Contra Costa Times: Community colleges may offer bachelor’s degrees
With tens of thousands being turned away from state universities, California lawmakers likely will consider granting community colleges the right to offer a limited number of bachelor’s degrees.
The shift, which has occurred in 17 other states in the past decade or so, would represent a major philosophical change in California, where the three state higher-education systems have clearly defined roles.
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Posted in Academics, Budgets & Funding
Tagged Academics, Budgets & Funding, California, community colleges
The Chronicle: California Community Colleges May Adopt Common Assessment by 2010
Community colleges in California will be encouraged to offer a common assessment in mathematics and English for incoming students starting in the fall of 2010, the system’s chancellor, Jack Scott, said today at a news conference. The system’s 110 campuses have long offered dozens of incompatible assessment tests, which Mr. Scott said had wasted money, muddied transfer pathways to universities, and made it more difficult for students to move from one community college to another.
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Posted in Accountability
Tagged Accountability, California, community colleges
Inside Higher Ed: The Part-Time Impact
It is well known that part-time community college students are significantly less likely to graduate than their full-time peers, but a new report suggests that the part-time status of some of the faculty teaching them may heighten their risk of dropping out. While the report and its lead author stress that this should not be viewed as the fault of the adjuncts, some leaders of organizations for non-tenure-track faculty said that they were concerned about the way the study frames the issue.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged community colleges, part-time faculty, Students
The Omaha World: Metro will sue other com. colleges
Metropolitan Community College will sue Nebraska’s five other community colleges, trying to wrest away millions of state aid dollars that Metro leaders say rightfully belong to their school. The planned lawsuit, authorized Tuesday night by Metro’s board, will be filed in Lancaster County Court “in the very near future,” Metro laywer Bob Canella said.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding, Legal issues
Tagged Budgets & Funding, community colleges, Metropolitan CC
CBC: NSCC teachers set strike date
Teachers and support staff at the Nova Scotia Community College have set Oct. 20 as a possible strike for its 930 instructors and support staff.
The Nova Scotia Teachers Union announced the decision in a news release Thursday evening in a move that could affect the education of 25,000 students at 13 campuses across the province.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged community colleges, Nova Scotia, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle: Faculty Members at 2-Year College in Md. Vote No Confidence in President
Professors at Montgomery College voted no confidence late Thursday in Brian K. Johnson, president of the prominent Maryland community college since 2007. About half the college’s full-time faculty members overwhelmingly passed a resolution criticizing Mr. Johnson’s leadership and alleging that he has consistently skipped important meetings and events.
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Posted in Administration
Tagged community colleges, Montgomery College, no confidence vote, University presidents
Inside Higher Ed: Colleges Review ‘Community’
Some loved it. Some hated it. But everyone is a critic.
Last week, community college employees and attendees got their first look at “Community,” NBC’s new sitcom about a group of students at a fictional two-year institution. Ever since the network announced in May that it would be airing a new comedy focusing on life at a community college, many in academe expressed concern that the show might unfairly characterize this set of institutions and its students. Among those in the community college world who do not like what they have seen in the show’s early ads, there has been some debate over whether to actively fight the show, ignore it or try to make something positive come out of it.
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Posted in Campus Life
Tagged community colleges, NBC, Television show
Los Angeles Times: L.A. Community College District’s sexual harassment policy put on hold
Judge orders a preliminary injunction against enforcement after a student files a suit accusing a professor of censoring a classroom speech that included views opposing gay marriage.
Saying it violates students’ free speech rights, a federal judge has barred the Los Angeles Community College District from enforcing a sexual harassment policy that bans “offensive” remarks in and out of the classroom.
U.S. District Judge George H. King granted a preliminary injunction against pressing the policy at the request of Jonathan Lopez, an L.A. City College student who in February filed a suit accusing a professor of censoring his classroom speech about his religious beliefs, including opposition to gay marriage.
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Posted in Working conditions
Tagged community colleges, L.A. Community College District, Los Angeles, sexual harassment
The Chronicle: Who’s Teaching at American Colleges? Increasingly, Instructors Off the Tenure Track
At community colleges, four out of five instructors worked outside the tenure track in 2007. At public research institutions, graduate students made up 41 percent of the instructional staff that year. And at all institutions, the proportion of instructors working part time continued to grow.
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Posted in Contingent labor
Tagged community colleges, Contingent labor, Teaching, tenure
The Chronicle: 2-Year Colleges Can Win Over Adjuncts With Benefits, Study Suggests
A new study of community-college faculty members suggests that offering adjuncts benefits like dental insurance does a lot to keep them showing up to work with a smile.
Adjunct faculty members who receive dental, health, disability, or life insurance are not only more likely to feel satisfied with their benefits packages—as would be expected—but they are also substantially more likely to feel satisfied with their salaries than are other adjuncts earning the same amount, the study found.
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Posted in Contingent labor
Tagged adjuncts, community colleges, Contingent labor, Salary/Economic Benefits
Inside Higher Ed: The Part-Time Satisfaction Gap
SAN DIEGO — If community colleges want to make an impact on the job satisfaction of adjuncts, it’s time to focus on benefits. That was one conclusion of a study of the job satisfaction of part-time faculty members at two-year institutions, presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
The study — by Paul D. Umbach of North Carolina State University and Ryan Wells of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst — was based on a national database of the attitudes of more than 5,700 community college faculty members at nearly 300 institutions. Umbach said it was important to examine adjunct job satisfaction because so many community colleges depend on part timers to teach a large share of courses, and because adjuncts are so diverse. With some part timers not relying on their teaching jobs economically, but others totally relying on colleges as employers, colleges need a better sense of just what adjuncts think about their jobs, Umbach said.
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Posted in Working conditions
Tagged adjuncts, community colleges, Contingent labor, job satisfaction, part-time faculty
Courier-Journal: Regents vote to curb tenure at community colleges
Vote by community college board angers instructors
VERSAILLES, Ky. — With faculty members raising signs in protest, the Board of Regents for Kentucky’s community and technical colleges voted yesterday to eliminate tenure for new employees and drop health insurance for new retirees.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Tagged community colleges, Kentucky, Tenure & Promotion
Inside Higher Ed: Tenure Flashpoint in Kentucky
After three months of debate, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System’s Board of Regents is scheduled to vote today on whether or not to get rid of tenure for all new faculty hires.
The proposed revision of the system’s employment policy would grandfather in individuals who have already been granted tenure and those who are in tenure track positions before July 1, 2009. If the revision passes, all full-time faculty members hired on or after this date would be offered term contracts that lengthen as instructors work for the system.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Tagged community colleges, Kentucky, tenure, Working conditions
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