From Commitment to Constraint: Community College Faculty Discourse Amid Growing Precarity and Institutional Shifts

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Supporting and Retaining Today’s Faculty

Abstract

This study explores how faculty at historically and predominantly Black community colleges navigate institutional and societal precarity through the lens of critical discourse analysis. Using institutional documents and faculty narratives, this research examines how the discourse of “efficiency”, “student success, and “accountability” shape faculty perceptions of their roles and responsibilities. Precarity serves as the theoretical framework to understand the material and affective consequences of faculty labor, diminished autonomy, and structural marginalization. By analyzing how language reproduces or resists these conditions, this study highlights the ways faculty articulate identity, agency, and resistance. Findings contribute to critical conversations on academic labor, policy, and equity in historically and predominantly Black community college contexts. Our research celebrates community and calls for faculty acknowledgement.

Authors

• Ashley N. Gaskew, Baruch College - CUNY

• Shelby Rogers, University of Wisconsin - Madison