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Part-time and time faculty conceptualizations of academic community: a case study

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PART-TIME AND FULL-TIME FACULTY CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF
ACADEMIC COMMUNITY: A CASE STUDY
by
Cecile H. Sam

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(EDUCATION)

May 2012

Copyright 2012 Cecile H. Sam

ii

DEDICATION

For my parents and brother, who have always supported me:
Thank you for everything.
And
For Reva Pacheco, who told me “When you get the chance to go…Go.”
Thank you for that advice. As you can see, I followed it.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are so many people to thank that it is difficult to know where to begin. I
would like to thank the faculty and administrators who welcomed me onto their campus
and took the time to participate in this study. I admire their dedication to the students of
Mountain College and to the art of teaching.
Thoughts of academic community began to interest me when I realized that my
own academic endeavors could not be accomplished alone. Instead, my academic
achievements are the result of intellectual and emotional support from colleagues and
friends. I am very fortunate to know such a talented group of people. My committee
members, Drs. Paul Adler, Darnell Cole, and Richard Wagoner gave direction to this
study and they challenged and pushed this dissertation further to meet its potential. My
committee chair and advisor Dr. Adrianna Kezar, aside from her invaluable insight
unflagging support during the entire dissertation process, was also a mentor who helped
me grow as a scholar through her guidance and patience. Dr. Jarrett Gupton helped me
visualize the constructs in this dissertation and was always game for a good conversation
in person, one the phone, or in text. Dr. Lisa Garcia helped me with formatting and
navigating the existential experience of the dissertation process.
The following people helped me with editing this dissertation: Jasmine Marshall
Armstrong, Laurel Beesemeyer, Douglas Burleson, Brendan Busse, and Scott Dixon.
Beyond their helpful edits, they were also great friends like Nancy Farinas, Icela Pelayo,
Jonathan Mathis, and Araceli Espinoza. These talented individuals encouraged me
persevere with their kind words, astute observations, and great senses of humor. They

iv

also taught me that together we all move forward, one step at a time. Along those lines
I’d like to thank Henry Franco who is truly the best graduate wrangler and kept me
focused and positive. I’d also like to thank Dr. John Alan Cernetich for everything
(including but not limited to): editing, diagramming, listening, and innumerable cups of
tea.
There are still many people that I need to thank, and though my space is limited
and inadequate, please know that each kindness has not been forgotten. You have my
heartfelt appreciation.
Finally, I want to thank my parents and my brother. My parents taught me the
importance of education, but more importantly they taught me the importance of
knowledge, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to them that I ended up a scholar. My brother Jon
is the reason I made it through my doctoral studies, his generosity and kind heart are
often hidden by his hilarious wit and independent nature.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ii

Acknowledgements

iii
List of Tables

vi
List of Diagrams

vii
Abstract

viii
Chapter One: Introduction 1
Chapter Two: Literature Review 10
Chapter Three: Research Design 62
Chapter Four: Frameworks and Conceptualizations of Community 84
Chapter Five: Five Perceptions of Academic Community 128
Chapter Six: Barriers and Pathways to Community 162
Chapter Seven: Faculty Narratives 196
Chapter Eight: Discussion, Implications, and Directions for Future Research 218
Bibliography

254
Appendices 265
Appendix A: Examples of Positive Policies and Practices 265
Appendix B: List of Documents used in Document Analysis 266
Appendix C: Faculty interview Protocol 267
Appendix D: Administrator Interview Protocol 270
Appendix E: Sample of Email Invitation to Participants and Faculty
Consent Form
273
Appendix F: Sample of Codes and Code Table Used in Analysis 279
Appendix G: Communities and Interviews 282
Appendix H: Hierarchy Among Departmental Communities. 283
Appendix I: Professional and Vocational Departments versus
Traditional Academic Departments
288

vi

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Barriers and Academic Community 184
Table 2: Pathways and Academic Community 193
Table 3: Leslie’s Academic Community 204
Table 4: John’s Academic Community 211
Table 5: Brendan’s Academic Community

215

vii

LIST OF DIAGRAMS
Diagram 1: Neoliberalism and community frameworks in relation to the work
environment at Mountain College

99
Diagram 2: Conceptualization of community

117
Diagram 3: Conceptualization of Community and citizenship behaviors within
a work environment.

122

viii

ABSTRACT
The poor work environment for part-time faculty in higher education is a topic
that has been receiving more attention as the professoriate moves away from full-time
tenure-track positions. In community colleges, the use of part-time faculty is even more
prevalent. However, there are institutions that have been trying to create better work
environments for their part-time faculty. It is important to understand how and why these
few campuses decided to change. This qualitative case study of one of those exemplary
institutions examines faculty conceptualizations and perceptions of academic community
at a two-year community college, and explores the ways that these conceptualizations
shape the work environment for part-time faculty. Among the findings, this study found
that conceptualizations of community shape work environment in four ways: defining
membership, providing mission and goals, create feelings of belonging, and influence
citizenship behaviors.

1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
“Part-timers have strong feelings about whether they are or are not ‘connected’ or
‘integrated’ into campus life; for the most part, they feel powerless, alienated, invisible,
and second-class” (Gappa & Leslie, 1993, p. 180).
The composition of faculty appointments in higher education has shifted
decisively over the past 30 years.. The American faculty has moved away from a
predominantly tenure-lined faculty to a majority non-tenure track faculty, and a large
bulk of those non-tenure track appointments are part-time (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006;
Curtis & Jacoby, 2006). As of 2003, part-time
1
faculty alone comprised 46% of the entire
faculty population: 543,000 faculty members (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006; Curtis &
Jacoby, 2006). Researchers are concerned about the ways this shift to non-tenure track
appointments will affect the academy in terms of the professoriate, especially regarding
academic freedom and the quality of student instruction.
Many of these part-time appointments are in the community college sector, where
the part-time faculty comprise approximately 60% of the faculty. At some schools, the
percentage is as high as 80% of the total faculty (NEA, 2007; AFT 2003). With a greater
percentage of part-time faculty teaching the majority of classes
2
, part-time members can
have a large influence on students in community college. Researchers and leaders have
concerns regarding the effect part-time non-tenure track appointments may have on the

1
Not all the part-time faculty are non-tenure track. In some institutions, there are tenured part-time faculty,
but they comprise less than 3% of the part-time population (Conley & Leslie, 2002).
2
This majority is based on the NSOPF:04 numbers that state that in 2004 a part-time faculty member
taught an average of 8.5 credit hours and a full-time faculty member 17.8 hours (Eagan, 2007). If a school
had a part-time faculty percentage of 68%, both groups would teach approximately the same credit hours.
In the community colleges in Los Angeles, the part-time percent ranges from 68- 79%.

2

students. Recent studies have suggested that those students who have part-time
instructors are less likely to transfer to a four-year institution (Eagan & Jaeger, 2009),are
less likely to obtain an associate’s degree (Jaeger & Eagan, 2009; Jacoby, 2006), or are
less likely to return for a second year (Bettinger & Long, 2005). Additional studies on
faculty suggest that part-time faculty are less committed to teaching—based on their time
spent advising students, preparation for class, and participating in workshops (Umbach,
2008). They are also reported to be less likely to update syllabi (Shuetz, 2002), use
innovative technology or different instruction styles (Shuetz, 2002; Digranes & Digranes,
1995; Umbach, 2007), and know the academic services students use (Shuetz, 2002)
compared to their full-time counterparts.
These studies paint a bleak picture of the influence part-time non-tenure track
faculty have on students in community college; however, the work environment of part-
time faculty may play an important role in helping to understand some of these findings.
Numerous studies have noted poor working conditions for part-time faculty (Gappa &
Leslie, 1993, Gappa, Leslie & Trice, 2007; Schell & Stock, 2001; Levin, Kater, &
Wagoner, 2006). The data suggest that these working conditions affect the instruction and
interactions that part-time faculty have with students. For example, some part-time
faculty receive their class assignments days before the class begins—significantly
reducing course preparation time. Other issues, such as lack of office space and
compensation, can also affect the ability of part-time faculty to meet with students or
participate in professional development. Before we can see changes to student outcomes,
higher education must first make changes for part-time faculty. Improving the working

3

conditions and overall environment for part-time faculty can improve the learning
experience for students at the institution.
Many institutions marginalize part-time faculty through practices and policies that
create an environment that divides the faculty between those who may earn tenure and
those who may not--an environment that privileges the former (Leslie, Kellams, &
Gunne, 1982; Tuckman, 1987; Gappa & Leslie, 1993). Many part-time faculty feel
excluded on campus. This exclusion can range from specific actions, such as an inability
to participate in governance to a general sense of disrespect or dismissal (AFT, 2010;
Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Kezar & Sam, 2010). These policies and exclusions affect a large
portion of part-time faculty, who are the majority in higher education compared to full-
time non tenure track and tenure-lined appointments, especially in the two-year college
sector (Curtis & Jacobe, 2006; Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Since part-time
appointments are also the fastest growing type of academic appointment, the poor work
conditions and exclusion of part-time faculty will continue to affect more of the total
faculty population (Curtis & Jacobe, 2006; Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006).
How higher education should navigate the continued growth of part-time
appointments is a controversial topic. The academy can no longer ignore the challenges
that part-time faculty face in their work. Numerous groups have called for change: the
American Association of University Professors (AAUP, 2003), the National Education
Association (NEA, 2006), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT, 2002), scholars in
the field (Hollenshead et al, 2007; Gappa, Austin, & Trice, 2007; Gappa & Leslie, 1993;
Kezar & Sam, 2010) and part-time faculty members themselves (Schell & Stock, 2001;

4

Tirelli, 1997;Thompkins, 2001). However, not everyone can agree to what types of
changes should occur. For example, the rise in part-time faculty is a challenge to those
who want the academy to return to a tenure dominant model (AFT, 2002; AUUP, 2003;
Benjamin, 2002, 2003; Burgan, 2006). For these advocates, the greater concerns would
be to reduce the number of part-time appointments or make these appointments a less
attractive option of employment. Aligning with the nature of faculty work in two-year
institutions whose primary purpose is instruction rather than research, some advocates
have made a push to create a teaching tenure-track for four-year institutions.
Taking a different approach, other advocates argue that tenure itself is an outdated
practice, and that part-time, non-tenure track faculty would be better served if there were
no tenure distinction and everyone had equitable long-term contracts (Amacher &
Meiners, 2004). Though no group or researcher publically advocates for the poor
treatment of part-time faculty, there are differences in priorities as well as plans of action.
For example, the AAUP, while issuing a statement regarding the rights of part-time
faculty, also very strongly endorses a significant reduction in the use of part-time faculty.
Despite calls for change, few institutions have taken proactive steps towards improving
the working environment for their part-time faculty (Kezar & Sam, 2010).
There are a few institutions that may serve as beacons for other campuses to
follow by fostering positive policies and practices and including part-time faculty into the
fabric of the campus. My study explored one of those institutions—a two-year

5

community college in California
3
--and sought to first understand the faculty
conceptualization of academic communities, and second to see if these conceptualizations
play a role in shaping positive working conditions for part-time faculty.
In this first chapter, I offer the purpose and significance of the study. In Chapter 2,
I provide a review of the literature. I also set forth my theoretical framework and research
questions. A discussion of my research design and methodology follow in Chapter 3. To
explore the research questions, I have employed case study methodology using grounded
theory analysis. In Chapters 4-7 I provide an account of my findings, and end with
Chapter 8, a discussion of directions for future research and conclusions.
PURPOSE OF STUDY
The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first goal is to gain a better
understanding of an academic community from the perspective of faculty at a two-year
community college, and the second goal is to better understand if their conceptualizations
of academic community facilitate a positive work environment for part-time faculty. This
community college stands out for its good work environment—having an inclusive
community and many positive practices and policies for part-time faculty
4
. Studying this
institution may provide insight into new ways to forge change for part-time non-tenure
track faculty in other institutions.

3
In the case of California community college system, the distinction is made between
part-time faculty and full-time faculty who are also tenure track faculty; there are little to
no full-time, non-tenure track faculty in the system due to legislative policies.
4
The criteria for an inclusive community and positive policies and practices stem from
recommendations from various stakeholders, such as the AAUP and AFT. A further
explanation can be found in a later section.

6

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
Understanding faculty conceptualizations of academic community and a positive
work environment is important for four reasons. First, it is important to understand how
faculty conceptualize their academic community and their responsibilities to that
community to further theory development on faculty. There have been prescriptive
theories regarding academic community and faculty citizenship, but much of the work
focuses on tenure-lined faculty in the professoriate (Blau, 1994; Plater, 1998). With
tenure appointments no longer being the standard, there has yet to be studies that examine
the conceptualization of an academic community from the perspective of part-time
faculty, or from tenure-lined faculty working in a new paradigm of non-tenure track
appointments. There is also a gap in the literature regarding ideas of academic
community and faculty citizenship as it relates to the community college sector. Much of
the research focuses on four-year institutions with a larger commitment to research and
different operational models than public, two-year institutions.
Second, understanding an academic community and positive work conditions are
also important for ethical reasons. In institutions that advocate the democratic process,
equity, and diversity for their students, it is important to model such values in
institutional policies and practices (Kezar & Sam, 2011). There are a disproportionate
percentage of women who are non-tenure track, especially part-time, with women
comprising 48% of part-time faculty (AAUP, 2005). Poor working conditions for part-
time faculty can be viewed as a de facto issue of poor working conditions for many
women (Ivey, Weng, & Vahajdji, 2005). For example, women in community colleges are

7

“disproportionately represented in groups that have the lowest personal incomes.” Part of
the reason being that women are the majority of part-time hires in arts, humanities and
social sciences which are seen as low-status professional groups due to their limited
marketability outside of academia (Levin et al., 2006).
Third, this study may garner insight into the reasons why this particular
community college has made gains for part-time faculty compared to other community
colleges, as well as other types of institutions. Though positive policies and practices are
necessary to facilitate good working conditions for part-time, non-tenure track faculty,
they are not sufficient components to comprise an overall good work environment for
part-time faculty. For example, concerning full-time, non-tenure track faculty many of
the policies in place are equitable to tenure track faculty: similar salary rate, benefits,
orientation, professional development, etc. (Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Hollenshead et
al., 2007). However, adjuncts still often mention feeling like “second class” citizens and
excluded at their institutions (Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Schell
& Stock, 2001). Something more must facilitate the creation of a positive work
environment, and understanding the conceptualizations of an academic community could
provide the information needed to help create good work environments at other
campuses. This study hypothesizes that academic community is foundational to creating
positive working conditions for part-time faculty, instead of vice versa. However, the
ways in which the community can initiate, support, and sustain policies and programs is a
phenomenon that also needs to be explored.

