DOCUMENT RESUME JC 960 054 ED 390 475 Tompkins, Patrick, Ed.; And Others AUTHOR Survey of Adjunct Faculty at John Tyler--Midlothian. TITLE Revised Second Edition. INSTITUTION John Tyler Community Coll., Midlothian, VA. PUB DATE 95 NOTE 58p PUB TYPE Research/Technical (143) Reports Tests/Evaluation Instruments (160) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. *Adjunct Faculty; Class Activities; College Faculty; DESCRIPTORS Community Colleges; Contracts; *Faculty Coll.ege Relationship; *Faculty Development; Faculty Workload; *Job Satisfaction; Labor Conditions; Part Time Faculty; School Surveys; *Teacher Attitudes; Two Year Colleges; *Work Environment *John Tyler Community College VA Midlothian Campus IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT A study was conducted by students in two sections of a writing course at the Midlothian Campus of Virginia's John Tyler Community College to determine the characteristics of the college's adjunct faculty and their satisfaction with contract conditions, working conditions, and opportunities for professional development. Students developed a questionnaire and distributed it to all 50 adjunct faculty at the campus, with responses being received from 45 faculty members. Study findings included the following: (1) adjuncts represented 83% of the campus' faculty, while 33.37. were between the (2) 64.4% had received a ages of 36 and 45 and 587. were female; Master's degree, 15.67. held a doctoral degree, and only 8.97. had a (3) 42.2% were extremely or mildly dissatisfied Bachelor's degree; with their sylary, while 62.2% felt secure tbat their contract would be renewed and 64.4% were definitely interested in having their contracts renewed for the next semester; (4) the majority of respondents indicated that they were invited to meetings, but one-third or less attended; (5) 66.77. were either moderately or extremely satisfied with communication with administration; and (6) while 44.4% indicated that they were interested in attending professional development seminars, 86.7% were unaware of or have minimal knowledge of the statewide Professional Development Initiative. Contains faculty comments to open-ended questions and 14 references. Appendixes provide information on the college, the survey instrument, a table of respondents by subject area, and a list of student research groups and project responsibilities. (BCY) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. **************************************************************** SURVEY OF ADJUNCT FACULTY AT JOHN TYLER-MIDLOTHIAN BY STUDENTS IN ENG 112-M5B & ENG 112-M8B U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY ACENTER IERICI JOHN TYLER COMMUNITY COLLEGE This document tuts boon repine iced as P. Tompkins (leagued tfom tbe perban of on:pm/anon "ong.n.ItIng .! MIDLOTHIAN CAMPUS 0 M11101 I<Ingeli hay,' boeT, ,,,a1, b mprovo reprockLbon (maid', 0t. staied to 1111% Pomts of ,ne.v TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES lOt document du not INFORMATION CENTER olfct OERI nus.twn pubcy (ERIC) SPRING 1995 REVISED SECOND EDITION EDITOR, PATRICK TOMPKINS ASSISTANT EDITORS, LARA GAULDING AND CHUCK GEHR BEST COPY AVAILABLE 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments i Project Definition ii Introduction 1 Methodology 5 , Findings , Adjunct Definition and Description 7 Contract Conditions 14 Working Conditions 18 23 Professional Development Adjuncts' Written Comments 25 Conclusion and Recommendations 36 Appendices 40 Works Cited 52 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank those institutions and people who provided information for this report. We would especially like to extend our gratitude to Dr. Carmon Kiah at John Tyler Community College's Office of Assessment, Research and Planning for the valuable information that helped us collect all our data. We would also like to thank Marlene Cohen and Mary Kaye O'Neill at Prince George's Community College for granting us permission to use their survey as a foundation and reference for our questionnaire. Finally we would like to express our gratitude to John Tyler--Mim thian staff members Mildred Keen, June Pallo, and Mary Salmon for their secretarial support. PROJECT DEFINITION The ratio of part-time to full-time faculty at the John Tyler--Midlothian Campus is overwhelming, fifty to ten. Therefore, we feel adjunct faculty satisfaction is an essential part of the college's well-being. With this in mind, we shall survey adjunct satisfaction with contract conditions, working conditions, and opportunities for professional development. We shall also examine their pt.rsonal characteristics, characteristics which may prove to be relevant factors in their individual decision making. Our data will then be organized and presented to John Tyler's administrative body, suggesting ways in which they miglit better accommodate our adjuncts. INTRODUCTION This report represents the results of a local survey of the adjunct faculty at John Tyler-- Midlothian campus by two writing classes (ENG 112). As students of these two classes, we analyzed an article by Larry Roderer and Betty Weissbecker, entitled "Perspectives on Part-time Thaching in Community Colleges: Pressures, Politics and Prospects," which was published in the Virginia Community College Association (VCCA) Journal, Summer 1990. From this article we learned that the ratio of adjunct versus full- time instructors in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) was increasing substantially. Because of the large number of adjuncts being hired, J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College interviewed adjunct instructors from several colleges and found communication, working conditions, and professional development to be the main areas concerning adjunct instructors (Roderer 30). Regarding contract conditions there are problems with pay and scheduling. These faculty members are only hired for one semester at a time; consequently, insecurities exist concerning the renewal of their contracts. The opportunity to