Sitting on a Powder Keg: Faculty Experiences Inside a Former Community College

• In Event: 60.084 - Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: 60.084-13 - Teaching and Learning in Community Colleges

Abstract

An increasing number of community colleges have broadened their mission to confer baccalaureate degrees. While some colleges have added the four-year degree function to their community college mission, others have become full baccalaureate degree granting institutions. At the center of such organizational shifts are faculty members whose experiences are often ignored in the literature. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper was to explore faculty experiences inside a striving community college, now classified as a four-year comprehensive college with an explicit organizational vision to become a university. Among the key findings are an intensification of faculty work expectations, a caste system based on faculty credentials, teetering tenure, and an “uncertainty” about their future. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.

Author

• Edna Martinez, California State University - San Bernardino