Interviewing to Hire Competent Community College Faculty

The first decade of the next century will be an exciting time for community college administrators who lead community colleges as effective learning institutions capable of serving their diverse communities and comprehensive mission. Administrators will have an opportunity to influence their institutions' futures by hiring the largest cohort of faculty employed at one time since the 1960s. McGuire and Price (1990) predict that a wave of retirements peaking in 1999 combined with a surge in student enrollments will cause a shortage of qualified faculty members throughout higher education. They wrote that "the annual replacement need in the year 2003 is projected to be 37 % higher than it was in 1989" (p. 8). Hensel estimated that "colleges and universities must recruit an estimated 335,000 new faculty to meet the needs of the next decade" (1991, p. 1). Moore and Amey (1993) predicted that as much as 40% of the senior professoriate may retire in the next decade. In community colleges, the turnover is expected to be equally substantial. About 65% of the full-time faculty in community colleges were 45 or older in 1997 (Vandermast, 1998). Using data from the 1992-93 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, Li (1995) reported the mean age of community college faculty as 47. Moreover, "almost one-fourth (23 percent) of all full-time faculty now teaching at public community colleges are fifty-five or older" (Palmer, 1992, p. 30). California community college leaders anticipate replacing one-half of the 15,000 faculty in the next 10 years (Milliron & Leach, 1998). Parsons (1992) reported that in 1992, nearly 40% of Illinois' community college faculty were eligible to retire; Maryland community colleges will need to replace onethird (660,) and Florida will need to replace 700 community college faculty members by 2000. Palmer's and Parsons's figures include only those who will reach the customary retirement age; if early retirement options are included, the number of replacement faculty needed will undoubtedly increase. A Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching study (Boyer, 1989) found that 42 % of the 550 community college faculty members surveyed desired the opportunity to take early retirement. The large exodus of community college faculty due to retirement does not necessarily mean that they all will be replaced. Higgins, Hawthorne, Cape, and Bell (1994), summarizing the work of several researchers, have noted that community colleges in the early 1990s have been reluctant to replace departing full-time faculty. They note that many community colleges are limiting enrollment by reducing the number of multisection courses or hiring more adjuncts to reduce costs. Nonetheless, the impending possibility of losing nearly 50% of the full-time faculty coupled with the predicted growth in enrollments (Miller, 1997) means that community colleges will be hiring large numbers of new faculty members. Community Colleges Need Effective Teachers Inasmuch as community colleges are teaching institutions, they will need to search for effective teachers. To identify the qualities a search committee should seek in a candidate, this section describes the literature on effective teaching practices with special emphasis on applications to community college teaching. Nevertheless, the differences between effective teaching in four-year and two-year institutions are not so much matters of substance as matters of degree of emphasis. One degree of difference originates in the philosophical foundation of the community college mission. Several researchers have found that community college faculty members who are committed to and accept the community college philosophy have more positive attitudes about their work and are often more effective teachers (DuBois, 1993; Harnish & Creamer, 1985-86; Higgins, Hawthorne, Cape, & Bell, 1994). Moreover, experienced administrators recognize the importance of hiring faculty committed to the open-door mission of the community college (DeBard, 1995; Hawthorne, 1994). …