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What It Takes to Land a Job at a Community College

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By Gretchen Aggertt Weber

"Well, have you found a job yet?" asked Jim Chesebro, my favorite professor, mentor, and then the president of the National Communication Association, as I passed him in the hallway. I tried to return his smile while gulping the enormous lump that immediately rose in my throat.

"Not yet," I replied, hoping I sounded upbeat.

I hurried back to the office I had occupied during the three years that I had been working on my master's degree in communication at Indiana State University and indulged in a brief breakdown. My graduation day was finally approaching. I was 45 years old.

That same year, my daughter would also finish a master's degree -- hers in physical therapy from an expensive private university. My husband and I were thankful that her future seemed assured, but my attempt at a midlife career choice seemed foolish in comparison. What on earth had I been thinking? I wondered. Why had I disregarded the warnings and advice of so many? "You'll never get a job without being 'fully credentialed,'" one of my professors had declared. "Your field is overcrowded," another pointed out. "There are so few jobs," observed yet another, "and community colleges stick to hiring their own homegrown candidates."

My response had always been, "Well, I only want one job. And, after all, about half the undergraduates in this country are enrolled in community colleges, and most of those colleges require a course in communication. Besides, I haven't found many community colleges that absolutely insist on the Ph.D." Had I merely been rationalizing?

Now as I stood on the brink of failure and looked back at my life, I realized that my most important decisions had been dictated by exigencies. I had spent our daughter Amy's preschool years at home caring for her. In 1972, that was the "right" thing to do. During her school years, I had worked at a public-welfare office near my home. It was not a career, but merely a job, and it was an unhappy workplace: Our clients wanted to be elsewhere, and so did we. But my husband worked brutally long, irregular hours driving a truck, which meant that nearly all the day-to-day details of parenting -- swimming lessons, band concerts, doctor's appointments, Christmas programs -- were my responsibility.

Even after Amy was packed off to college, breaking away from that paycheck had been difficult. Returning to graduate school had been even harder, involving a 120-mile commute in Indiana's grab bag of winter weather. But I had loved it. The seminars had awakened my intellect, and my teaching assistantship had revealed to me that my calling lay in the classroom. Once again, however, exigencies influenced my decision making: My husband and I were in our 40s, with a financial future that was by no means secure. A Ph.D. seemed remote. So I decided to go for the master's and ready myself for the community-college job market.

Since then, all of my efforts had been channeled toward making me into the most competitive candidate possible for that market. I had fashioned myself into a generalist in the field by teaching widely, presenting at conferences, taking a course in assessment, and designing model courses in several subdisciplines of communication. My guiding standard was this: If it will translate into a line on my vita that will attract community-college hiring committees, I'll do it. If it doesn't, I won't.

I had a sheaf of recommendations, many of them glowing. I had a well-designed CV. I had contacts around the country in my discipline. I had a stack of more than 100 catalogs from community colleges nationwide that I had collected and studied. I had applied for every job listed in The Chronicle for which I was even marginally qualified, regardless of its location. I had traveled to an out-of-state job fair. I had a 4.0 GPA. I even had a new suit. I had everything but an interview.

As the weeks passed, I continued to file applications, 150 in all. These eventually netted me three interviews, which in turn led to one offer. I wanted only one, I reminded myself. I can remember only two moments in my life that gave me greater joy than the telephone call offering me the job: the day of my wedding and the day our daughter received a major scholarship. I took the job, and became a full-time member of the faculty of Hazard Community College in the fall of 1996.

Take a middle-aged woman from Indianapolis away from her husband, her daughter, her elderly mother, her home of 17 years, and all of her friends. Transplant her to the tiny Appalachian community of Hazard, Ky. Place her in an apartment rented sight unseen. Introduce her to a culture in which snake-handling religions thrive, and marijuana, moonshine, and government benefits fuel the waning coal economy. Assign her to perform community service as well as academic duties. Watch her form a debating squad and produce a readers' theater program. See how she thrives. Continue to watch as she moves on to other community colleges, transformed by her success into a candidate in demand.

Today, in my introductory course in public speaking, I assign students to do research on their chosen career fields and to present speeches about them. When I introduce the assignment, I tell them my story. "How much do you want your career?" I ask my students. "Are you willing to do what it takes?"

I am now in my third year at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, a community college along the Grand Strand of South Carolina. My job provides generously for our financial security, both now and in my eventual retirement. But that day is a long way off: When I get up in the morning, I look out at the ocean and compare the anticipation that I feel for the workday ahead with the dread I used to feel all those years before becoming a faculty member.

My life has been transformed, and so has my husband's. Now retired from truck driving, he is pursuing a degree in mathematics. He started in remedial math courses and is now acing calculus. He's willing to do what it takes. I think he'll make it.