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They're Talking on Campus.... . .About a Court ruling in Washington that says part-time faculty in the state’s community colleges can count the work they do outside the classroom toward their retirement benefits. The court held that the colleges must count, in addition to class time, the hours part-timers spend preparing, advising, and grading, when determining their eligibility for retirement benefits. The ruling could pave the way for part-timers throughout the state to receive benefits they had previously been denied. . . .About the nation’s colleges and universities hiring part-time faculty at twice the rate of full-time faculty. The U.S. Department of Education report, Fall Staff in Postsecondary Institutions, 1997, notes that 24,508 of the 35,591 faculty hired between 1995 and 1997 were hired to teach part-time. Full-time faculty were only 35 percent of the teaching staff at community, technical, and junior colleges in 1997, the latest year with available data. The complete report is available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000164. . . .About a decline in the College freshman dropout rate for the third year in a row. The 1997 dropout rate at four-year institutions was 25.9 percent, according to ACT, Inc. But the rate at which undergraduates complete their degrees is the bad news: It’s at an all-time low. More at www.act.org/news/. |
