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A new study completed by Dr. Daniel Jacoby of the University of Washington, and reported in the Journal of Higher Education, concludes that community college graduation rates decrease as the proportion of part-time faculty employed increases. The study says the dangers of expanding the number of part-time faculty appear to outweigh any benefits. The study reports, as well, on the problems faced by part-time faculty in terms of their conditions of employment.

Full-time and Part-time Faculty - Campus Comparisons

The opening line of the study states, " …Over the past three decades, one of the most significant changes in the delivery of postsecondary education involves the dramatic increase in the use of contingent or part-time faculty".

Full-time faculty are typically on a tenure track or are tenured who work on a full-time basis and are engaged in the many aspects of college academic life. They have an office, a telephone, and office hours in which to meet students. They participate on departmental committees often with a focus on academic issues.

As Jacoby points out, this is not the case for part-time faculty. The practice of part-time faculty hiring is now widely regarded as a consequence of budgetary economies and it can no longer be explained as a limited practice to use a number of experts to enhance the capabilities of existing faculty.

Jacoby points out that the part-time faculty system provides few incentives to foster rich interactions between faculty and students, and that this undermines the campus learning environment. Part-time faculty may be paid by the course or by the class contact hour and often paid proportionately less than their full-time colleagues. Neither system of payment provides the part-time faculty significant incentive to be present or highly involved in the workings of the institution. Part-time faculty may lack phones, offices, mailboxes, and computers which undermine their ability to meet with and advise students. It is clear that there is not a level playing field between full-time and part-time faculty.

Graduation Rates

Jacoby acknowledges that there is controversy about the use of community college graduation rates to measure institutional effectiveness. Graduation rates are lower than those at four-year colleges. This is the result of the multiple missions of community colleges which often do not necessitate graduation to indicate student success. And, community colleges are often open admission institutions whose students are often less prepared than those admitted to four-year institutions.

This study used data from the National Center for Educational Statistics as prepared for the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems (IPEDS). Jacoby argues that this data is the only national data set sufficient for institutional national level analysis of public community college graduation rates. Data for this study are assembled from all 1,209 public two-year colleges in the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico for the year 2001.

The IPEDS graduation rate measures a school’s performance only with regard to full-time first-year students who begin college with the declared intent to seek a degree. As such, it does not reflect part-time students or transfers, nor can it assess progress towards a bachelor’s degree or associate’s degree by students who transfer out. The graduation rate is constructed for those full- time community college students who complete their degree within 150 percent of normal time (three years for community colleges).

Multiple regression analysis was used to test whether graduation rates at public community colleges vary as schools increase their reliance on part-time faculty.

Conclusion

The principal finding from this study is that community college graduation rates decrease as the proportion of part-time faculty employed increases. Jacoby goes on to say that the increasing proclivity of community colleges to hire faculty on part-time and temporary lines makes the findings here especially important. And finally, schools that seek to stretch their instructional dollars by increasing their part-time faculty ratio will find this counterproductive if they are held accountable for higher graduation rates.

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Download: Complete Bulletin. PDF File.