|
QUICK CLICKS: |
Table of Contents |
|
The DialogueQuestion:
To begin, it is important to consider the charge of community college faculty. First and foremost, the faculty of two-year colleges are teachers, to a much greater extent than their counterparts at four-year colleges. Day after day, community college faculty are responsible for creating environments where knowledge comes to life. In the process, they face challenges as great as those met by professionals in any field. For the sake of comparison, choose a profession other than college teaching—law or medicine, say—and ask yourself the same question posed here. Should these professionals have a solid background in their fields? For example, would you hire a lawyer with no training in the law or the art of advocacy? Would you visit a physician with no background in anatomy or physiology? In this light, it seems absurd to hire a teacher with no training in the art and science of teaching. But colleges are often left without a choice. Many searches produce no candidates with credentials in education. When this happens, I see no reason to favor M.A.s over Ph.D.s. I trust none of us would have become educators if we did not believe more education is generally better than less education. On the other hand, if all the candidates for a position hold master’s degrees in a given field, those with terminal degrees in education should be favored over those with Ph.D.s in a subject. Similarly, if all the candidates hold bachelor’s degrees in a discipline, and the contest is between those with M.A.s or M.Ed.s, the M.Ed.s are the sensible choice. * Chad Hanson teaches sociology at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau, Wisconsin, and is a member of the Northcentral Technical College Faculty Association's executive committee.
The mission of the community college is to provide an increasingly diverse and growing student population open-access to a variety of educational opportunities, including developmental, vocational, collegiate and community education programs. Maintaining the diversity of community college faculty is crucial to fulfilling this mission. How to maintain a diverse faculty is also an issue that looms large as two-year institutions face the dilemma of having over 80 percent of full-time faculty retire over the next two decades. The replacement of retiring faculty must be seen as an opportunity for institutional diversification and renewal. But this opportunity will be missed if the pool of faculty replacement candidates is limited by an adherence to an archaic view of credential structuring, such as the preferential hiring of candidates who hold the M.A. or Ed.D. over ones who hold the Ph.D. Qualified candidates for a community college faculty position should possess not only the knowledge required for the area of instruction, but also evidence of pedagogical preparedness, an understanding of teaching and learning styles, and a commitment to student success. Community college faculty recruitment efforts should focus on these qualifications, to ensure that students are best served and the mission of the institution is fulfilled. Students, after all, enter our classrooms not to evaluate our credentials, but to gain knowledge and skills to help them negotiate a diverse and changing world. * Linda Allen is an assistant professor of anthropology at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She also chairs the campus Academic Diversity and General Education Assessment Committees. Where Do You Stand? Send comments to CLehane@nea.org. You can also discuss the issue on the NEA higher ed Web site at www.nea.org/he. |