8

Fourth, this study can help institutions meet two challenges that prevent
institutions from implementing policies and practices that help create a positive work
environment for part-time faculty. There have been many recommendations regarding the
policies and practices that should entail a good work environment: autonomy, academic
freedom protections, orientations, etc. (AFT, 2005; AAUP, 2009; Gappa et al., 2007;
Gappa & Leslie, 1993; NEA, 2007). However, there are two challenges to implementing
these recommendations. The first challenge is that these recommendations often look
from the outside-in, regardless of localized context. The results are either
recommendations that are so general that leaders who may want to implement them may
not have the direction or guidance to apply them to their own campuses, or may have
recommendations that are not applicable to their situation. Kezar and Sam (2011) call for
recommendations that are contextually based, stemming from case-study research on
exemplary institutions. The perspectives of academic community of would provide
contextually bound insights to inform leaders better, not only from the top-down, but
from the bottom-up as well.
The second challenge is that even if recommendations are both applicable and
contextually bound, the current institutional model and it's associated priorities prevent
implementation
5
. Recent developments such as increased competition, reduced funding,
increased enrollments and so forth have caused institutions of higher education to mimic
a more corporate business model (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2005). Community colleges
especially are limited in terms of available funding and ways to limit costs (Cohen &

5
A point touched briefly here, but expanded in a later section on neoliberalism.

9

Brawer, 2008). Part-time faculty are utilized as a means for institutions to meet their
priorities, and costly policies or practices for including part-time faculty would weaken
the original utility of part-time faculty. Within this current framework of higher
education, part-time and full-time faculty have very little agency to create change in the
status quo. The purpose of this study provides an alternative framework to understanding
the role of faculty in the institution. Rather than a passive means to the larger trends of
corporatization and globalization, the academic community can provide a lens that sees
change as starting from the ground-up within the institution. By actively creating and
strengthening an academic community, the faculty can re-establish their role in the
institution as active participants.

10

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
This review of the literature is divided into three parts. The first section explores
the community college sector and the various historical developments that have helped
create the faculty population that exists today. The second part focuses on the empirical
research on part-time faculty experiences of marginalization throughout higher education,
with an emphasis on public two-year institutions. The third section focuses on the
theoretical framework used for this study: community.
With regards to the first section, the context of community colleges, I will first
begin by explaining the significance of studying the public two-year sector, and exploring
the general reasons for the proliferation of part-time work as well as part-time faculty
appointments. This section highlights the elements specific to the community college
sector that have made them so reliant on part-time faculty. In the second section, I will
explore the part-time faculty work experience, policies, and practices that shape their
work environment. I will follow with the reasons why some part-time faculty remain in
academia despite negative conditions. By understanding the heterogeneous reasons why
part-time faculty continue to stay may help academic leaders and members understand
why it is difficult for change to happen from the bottom-up through mobilization, as well
as explain why college administration have little to no impetus to change the current
work environment.
The third section of this literature review examines the theoretical framework for
this study. Related to the difficulty of changing the negative work conditions, I will first

11

discuss neoliberalism in higher education, and how using this framework encourages
further increase of part-time faculty appointments, and discourages efforts to change part-
time faculty working conditions. As a competing framework to neoliberalism, I offer the
framework of the academic community and argue that this framework is an alternative
that could lead to changes for part-time faculty. I follow with a discussion of academic
community in higher education—both traditional conceptualizations, as well as potential
conceptualizations of a new academic community. Finally, I end this literature review
with the ideas of academic citizenship, the role that the academic citizen plays in the new
academic community, and how it may be different from traditional conceptualizations.
Why Community College Faculty?
There are three distinct reasons why it is important to study the faculty at
community colleges. The first is that a predominant number of faculty at the community
college level are part-time nontenure track and their impact on students is important. At
the community colleges in the United States, the division line between faculty are often
between tenure-line and part-time non-tenure faculty (with exceptions to those
institutions that do not have tenure as an option, in that case the delineation is between
full-time verses part-time faculty). At many institutions, part-time non-tenure track
faculty make up as much as 80% of the total composition at a single intuition, (AFT
2003, Outcalt, 2002). With the research noted in the previous section regarding some of
the negative student outcomes, part-time faculty also may have the most contact with
students at the community college level.

12

The effect part-time faculty have on students may be even more important given
the student population at community colleges. The two-year community college occupies
a precarious space within the higher education system. On the one hand, community
colleges provide vocational and career-education programs—many of them terminal
degrees—as well as continuing adult education. On the other hand, community colleges
provide access points to four-year institutions of higher education (Cohen & Brawer,
2008). Community colleges provide a more egalitarian means to higher education for
those students who may not otherwise be able to attend a four-year college or university
for various reasons (Cohen & Brawer, 2008).
The second reason is that the actual institution of community college has begun to
gain importance on a national policy level. On July 14, 2009, President Obama
announced the American Graduate Initiative—calling for an increase of five million more
graduates from institutions of higher education by 2020, and proposed to help institutions
achieve this goal by spending $12-billion over the next 10 years. The call and funding
were not for traditional four-year institutions, instead the call and funding were for two-
year colleges, and Mr. Obama’s address from Macomb Community College emphasized
that point. This initiative placed the spotlight on two-year colleges, an emphasis and
importance on them not seen since the Truman Commission (1947) and the G.I. Bill. This
increase in both funding and access of community colleges for students means that the
hiring and employment practices of part-time faculty will likewise be affected. It also
means that with the current hiring and employment practices of part-time faculty in

13

community college, they will continue to have the most contact with students at the
community college level.
The final reason is that despite the important role that community colleges play in
educating students--especially those who are ethnic or racial minorities, underprivileged,
or non-traditional--researchers have paid little attention to community college faculty
until recently. Researchers such as Outcalt (2002), Grubb and associates (1999) and
Levin, Kater, and Wagoner, (2007) note that two-year institutions and their faculty often
receive little attention or prestige compared to four-year institutions. As more and more
students enroll in community college and more models such as for-profit institutions
compete for those students, this oversight regarding community colleges and their faculty
may prove to be detrimental to higher education as a whole. It is important to understand
the nature of faculty work from those faculty members who instruct a large part of the
undergraduate student population.
Part-time Faculty: The Empirical Evidence
Historical Development: Part-time Employment, Community Colleges and Their
Growing Reliance on Part-time Faculty
The growth of part-time employment in the broader political-economy of the
United States occurred in the 1970s and has continued to increase (Tilly, 1991). Part-time
employment existed prior to the 1970s, but the distinction was that part-time employment
at that time was often voluntary—individuals (usually women and young adults)
choosing to work part-time over full-time (Tilly, 1991). There were also part-time
positions for work that was either temporary or unstable (Kalleberg, 2000). However in

14

beginning in the 1970s employers began using a new employment model; this model
meant that employers increased use of part-time employees, and more importantly
increased use of non-voluntary part-time employees—those workers who would actually
prefer full-time positions (Tilly, 1991). There are various reasons for the change.
Increased competition and uncertainty made businesses focus more on cutting costs
(Tilly, 1991; Kalleberg, 2000). Labor laws created to protect workers encouraged
companies to hire part-time employees, because companies wanted to avoid the costs that
came with permanent employees (e.g., benefits, retirement, and such like). Industry also
shifted away from manufacturing and production to trade and services: a labor market
with high turnover (Tilly, 1991). The economic recession in the 1970s also meant that
firms were no longer able to retain numerous full-time positions (Kalleberg, 2000).
In many ways, the growth of part-time appointments in higher education reflects
the greater political-economy in the US. Part-time faculty appointments began to increase
in the 1970s and have continued to grow (Gappa & Leslie, 1993). Issues like increased
competition and cost reduction became very important factors. The recession in the late
1970s encouraged individuals to enroll in higher education institutions. The proliferation
of part-time non-tenure track faculty
6
is most apparent in the community college sector of
higher education (Outcalt, 2002; Cohen & Brawer, 2008; Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006).
From 1958 to 2003, the percentage of part-time faculty members in community colleges
rose from 48% to 63% of the entire faculty composition (Cohen & Brawer, 2002; 2008).

6
In community college systems, the faculty are most often divided between part-time
faculty and full-time tenure-lined faculty, so full-time and tenure track will be used
interchangeably in the community college context, unless otherwise specified.

15

In 1998, 80% of recently hired faculty in two-year public institutions were part-time
(Anderson, 2002).
The increase in part-time faculty appointments in community colleges is rooted in
the same issues that affect the other institutional sectors of higher education:
unprecedented growth in student enrollment, limited funding, and lack of long-term
hiring plans (Baldwin & Chronister, 200, Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Brewster, 2008;
Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Outcalt, 2002; Haeger, 1998). Despite these parallel issues,
elements distinct to community colleges influenced them to hire more part-time faculty
than other types of colleges and universities (Wagoner, 2007). Understanding the
historical developments and factors that contribute to the dependence upon part-time
faculty provides insight to the current status quo of community college faculty. It also
provides some insight to the difficulties community colleges face in order to have more
policies and practices that empower and include part-time faculty into the institution.
Increased enrollments. Community colleges have to meet the needs of an ever-
increasing number of local students, and have to find enough faculty to facilitate
instruction. Increased student enrollment in community colleges traces back to two major
legislative works (Cohen & Brawer, 2008). First, the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of
1944 (i.e., The G.I. Bill), issued after World War II, provided funding for educational
opportunities (college or vocational training) for returning servicemen in the United
States military. Second, the 1947 President’s Commission on Higher Education offered
access to two additional years of education after the completion of high school. These
acts began the democratization of higher education, and community colleges found

16

themselves playing a large role in that process. Community colleges became access
points for those people who wanted further education, but were unwilling or unable to
attend four-year institutions: vocational students, part-time students, women, ethnic and
racial minorities, those of lower socio-economic status, and those people who performed
poorly in high school (Cohen & Brawer, 2008; Brewster, 2000). Like other institutions,
community colleges saw surges in enrollment, as seen after WWII and recession in the
1970s, but in many ways community colleges were more limited in their options to
accommodate these students, compared to traditional four-year institutions.
Reduced Funding. Because community colleges educate the population of
students not served by traditional institutions, these students often are economically
disadvantaged. While other institutions can raise tuition to meet increasing costs and
decreasing revenue, community colleges have to maintain significantly lower tuitions and
fees than four-year institutions (Brewster, 2000; Christensen, 2008). Due to the
predominantly vocational or transitional goals of the community colleges, as well as the
teaching-dominant nature of faculty work and responsibilities, community colleges
receive less alternative funding in the form of research grants, alumni donations, and
endowments to offset costs. As funding declines and costs rise, community colleges have
two options: “one was considered painful to external stakeholders, and one was
considered painful to internal stakeholders. The first was to raise the price of admission
and the second was to cut costs” (Brewster, 2000). Community colleges must do the
latter.

17

One approach that significantly reduces the instructional and personnel costs in
community colleges is to hire part-time faculty instead of full-time tenure track faculty
(Anderson, 2002; Gappa, 1984). In most cases, hiring part-time faculty costs less than
their full-time counter parts, due to lower wages and fewer benefits (Wyles, 1998). Part-
time faculty are also cost-effective hires, since a large nation-wide search with a lengthy
hiring process is often not needed (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Hollenshead et al., 2007).
Flexibility. Community colleges must also maintain flexibility in both scheduling
classes and hiring practices (Levin et al., 2006). Community colleges are able to offer
classes throughout the day and into the evening, with part-time faculty filling those less-
desirable time slots (Wallin, 2004). Regarding hiring practices, due to the nature of many
part-time contracts, part-time faculty can often be hired or cut on short notice, depending
upon the enrollment for the semester, as “a way to ‘staff up’ for heavy fall enrollments
and to ‘slack off’ for light spring loads” (McLaughlin, 2005, p. 186). Some people have
critiqued this hiring flexibility for creating a “faculty of convenience” of the part-time
hires, as staffing is determined by market demand (Wyles, 1998; Levin et al., 2006).
Scholars, unions, and professional organizations have called for a more conscientious
hiring procedure for non-tenure track faculty, part-time included (AAUP, 2005; AFT,
2003; Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Gappa et al., 2007).
Community colleges have met these three priorities--meeting student enrollment,
working with reduced funding and increased costs, and needing flexibility--by heavily
utilizing part-time faculty in the institution. In the current relationship of community
colleges and part-time faculty, administration use part-time faculty as means to

18

accomplish the goals and priorities of the institution, instead of understanding part-time
faculty as another institutional priority. Without part-time faculty, institutions would have
difficulty meeting their goals.
Colleges and universities have other reasons for hiring part-time faculty.
Researchers found that many administrators have favorable impressions of them
(Hollenshead et al., 2007). In the study, 80% of the administrators interviewed in a
variety of institutions had positive opinions of part-time faculty. The themes focused on
teaching ability and professional expertise in a particular field (Cohen & Brawer, 2008;
Christensen, 2008). Gappa and Leslie (2007) further note that hiring part-time faculty
also benefits the institution by strengthening connections to the community, since faculty
come from local areas. Schools also benefit from other institutions, since faculty hires
usually came from other academic contexts that can inform the current one. However,
despite these “positive” impressions from administrators and top-down leaders in the
academy, many part-time faculty still feel marginalized and excluded.
Structural Constraints and Tensions
Some of the factors that make part-time faculty appointments an attractive option
for institutions also result in the structural constraints that lead to poor working
conditions for them. Working with limited resources (revenue, office space, supplies,
administrative support, etc) makes it difficult to provide for part-time faculty and full-
time faculty similarly. Because institutions often use part-time faculty as a cost-saving
option, such policies like pay parity, heath care and benefits, sabbaticals, and class buy-
outs would negate the intended savings (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Cross & Goldenberg,

19

2009). Institutions are also limited by a finite amount of office space and administrative
support; these resources are often allocated to those full-time faculty members who teach
more units
7
.
Other structural constraints result from the perceived availability of part-time
faculty. Policies on governance and departmental committee participation often focus on
full-time faculty over part-time faculty. Because full-timers are compensated for their
participation, they are often more available to participate and have the expectations of
participation (Kezar & Sam, 2010). At some institutions, part-time faculty can participate
in various governance committees, but only after meeting requirements such as a set
number of years at an institution, a set number of units per semester, or only in affairs
that pertain to part-time faculty (Kezar & Sam, 2010). There are part-time faculty
members who prefer not to participate with governance or lack enough experience on the
campus, and these policies often reflect those faculty rather than the faculty who do want
to be actively involved on campus.
There are also legislative constraints that limit the number of units a part-time
faculty member is able to work (AB591). In California
8
, part-time faculty are limited to
working 66% FTE within the same community college district. There have been some
moves to enable faculty members to be compensated further for non-instructional
activities, but there are few institutions that have implemented this policy (Kezar & Sam,

7
Individually full-time faculty teach more units than part-time faculty, though part-time
faculty often teach the bulk of total units at many institutions.
8
Since this study takes place in California, I focused on California legislation.

