Presented by Jamilah Jones

1. Enhancing Quality of Teaching and Learning in the US: Factors Supporting Involvement and Development of Part-Time Community College Faculty Presented by Jamilah Jones June 15-17, 2009 Golden Sands, Bulgaria

2. Index • Research Purpose • Background • Literature Review • Preliminary Data and Results: • Part A: Teaching Techniques, Engagement and Satisfaction • Implications • Next Steps in Research • Part B: Student Outcomes

3. The Paradox of “Quality” • The community college runs the risk of being unfairly judged in terms of quality because of its open access mission. • 4-year Institutions Measures of Quality: • Prestige • Selectivity • Specialized Curriculum • Research

4. Measures of Quality in the Literature • Determinants of quality at the community college: • Institutional Resources • Instructional and Management Processes • Student Outcomes • Value-Added Impact of Students • Curricular Structure and Emphasis

5. Why include community college faculty(professors) in discussions of quality? • A salient feature in all standard measures of CC quality is faculty. • Faculty (salaries & benefits) are of the largest instructional expenditures • regional accreditation perspective • Shared governance model (decision making, budgeting, and decision making) assumes CC faculty participation • The teaching and learning paradigm is inherently linked to faculty.

6. The Literature on Community College Faculty – Exposing the Gap • Investigating leading peer-reviewed US journals of Higher Education • 30 articles published on the community college • 3 articles (14%) addressed CC faculty as a central theme • Investigating leading peer-reviewed US journals on Community Colleges (Twombly & Townsend, 2008) • 777 Articles on the community college • Of those only, 11% discuss faculty as a central theme

7. The literature on Community College Faculty • The utilization of part-time faculty is both a product and mandate of the open access mission of the community college. • Industry needs lend to utilizations of industry professionals on a part time basis • The use of part-time faculty at the community college is expected to continue to grow. • Part-time (adjunct) faculty currently account for 2/3rd of all US instructional faculty in the community college • Teaching roughly 1/3rd of all classes

8. Literature Continued • Those studies geared at part-time community college faculty have largely focused on characteristics, satisfaction, working conditions, and suggestions for improving integration (Banachowski, G., 1996, Eagan, 2007; Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Jacoby, D., 2005; Townsend & Twombly, 2007; Valdez & Anthony, 2001). • Studies that move beyond understanding general characteristic of community college part-time faculty, and seek to examine how the terms of their terms of employment affect student outcomes, are necessary.

9. Literature Continued. • A few recent of part-time community college faculty negatively affect student success as measured by attrition, and success in sequential courses. (Burgess & Samuels, 1999; Jacoby, 2006 and Jaeger & Eagan, 2009). • What these studies do not measure are “the specific mechanism by which reliance on part-time faculty reduces student graduation rates” (Jacoby, 2006, p. 1098).

10. This Study • Purpose: This study will investigate three variable of part-time faculty use at the community college, as potential mechanisms by which student outcomes are affected: • Teaching Techniques • Level of Engagement with the Institution • Satisfaction

11. Conceptual Framework Part A: 2009 ENGAGEMENT ENGAGEMENT Part B: 2010 Student Outcomes

12. Purpose – Part A. • Our goal in this portion of the research project is to identify the prevalent teaching and student engagement initiatives and the factors that support their use by part-time community college faculty.

13. Process/Methodology • Single institution study • Carnegie Classification: Associate’s –Public Suburban-serving Single Campus • Campus Setting: Rural: Distant • Title IV Participating Institution • Non-residential • Quantitative Study • Survey: Delivered Electronically to all part-time faculty

14. About Northwest State Community College (NSCC) • 77 acres, 5 buildings • Programs: • Associates of Arts, Science, Applied Business, and Applied Science • Accreditation by NCACS • Student Populations: 5,543 (73% - PT: 27%-FT) • Tuition: $136/ credit hour • Employees : FT Faculty -39, PT Faculty 156 , Staff - 233

15. Northwest State Community College Service Area Counties: Williams, Defiance, Paulding, Van Wert, Putnam, Henry, Fulton

16. Educational Attainment of Service Area* Μ=12.91% *US Census data: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html, accessed 5/27/2009

17. Preliminary Case Study Data from Surveyed Part Time Faculty at Northwest State Community College

18. Descriptive 1: Degree Attainment

19. Descriptive 2: Teaching Experience

20. Descriptive: Gender

21. Descriptive: Division/College

22. Descriptive: Cross-Tab, Division/Longevity

23. Descriptive: Cross Tab, Feedback from Dean/Longevity

24. Descriptive: Cross Tab, Value and Appreciated/ Longevity

25. Conclusions • Part-time faculty will be needed in the future. • For the sake of quality, we must do a better job of assessing our part-time faculty. • We must support, at the institutional level, maintain part-time faculty enthusiasm and satisfaction, while also arming them with the necessary tools and teaching techniques. • The most inexperienced faculty are potentially at the most risk of isolation • They report that there teaching is not being assess by senior faculty/deans(these reason should be explored)