Fall 2000
Vol 9 Issue 1
IN THIS ISSUE...
Confessions of a Recovering Adjunct Faculty Member
Closing the Digital Divide for Our Adjunct Faculty
SEE ALSO...
The Forum
Assidere
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction
Closing the Digital Divide
For Our Adjunct Faculty
Roger Yohe, EMCC
The single most important resource of any college is the people - the faculty, students, and staff. The Maricopa Community Colleges are mirroring a national trend where approximately sixty percent of our courses are taught by adjunct faculty. In a time when information technologies are no longer a luxury or novelty, but rather a critical component in higher education, new ways of supporting a major portion of our teaching force need to be examined.
Too many adjunct faculty no longer feel a strong connection between their narrowly defined roles and the fundamental educational purposes of our colleges. To achieve the full potential of new uses of information technology, the dysfunctional separation of people, functions, and purposes within a single institution must end. They must be brought together and their energy focused on teaching and learning.
Unfortunately, our colleges are fragmented across professional/functional categories and across hierarchical boundaries. We need to build better communication, coordination, collaboration, and connections with our adjunct faculty and establish more functional "learning communities." We need to re-think the use of our existing technology to strengthen and extend communications with our faculty, regardless of rank.
Our colleges need to support adjunct faculty members in what must become permanently continuing efforts to improve teaching and learning with newly available tools and methods. As technology tools become more sophisticated, adjunct faculty need access to tools and compensation for their time to learn and integrate learning tools into their courses.
An excellent example of a permanent, continuing effort by Washtenaw Community College in Michigan is their "Adjunct Faculty Commons" (http://www.wccnet.org/dept/eels/fac/ptfac.htm). This facility and staff not only provide access to equipment and working spaces, but also learning opportunities and development support for adjunct faculty.
Access to adjunct professional growth funds alone will not be sufficient in the future as technology becomes more sophisticated. Training funds must be made available at the department/division level to meet specific learning needs of adjunct faculty.
In addition, we need to discontinue the use of the extrinsic motivation strategy of expecting our adjunct faculty to participate in professional development activities with the hope that they may be more attractive candidates for residential positions. These expectations are unfair at best as they discriminate against the adjunct faculty who do not desire full-time employment by our colleges.
As we strive to support adjunct faculty in using technology to support their teaching, attempt to answer these questions:
- Does your college freely distribute Microsoft software to your adjunct faculty as is allowed in our Microsoft Campus Agreement?
- Can an adjunct faculty member check out a laptop computer to use off campus?
- How easy is it to send an e-mail message to an adjunct faculty member in your department?
- How easy is it to send an e-mail message to an adjunct faculty member in another department?
Our investments in new hardware and software will be misplaced if new ways of supporting sixty percent of our teaching force aren't addressed. We must be committed to decreasing the already-growing technology gap within our teaching ranks before we seriously consider addressing the greater digital divide that exists in the communities we serve.
