With the U.S. economy booming, community colleges are playing an increasingly crucial role in providing training and skills to the legions of new workers who are needed. The change has opened new opportunities in teaching, but for those interested in pursuing such jobs, it also raises several questions.
Where are the positions and how does one find them? How do they differ from positions at the university where you have done your graduate work? How do you prepare for them? How do you successfully market yourself in applications and in interviews?
First, take a reality check. Do you want a faculty position where teaching is your primary responsibility and may easily limit your ability to do research, where teaching hours are longer and pay is lower? Are you ready to teach students whose academic preparation differs from those in your T.A. sections?
Are you willing to teach individuals who may be more preoccupied with making money for rent and meals than with finishing your assignments? Can you work with undergraduates who are less elitist, more democratic, more diverse, and in many ways, more interesting? Can you tolerate working on a campus where librarians may buy a few new books for your courses each year? Can you cope with being the only full-time specialist in your discipline? Are you comfortable with having your teaching guided and evaluated by performance standards? If so, take heart and prepare carefully.
Start by examining a number of community-college catalogues to see what courses they offer in your discipline. If you're still in graduate school, take classes in several of these fields; you could end up teaching in a number of them. Work as a T.A. in different courses. If your graduate institution offers interdisciplinary courses and integrated-studies programs, which are becoming central to the community-college curricula, learn more about them.
Teach as well as you can, and when you are applying for community-college positions, ask those writing your recommendations to focus on your teaching strengths, not your dissertation. Community colleges need and hire generalists, not specialists. The more courses you can teach well -- and the more they know you teach well -- the better.
Learn as much as you can about current pedagogy trends in community colleges and learn the language of educational innovators. For example, if you're a historian and you can't take pedagogy courses in your graduate program, read the American Historical Association's Perspectives, The OAH Newsletter, The History Teacher, Teaching History and other publications that often discuss new directions in community-college teaching. They will acquaint you with the vocabulary and the range of concerns seldom discussed in your graduate seminars.
Teach part time in community colleges, if you can. Your classes there will introduce you to the challenges and the rewards that these institutions offer. They will also introduce you a wider range of students than you've probably met in a university classroom. Dealing with students from a wide range of ages, lifestyles, races, economic groups, ethnic and religious communities, and levels of ability and preparations should test your mettle and help you decide if community-college teaching is really the career for you.
Don't count on any part-time position turning into a full-time tenure-track job. For most part-timers, that "shoe in the door" often leads to a disappointing "boot" and a damaged ego, or decades of below-subsistence pay and second-class citizenship. Talk to long-term part-timers about their experiences -- and then move on to full-time work in the classroom or somewhere else.
What the part-time job will give you is the "community-college teaching experience" that so many institutions require of full-time hires. When you teach at these schools, seek out faculty mentors and work with them closely. Ask them to assist you with your searches and applications -- from using their networks to help you find jobs to writing and telephoning committees on your behalf.
If your graduate school offers teaching internships, or has partnerships that place graduate students in community colleges, join the program to develop skills, get experience, and figure out if you are cut out for this kind of work.
Next, you'll need to look for advertised positions at community colleges. Some appear in The Chronicle, usually as part of an institution's listing of several positions. Most community colleges now list openings on their home pages or job-line recordings. Many advertise in local newspapers. Check all of these routinely. Also, visit Web sites such as H-NET and state job boards.
When you find an institution's openings, research its catalogs and Web sites thoroughly. What courses do they offer regularly that you can teach and are willing to teach? Read their mission statement. Can you support it and work to further it? Who teaches in the division? What courses do they offer? Are your teaching style, syllabi, and course outlines compatible with theirs? Have they any other full-time instructors in your discipline? Who are they, and what do they teach?
Consider who may be on the search committee that will interview you. When you interview for a position at a four-year college or university, you meet with people in your discipline, and, perhaps, one outside person. In a community-college interview, you may be lucky if one of the search committee members is in your field.
Are you ready to discuss your political-science background and teaching experiences with a psychologist, philosopher, historian, sociologist, librarian and/or counselor? Do your application letter, your C.V., your syllabi, and your course outlines speak clearly to all of them? Why should they want to select you as a colleague in teaching and learning? Does your application give them exactly what they requested? This may be a time to keep your dissertation chapters to yourself -- and to present them only if they are requested.
Check the college's Web sites for syllabi and clues to your prospective colleagues. educational backgrounds, interests, and personalities. Review the institution's mission statements, administration, and committees. Reflect on how you would fit with them and contribute to them. Discuss these in your application if you can.
Most community colleges require a master's degree, with 18 graduate credits in a specific discipline or in a related area. A related area is defined by the institution. Ask what the term covers before applying.
Some institutions hire only Ph.D's, while others are reluctant to do so, fearful that they will end up with researchers and specialists, not the teachers and generalists they need. But all community colleges want to hire instructors who have been successful and innovative in the classroom.
Just about all community colleges would be interested in faculty members who have successfully used technology in the classroom and in distance-learning courses, a field where community colleges are experiencing explosive growth. The applicant should emphasize these skills and also whatever experience she or he has had in using computers for on-line teaching and research. More and more community colleges' libraries are accessing data bases instead of subscribing to journals. If you've worked with such technologies, describe how you've used them in your teaching and learning.
Community colleges need more well-trained teachers who know and love the subject they teach and who are committed to teaching it. Their instructors teach the same level courses as faculty members teaching lower division courses at four-year colleges and universities. The environment, students, and challenges may be quite different. But the rewards are equally rich.
Maureen Murphy Nutting is an instructor of history at North Seattle Community College.