20

2010). These legal constraints prevent part-time faculty from obtaining more campus
hours, even if the faculty members want them.
Structural constraints can lead to tensions between part-time faculty and full-time
faculty. The hiring of part-time faculty means fewer new full-time appointments. As full-
time faculty retire at a greater rate than the new hires, the total number of full-time
faculty shrinks. Fewer full-time appointments can mean that the responsibility of campus
governance and committees falls on the shoulders of fewer and fewer faculty. Also as
noted earlier in this paper, part-time faculty are seen as a threat to tenure and academic
freedom, increasing the tension with full-time faculty.
Good Workplace Environments: Positive Policies and Practices and Inclusive
Community.
For this study I argue that a good workplace environment is comprised of two
related but distinct elements: positive policies and practices and an inclusive community.
There is a difference between positive practices and polices and an inclusive community,
but both can overlap. In this section, I will first highlight recommended practices and
policies for part-time members that do not necessarily involve an inclusive community.
Then I will discuss an inclusive community, and the ways that the two may intersect with
one another.
When discussing “positive practices and policies” I defer to the recommendations
provided by AFT (2002), AAUP (2003), NEA (ND), as well as other professional groups
(such as the APA, 2002) as well as scholars (please see, Gappa et al., 2007; Gappa &
Leslie, 1993; Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Roueche, Roueche, & Milliron, 1995). The set

21

of recommendations by one group are often aligned with the recommendations of other
stakeholders. This alignment is not surprising since these stakeholder groups often inform
one another. There have been numerous recommendations for positive policies and
practices for part-time faculty. For example in 2002, AFT published Standards for Good
Practice in the Employment of Part-time/Adjunct Faculty. The goal of this document is to
put “forward a coordinated set of standards of good employment practice focused on
ensuring economic and professional equity for part- time/adjunct faculty” (AFT, 2002, p.
7). These standards focus on various faculty concerns: compensation, employment, and
professional responsibilities and support
9
. In terms of compensation, some of the policies
look to pro-rata pay and compensation for time spent at office hours. In terms of
employment, one of the recommended policies is a seniority policy for part-time faculty
who have remained at a campus for a certain number of years. Another recommended
policy for part-time faculty is preferential consideration when full-time positions open. In
terms of professional responsibility, one practice is to provide orientation for all faculty,
while another policy is to provide faculty with adequate time to prepare for classes.
These policies and practices do not necessarily create an inclusive community for
part-time faculty. As noted previously, numerous policies and practices for full-time non-
tenure track faculty are on par with tenure-line faculty at many institutions. However,
many full-time non tenure track faculty still feel excluded at their institutions (Baldwin &
Chronister, 2001; Schell & Stock, 2001; Gappa et al., 2007; Shaker, 2008). In terms of
defining an inclusive community, I will borrow from Gappa and associates’ (2007)

9
A more complete list of recommended policies and practices can be viewed in
Appendix A.

22

framework of faculty work
10
, more specifically their components of respect and
collegiality for faculty. Gappa et al., (2007) define respect as “the basic human valuing of
people for who they are and for what they uniquely contribute to their organizations” and
a “fundamental entitlement of every faculty member” (p.145). They make respect the key
value in their framework, citing motivation and work satisfaction studies (see Herberg,
1966; Maslow, 1970; Alderfer, 1972 as referenced in Gappa et al., 2007). They note that
respect is a value that must become part of an organizational culture, and it is the
responsibility of both administration and faculty. An inclusive community relies on the
values and beliefs that both the institution and faculty hold concerning part-time faculty
and their role on campus. If tenure-line faculty do not have respect for part-time faculty,
and perceive part-time faculty as professionals, committed to the institution, or valued
members of the faculty, then their actions towards part-time faculty will reflect those
beliefs (Kezar & Sam, 2010).
Stemming from respect is Gappa and associate’s (2007) component of
collegiality. Especially with for part-time non-tenure track faculty, collegiality is a very
important aspect of faculty life that is often missing (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Roueche et
al, 1995; Schell & Stock, 2003; AFT, 2010). Collegiality is the opportunity for faculty “to
feel that they belong to a mutually respectful community of colleagues who value their
unique contributions to their institutions and who are concerned about their overall well-
being” (Gappa et al., 2007, p.143). Policies and practices to encourage inclusion of part-
time faculty may not change the underlying belief and value systems of faculty and

10
Gappa et al., (2007) framework also includes policies for faculty, which is included in
the previous section regarding promising practices and policies.

23

administration, if not fully supported or implemented by leaders or influential members
of the community. Without a sense of belonging or inclusion, part-time faculty would
feel socially marginalized in their own workplace.
Just as positive policies and practices do not necessarily make for an inclusive
community, an inclusive community may not necessarily have the leverage to create
positive policies and practices. For example, a campus may have a very inclusive
community of faculty members, but due to structural constraints mentioned in a previous
section (such as limited resources) they are unable to implement the recommended
policies and practices.
Having a combination of equitable policies and practices and an inclusive
community equates to good work environment for part-time faculty. Though both
elements are distinctive and do not necessarily require one another, they can work in
tandem. For example, the policy that provides orientation for all new faculty can
emphasize a sense of unity, especially if the policy stems from the belief that part-time
faculty and tenure-lined faculty both deserve to respect and similar treatment. Gappa and
associates (2007) note that policies of faculty work should stem from a core of respect for
all faculty to create a positive work environment. Just as respect influences the types of
policies and practices implemented, those policies and practices in turn help socialize
others to the core value. Unfortunately, the research on part-time faculty suggests that
many part-time faculty do not experience a good workplace environment.

24

Marginalization in the Workplace
Policies and Practices
Numerous studies
11
have explored the working conditions for non-tenure track
faculty (AFT, 2010; Baldwin & Chronister, 2001; Conley & Leslie, 2002; Gappa &
Leslie, 1993; Levin et al., 2007; Roueche et al, 1995; Wagoner, 2009) and found that
many practices and policies make it difficult for part-time faculty to best meet their work
responsibilities. For example, limited office space makes it difficult to hold office hours
to mentor and advise students. Other practices and polices exclude part-time faculty,
either inadvertently or on purpose. For example, some policies prevent faculty from
taking an active role on campus or even with the development of the course curriculum.
This exclusion further removes part-time faculty from the day-to-day activities that shape
the campus experience for students. These limitations and exclusions and the ways they
affect part-time faculty and their work are important because part-time faculty teach a
bulk of introductory classes for undergraduate students, especially at the community
college level (Jaeger & Eagan, 2008). The research on part-time faculty indicates that
many part-time faculty often experience poor working conditions, which could hinder
their ability to perform their responsibilities.
The research on part-time note the numerous ways that institutional policies and
practices often leave part-time faculty feeling more like after-thoughts than valued

11
The literature on the experiences of part-time faculty in community college fall into
three categories: the first group consists of large studies on non-tenure track faculty with
part-time faculty included; the second group focuses on part-time faculty only with
community college faculty included; and the third group focuses on part-time faculty in
community college exclusively. This literature review will take into consideration the
studies found in all three categories as they apply to non-tenure track part-time faculty.

25

members of the institution. The challenges and discontent that part-time faculty
experience often seem to interconnect with one another, leaving part-time faculty to feel
like “second-class citizens” in either their department, in the institution, or both (Berry,
2005; Schell & Stock, 200; Roueche et al, 1995). Combined, these all comprise elements
of a poor work environment for part-time faculty: lack of job security, insufficient
resources to do work, lack of autonomy and academic freedom, lack of inclusion in the
community, and a general lack of respect for the work that part-time faculty do. It does
not help that often part-time faculty also receive less pay and often no benefits compared
to both tenure-line faculty and full-time non-tenure track faculty (Monks, 2001; Conley
& Leslie, 2002; Outcalt, 2002; Hollenshead et al., 2007). This section will first explore
the policies and practices that may negatively affect part-time faculty and follow with an
exploration of the lack of inclusion.
Job security. One of the top three concerns of part-time faculty is the lack of
policies in place that offer more job security (AFT, 2010). According to NSOPF: 93 data,
the most common contracts that last for one academic term (68.2%) and the fewest being
multi-year contracts (0.9%) (Conley & Leslie, 2002). Part-time faculty in community
colleges are the least likely to have long-term contracts of employment (Gappa & Leslie,
1993; Conley & Leslie, 2002). The lack of job security is an important concern for many
of the part-time faculty in all sectors of higher education; they note that often they receive
their notice of reappointment or cancellation days before a class begin (Gappa & Leslie,
1993; Schell & Stock, 2001; AFT, 2010; NEA, 2009). Along similar lines, many
institutions do not have seniority policies in place to determine rehiring or class

26

assignment (Berry, 2005). Without seniority or rehiring policies, a second year faculty
member and a sixth year faculty member may have equal standing of obtaining a class or
not being rehired.
Insufficient resources. Part-time faculty often note that the lack many of the basic
resources that would allow them to perform their work well (Gappa & Leslie, 1993;
Conley & Leslie, 2002; Outcalt, 2002). Part of instruction includes meeting students
outside of the classroom for office hours, directed research, or simply additional
instruction. Contact with students outside of the classroom is more challenging for part-
time faculty, because many of them have inadequate office space to meet with students
(Conley & Leslie, 2002; Leslie & Gappa, 1993; Gappa, et al., 2007; Benjamin, 2003;
Umbach, 2008). Many part-time faculty are also not compensated in any way for office
hours, an amount often budgeted into full-time/tenure line faculty salaries (Monks, 2005).
Numerous studies have demonstrated that part-time faculty have limited access to office
space, and they also have limited access to supplies, equipment, and secretarial support
(Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Outcalt, 2002; Conley & Leslie, 2002; AFT, 2010). The lack of
support services may be cyclical—with the lack of office space, part-time faculty may
find it difficult to be on campus when they are not teaching. Since many teach classes
during the evening, part-time faculty may not be able to use the support services available
during regular work hours. Insufficient resources also entail lack of professional
development and other programs, such as conferences, which may improve teaching or
further the knowledge of faculty in his or her field (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Outcalt,
2002).

27

Salary, benefits, and compensation. Part-time faculty in also make much less
money than full-time non-tenure track faculty - $7,978 for a course versus $5,564 for a
part-timer
12
(Hollenshead et al., 2007). Another national study found that overall, part-
time faculty earn approximately 60% less than comparable full-time, tenure track faculty
in institutional salary when expressed on an hourly basis (Curtis, 2005; Toutkoushian &
Bellas, 2003). The national average for the basic salary of part-time faculty is $11,200
and the national average for the basic salary of a full-time faculty member (tenure and
non-tenure track) is $67, 400 (Forrest Cataldi, 2005).
Very few part-time faculty receive benefits through the institution (Gappa &
Leslie, 1993; Hollenshead et al., 2007, Monks, 2007). In a national study, only 51% of
part-time faculty receive some form of benefits – typically health benefits, but this was
often not the same package of benefits given to full-time, which includes life insurance,
retirement, and sick leave (Hollenshead et al., 2007). In fact, Gappa and Leslie (1993)
discovered institutions often did not rehire part-time faculty because they might become
eligible for benefits if they have been working for the institution for such a long and
continuous period. Gappa and Leslie (1993) also found that many part-time faculty do not
have written contracts in place, further limiting their claim to any institutional benefits. In
their study, they uncovered that institutions do not make information available about any
benefits that do exist for part-timers. They also found that part-time faculty, were
unaware of benefits, and they would have used them if they had known.

12
This number indicates four-year institutions.

28

Most part-time faculty also do not receive compensation for any work that they
may do beyond their instructional responsibilities. Though office hours and student
mentorship is part of instruction, often part-time faculty are paid a set amount per class
regardless of the number of students in a class (Gappa & Leslie, 1993). They are not
compensated for large classes nor for extra time spent working with students outside of
class. Part-time faculty are also not compensated for any time spent with service
activities—governance, participating on committees, or attending in-services (Kezar &
Sam, 2010). This lack of compensation, in combination with poor salary places an undue
burden on part-time faculty that full-time and tenured faculty do not have: if part-time
faculty wish to participate on campus or offer additional services to students they must do
so on their own time (Kezar & Sam, 2010).
Lack of academic freedom and autonomy. In a statement regarding the status of
non-tenure track faculty, the AAUP (1993) voiced concern regarding the affect non-
tenure track faculty may have on faculty autonomy and academic freedom. Though few
studies have explored these concerns
13
, there have been numerous cases in the media
(The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed for example) that have
highlighted part-time faculty who have been fired for criticizing the institution. However,
as a whole, part-time faculty find themselves to be very satisfied with the level of
academic freedom in their institutions (AFT, 2010; Conley & Leslie, 2002). This finding
may be puzzling compared to the examples highlighted in the media: part-time faculty

13
Chait & Ford, 1982 and Chait & Trower, 1996 are examples that focuses more on
tenured verses non-tenured faculty in terms of academic freedom

29

are satisfied with academic freedom despite the numerous public examples of part-time
faculty without academic freedom.
One resolution could be that the experiences of academic freedom in the
classroom verses in the institution may be conflated. Most part-time faculty felt that their
autonomy and academic freedom in the classroom were protected. However, numerous
non-tenure track faculty noted that they often did not have a voice in the institution, or
did not want to speak for fear it would jeopardize their employment (Gappa & Leslie,
1993; Kezar & Sam, 2011; Gappa, Leslie & Trice, 2007). This duality also applies to
issues of autonomy. While in the classroom there are few limits placed upon the
instructor, research shows that part-time faculty are less likely to have opportunities for
curriculum development and are more likely to have a standard curriculum that they must
teach (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Kezar & Sam, 2009; Conley & Leslie, 2002). As classes
become more standardized (especially on-line classes), part-time faculty find themselves
with little input regarding syllabus development, textbook decisions, grading, and
assignments.
Distinction and mobility. Though administrators note that they have respect for
the work and contributions of part-time faculty (Hollenshead et al., 2007; Cross &
Goldenberg, 2009), the policies and practices in place do not always coincide with that
sentiment. It is common for part-time faculty members not to have any titles, ranks, or
promotional opportunities to distinguish individual careers at a given institution (Gappa
and Leslie, 1993; Outcalt, 2002; Trower, 2000). A large proportion of part-time faculty in
community college expressed dissatisfaction regarding the lack of distinction and

