The Contingency Professor, the Tenured Professor, and the Generalist: Life as a Community College Political Scientist

Abstract

An academic career at a community college is in a number of ways quite different from a career at a four-year university. From the emphasis on teaching and pedagogy to the absence of the “publish or perish” imperative (at least in most parts of the country), community college professors often navigate an array of challenges different from those navigated by university professors. Indeed, this is certainly the case with political scientists at community colleges. In this article, I address two important issues that are common in academic life at the two-year institution: (1) the role of contingency faculty and the transition from that to full-time/tenured status and (2) the importance of teaching across the subfields in political science at the two-year level.

Keywords:

• Teaching
• community colleges
• adjunct faculty

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter J. Bowman

Peter J. Bowman is Professor of Political Science at Palomar College (CA), where he has taught since 2004. He has taught at the community college level for 23 years and has won or been a finalist for numerous faculty service and teaching awards. Professor Bowman has authored or coauthored articles on topics such as former Soviet foreign policy in the Middle East, testing the Democratic Peace Proposition, and comparing parliamentary democracies in party systems and issue dimensions.