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In the KnowThe Nation's Two-Year FacultyAs a new generation of faculty gradually takes over teaching responsibilities on our nation's two-year campuses, researchers find discipline not age determines how courses are taught. The latest report from the 1993 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, Instructional Faculty and Staff in Public 2-year Colleges, examines for the first time differences between subgroups of faculty and staff in community colleges. The analysis compares age, years of experience in current job, and primary teaching discipline to answer questions that arise from the aging of the nation's community college professoriate. The report's principal finding: The emergence of a new generation of community college teachers replacing those who began their careers in the 1960s portends little change in how students are taught. The National Center for Education Statistics surveys the nation's faculty approximately every five years. The latest survey took place in 1999. NCES is continuing to issue reports based on the 1993 survey because data from the 1999 survey will not be available until late 2000. This report, the authors note, offers baseline data that may be used for comparison when the 1999 NSPOF data is released. The new findings suggest little change in approaches to teaching, but there were differences between two-year faculty under the age of 35 and those between 55 and 64. Younger full-time faculty were more likely to hold just a BA degree and more likely to accept the possibility of moving on to a different full-time job. Younger part-time faculty were more likely to have accepted part-time work because full-time work wasn't available. In examining approaches to instruction, researchers found that discipline had a clearer relationship to method of instruction than did age or length of service. Humanities instructors, for example, were more likely than instructors in other disciplines, regardless of part-time or full-time status or length of employment, to use essay exams, assign term papers, or require students to evaluate each other's work. They were also more likely to use discussion, group projects, cooperative learning, and seminars as primary instructional methods. Faculty in the natural sciences were more likely than their colleagues in other disciplines to use lecture as the primary instructional technique and less likely to have used student presentations in class. The NCES report is available at: www.nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000192.
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