30

promotion (Conley & Leslie, 2002). Along a similar vein, there is little mobility for non-
tenure track faculty to obtain a tenure track position, and part-time faculty to obtain a
full-time position. National surveys show that close to 35% of part-time faculty desire to
move to full-time positions (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Some institutions provide
provisions and encouragement for part-time faculty to apply for full-time positions, but
national data suggest there is less movement for part-time to full-time than for full-time
to tenure track lines (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). These barriers to moving full-time
further adds to part-time faculty feeling excluded.
Lack of Inclusion in the Workplace.
Not only do part-time faculty work with policies and practices that make job
performance difficult, they are often excluded or feel excluded from the campus
community as well. In a study of faculty in community college, Outcalt (2002) found that
part-time faculty were less likely to be involved in institutional activities for both their
departments and the general campus. This finding is not surprising, since other studies
have found that part-time faculty often are not invited or encouraged to attend faculty
functions (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Schell & Stock, 2001; Kezar & Sam, 2009). Various
studies have also identified that non-tenure track faculty are often excluded from
orientation processes and professional development (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Schell &
Stock, 2001). A limited number of institutions provide a handbook to non-tenure track
faculty, others defer to department chairs to offer some welcome and socialization, which
often does not occur (Gappa & Leslie, 1993). This type interaction is important for part-
time faculty. In community college, Outcalt (2002) found that the more involved part-

31

time faculty were on campus with professional development, instruction, orientation,
involvement departmental affairs, and service, the more faculty were satisfied. This
finding suggests that part-time involvement in the life of the campus is related to a good
work environment.
Part-time faculty are also less likely to participate in governance than their tenure-
track or full-time counterparts. Of the administrators surveyed, 35% of them noted that
part-timers have the ability to participate in the Senate at some level, and 66% been able
to participate in departmental affairs (Hollenshead et al., 2007). However, it is important
to note that having the ability to participate is not the same as participation. The reasons
for this lack of participation can stem from various reasons such as part-time faculty
simply not allowed to participate, they are not compensated for their time, or some
faculty are not interested in participation (Kezar & Sam, 2009). However, Gappa and
Leslie (1993) and AFT (2010) found that many part-time faculty were frustrated at their
lack of inclusion in decision-making processes, including governance.
Lack of respect for the part-time faculty. There is a misconception that part-time
faculty do not remain for long periods at their institution, thus they are not as committed
as their full-time counterparts (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Benjamin, 2002; Kezar & Sam,
forthcoming). While this may be true for some part-time faculty members, it is not the
case for all of them. According to the NOSPF: 93, the average length
14
of time a part-
time faculty member has been at their community college is 5.9 years (Conley & Leslie,
2002). Though the number is less than full-time faculty in community college (11.5

14
Though distribution is important, the various studies do not give a general distribution
on time at an institution.

32

years), this length of time does speak to the idea that part-time faculty do have a long-
term interest in their institution rather than temporary employment.
Another misconception is that most part-time faculty are “freeway fliers,”—
piecing a full-time academic schedule amongst numerous institutions. Data has shown
that many part-time faculty, who rely on teaching as their only income, often remain
predominantly at one school (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Conley & Leslie, 2002; AFT, 2010).
These misconceptions may convince other faculty and administration that part-time
faculty are neither invested or committed to their campus, and therefore not worthwhile
to include. There is also the issue of these misconceptions creating a self-fulfilling
prophesy with some part-time faculty. Because part-time faculty are assumed to be less
committed, the institution treat part-time faculty poorly. This treatment encourages some
part-time faculty to leave after only a few years or seek work elsewhere, reinforcing the
misconceptions.
Unfortunately, despite their long-term standing at institutions, many part-time
faculty members express feeling isolated on their campus. Of the elements of
dissatisfaction that part-time faculty experience, respect was one of the more prominent
ones (AFT, 2010; Conley & Leslie, 2002). Several studies of the experience of part-time
faculty suggest that some tenure-track faculty express antagonism towards non-tenure
track faculty, and the most vulnerable group are part-timers (Gappa & Leslie, 1993;
Leslie, Samuels, & Gunne, 1982). Even amongst non-tenure track faculty themselves,
full-time contingent faculty often express animosity towards part-time faculty, whom
they compete with for courses and job security (Kezar & Sam, 2009).

33

Reasons for Remaining Off the Tenure Track
Despite the negative experiences of part-time faculty, there continues to be a
growth in part-time faculty appointments, and many part-time faculty continue to stay at
their institutions for long periods of time. This section explores the different types of
part-time faculty and their motivations for staying at an institution. The myriad of reasons
for being part-time faculty helps highlights two points. The first helps explain some of
the reason why part-time faculty are often not unified, even among themselves:
heterogeneity. The second explains that there is an upside to part-time faculty work that
keeps a surplus of faculty willing to take part-time appointments, even with the negative
experiences.
Types of Part-time Faculty
In a 1978 study of part-time faculty, Howard Tuckman found seven prime
categories of part-time faculty working in higher education: semi-retireds, graduate
students, hopeful full-timers, full-mooners, homeworkers, part-mooners, and part-
unknowners
3
. In a later study of part-time faculty, including community college faculty in
the list of participating institutions, Gappa and Leslie (1993) found that the individual
experiences and patterns of the faculty were too complex to encapsulate in the narrower
categories Tuckman (1978) offered, so proposed their own that subsumed Tuckman’s
categories.
Gappa and Leslie (1993) broadened the terms to four categories: career enders;
specialists, experts, and professionals; aspiring academics; and freelancers. According to
Gappa and Leslie (1993), “career-enders” are those individuals were in the process of

34

retiring and those who were retired. Many of them come from established careers outside
of academia and have decided to continue in academia for a combination of various
reasons: the supplemental income, keeping “a hand in the field,” or simply because they
enjoy the experience. “Specialists, experts, and professionals” are those who have full-
time employment elsewhere and come from a varied range of careers. Schools hire them
for their specialized knowledge or success in certain fields, be it the arts, a vocational
skill, or business. Rather than relying on the faculty position for income, these faculty
members often take the position simply because they enjoy teaching. Some of these
specialists can also add prestige to the institution. These faculty members are well-known
in their field. The institution benefits by having these people on its faculty roster. The
category “aspiring academics” are those faculty members who are looking for a full-time
or tenure-track position, including graduate students. This category also includes those
who may be looking for a position at the same school as their partners. Faculty who
manage to create full-time schedules from part-time faculty positions—“freeway fliers”
are also included in this category (Gappa & Leslie, 1993). Finally, there are the
“freelancers,” predominantly faculty members who supplement the part-time positions
from other jobs not in academia, or who may be caretakers at home and are using the
position for supplemental income.
With the many different types of part-time faculty, their concerns regarding their
work environment may also vary. A survey conducted of part-time faculty at various
institutions (AFT, 2010) found that those faculty members who taught only one per
semester tended to be more satisfied with their work conditions than those who teach two

35

or more classes (including those part-time faculty who may teach at different
institutions). Tilly (1991) makes the distinction between voluntary and involuntary part-
time employees. In Gappa and Leslie’s typology of faculty, they can also be categorized
as those faculty members who prefer part-time appointments and those faculty members
who desire full-time/tenured appointments (Jacoby, 2005). For those faculty who are
voluntary part-timers, they may not be as concerned with issues of salary or inclusion.
Levin et al., (2006) divides community college part-time faculty between those who have
careers in other professions, and those who rely on the part-time position for sole income
and view academics as their professional career. For those part-time faculty already
considered professionals in their other line of work (like career enders or specialists),
issues of professionalization on campus may not be as pressing to them, as to those who
want their institutions to recognize them as professionals. Those faculty members who
are retired or have full-time work elsewhere may be less concerned with salary and
benefits, while those faculty members seeking a career in academia may be more
concerned.
These different types of part-time faculty may play a role in inadvertently
supporting the current inequities regarding faculty salary, benefits, and even opportunities
like governance participation. Those faculty members who teach because they enjoy
teaching and who are not as concerned about their salary can play a role in setting the low
market price for part-time instructors. Part-time faculty who are content with the status
quo regarding participation in governance or campus activities, may propagate the
misunderstanding that most part-time faculty are uninterested in governance and

36

participation. By assuming that part-time faculty are a homogeneous group, institutions
can overlook the needs and concerns of a large portion of their faculty.
Work Satisfaction
Despite the challenging work conditions noted in the previous section, most part-
time faculty express satisfaction with their jobs and continue their employment (Outcalt,
2002; AFT, 2010; Conley & Leslie, 2002). The professoriate is still a preferred
employment option to numerous people, either who choose the part-time appointment
over full-time or who create full-time work from part-time appointments. In an almost
counter intuitive finding, a survey sent out by AFT (2010) found that of the part-time
faculty members they surveyed, 60% of them were very satisfied with their jobs. This
survey is further supported by other studies on part-time faculty satisfaction. In general,
part-time faculty tend to be more satisfied than or equally satisfied to their tenure-track
colleagues (Antony & Valdez, 2002; Conley & Leslie, 2002; Toutkoushian & Bellas,
2003). Outcalt (2002) also noted that part-time faculty in community colleges exhibit
more satisfaction than their counterparts in four-year institutions. This satisfaction exists
amongst part-time faculty, despite the fact that many feel that they are underpaid, lack
benefits, lack resources, and lack respect at their institutions (AFT, 2010; Gappa &
Leslie, 1993; Christiansen, 2008).
There are issues with using work satisfaction as a survey item to either connect
satisfaction to productivity and performance, or to indicate a good work environment. On
the one hand, research in the business literature shows that the correlation between work
satisfaction alone and improved productivity or performance is still inconclusive (Judge,

37

Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001). Institutions that use work satisfaction as an indication
that further policies and practices are unnecessary for part-time faculty may be mistaken.
The second issue is that work satisfaction actually can hide a myriad of distinctions that
the umbrella term cannot separate.
It is important to parse out the elements of “satisfaction” that enable part-time
faculty to be satisfied with their work. The first and greatest factor seems to be the
different made between “work” that focuses on student instruction and “working
conditions” which may include salaries, policies and practices. Concerning teaching
students, it is no surprise that many part-time faculty members are satisfied with their
work, since many actually take instructional positions because they enjoy teaching
(Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Outcalt, 2002; Leslie et al., 1982; Levin et al., 2006). Many part-
time faculty actually have full employment elsewhere, or are retired; they choose to teach
at an institutions for reasons other than salary or benefits (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Conley
& Leslie, 2002). Part-time faculty express a sense of purpose and enjoyment with regards
to instruction that offsets some of the negative experiences they have at their institution.
This purpose may come with a sense of obligation and responsibility towards the greater
good and to their community that numerous other faculty espouse (Boyer, 1990; Giroux,
2002). For those part-time faculty who are “aspiring academics,” this sense of purpose
may also relate to their dissatisfaction regarding their lack of resources and exclusion in
many faculty and campus activities. Aspiring academics, because they have been
socialized similarly to other faculty, may feel that inclusion and participation are
necessary for them to fulfill their responsibilities as a faculty member.

38

Part-time Advantage? There appears to be a disconnect occurring with part-time
faculty and the potential for influence in the institution. On the surface, it seems that part-
time faculty have very important factors in their favor, which could encourage positive
changes within the institution. First, part-time faculty currently comprise the majority of
faculty appointments on most community college campuses. Second, due to the
institutions’ heavy reliance on part-time faculty, they have made themselves
indispensable. Third, a predominant percentage of administration thinks favorably of
part-time faculty, both their skill as instructors as well as their value to the institution.
These three factors should play a large part in creating change for part-time faculty on a
college campus. For example, a majority percentage of faculty provides a voting
advantage, indispensability can provide leverage, and favorable impressions can help
foster influence, etc. However, despite these advantages, as well as calls for reform from
other stakeholders, working conditions and overall environment at many community
colleges seem to have not changed very much from the years when colleges and
universities viewed part-time faculty as the auxiliary minority.
Theoretical Frameworks: Academic Community as Counterpoint to Neoliberalism
What is the cause of this disconnect? Despite the advantages that part-time faculty
appear to have in the institution, ultimately campuses that hold a neoliberalism
philosophy can render part-time faculty powerless to enact change. Often this belief is
implicit, but at times stakeholders can explicitly espouse the neoliberal framework.

