Home About Community CollegesWho Are You Faculty Members

Faculty Members

Community colleges focus primarily on teaching and student learning. Throughout their history, community colleges have hired part-time instructors for the occupational expertise they bring to the classroom. More recently and as funding has tightened, community colleges have begun to rely more on adjunct faculty as a way to keep salary costs down.

Here are some interesting statistics about faculty at community colleges. 

• Two-thirds of faculty at public community colleges are part-time employees.     
• Part-time faculty members at public community colleges tend to be younger than their full-time counterparts.    
• Three-fourths of faculty at independent community colleges are full-time employees.     
• Public community colleges have about 18 full-time equivalent students per FTE faculty member. At independent community colleges, the ratio is 10 to 1.    
• About 51 percent of full-time public community college faculty are tenured, while another 35 percent are not in a system with tenure available or are not on a tenure track. Only about 14 percent of full-time faculty at public community colleges are on a tenure track and do not have tenure.

If you are interested in applying for a teaching position at a community college, use this map to locate colleges in your area. Qualifications vary from state to state, so it is best to inquire at each college individually. 

Useful Information 

Faculty Salaries

Full-Time and Part-Time Professional Staff and Student-to-Staff Ratio by Type of Community College, 1997 (PDF format)

Characteristics of Faculty at Community Colleges: 1993 (PDF format)

Professional Development

Two groups that serve the interests of community college faculty members are the National Council for Staff, Program, and Organizational Development, an affiliate council of AACC, and the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development at The University of Texas at Austin. Visit their Web sites to learn more.

Related Files

Related Links