A Study On The Development Of Part-Time Faculty In American Community Colleges

In recent years, as the access to mass higher education, higher vocational education gain a great development by the support of national policies in our country. And it becomes a hot topic in education. Because its fostering aim is to train high technical talents for society, hiring part-time faculty to develop students' practical ability is popular in most vocational colleges. In some districts the number of part-time faculty even makes up one third of all teaching staff. However, the practice of these colleges is not protected by law. We do not lay out any rules and specifications on the hiring and using of part-time faculty in any education code. This leads to no regulations to obey when hiring part-timers, and no guarantee of part-timers' rights and interests. Thus, no formal legal status, and the development of part-time faculty is little concerned.Stones from other mountains can be made into jade. The American community college is a good model of higher vocational education in the world. It has a long history and rich experience in using part-time faculty, we can use it for reference.American community colleges have been using part-time faculty since its establishment. Colleges' scale and function restricted the development of its adjuncts then. But after the Second World War, especially since 1960s to 1970s, American community colleges has increasingly used adjuncts in large scale. Influential factors include internal reasons: the accomplishment of colleges' missions,the changing of colleges' students,the richness of colleges' function,the changing of colleges' courses and the aging of colleges' full-time faculty; external reasons: the influence of federal policy,the pressure from decreasing budget,the development of academic profession , etc .Based on all these, people all realized that part-time faculty had become an important part of American community colleges as well as of American higher education, it is impossible to decrease or dispel this group in the coming decades. So discussions focus on how to use part-timers efficiently.Recruitment is the procedure to ensure the quality of part-time faculty. From the historical perspective, this paper explores the development of recruiting methods and procedures of part-time faculty in American community colleges, and find that the recruitment of part-time faculty is difficult to compare with full-timers, the procedure is more simple, the recruitment is not always under plan but in emergency. Because of many reasons, newly employed part-time faculty cannot work at full capacity, the professional development of this group appears to be essential. The orientation,development,integration and evaluation of part-time faculty in each American community college is different in form and content. In a word, the development of part-time faculty in community colleges is less cared and less resources-providing than of full-time faculty.The paper followed by a compared study of part-time and full-time faculty in stipend and benefits. We find even with the same qualification and experience, part-time faculty can earn only one third to two third of full-time faculty when they teaches the same courses with full-time faculty. The status of part-time faculty is at the bottom. Ironically, in spite of the problems they play a very important role in community colleges as well as in American higher education.In the last part of this paper, a summary of American Community Colleges' experience and lessons is given in using part-time faculty. And considering the problems that appeared in American community colleges, we point out several questions to which the higher vocational colleges in our country should pay attention when they want to use part-time faculty rationally and effectively. That is, to use part-time faculty on the essential needs of education, but not the seeking of expenditure reduction; To use part-time faculty of high efficiency, colleges should reinforce the support and orientation of part-time faculty while they give emphasis on the management of part-time faculty; To improve the benefits of part-time faculty, colleges should make a specification that part-time faculty should take some responsibilities besides teaching in contract.