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ABSTRACT
This essay explores the professional challenges and prejudices faced by faculty with master’s degrees who teach communication at two-year institutions. Teachers with master’s degrees are qualified to teach at two-year institutions, yet the field of communication studies often overlooks their professional development and their specific labor issues. While facing considerable professional challenges, faculty at two-year institutions are at the forefront of changes in higher education, including changes in student demographics. Their unique position presents opportunities to reimagine and revitalize the role of the basic course in civic education. A case study of one teaching program proposes how these challenges and opportunities might be met.
Notes
1 Gail O. Mellow and Cynthia M. Helan, Minding the Dream: The Process and Practice of the American Community College, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).
2 In this essay, I use the term two-year colleges to refer to private and public institutions.
3 National Communication Association [NCA], “What Should a Graduate with a Communication Degree Know, Understand, and Be Able to Do?” 2015, https://www.natcom.org/sites/default/files/publications/LOC_1_What_Should_a_Graduate_with_a_Communication_Degree.pdf.
4 The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, “Definitions,” 2017, http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/definitions.php.
5 American Association of Community Colleges [AACC], “Fast Facts 2017,” June 2017, https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/AACCFactSheet2017.pdf.
6 Jennifer Ma and Sandy Baum, “Trends in Community Colleges: Enrollment, Prices, Student Debt, and Completion,” College Board, April 2016, https://trends.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/trends-in-community-colleges-research-brief.pdf.
7 Ibid.
8 AACC, “Fast Facts 2017.”
9 Ibid.
10 Obama White House Archives, “Building America’s Skills Through Community Colleges,” n.d., https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/White-House-Summit-on-Community-Colleges-Fact-Sheet-100510.pdf.
11 Jolanta Juszkiewick, Trends in Community College Enrollment and Completion Data, 2016 (Washington, DC: American Association of Community Colleges, March 2016), https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/TrendsCCEnrollment_Final2016.pdf.
12 Patricia O’Keefe, “Presidential Address: Transfer—A Convention of Equity and Education,” Western Journal of Communication 79, no. 4 (2015): 509.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Isa N. Engleberg et al., “Communication Education in U.S. Community Colleges,” Communication Education 57, no. 2 (2008): 241–65.
16 Steven A. Beebe, “Our ‘Front Porch,’” Spectra, May 2013, https://ams.natcom.org/uploadedFiles/Teaching_and_Learning/Basic_Course/Defining_the_Basic_Course/Beebe,%202013.pdf.
17 While an M.A. is sufficient to teach at two-year and four-year institutions, depending on the institution, qualifications for lecturers, full-time adjuncts, and tenured or tenure-track faculty may vary.
18 Engleberg et al., “Communication Education in U.S. Community Colleges,” 250.
19 Costs of advertising job openings through NCA channels may be too prohibitive for some community colleges. One way to rectify this barrier would be to offer community colleges reduced rates to advertise through NCA.
20 Engleberg et al., “Communication Education in U.S. Community Colleges.”
21 Anthony A. Miller, “ERIC Review—Back to the Future: Preparing Community College Faculty for the New Millennium,” Community College Review 24, no. 4 (1997): 92.
22 Center for Community College Student Engagement [CCCSE], Contingent Commitments: Bringing Part-Time Faculty into Focus (A Special Report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement) (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Program in Higher Leadership, 2014), https://www.ccsse.org/docs/PTF_Special_Report.pdf.
23 Miller, “ERIC Review—Back to the Future.”
24 O’Keefe, “Presidential Address.”
25 Miller, “ERIC Review—Back to the Future,” 83.
26 Lori E. Zakel and Dianna R. Wynn, “The Future of Communication Education in the Community College,” Journal of the Association for Communication Administration 29, no. 1 (2000): 120–30.
27 O’Keefe, “Presidential Address.”
28 Ibid., 509.
29 NCA, “What Should a Graduate with a Communication Degree Know, Understand, and Be Able To Do?”
30 Ibid., 7.
31 Ibid.
32 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).
33 National Association of College and Employers, “Employers: Verbal Communication Most Important Candidate Skill,” February 24, 2016, http://www.naceweb.org/s02242016/verbal-communication-important-job-candidate-skill.aspx.
34 AACC, “Fast Facts 2017.”
35 Ibid.
36 Eugene Oropeza Fujimoto, “Hiring Diverse Faculty Members in Community Colleges: A Case Study in Ethical Decision Making,” Community College Review 40, no. 3 (2012): 255–74.
37 Ibid.
38 CCCSE, Contingent Commitments.
39 Hara D. Charlier and Mitchell R. Williams. “The Reliance on and Demand for Adjunct Faculty Members in America’s Rural, Suburban, and Urban Community Colleges,” Community College Review 39, no. 2 (2011): 160–80.
40 CCCSE, Contingent Commitments.
41 Carol A. Lundberg, “Peers and Faculty as Predictors of Learning for Community College Students,” Community College Review 42, no. 2 (2014): 79–98.
42 Daniel Jacoby, “Effects of Part-Time Faculty Employment on Community College Graduation Rates,” The Journal of Higher Education 77, no. 6 (2006): 1081–103.
43 Paul Fain, “Low Expectations, High Stakes,” Inside Higher Ed, April 7, 2014, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/07/part-time-professors-teach-most-community-college-students-report-finds.
44 CCCSE, Contingent Commitments.
45 Charlier and Williams, “The Reliance on and Demand for Adjunct Faculty,” 161.
46 Vicki J. Rosser and Barbara K. Townsend, “Determining Public 2-year College Faculty’s Intent to Leave: An Empirical Model,” The Journal of Higher Education 77, no. 1 (2006): 124–47.
47 Denise K. Magner, “The Graying Professoriate,” The Chronicle of Higher Education 46, no. 2 (1999): A18–A19.
48 Sandra Gahn and Susan B. Twombly, “Dimensions of the Community College Faculty Labor Market,” The Review of Higher Education 24, no 3 (2001): 259–82.
49 Miller, “ERIC Review—Back to the Future.”
50 Anita L. Vangelisti, John Augustine Daly, and Gustav W. Freidrich, eds., Teaching Communication: Theory Research, and Methods, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2013); Deanna L. Fassett and John T. Warren, eds., The SAGE Handbook of Communication and Instruction (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010).
51 Deanna P. Dannels, 8 Essential Questions Teachers Ask: A Guidebook for Communicating with Students (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
52 NCA, “What Should a Graduate with a Communication Degree Know, Understand, and Be Able To Do?” 7.
53 NCA, “What Should a Graduate with a Communication Degree Know, Understand, and Be Able To Do?”