Before the high-tech industry tanked and the events of September 11 threw an already struggling economy into recession, Lake Tahoe Community College was riding the wave of financially healthy times.
A strong economy had allowed the small college in California to convert seven part-time faculty jobs into full-time, tenure-track positions -- a significant move for an institution with 175 adjuncts and 50 full-time faculty members, says Lori Gaskin, the college's vice president of academic affairs and student services.
How quickly times change. While Lake Tahoe continues to replace faculty members who retire or leave, it is not creating new faculty and administrative positions at this time.
The college is somewhat insulated from severe budget cuts, thanks to Proposition 98, which sets a minimum level of state support for community colleges, as well as elementary and secondary schools. That means that even during an economic downturn, the state can cut only so much from Lake Tahoe's budget, says Jon C. Stephens, the college's vice president for business services. This year, for example, the institution experienced slight decreases in its building-maintenance program and instructional-equipment program, of $57,120 and $47,600, respectively.
And a slower local and national economy has brought the college at least one benefit -- enrollment has increased 6 percent, to 3,053 students. "Typically there's a correlation between economic vitality in this state and interest in higher education at the community-college level," Ms. Gaskin says. "Where there is an economic downturn we see high enrollments across the disciplines in general education and transfer areas and vocational programs.
"Specifically in Lake Tahoe, we're a resort community dependent on an economy that's very hospitality-oriented and tourist-based. When people have less discretionary funds, tourism drops off and you begin to see a ripple effect. We've had high demand for many of our programs, particularly in our certified-nursing-assistant training program."
The challenge now, Ms. Gaskin says, is how to "serve more with less and less," since Lake Tahoe is receiving $47,600 less from the state compared with last year for instructional-equipment materials. And while the state just increased salaries by 12.4 percent for part-time faculty members, full-time faculty members received raises of only 4 percent.
Despite the tough times, Ms. Gaskin says the college is going to go into the budget process for next year "trying as hard as we can to hold the status quo. We're a pretty conservative school. We want to be cautious. At the same time, we have students entering college, and they want programs, support services, and classes."
The college doesn't have the money to hire new faculty members in its emergency-medical-services program or its foreign-languages department -- two areas it wanted to expand. So David J. Foster, chairman of the art department at Lake Tahoe, considers himself lucky to be able to hire a full-time faculty member to teach photography and digital art. The position had gone unfilled for two years because he and the only other full-timer in the department were on sabbatical and weren't around to do the hiring. The administration this year talked about freezing the position, but finally gave him the go-ahead to hire, since art is a growth area for the college.
These are tenuous times, though, and Mr. Foster says he and his colleagues are just "waiting for the other shoe to drop."
THE STATE OF HIRING:
All this week the Career Network looks at how the recession is affecting hiring at different types of colleges.