39

Neoliberalism, Higher Education, and Part-time Faculty
For many years, higher education has had connections with the private sector of
business through joint ventures, research collaboration, and employee connections; but it
had also remained separate and distinct from the private business sector. Even private
institutions, which rely more on garnering tuition for revenue than public institutions, had
remained distinct from the business sector. Lately, a change has occurred and higher
education institutions have come to emulate business and corporate models (Johnson,
Kavanagh, & Mattson, 2003). Those institutions most similar to the corporate models
would be the for-profit sector of higher education. For-profit colleges and universities
have been on the rise in the last ten years and have seen increased enrollments (Tierney &
Hentschke, 2007). On-line programs also have emulated business models of production
as on-line classes become more standardized and faculty become facilitators rather than
instructors in the virtual classroom (Finkelstein, 2000; Maquire, 2009). On-line
intellectual property is also a new issue where institutions own the content of classes and
own the rights to market and sell said property (Maitland, Henderson, Dubeck, 2000),
These institutions and programs are acutely aware of the need to increase revenue and
efficiency and reduce costs.
However, traditional institutions and programs have also found themselves
modeling after the business sector. Universities and colleges have begun to follow
businesses in three distinct ways: privatization, commercialization, and corporatization.
Proponents of this change use terms like marketization, educational entrepreneurialism,
or market-democracy to describe this framework. However, most of the time this

40

framework remains unnamed because it is assumed to be “the implacable and irreversible
logic of social reality” (Bauman, 1999, p.127). Those more critical of this framework
term it “neoliberalism” (Boas & Gans-Morse, 2009).
We can see the application of economic business models permeating the culture
of higher education in different ways. One example is the very language used by the
institutions. Traditionally collegial—having departmental autonomy and lateral
governance structures—in structure (Hardy, 1990), higher education institutions have
been adopting governance structures from businesses, usually more hierarchical in nature.
Titles such as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have become part of
the vocabulary at the expense of more power-neutral terms (Rhoades, 1987; Hardy,
1990). Even for organizational changes, the universities have adopted a corporate
“language of alterations,” e.g. streamlining, repositioning, retrenchment, merging, and so
forth. (Rhoades & Slaughter, 1997). Likewise, the application of business models has
directed institutions towards market-based decision-making—determining policies and
practices on economic priorities. Economic priorities include efficiency, flexibility, and
profitability, production, and performance (Berberet, 2002). In the previous section, we
can see that the various reasons that institutions have to hire a part-time faculty workforce
reflect these values and priorities.
In many ways, there are benefits to market-driven decision-making. First,
supporters of market-driven higher education institutions see the academy’s connection
with the private markets as a way to push scholars to find innovations. These innovations
would not only be in the ways that they provide education to students (such as online or

41

hybrid-online programs and classes), but the research that can lead to marketable
products and patents (Kerr, 2001). Second, market-driven institutions can create links
with industry and help create greater economic growth, both in educating future workers
and knowledge creation (Currie, 2004). As the industry advances, new skills and types of
employees become necessary. By being aware of these developments, colleges and
universities can shape their curriculum and instruction to help students develop the skills
to fit that economic niche. Third, marketization can increase the efficiency of higher
education operations—by adopting business models institutions can create a more
streamlined process for both resource allocations and budget management, and help
eliminate unnecessary redundancies (Currie, 2004). Fourth, by adopting a business
model, institutions of higher education no longer are the remote “ivory towers” that
remain separate from the concerns of the public—instead institutions must adapt and
change to suit the needs of the public and student-consumers, making higher education
more accessible and responsive. Fifth, the participation of higher education in the markets
allows for institutions to retain their competitive advantage through increased funds and
innovations that has allowed for colleges and universities in the United States to be the
best education system in the world (Zemsky, 1993).
Just as there are benefits to higher education institutions functioning within a
corporate framework, there are also problems. The first problem is that neoliberalism
shifts the focus of universities and colleges from knowledge production to using
knowledge to make products—this push towards monetarily profitable research can
significantly limits the types of research that the institution finds valuable (Slaughter &

42

Rhoades, 2005). Second, neoliberalism greatly reduces public discourse. While
remaining somewhat apart from the private sector, higher education could provide a
critical voice to provide alternative views so that the public may be better informed of
their choices (Giroux, 2002). By being businesses, universities and colleges may be
incentivized to serve their own private interests rather than that of the public good. Third,
neoliberalism separates people from one another. Instead of focusing upon relationships
and interdependency, neoliberalism focuses on the individual as singular monad, and this
focus encourages and expects individuals to act out of self-interest rather than other
concerns. Scholars have noted the increased fragmentation of the faculty as each member
is encouraged to pursue his or her own research and funding; competition rather than
collaboration is encouraged (Berberet, 2002; Giroux, 2002; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2005).
Finally, neoliberalism makes ethical concerns secondary to practical concerns. Those
choices that are the most ethical are often not the most cost-efficient or profitable
according to the market—and in many ways the ethical concerns have no real place for
discourse in the neoliberal framework. Ideas such as good, democracy, and freedom are
all limited to the economic terms: good as private good, democracy as in participation in
open market system, and freedom as autonomy of choice in free market. Values such as
dignity, authenticity, and justice cannot enter the economic dialogue.
Part-time faculty appointments fit well into a higher education system that utilizes
the neoliberal framework. As noted previously, part-time faculty are a way for
institutions to be more efficient in their allocation of resources through cost reduction and
productivity. When we analyze part-time non-tenure track faculty in economic terms,

43

their place in the institution is made very clear, and the status quo is advantageous for the
school. Wagoner (2007) conceptualizes part-time faculty as the temporary labor in the
new economy. In the new economy there are two groups of part-time faculty: those few
with highly marketable skills and specific knowledge that are in high demand outside
academia, and those many whose skills are less marketable and more dependent upon
academic jobs. It is this “many” that set up an employment system that can be exploitive
of part-time faculty. Paired with dual market theory we can see why little change has
occurred for part-time faculty. Dual market notes the segmentation of the labor market
into a primary market (tenure track) and secondary market (non-tenure track), with each
market operating with different principles and rules (Doeringer & Piore, 1971; Shaker,
2008; Youn, 1988). Primary markets (for those part-timers with marketable skills and
tenure-line faculty) offer security, health benefits, and other privileges while the
secondary markets (academy dependent) offer less security and benefits. In order to
compete, colleges and universities can downsize the tenure appointments and restructure
by adding more part-time appointments.
In terms of a neoliberal perspective, institutions have little imperative to change
the current policies and practices for part-time faculty. The current status quo meets the
needs and values set forth by the institution. If part-time faculty are unhappy with their
working conditions, they have the autonomy to leave the institution. Part-time faculty
turnover is not necessarily a negative for the institution, for every faculty member who
leaves another one is willing to fill the appointment. Likewise, the neoliberal framework
also means that faculty have very few options to changing the system.

44

It is important to note that there are contestations to neoliberalism and academic
capitalism in higher education. Slaughter and Rhoades (2005) note that there is struggle
between a “public good” model of higher education and the “academic capitalist” model
of higher education. They argue that these two models are not mutually exclusive in
higher education, instead they “coexist, intersect, and overlap” (Slaughter & Rhoades,
2005, p. 29). However, Rhoades and Slaughter (2004) argue that those in the academy
must make an active choice either to partake in educational entrepreneurialism or to
choose an alternative. Simply ignoring the problem will not make it disappear, and
Rhoades and Slaughter note that often faculty assume that what is happening in the
margins of academia will not affect them. They argue that one alternative is for faculty
members to work collaboratively with other professional groups. For example, the
Associated New American College (ANAC) Faculty Work Project sought to re-envision
the relationship faculty had with their institutions, other stakeholders, and one another.
The Faculty Work Project specifically focused on institutional citizenship and academic
community (Berberet, 2002). Other faculty groups such as the New Faculty Majority are
another example of faculty choosing to work together to improve conditions for non-
tenure track faculty. It is important to note that faculty are not the only stakeholders
challenging the neoliberal framework in higher education. In 1998, students mobilized
and protested the neoliberal policies of their university, demanding a return to instruction
and challenging the involvement of corporation in higher education (Giroux, 2002).

45

Academic Communities and Academic Citizenship
We can shift our perspective to another conceptual framework of higher education
that could provide a counterpoint to the neoliberal conceptualization of the academy. This
shift reframes the dialogue about part-time faculty, with real implications to the ways the
institution treats part-time faculty. This alternative framework has the potential to re-
establish the interdependencies and relationships between people, rather than isolate
individuals. It also has the potential to re-introduce the ethical component to decision-
making and the values of justice, stewardship, and trust, rather than market-driven
decision-making and the values of efficiency, productivity, and competition. Finally, this
framework can challenge the status quo by reminding people that they do have agency to
enact change, instead of being means to an end. I propose that to conceptualize and
refocus our attention to faculty members as part of an academic community can offer a
strong counterbalance to neoliberalism in the academy. The conceptualization of an
academic community is not meant to replace the framework of corporatization, instead it
is meant to provide a balance--to highlight priorities and goals of the academy that may
otherwise be ignored in the corporate framework.
The idea of an academic community as a challenge to the neoliberal framework is
not new. Wagoner, Levin, and Kater (2009) advocate a “group identity grounded in
community”—where faculty build ties to their institutions as well as with each other (p.
96). One of the reasons for ANAC’s Faculty Work Project was to re-unify the faculty, a
faculty previously fragmented in pursuit of individual research and interests due to
academic entrepreneurialism (Berberet, 2002). The call for an academic community is

46

one that has the most potential to reform higher education in such a way that enables
faculty, both tenure and non-tenure, to regain agency in a system that appears to be
whittling away at faculty strength. Barnett (1994) argues for a re-establishment of the
academic community for other reasons as well: the important role of community in
rational discourse, strengthen academic ties and identity, and protection of academic
freedom, for example.
Defining the Academic Community. The idea of an academic community is also
not new to higher education. The idea of the academic community is one of the
distinctions between the public good model of higher education and the private corporate
sector. Katz (1987) defines the academic community in idealized terms:
A community of persons united by collective understanding by common and
communal goals, by bonds of reciprocal obligation, and by a flow of sentiment
which makes the preservation of community an object of desire, not merely a
matter of prudence or a command of duty. Community implies a form of social
obligation governed by principles different from those operative in the
marketplace and the state. (cited in Tierney, 1999, p.11)

I use this generalized definition of an academic community as a starting point to explore
the different ways that others theorize the academic community and break down the
academic community into three components: specific common and communal goals,
forms of obligations and responsibilities, and membership access to that community.
Each academic community can be different in one or more of those three elements.
Barnett (1994) notes there are three ways that an academic community can
develop and connect members together. The first is through discourse—communication
within the academic realm among one another and discipline to discipline. The second is
through institutional interaction—faculty actually working with and among other faculty

47

and administration in circles outside of campus as well as within. The third is through
student experience—focusing more on the sense of community that students experience
while on campus. According to Barnett (1994), these types of community bonding can
occur simultaneously. In practice, they can take on different forms, as well as different
dynamics. These three ways of development and connection could facilitate the three
components of community from the prior paragraph. At the community college level, it
may be that institutional interaction and student experience may be the most pertinent
level of interaction, since most community colleges do not necessarily embark on large
interdisciplinary research.
On a national level, academic communities may take a professional tone,
especially with groups like the AAUP, and disciplinary societies such as the Modern
Language Association or American Psychological Association. The common goals of
these communities focus on the needs of the profession to function. For example, the
AAUP was originally a group to both professionalize and represent university professors,
similar to the American Medical Association in relation to doctors in the field of
medicine. The AAUP also was to bring the idea of scholarship to the public and protect
academic freedom (Tierney, 2004). Often ideas of academic community involve the
AAUP, whose members include those with a “professional position of teacher or
researcher or related professional appointment” at an accredited college or university,
graduate students, and associated members including administrators and the public
(AAUP, 2009). Obligations of membership involve participation through voting,
participation on various committees, or academic work such as research. One of the

48

values of this academic community is maintaining open discourse—especially through
academic freedom—towards the pursuit of knowledge. The AAUP has issued statements
regarding the treatment and hiring of non-tenure track faculty. However, the AAUP
statement focuses on the affect of non-tenure track faculty and the possible undermining
of academic freedom. Though it does not advocate the poor treatment for non-tenure
track, it highly discourages the use of non-tenure track faculty especially part-time
(AAUP, 2006).
The disciplinary societies also aim to professionalize university professors, but
unlike the overarching AAUP, disciplinary societies set up the standards and expectations
for members focused on a particular academic discipline. Often they are in line with
much of the AAUP standards for faculty, with groups like the American Historical
Association endorsing the AAUP’s “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom
and Tenure,” but can more contextual in terms of research, policies and practices
(Harvey, 2002). Obligations towards this community may be similar to obligations to the
AAUP, but due to the smaller membership, demands may be greater on individuals. For
example, due to a focused membership, more participation on committees is expected.
Disciplinary associations have also taken a more active role in facilitating collaborative
efforts among their own scholars, to understand and formulate solutions to problems and
challenges facing their disciplines. For example the Modern Language Association
(MLA) had begun to organize forums on teaching and integrating different ideas of
scholarship, which includes the work of non-tenure track faculty. As for values espoused,
these disciplinary associations have approached the challenge of non-tenure track faculty.

49

Groups such as MLA and AHA have issued statements regarding the poor treatment of
non-tenure track faculty and have made recommendations towards various policies, such
as orientations and participation in departmental committees.
However, national levels of academic community, though professionally
important for some, may not have the same influence on faculty at community colleges.
Faculty at research institutions may have closer ties and more frequent interactions with
national academic communities, due to the nature of their research and disciplines.
Conferences, committees, projects and publications often give reasons for members of an
academic community to interact and connect with one another. Participation in these
national academic communities are often understood to be part of external service—
participation in wider communities outside of the actual institution (Finsin, 2002)—one
of the components of faculty work often noted for tenure (Thompson, Constantineau, &
Fallis, 2005). For community college faculty members, national academic communities
may play a peripheral role in their day-to-day interactions and work. Instead, the
localized institutional academic community may play a larger role. For these other
faculty, a more localized understanding of academic community may be more applicable.
Local academic communities may apply especially to community colleges, which
have a history of being grounded in local areas and serving students from those areas
(Cohen & Brawer, 2008). In the community college context, faculty focus more on
instruction than research (Outcalt, 2002; Cohen & Brawer, 2008). That focus on
instruction suggests that a more localized academic community grounded to the

50

departments and institution may be more pertinent to the every-day faculty work
experience than national academic communities.
The academic community at a more localized level may have the greatest
potential to enact change for the inclusion of part-time faculty, and paradoxically it could
also play a large role in hindering positive change. National professional communities
have not been able to offer recommendations that meet the contextual needs of individual
institutions, and as noted, rely on predominantly administrative or top-down change has
not worked currently. Academic communities at an institution may be able to use a
bottom-up approach to implement policies and practices that could lead to a good work
environment. However, these academic communities, especially ones that can be found
within departments, are also the same ones that have exhibited exclusionary behaviors
towards part-time faculty.
A localized academic community can take on different forms. On one level we
can focus on the academic community as it relates specifically to the faculty. Bergquist
and Pawlak
15
(2007) discuss the various cultures in the academy, one of them being the
collegial culture. A collegial culture is one that is predominantly located among the
faculty—collegial culture is:
Culture that finds meaning primarily in the disciplines represented by the faculty
in the institution; that values faculty research and scholarship and the quasi-
political governance processes of the faculty; that holds assumptions about the
dominance of rationality in the institution…(Bergquist & Pawlak, 2007, p.15)

15
Bergquist and Pawlak (2007) discuss six cultures in the academy: collegial, managerial, virtual,
developmental, advocacy, and tangible. To explain the more exclusive practices of tenure-lined
faculty, I chose to highlight the collegial culture.