extend contracts is an option to improve the In addition, adjuncts are paid one-third of what their full-time colleagues are paid conditions. (Twigg 7). The conditions in which the adjunct faculty are working under are less than favorable. Many of the adjunct faculty voiced concerns over working conditions. They mentioned not having access to an office, office equipment or supplies. Furthermore, they were not informed about the institution, nor did they have contact with full-time instructors. Adjunct faculty received 1 6 little or no feedback on their teaching performance and they felt excluded from their departments because they were not invited to meetings nor asked to contribute ideas (Roderer 31). Several areas of professional development indicated that adjunct faculty are dedicated and interested instructors. Some feel their performance could be improved if colleges provide feedback by evaluation, along with consultations. Several researchers note that professional development programs and information should be developed to meet adjunct faculty needs (Osborn 19). Adjuncts comprise a high percentage of the faculty because they are hired with the assumption that their abilities are comparable to those of full-time instructors. As Friedlander states, "few, if any studies have been conducted to determine whether, in general, students who enroll in courses taught by adjunct faculty receive instruction inferior to that offered by full-time instructors" (Friedlander 28). Research conducted by Fed ler, Jackson, Iadevaia, and Spangler, for example, compared grade distribution, student success rates, and faculty evaluations between adjunct and full time faculty. It is important to note that each of the studies concluded that there is "no significant difference" in performance. Still, three of these four studies agreed that students of full-time instructors perform better than those of adjuncts, while the fourth did not contradict this finding. Furthermore, students of full-time instructors tended to stay in school and to rate their teachers more highly even when students were not aware of their instructors' status. These studies raised our awareness that differences may exist in the performance of adjunct and full-time instructors. Furthermore, we believe that the conditions under which 2 adjuncts work may affect their performance, which is why the findings from this survey are significant to the success of this college and its students. With this information we decided to investigate the John Tyler--Midlothian campus to understand what issues concern our adjunct faculty. John Tyler--Midlothian is a small temporary campus that services approximately 1,500 students per semester (for a history of the school, see Appendix 1 and 2). During the 1994-1995 academic year 74 (57%) of the classes were taught by adjunct faculty members. The ratio at the Midlothian campus is 50 adjuncts versus 10 full-time instructors; consequently, we felt adjunct instructor satisfaction is essential to the success of this two year institution. Nationwide there is a greater number of adjuncts employed in two-year colleges than most other post-secondary institutions. Adjuncts, because they are not compensated at rates comparable with their full-time counterparts, are an important cost-effective resource for continuous budget constraints. Colleges are then able to accommodate strict budgets with more class offerings and escape paying full-time salaries (Friedlander 28). After analyzing other articles about adjuncts at two year colieges and with the help of Dr. Carmon Kiah of John Tyler's Office of Assessment, Research and Planning, we developed a survey to be distributed to the adjuncts at the John Tyler--Midlothian campus. Our objective with this survey was to focus on concerns of the adjunct faculty members at the John Tyler-- Midlothian campus. As students at this location, we felt limiting the survey to just one campus would make obtaining the information easier and more manageable in collating our final report. Results of this survey informed us about the adjuncts at this campus and their perspectives on how their working conditions affect their iobs 3 3 We have included recommendations to John Tyler's administrative body to heighten awareness of and to better accommodate the needs of the adjunct faculty. As Roderer and Weissbecker state, "Since adjunct faculty teach forty to sixty percent of the classes in the community colleges, if they are not considered and encouraged, we may see the effect on forty to sixty percent of our students"(32). 4 9 METHODOLOGY Two sections of English 112 at John Tyler--Midlothian combined their research efforts to determine adjunct satisfaction at the campus. Both classes formed groups that were assigned individual tasks for completing a final report (for a list of participants and responsibilities see Appendix 5). Early in the semester, we reviewed literature to better familiarize ourselves with the relationship between adjuncts and colleges. One article by Larry Roderer and Betty Weissbecker reviewed the role that adjuncts play in the college setting and served as an aid when it came time to formulate our questionnaire. In addition, articles covering topics such as adjunct grade distribution and the advantages and disadvantages of hiring adjuncts were discussed and reviewed during the semester. In developing our survey we used a questionnaire from a study conducted at Prince George's Community College as a model for our own in terms of question format and appearance. Our questionnaire included open-ended and yes/no, questions concerning communication, contract conditions, professional development, working conditions and basic biographical information. We also encouraged the writing of any additional comments that the adjuncts felt could help us. The completion of our questionnaire enabled us to write our project definition. In our project definition we set the direction that we wanted to take as well as the means we would use to obtain the final results. 5 Jo