Research On The Management Of Part-Time Faculty In California Community Colleges In America

One of the characteristics of American community colleges is that they have a part-timefaculty-based teaching team.Since the American community colleges were established,they have already started to hire part-time faculty.After developing and exploring for over a hundred years,the management of part-time faculty in American community colleges is becoming increasingly perfect.In other words,the scientific management of part-time faculty has promoted the continuous development of American community colleges.The management of part-time faculty consists of four aspects: employment,training,salary and treatment as well as evaluation.The part-time faculty can not only solve the problem of current shortage of China’s vocational teaching staff,but also make up the full-time teachers’ weakness of practical teaching.However,only managing these part-time faculty in a scientific and effective way can help to promote a continuous development and to increasingly perfect the school’s management mechanism.Hence,studying the part-time faculty management in American community colleges will be of great reference significance for the improvement of part-time faculty management in vocational schools in China,especially in the higher vocational colleges.The United States is a state autonomous country,the management of part-time faculty in each state is different.California has a relatively larger number of community colleges in America,and the colleges have maintained a vibrant vitality.As the number of California community colleges is increasing and the scale are expanding,the part-time faculty team is also expanding and the management of the part-time faculty is improving day by day.This paper is based on the study of the general situation of the California community colleges.It reviews the history of the development of the part-time faculty management from a historical perspective.Meanwhile,it makes an in-depth analysis on part-time faculty in community colleges from the following four aspects: employment,training,salary and treatment as well as evaluation.The study shows that California community colleges has distinctive features in part-time faculty’s employment,including the openness and transparency in employment information,flexibility in employment standard,and the clearness in job responsibilities.California community colleges also pay attention to the training of part-time faculty by carrying out the pre-job training and the targeted training,utilizing the network platform to train,handing out the part-time faculty handbook to ensure their professional development.In terms of the salary and the treatment for the part-time faculty,California is gradually improving the salary level for them,guaranteeing their welfare with legislation,the management also committed to improve the office environment to improve their sense of belonging to the part-time work.The evaluation of the California community colleges part-timefaculty shows that the subject of the evaluation is pluralistic,the evaluation content is multi-dimensional and the evaluation results are multi-functional,this forms a relatively perfect part-time faculty evaluation mechanism.Although the management of part-time faculty in California community colleges is comparatively mature,there are still some relative problems,such as the lack of part-time faculty teaching qualification requirements,the imbalance between the use and the development of the part-time faculty,the problem of pursuing interest for the part-time faculty and the imperfect incentive mechanism.In order to further study on the management of part-time faculty in California community colleges,this paper takes the Santa Monica Community College as a typical case,making a detailed research on the operating mechanism of the part-time faculty management of Santa Monica Community College.Based on the study of the part-time faculty management in California community colleges,the corresponding strategies and suggestions for the management of part-time faculty in higher vocational schools in China were put forward.Specifically,the government should give a correct guidance and play an active role in the part-time faculty management.The employment mechanism of part-time teachers in higher vocational colleges should be consummated,the level of salary and relative treatment for these part-time faculty should be improved,and a set of evaluation system for these part-time faculty should be established as well.