51

However, this Bergquist and Pawlak’s (2007) description of collegial culture focuses
more on research than teaching, which may not be as appropriate for community college
faculty.
Traditionally, the academic communities of faculty have also been described as
“guild-like”—“egalitarian, full of senatorial courtesy, selective of its members” (Kerr,
2001, p.72). In these guild communities, faculty are separated from administration and
trustees, but they are united within themselves. This traditional idea of faculty academic
community, though they may be insular and separated by schools or departments, in the
institution the faculty can speak with a fairly unified voice, and act as a bulwark against
popular demand. Though this academic community has been described as being vocal
against the corporatization of the university (Kerr, 2001), it may also play a role in the
exclusionary environment of part-time and non-tenure track faculty. The academic
community has been exclusionary in the past, with women and racial and ethnic
minorities for example (Aguiurre, Martinez & Hernandez, 1993). Some tenure line
faculty see part-time as part of the corporatization of higher education and the erosion of
the academic community and academic freedom (Benjamin, 2002; Slaughter & Rhoades,
2005). This conceptualization may influence tenure-lined faculty to remain separate from
part-time faculty, or at the very least perceive part-time faculty as periphery members of
the academic community.
Boyer (1990) argues that our understanding of the academic community must
involve more than only the faculty, and more than just tenured faculty. Instead he argues
that our understanding of an academic community must value not only the research and

52

discovery of knowledge, but the application and instruction of that knowledge as well. He
notes that professors must work together across disciplines, as well as across professional
lines with other internal and external stakeholders. He mentions the importance of the
above disciplinary associations as well, but in connection with the more localized
community:
Professors, to be fully effective, cannot work continuously in isolation. It is
toward and shared vision of intellectual and social responsibilities—a community
of scholars—that the four dimensions of academic endeavor should lead. In the
end, scholarship at its best should bring the faculty together.”(Boyer, 1990, p.80)

The term institutional or localized academic community can also include other
stakeholders on the campus (e.g. administration, students, staff, etc) and off campus (e.g.
community outreach programs and public policy sectors), as well as faculty (Barnett,
1994; Roberts, 1994). If they share common goals, obligations, and values, they may be
considered academic communities. The ANAC faculty work project envisioned an
academic community that was dependent upon reciprocity between the faculty and the
institution (administration). It was defined as a compact where “ the well being of the
whole, as well as that of each partner to the compact, depends on faculty and institution
fulfilling essential obligations to the other related to the mission that defines their reason
to exist” (Berberet, 2002, p.18). Members of this community were faculty,
departments/schools, and the institution together. Berberet (2002) notes that with this
new understanding of academic community, all faculty members including non-tenure
track have a place
The place of an individual faculty member within different academic communities
is complex, with a myriad of responsibilities and at times conflicting obligations. For

53

example, a faculty member may have obligations to their the disciplinary academic
community—such as editorship of a journal or publication--and by being an active
member, this may come at a cost to some obligations to another community—such as less
time to serve on departmental committees. Participation in academic communities is
fluid, with various levels of participation and interaction. Individuals can be members of
more than one community at the same time. For example, a faculty member may be an
active member of the AAUP, while at the same time participates in their departmental
community. Membership in one does not preclude membership in these other
communities.
There are different academic communities, some that expand past the localized
campus and others that are specific to the institution. Some academic communities may
encourage the poor treatment of part-time faculty through their practices and values,
while others may be better for part-time faculty. This study looks at an institution that is
recognized for its good work environment for part-time faculty, and seeks to understand
the academic community of that institution.
For this study, I will be specifically focusing on understanding academic
community within a community college and from the perspective of community college
faculty. There are two reasons why this understanding is important. The first reason is
that community colleges are intended to be very localized rather than national or regional
institutions (Cohen & Brawer, 2008). The purpose of community college is to the meet
the educational needs and offer educational opportunities to the local community first.
Many of the other conceptualizations of academic community tend towards focusing on

54

faculty at four-year institutions with an emphasis on research. Because instruction is the
predominant faculty responsibility, faculty may be more connected to those faculty who
also share the same student body or content, rather than national or disciplinary
communities. We are not even sure if faculty at community colleges ascribe themselves
as members of an academic community or if they have a different understanding of what
one means to them. The second reason I will focus on the academic community an a
community college is to gain a fuller understanding of the microcosms that may exist
within a campus and knowing their functions can give insight into the greater
relationships and broader expanses of communities within communities.
Academic Citizenship: Rights and responsibilities
Communities are nothing without the participation of the members within that
community. Values, goals, responsibilities, understandings among academics link them
in such a way that establishes a community. These values goals and responsibilities
define an academic citizen in the context of an academic community. There have been
numerous ways to conceptualized academic citizenship, but in general most all speak of
citizenship in terms of rights and responsibilities/obligations. In relation to the definition
of academic community, academic citizenship entails the “bonds of reciprocal
obligation.” Berberet (2002) focuses on a “circle of value” to explain these obligations,
though according to Berberet, the obligations are not only of faculty, but the institution as
well. In this understanding, the faculty add value to their academic unit (department or
school) by meeting work obligations, the department then adds value by contributing to

55

the mission of the institution, and the institution adds value to the faculty by providing
the support necessary for faculty to do their tasks.
Thompson, Constantineau, and Fallis, (2005) distill the nature of academic
citizenship into three over-arching rights and five overarching responsibilities specific to
faculty. The three rights are self-governance and self-regulation, academic freedom and
tenure, and self-directedness. The five responsibilities or obligations are serving on
governance bodies, maintaining competence, mentoring, leadership, and promoting the
welfare of the collective (Thompson et al., 2005). For a faculty member to be an engaged
academic, she have these rights protected and meet in her obligations in the capacity she
can. In terms of these ideas of academic citizenship, it is important to note the rights and
obligations required of faculty seem to be only applicable to tenure-lined faculty.
As noted in the section on faculty marginalization, for part-time non-tenure track
faculty, as well as many full-time non-tenure track faculty, rights are often denied or
unprotected. Thus, part-time faculty are often denied the opportunity to fulfill their
citizenship obligations. Because part-time faculty are not afforded these rights and
opportunities, it can appear that they are in fact not citizens of the academic community,
further strengthening the idea that part-time faculty are qualitatively and quantitatively
different from tenure-lined faculty. Instead, I argue that part-time faculty, by nature of
their professionalism are academic citizens, academic citizens who often have been
unable to partake in the community due to current structures and limitations of the status
quo. Instead of imposing tenure-predominant, four-year institutional standards of
academic citizenship onto community college faculty, it may be better to see the

56

standards of academic citizenship as established by the faculty communities within a
specific community college.
There are part-time faculty members who limit their citizenship obligations to
performing their instructional or research job well, and would rather not take a more
active role in governance, mentorship, leadership, etc. Just as there are disengaged
tenure-lined academic citizens, there are disengaged non-tenured academic citizens.
However, before we can make judgment on the engagement of part-time faculty, they
must first be afforded the opportunities to participate.
The current status quo in many institutions places much of the burden of
academic citizenship upon tenure-lined faculty—being the faculty group with the most
power and leverage in the institution, they may be in a better position to help protect the
academic rights of part-time faculty, as well as help provide opportunities for part-time
faculty to meet their citizenship obligations. Unfortunately, in many institutions two
predominant challenges hinder this development. The first challenge is that
responsibilities towards the collegial community, including faculty in their own colleges
and departments, ranks low among the list of obligations faculty have. In a study on
faculty responsibilities MacFarlane (2007) found that there were five general
responsibilities that faculty had as an academic citizen
16
and found that academics place
low priority on obligations to collegial community compared to discipline community.
There were various reasons offered to why this prioritizing may be the case: incentive
structures reward some obligations and not others, some obligations are perceived as

16
Which relate to the obligations noted in Thompson et al., (2005).

57

more immediate or important than others, or even focusing on some obligations could
come at a cost. The second challenge is that tenure-line faculty may meet these
obligations for other tenure-lined faculty such as junior faculty, but do not see their
obligations of mentorship or collegiality as applicable to part-time faculty, because they
view part-time faculty lacking the same professional status.
Part-time Faculty as Professionals and Academic Citizens. This paper assumes
that all faculty members, regardless of employment, are in fact professionals. This
distinction is important because defining part-time faculty as professionals acknowledges
three ideas: (1) part-time faculty have obligations and responsibilities to their work, (2)
they have in-depth training and socialization, and (3) they find a greater purpose in the
work that they do. These three factors are similar to Heckscher and colleague’s
establishment of professionals (ND). There is some controversy involved in this
assumption. One the far end, some scholars determine that tenure-lined faculty are the
professionals in the academic field due to the socialization, in-depth training and
education, autonomy, academic freedom, and the responsibilities of service, research and
instruction. With this understanding of an academic professional, many non-tenure track
faculty do not meet these criteria since they are not given academic freedom, not allowed
to participate in certain types of service, and tend towards a focus on instruction more
than research . There are other views of professionalization that place faculty on a
gradient of professionalism. Rhoades (1998) in fact discusses the hybridization of all
faculty as managed-professionals, comprising the elements of both professionalization
and managed labor—Shaker’s (2008) study on faculty found the hybridization of faculty

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to be true. On one end of the spectrum, tenure-lined faculty lean more to the professional
category. While on the other end, non-tenured towards the managed labor. Due to the
academic capitalism model of higher education—pure professionalization is becoming
more difficult to find.
Despite these arguments against the professional status of non-tenure track
faculty, there are three reasons why I conceptualized non-tenure track faculty as
academic professionals. The first focuses on the pre-requisites to being considered a
professional. Non-tenure track faculty are socialized very much in the same way as tenure
track faculty, especially during their lengthy education process. As mentioned in a
previous section of this paper, a large percentage of non-tenure track faculty have
graduate/professional degrees (Benjamin, 2002)—and with the reduction of tenure-track
positions and rise of doctoral graduates (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006), it is feasible that
the number of non-tenure track faculty with doctorates will increase in the next few
years.
The second argument for non-tenure track faculty and a professional status is the
flexibility of academic responsibility depending upon institution, as well as department.
Tenure-track faculty members in research institutions may have different academic
responsibilities to those at liberal arts colleges or community colleges. Likewise
depending on programs, especially in the health sciences, many of the non-tenure track
faculty are considered professionals by their faculty peers, despite not having the same
responsibilities (Shavers, 2000). The distinction of professionalism as determined by
tenure status is thus rendered moot, since it appears to be arbitrarily defined on criteria

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that either non-tenure track meet or criteria so particular to context as to use it as a
standard not helpful.
The third argument takes the idea of professionalization and shifts the
understanding from external “objective” criteria imposed upon individuals to a more
subjective understanding. Non-tenure track faculty often view themselves as
professionals, even if others do not. From various studies that focus on the non-tenure
track faculty experience, the predominant theme is the lack of parity for what they view
to be similar work (AFT, 2010). Secondary concerns, academic freedom, autonomy,
governance, and respect are all markers of professionalization (Sullivan, 2004; Rhoades,
1998). If non-tenure track faculty did not view themselves as professionals, the
differences among faculty would most likely be less of a source of discontent. Because
this study looks at the conceptualizations of academic community from a faculty
perspective, it is also very important that I also look at professionalization from the
perspective of faculty as well.
RESEARCH QUESTION
The purpose of this study is to understand if conceptualizations of community can
shape work environment, and how do faculty conceptualize their academic community.
This study seeks to understand these conceptualizations at a community college noted to
have a positive culture and environment for part-time faculty. The dominant question
directing this study is as follows:

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At a community college with a positive work environment for part-time non-
tenure track faculty, how do faculty members conceptualize and perceive their
academic community?
Within this question are embedded a variety of definitions. The term “part-time” is
defined by state legislation and/or higher education system of the institution. In this
study, since the site is a public community college in California, part-time faculty ”is “a
person who is employed to teach adult or community college classes for not more than 67
percent of the hours per week considered a full-time assignment for regular employees
having comparable duties” (AB 591).
“Non-tenure track” refers to the faculty member who either does not have tenure
currently, nor is she participating in an employment track to obtain tenure in the future.
“Community college” in this study is a two-year public institution of higher education
subject to California state legislation.
Positive work environment is defined as having both the recommended policies
and practices for faculty equity and an inclusive community. As noted in the previous
section, the academic community is defined as persons in academia united by collective
understanding by common and communal goals, by bonds of reciprocal obligation, and
similar core values and beliefs. Because this study looks at how members in the academy
conceptualize the academic community, it seeks to understand the specific common
goals, obligations, and values of this particular community and individual members.
In this research question further sub-questions also are embedded that direct the inquiry:

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1. Do conceptualizations of community facilitate positive working conditions for
part-time faculty? If so, in what ways?
2. What are the perceptions of academic community for faculty and how do those
perceptions relate to their work experience?

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CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN
Currently there are few studies exploring non-tenure track faculty and their
experiences in either a good working environment, or as part of an academic community.
However, quantitative and qualitative inquiries have studied part-time faculty and their
relationship to work, and I have used these studies to inform the design of this study.
Quantitative studies looked at part-time faculty job satisfaction (AFT, 2010; Maynard &
Joseph, 2008; Outcalt, 2002); commitment to teaching (Umbach, 2008); and salary
disparities (Monks, 2001). These studies focus on specific elements that can be
considered working conditions, but do not entail understanding the construction of a
positive environment from the perspective of part-time faculty, nor do they look at the
environment in a holistic manner grounded in context. Many of the findings in these
studies are dependent upon the type of part-time faculty member and the institutions
where they work. Qualitative studies of the part-time and non-tenure track faculty
experience, such as Gappa and Leslie (1993) and Baldwin and Chronister (2001) have
examined non-tenure track faculty experiences, but still look at ways to create a positive
environment from a predominantly top-down perspective, focused on administrative
policies. However, it is important to note that Gappa and colleagues’ research (2007)
does call for faculty members to play a strong role in the reunification of the faculty.
Similar to the quantitative studies, the qualitative studies have not looked towards a
positive example to better understand what it means to have an inclusive academic
community occur in actuality, especially from the perspective of part-time faculty.

