. The concentration of international scholars on a campus positively affects productivity for U.S. faculty but not for foreign-born, foreign-educated faculty.

Factors Predicting Community College Faculty Satisfaction with Instructional Autonomy.

In light of growing speculation that the autonomy of community college faculty members is eroding, this study draws on the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty to explore the institutional and personal variables that predict faculty satisfaction with authority to make decisions about content and methods in instructional activities. Results for full-time and part-time faculty members at community colleges are compared, as are the perceptions of community college faculty members with the perceptions of faculty members at 4-year institutions.

Accidental Equity: The Status of Women in the Community College

Community colleges have a high percentage of women students and a higher percentage of women faculty and administrators than do four-year colleges. Yet the extent to which the community college offers an equitable work and study site for women is not clear. The authors seek to determine this by applying to existing literature an adaptation of Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pederson, and Allens framework for examining an institutions climate for diversity. After applying this framework, the authors conclude that women have been an important part of the community college student and employee base since its inception as the junior college, that numerically women are well represented, and that the climate, while not perfect, is relatively good for women. However, they argue that this situation may be due more to accident than to intentional action or behavior on the part of institutional leaders.

Searching for the Next Generation of Teacher Educators: Assessing the Success of Academic Searches

In light of a documented shortage of candidates for teacher education faculty positions, this article explores the academic labor market for teacher education faculty using job announcements from the Chronicle of Higher Education and a survey of search chairs to examine the qualifications sought. The authors conclude that the demand for teacher educators is high and the pool of qualified candidates in less than adequate in terms of number of applicants as well as quality. Ads at all types of institutions favored generalists with a terminal degree and K-12 teaching experience, with research universities predictably searching for research experience. The authors discuss implications of various elements of the search process for schools and colleges of education.

Women Academic Leaders in a Latin American University: Reconciling the Paradoxes of Professional Lives.

This study used interviews with 18 women in positions of academic leadership at the University of Costa Rica to explore such questions as (1) why do women seem to have success attaining positions? (2) how did these women get to their current positions? (3) what obstacles did they meet along the way and what facilitated their journey? (4) what is the relationship of machmismo and institutional culture to womens professional choices and lives? A secondary purpose of the study was to provide insight into the lives of professional Latin American women, about which little is known. Traditional Western theories used to explain womens careers lead to the conclusion that Costa Rican women are oppressed and discriminated against in their quest for academic careers. An intepretivist framework focusing on the meaning women give to their lives suggests a different conclusion. Comparing themselves to women in the larger society, academic women described themselves as leading privileged lives in which rules are gender blind and women can achieve through hard work and dedication.