Latina Faculty at Community Colleges

• In Event: Latina/o Voices in Higher Education: New Perspectives Throughout the Pipeline

Abstract

Across the nation, 40 percent of undergraduate students attend our community colleges (NCES, 2009), with Latina/o students constituting the largest population among minority student enrollment at community colleges (Education Longitudinal Study, 2002). Furthermore, Latino/a students are far more likely to be enrolled in two-year colleges than any other racial or ethnic group (NCES, 2009). Similar to the student representation, Latina faculty represent a higher share of the full-time faculty representation at community colleges than their counterparts at 4-year universities (Perna, 2003). Despite these findings, research continues to focus on the unique experiences of Latino/a students, yet little is known about the experiences of the Latina full-time faculty who teach, prepare and empower them for better educational opportunities, and for life.

Research on Latina faculty and their experiences in higher education is emergent and extremely limited. The current literature focuses solely on the qualitative experiential accounts of Latina faculty at 4-year universities (Arriola, 2012; Lugo-Lugo, 2012; Monforti, 2012; Montero-Sieburth, 1996; Riva-Holly, 2012); however, not much is known about the experiences of their counterparts at 2-year institutions. To date, the research is non-existent about the status and experiences of Latina faculty in community colleges. This study explores this phenomenon and is guided by these research questions: 1) the influences that shape their decision to teach at a 2-year college rather than a 4-year university, 2) barriers faced in their academic positions, 3) how they seek support to navigate through those challenges, and, 4) the various roles that they perform within and outside the classroom.

The conceptual framework of this study is informed by the integration of two theories. First, multiracial feminism (Zinn & Thorton, 1994), a multifaceted political movement that was formally developed into a theory, is utilized to directly challenge the myth that all women faculty share universal oppressions in their academic life (Harris & Gonzalez, 2012; Niemann, 2012; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2002; Turner, 2002). Multiracial feminism fractures this assumption (Lerum, 2012) and critically underscores that the ethnic, racial and socioeconomic differences between those of white female faculty and Latina faculty result in different lived experiences. Second, this study also considers the social analytical framework (Lee, 2003), which utilizes social capital as it relates to academic promotion and achieving tenure within the context of community colleges (Cox, 2008; Perna, 2003; Townsend & LaPaglia, 2000; Twombly & Townsend, 2008; Wolf-Wendel, Ward & Twombly, 2007). When the intersections of race and gender are critically incorporated into the analyses of academic work for Latina faculty at community colleges, themes of opportunities, oppression and agency will emerge.

In this qualitative study, purposeful and snowball sampling will be used to select full-time Latina faculty working in California community colleges as participants. Bringing the perspectives of Latina faculty at 2-year institutions to the forefront validates not only their presence in the academe, but also celebrates their work as professional educators. Findings from this study can serve as the blueprint for college administrators, providing insights for them to design policy in order to support their Latina faculty.

Author

• Truc HaMai, CSULB