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Methodology
Case Study
My goal is to understand the elements of the academic community at a
community college with a good work environment for part-time faculty. In order to
understand this phenomenon, I used case study methodology with grounded theory
analysis. I chose case study to explore the research questions for three reasons. First, I am
using a constructivism-interpretivism paradigm, which is in line with both qualitative
methodology and case study. Constructivism-interpretivism posits that one “cannot
partition out an objective reality from the person (research participant) who is
experiencing, processing, and labeling the reality” (Sciarra, 1990 as referenced by
Ponterotto, 2005). As mentioned in previous sections, this study seeks to understand
academic community as a reality created, experienced, and defined by the faculty of a
specific community college. Constructivism-interpretivism is also compatible with
grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2006), where the researcher draws meanings and
themes from the interactions between researcher and participant, and the findings are co-
constructed. However, this paradigm does not preclude the existence of generalizations,
and instead stresses the importance of providing the audience with “good raw material for
their own generalizing” (Stake, 1995).
Second, I used case study to gain an in-depth understanding of an academic
community in/for a specific bounded case: Mountain College. Understanding an
academic community can range from the community of scholars in a particular discipline
on a national or global scale to encompassing all the stakeholders (e.g., faculty, students,

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staff, or administration) in a college or university (Bererbet, 2002). A bounded case
provides the clarity and definition necessary to understand the nature of a specific
community as grounded in a specific historical and social context of the specific
community college. Further description of my case will be offered in later sections.
Third, I chose case study because understanding the meaning of an academic
community of faculty relies heavily on context, since different campuses can foster
communities in various ways. This study is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a
contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries
between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 1994, p. 13). Exploring
the elements of an inclusive environment in an institutional context can only take place in
a “real world” setting, rather than a laboratory setting where researchers hold variables
consistent. Community exists through the interactions among individuals, interactions
that take place within context. The community college context is a specific one, with
history, location, and stakeholders forming a separate identity for each campus (Levin &
Montero-Hernandez, 2009). Thus, context is an important factor for this study to obtain a
fuller understanding of the process.
This research is an instrumental, descriptive, case study focusing predominantly
on faculty (both full-time and part-time) conceptualizations, but will include
administrative persons who were also faculty at Mountain College. This study is
instrumental because it seeks further insight into the relationship among ideas of
academic citizenship, ideas of academic community, individuals, and their organizations
(Stake, 1995). The study is an exploratory study because rather than relying on an

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underlying descriptive theoretical model, such as professionalization (Sullivan, 2004) or
faculty work (Gappa et al., 2007), this study seeks to generate its own theory regarding
academic communities and their relationships with part-time faculty work environments.
Though this study is exploratory, I used existing literature and theoretical frameworks to
provide some guidance regarding methods and analysis. Though this case focuses
predominantly on one community college--an atypical workplace, running contrary to the
experiences of part-time faculty found in the literature—it is conceivable that the case is
representative of other two-year community colleges.
Grounded Theory Data Analysis
I used grounded theory method and data analysis for this case study because, as
an exploratory descriptive study, it did not have an underlying theoretical framework. I
used Charmaz’s (2006) understanding of grounded theory, which builds on a
constructivist-interpretivist paradigm compared to the more positivistic interpretation of
Glaser and Strauss (1967). Rather than understanding theory as something to be
unearthed and separate from the observer, Charmaz (2006) argued:
Neither data nor theories are discovered. Rather, we are a part of the world we
study and the data we collect. We construct our grounded theories through our
past and present involvements and interactions with people, perspectives and
researcher practices. (p.10)

Due to previous work and studies I have done with non-tenure track faculty, as well as
my own experience in higher education, it would be disingenuous to claim a disinterested
standpoint for this study. I will further address grounded theory analysis in the methods
section.

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Site Selection
For this study, I chose a public, accredited two-year community college in the
Southern California area—Mountain College
17
--to be my point of focus. This community
college is actually an atypical example of the many two-year higher education institutions
(Merriam, 1998), being the largest community college in the state of California, servicing
approximately 60,000 credit and continuing education students. However, I chose this
site for three reasons. The first reason stems from the positive psychology literature,
which refocuses attention away from dysfunctional phenomena towards examples of
positive environments and institutions (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). By
focusing on a phenomenon that explores exemplars, researchers can enrich the current
literature through a significant theoretical shift in conceptualizing studies on non-tenure
track faculty. Rather than the traditional approach of focusing on problems, treatments,
and prevention of problems, studies of exemplars focus on building strengths,
encouraging growth, and fostering human achievement (Luthans & Church, 1993;
Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
The second reason is that the literature is already rich with examples and
empirical studies of negative experiences of non-tenure track faculty, part-time and full-
time (Schell & Stock, 2001; Leslie & Gappa, 1993; Baldwin & Chronister, 2001). There
are very few studies on positive institutions to act as exemplars to help move towards
change. In one study on promising practices and policies for non-tenure track faculty,

17
A pseudonym per request of the institution.

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only a handful of individual schools arose—each one distinctly different from our
understanding of the typical community college as well as distinctly different from each
other (Kezar & Sam, forthcoming). For example, one school is a community college that
happens be an accredited institution to offer MFAs in fashion design and art. Another
institution is a community college in Canada that has had a very specific institutional
history of unionization, and unlike American community colleges, healthcare and
benefits are not issues for part-time faculty (Kezar & Sam, 2010). Though the individual
circumstances and distinctions of each campus may have played a role in the
development of an inclusive workplace for part-time faculty, there still is much that we
can learn from these institutions and their understanding of what it means to be an
academic community.
The final reason is that even though Mountain College is atypical in both its size
as well as inclusion of part-time faculty, it is a part of the California community college
system and therefore subject to the same factors as other community colleges: budgets,
limited resources, diverse students, lack of external funding, tuition caps, majority of
part-time faculty, and such. Using the data provided to the department of Education
through http://highereddata.aft.org/, I compared Mountain College to other more typical
community colleges in the area. I wanted to determine if there were other extenuating
circumstances (other than size) that would indicate a reason why Mountain College may
have a different academic culture, such as endowments or external grants that provide
more revenue.

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In a comparison with other community colleges in the area, Mountain does not
vary greatly from many of the other schools—despite its size. For example, the part-time
faculty percentage amongst five community colleges in the Los Angeles County area
ranged from 67% to 78%, and Mountain College’s percentage of part-time faculty is
72% of the entire faculty (though in terms of raw numbers, it does have more faculty
compared to other schools due to the student population). In terms of monetary resources,
the actual dollar amount of revenue coming in per FTE hours (full-time equivalent), as
well as expenditures per FTE do not vary much from the other community colleges, and
in fact the amount of revenue Mountain College has coming in per FTE is a little less
than some of the other institutions in the area. These similarities indicate that if one
institution is able to be an exemplar of part-time work environments with the same
circumstances, it is possible for other institutions to follow suit. This unique site can
provide insights and rich data towards understanding an inclusive academic community.
I chose this case based upon three criteria to determine if a higher education
institution exhibits a positive environment for part-time faculty. Much of the site
selection occurred during a previous national study on positive policies and practices for
contingent faculty (Kezar & Sam, 2009, 2010). The first criterion involves a site with
institutional documents that exhibit positive policies or practices for part-time faculty.
These polices ranged from inclusion in governance, compensation for service, and even
symbolic recognition of the importance of non-tenure track faculty to the institution.
After reviewing over 400 contracts from the years 2008 to 2011 for progressive campuses
with contingent faculty friendly policies, there were fewer than 45 total contracts

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remaining. The second criterion stemmed from recommendations from both the literature
(Gappa et al., 2007) and groups such as the AAUP, NEA and AFT for schools that may
have potential as strong exemplars. Some institutions were noted for the gains made over
a short period of time, others for having a history of faculty inclusion, others for their
grassroots leadership and mobilization abilities, and others still were recommended for
unique policies and programs for non-tenure track faculty. The third criterion stemmed
from exploratory interviews with part-time faculty as well as part-time faculty leaders
about their experiences at the institution. Part-time faculty members mentioned various
schools and Mountain College emerged as an exemplar institution.
Mountain College is defined as an exemplary site for a good work environment
for part-time faculty for various reasons. The first stems from the exploratory interviews
from part-time faculty who work or have worked at different institutions. When asked to
speak about the college, faculty expressed that this institution was one of the better, if not
the best, institutions at which to work. They mentioned healthcare benefits, pay parity,
and orientation and professional development opportunities for part-time faculty. Second,
the policies and practices involving part-time faculty for Mountain show signs of a very
united faculty, both tenured and part-time. For example, during contract negotiations for
part-time faculty, tenure-lined faculty relinquished their own pay raises to give part-time
faculty increased salaries. In terms of governance, Mountain College faculty want
participation from part-time faculty at every level from overarching institutional
governance to departmental committees; there is a compensated part-time position on
every committee. Finally, Mountain College seems to have developed its own sense of

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academic community that moves beyond tenured faculty, and seems connected by the
common goal of student achievement. For example, each year part-time and tenure-lined
faculty get together to create a production called “Puttin’ on the Hits” which is meant to
be a fundraiser to obtain scholarships for students. This event is one of the biggest of the
year and participation in the event includes not only teachers and students, but also the
administration, trustees, and members of the community.
No institution is perfect, and Mountain College is no exception. Mountain College
has few policies and practices that actually hinder part-time faculty work and rights and
have a community that excludes part-time faculty; however, these examples occurred in
small pockets around campus I address these pockets in the findings of this study.
Otherwise, there was no specific negative case built into this study for two reasons. The
first reason is that of the community colleges in the greater Los Angeles none have yet
emerged as having very bad overall work environments. This lack of truly negative
campuses may be due to the overall gains groups such as AFT, NEA, the California
Community College Association (CCA) and Faculty Association of California
Community Colleges (FACCC) have made in terms of state legislation and contracts for
part-time faculty. For example, the California senate recently passed Assembly
Concurrent Resolution 138, which requires that part-time faculty in community colleges
receive pay and benefits that are equal and proportionate to that of tenure-line faculty.
Other states do not have legislation in place requiring equitable policies for part-time
faculty in community college. Thus, a negative case from a community college in another

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state may be so uniquely different from Mountain College that it would warrant its own
individual study.
The second reason why there is no negative case is that Mountain College is
currently a unique site due to its size and exemplary environment. Research on part-time
faculty experiences has, up to this point, focused on negative characteristics. While
extreme cases studies serve to illustrate salient concerns, they prove less useful to the
majority of institutions, which have more subtle obstacles to the integration of part-time
faculty. By counterpointing the "ideal" institution with the "average" institution -- rather
than the "poor" institution -- this study aims to provide realistic goals for the majority of
institutions.
Interview Population Selection
Due to the focus of academic community as conceptualized by faculty, I focused
on three groups for my population selection for this research project: part-time faculty,
tenured faculty, and administration. No students were interviewed for this study.
The part-time faculty were key to constructing a more modern understanding of
academic citizenship and academic community. In the literature, there are many
recommendations regarding the nature of an academic community and academic
citizenship—many of them involve a normative understanding of these two concepts,
rather than what faculty actually believe to be an academic community and the
obligations that come with active participation. The literature also tends to focus more on
full-time faculty obligation or ignore differences in faculty status. From a constructivist
paradigm (Creswell, 2007), it is important to understand the ways that part-time faculty

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define an engaged academic citizen in a community. Part-time faculty are sensitive to
their own needs, work-life, goals, challenges and particular contexts that may not be
completely understood by other faculty and administration. Understanding the academic
community from the perspectives of part-time faculty is key because many leaders
hoping to change their institutions towards inclusiveness are part-time faculty (Kezar &
Sam, 2009).
The second group of interviewees was the tenure-track/tenured faculty (at
community colleges in California the faculty are divided between part-time and full-time
tenure line). According to the literature, many part-time faculty members felt that there
were tensions between them and the tenure-lined faculty with lack of respect, dismissal,
or even open hostility (Gappa & Leslie, 1993). Understanding the perspectives of full-
time faculty regarding part-time faculty--interactions, polices, practices,
conceptualization, collaboration, as well as role in the institution--can both provide
further insight into a more holistic understanding of faculty work, academic citizenship in
a community, as well as highlight disconnects or dissonance in perceptions.
The final group of interviewees was administrators, and in the case of Mountain
College, all of the administrators were at one time full-time faculty and/or part-time
faculty. Interviews with administration members had two purposes. The first was that as
past faculty, they are able to speak to their previous ideas of academic community, but as
current administrators they are able to speak to any changes in their conceptualization as
well as speak as formal leaders of the institution. Second, their interviews served as a
means of triangulation. Administration provided an “external” perspective on the

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inclusiveness and success of the academic community from outside the department.
Many also contributed to the understanding of the historical development of policies at
Mountain College. According to the constructivist paradigm, there are many realities
which often occupy the same space; thus it could be that faculty see themselves as a
united community, but appear fragmented to administration or vice versa. The
development of changes for part-time faculty, often changes in polices and practice
arrive, or at the very least are expected to arrive, from the top-down in the institution. In
order to gain a better understanding of the workplace, it was important to obtain a
perspective from the people who play a large role in the institutional processes such as
hiring/firing/promotional policies and the allocation of resources.
I conducted a total of 60 interviews at Mountain College. There were 55
participants; 5 were interviewed twice. Each interview lasted approximately 50-80
minutes, with some follow-up emails and a second interview. The composition of
interviewees is as follows:
o 19 interviewees were part-time faculty only.
o 12 interviewees were full-time faculty only.
o 15 interviewees were full-time, but once part-time.
o 9 interviewees were administration, but also once full-time faculty (7 out
of 9 were also once part-time faculty in their career).
Data Gathering Procedures
Because I used a grounded theory approach to this study, the early data collection
differed from the final procedures in terms of protocol and topics covered. My initial

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approach focused on broad information to obtain more breadth and a background
understanding of the phenomenon. I later used the information as points of departure to
further refine and define subsequent data gathering (Charmaz, 2006). The three methods I
used to obtain the data were document analysis, observations, and interviews. Though in
this section I note each method separately, later methods were informed by earlier
methods. While conducting this study, I first analyzed documents, such as employee
contracts for part-time faculty, handouts, handbooks and web pages. Second, I conducted
observations of the campus. Third, I conducted initial interviews with faculty and
administration. I continued interviews as well as further observations as more information
emerged. Throughout the data gathering, I analyzed data, wrote memos, determined
various categories and themes from the data, and readjusted my interview protocols to
explore those themes further.
Document analysis. I used document analysis to understand the context of the
college as an organizational institution with its own mission, values, and priorities. These
documents included but were not limited to the university code of conduct, departmental
handbooks, job descriptions, web pages, protocols and examples of reports. A full list of
the documents can be found in Appendix B. The intent of my analysis was to have a
better understanding of the formal policies and practices that may contribute to ideas of
academic community and work environment for faculty. Through the documents I was
able to find further information on policies that interviewees mentioned, as well as points
of inquiry to follow during interviews.

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Observations. I performed observations of the campus environment and
interactions amongst faculty. The observations were predominantly passive, though some
required interaction, such as introducing myself to a class or asking faculty later about the
events that occurred (Charmaz, 2006). During the observations, I spent time in open areas
for both faculty and students such as courtyards, dining halls, and libraries. I also spent
time in individual departments, noting physical space of faculty offices, public postings
(e.g. awards, news clippings, announcements), and classrooms. The goal was to better see
how faculty interact with one another, as well as with students and administration on a
daily basis. The observations informed the interview data and allowed me to see some of
the phenomena referenced in prior interviews.
Interviews. With the interviews, I began first with a pilot interview to assess the
quality of my interview protocol with a part-time and a full-time faculty member at the
institution (Kezar, 2000). The pilot interview let me better gauge if my questions were
understandable to the participant and if they were successful in driving my inquiry and
eliciting responses. Initially, these interview protocols were semi-structured (Merriam,
1997), divided into three specific sections related to the literature. For faculty and
administrative interview protocols, please see Appendix C and D.
After completing the pilot interviews, I proceeded to contact members of the
Mountain College faculty via e-mail requesting an interview. For a sample of the
invitation, please see Appendix E. I also asked other interviewees to suggest other faculty
who may be interested in speaking with me. The first questions in the interview protocol
focused on the faculty experience at the college: taking in elements of engagement, work-

76

life balance, job satisfaction, and policies and practices. The second section explored the
nature of faculty responsibility (academic citizenship) in terms of full-time and part-time
faculty. This included both explicit and tacit responsibilities and how these
responsibilities are learned. The final section focused on ideas and experiences of
community. Some topics included collaboration, personal interactions, public activities or
gatherings, etc. After reconstructing the initial interview protocol, I conducted my first
round of interviews with faculty and administrators. The second round of interviews was
influenced by the data from previous interviews and other methods. These helped to
make sense of the previous data collected.
I hand-wrote in-depth notes, and recorded and transcribed interviews when I was
given permission. Because some faculty were uncomfortable with recording, I took in-
depth notes during the interview and later transcribed those to digital formats. Of the 60
total interviews, 41 were digitally recorded, and 1 interviewee responded to my interview
questions via email. Subsequently, each interview was coded. During the interviews, I
took notes to remind me of any ideas or insights that arose at the time.
The interviewing occurred in four distinct stages. The first stage was the pilot
interview with two interviews. The second stage entailed 22 interviews with 7
administrators, 10 full-time faculty, and 5 part-time faculty. From those interviews I
continued with more document analysis, observations, and followed up with the third
stage, which included the last of the 36 participants. In the final stage, interviews were
dispersed among the earlier stages. These were follow-up interviews with 2 part-time

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faculty, 2 full-time faculty, and 1 administrator. These interviews were member checks--
measures of trustworthiness for the findings in this study.
Data-Analysis Techniques
Using the literature as a starting point for the parameters of my study, I first
determined the general areas of interest on which I would be focusing. For example, I
looked for faculty interactions with one another and asked about professional and
academic affiliations. However, I did not have a descriptive theory on academic
community to guide my inquiry, so I used grounded theory analysis. Because I used
grounded theory, my analysis and data collection often occurred simultaneously, with
notes made in margins of interviews, and the different stages of data collection being
informed by previous data. Though this study has separate sections related to data
collection and analysis, both the collection and the analysis occurred in tandem, one
informing the other as I refined categories and concepts (Charmaz, 2006). Rather than a
linear process that sets a sequence for data collection then analysis, this study was more
inductive in terms of data—alternating between methods, especially during the multi-
stages of interviews.
I began with document analysis, focusing on faculty contracts from Mountain
College as well as the other community colleges in the area. I also used the contract
information to guide my interview protocols. Exploratory interviews were conducted next
to further inform the later interviews. Some observations with interviewed faculty
members occurred, usually in the classroom or in the department. I used Charmaz’s
(2006) grounded theory process as a way to explain the analysis process: data collection,

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coding, data management, reading and memoing, describing, classifying, interpreting,
representing and visualizing. The data I collected and analyzed stem from my
interpretation of the phenomenon. Even interviews, though spoken by the participant,
have undergone my own interpretations as I seek to code and memo the information.
All of the data was stored in three formats: electronic word document form, hard
paper copies, and, for recorded interviews, electronic .wmv format. Rather than using a
software tool, all coding and analysis was done by hand.
As I gathered information, I also re-evaluated the data collected, keeping in mind
the categories that arose or properties related to the category. In essence, coding took
place simultaneously with data gathering, though coding was not completely formalized.
Some of the codes were predominantly descriptive in form, but others followed a more
grounded theory format, indicating actions and results as taken from faculty interviews.
Stake (1995) recommends categorical aggregation as a means of analysis. He also
suggests developing protocols for this phase of the case study to enhance the quality of
the research. The categories and codes stem from the three broad bodies of literature.
Some categories included: role in organization, formal interactions, and work
expectations. These categories also directed more data gathering and further reading and
research.
I coded the data based on the categories that arose from each interview. For some
of the interview data and documents, I used Boyatzis’ (1998) thematic analysis, focusing
mostly on inductive codes that stem from the literature and data. Some of the codes
regarding academic community and citizenship from the literature are as follows:

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personal and professional responsibility; social interactions with other faculty; espoused
values; types of communities; and role conflict. Later I used more focused coding, sifting
through the codes that could either be combined into broader concepts or removed
altogether for reasons such as redundancy or inappropriateness (Charmaz, 2006). For an
example of actual codes and code tables please see Appendix F.
Trustworthiness
This study meets the qualitative demands of credibility, transferability, and
confirmability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), which add trustworthiness to my study.
In order to obtain a sense of trustworthiness, I employed the following methods:
triangulation, external researcher and member checks, and research transparency.
Triangulation is one way through which case studies can achieve validity (Stake, 1995).
As mentioned in an earlier section, I used interviews from faculty and administration,
observation, and document analysis for triangulation of the overall data I was receiving.
For example, in chapter 5 of this study I highlight the historical development of Mountain
College. This information first came to light through an interview with a long-time
faculty member who was also in a leadership position in the Faculty Association. I
followed up the information with those faculty or administrators who noted that they
were at Mountain College during a similar period (approximately 25-30 years ago). I also
used the online document repository that houses the records of faculty senate meetings,
and though the minutes did not go as far back as the 1980s, I was able to triangulate the
more recent developments from the mid 1990s.

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Second, using an external researcher and member checks, I reviewed and
reflected upon the data and the trends emerging from the data. I obtained expert opinions
from Dr. Adrianna Kezar, a researcher knowledgeable in the field and who was
researching non-tenure track work environments at four-year institutions. Throughout
various stages of this study I discussed my preliminary findings with her, looking for
alternative interpretations or confirmation of similar phenomenon. I also shared sample
codes and corresponding data to determine applicability. As noted in the earlier section,
as another means of trustworthiness I received feedback from a sample of the faculty
whom I interviewed. Each follow-up interview was approximately 40 minutes in length
during which I asked interviewees for points of clarification (e.g., solidifying time frames
or more detail on policies and practices), as well as for feedback regarding initial themes
and ideas to see if they resonated with their personal experiences (e.g., difficulty or ease
of obtaining mentorship, barriers to community, or feelings of belonging).
Finally, for this study I used research transparency, which leads to confirmability.
In this chapter I have documented the entire research process with the goal being that an
outside researcher may trace lines of reasoning and influence throughout the study.
Samples of protocols and coding are included in the appendices, as well as explicit
theoretical frameworks.
Limitations
There are four primary limitations of the study. The first limitation concerns the
relatively small size of the study sample of faculty compared to the total population at
Mountain College. There are 1,525 total faculty at Mountain College, 375 of whom are

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full-time faculty and the rest adjunct faculty. My sample of 27 full-time faculty and 19
part-time faculty only represent a very small proportion of faculty. Comparing and
contrasting the experiences of such a small group of faculty on the campus affects the
applicability of the findings to all faculty at Mountain College, especially the large
number of adjunct faculty.
The second limitation is that the large amount of the data collected and used is
retrospective. Even though I relied on several different methods—observations,
interviews, and document analysis—interviews were the main source of the data
collected. Some of what was discussed during the interviews occurred in the distant past,
especially when discussing the historical development at Mountain College going back
some 25 years. Therefore, it is unclear how faculty and administrative recollections of
events differ from the actual events.
The third limitation regards the universality of the study’s findings. The results
are not wholly applicable to other faculty at other types of institutions, especially full-
time non-tenure track faculty. This study is limited to part-time and full-time community
college faculty whose predominant purpose is directed at student instruction. Due to the
employment policies of community colleges, there are few to no full-time non-tenure
track faculty; their work experiences and conceptualizations of academic community may
be very different from adjuncts and tenure-lined faculty (Baldwin & Chronister, 2001;
Kezar & Sam, 2010; Shaker, 2009). This study also may be less applicable to faculty at
four-year institutions due to the potential for a variety of institutional differences such as

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lack of unionization, public vs. private institution, and emphasis on research to name a
few.
The final limitation focuses on my own bias in analyzing the data and framing the
study. There is an underlying assumption that faculty also wish to be members of a
community. I was specifically looking for examples of community and ways that people
interact and connect with one another, and so did not focus much of this study on the lack
of community or silences of community that may exist throughout Mountain College.
Organization of the Findings
Before I begin with the findings, it is important to provide some clarity regarding
terminology around community and an explanation regarding the organization of the
chapters that focus on the findings: 4, 5, and 6.
What I have found in this study are three related but separate ideas of community
and corresponding term. These terms further explored and will be used throughout the
findings and conclusion. The first term is community framework. The community
framework is a theoretical framework that exists within the institution of Mountain
College and mediates the neoliberal influence. The second term is conceptualization of
community. Conceptualization of community is the mental construct that people have
when they discussed community in the interviews. The final term is perceptions of
community. Perceptions of community are the ways that faculty and administration
experience their community.
These three ideas work together to answer the two questions in this study. In the
findings chapters I will first examine the relationship between neoliberal and community

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frameworks. Next, I examine the conceptualizations of community—ways people
understand community in an abstract way and how that concept shapes behaviors which
combined with other people's behaviors shape the overall work environment. Lastly, I
explore the perceptions of community. There were 5 perceptions of community, the
abstract conceptualization is tied it to how faculty actually "see" or "experience" that
construct in their lives.
Conclusion
The current state of the faculty has reached a crossroads. With increased national
public attention on both tenure and non-tenure appointments, increased competition from
for-profit institutions as well as international institutions, and increased pressures from
the public, governments, and from the faculty themselves, faculty leaders in academia
must make a choice in determining which path they must take—before the markets make
the decision for them. One of those options is to foster an academic community that
provides a balance to the commercial demands of a campus, incorporates part-time
faculty into the community and strengthens the overall faculty. This study seeks to
understand this community as created and defined by the faculty of a local community
college and seeks to understand how such an academic community impacts the overall
working conditions of part-time faculty.

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CHAPTER FOUR: FRAMEWORKS AND CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF
COMMUNITY
Conceptualizations of academic community shape how faculty and administration
interact with one another, whether collegial, adversarial, or not at all. Conceptualizations
provide common goals or mission, develop feelings of belonging, and determine
membership. This chapter answers the first of the two research questions in this study:
Do conceptualizations of academic community facilitate positive working conditions for
part-time faculty? If so, in what ways?
Given that very little progress has occurred at other community colleges,
understanding how the changes occurred at Mountain College can bring further insight to
the possibility to changes elsewhere. This chapter begins with understanding
neoliberalism and how it influences the policies and practices of adjunct faculty. Second,
I explain how Mountain College moved beyond the status quo for many institutions and
shaped changes for faculty, using community as an additional framework. Third, I
explore how our conceptualizations of community can shape individual behavior and
ultimately the overall workplace at the institution.
Neoliberalism and Community within Mountain College
As noted in Chapter 2, neoliberalism is a prevalent framework that shapes the way
many higher education institutions determine policy and practices. This framework can
help explain the current majority of part-time faculty at two-year institutions, as well as
the policies and practices that shape their work environment (Levin et al., 2007).
However, as Levin and others (2007) and Slaughter and Rhoades (2006) argue,

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neoliberalism is not the inevitable dominant framework of higher education. Campus
leaders can choose to counterbalance neoliberalism with other frameworks, such as
community or social justice, to limit some of the negative effects.
Mountain College is a campus that demonstrates a tension between two
frameworks, neoliberalism and community. This section highlights ways that
neoliberalism has shaped much of Mountain College to be similar to other community
colleges in the nation—with faculty as managed professionals subject to market demands
that can limit their sense of community and citizenship. However, this chapter will also
show how the community framework has also influenced policies and practices for part-
time faculty, making Mountain College one of the few exemplary institutions for
adjuncts. It is this smaller frame of community that helps to buffer the larger neoliberal
influence. Mountain College exhibits several qualities that exemplify the community
framework: stewardship, cooperation, and self-sacrifice to name a few. Several key ideas
will be highlighted in this section.
1. Neoliberalism is a framework that faculty and administration
still use to shape policies and practices within Mountain
College. The values of neoliberalism (e,g., efficiency,
individualism, and cost-effectiveness) still dictate much of the
underlying culture. In order to change the work environment for
adjuncts, an alternative framework is necessary to provide a
different set of values to shape decisions.

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2. Community is a framework that faculty and administration have
used, which provides alternative values to neoliberalism:
stewardship, cooperation, self-sacrifice, and connectedness.
3. These two frameworks create a tension that faculty and
administrators experience when deciding the direction of
Mountain College. It appears that when the community
framework guides campus leaders and redirects the influences of
neoliberalism to focus on what is best for the overall
community, positive changes for adjuncts occurred.
Neoliberal Framework
One of the challenges that opponents of neoliberalism face is showing what
neoliberalism actually looks like in everyday experience, and to highlight how this
framework, if left unchecked, can be detrimental. As noted in Chapter 2, proponents of
neoliberalism do not necessarily use the term “neoliberalism” (Giroux, 2000). Instead,
they make appeals to common sense and use terms familiar to people: cost efficiency,
market or demand-driven, competition, or self-sufficiency to name a few. Neoliberalism
has become such a ubiquitous lens to see the world that it is difficult to discern. This
section highlights three ways that the neoliberal framework is reflected in Mountain
College that directly affect adjunct work environments. This section also is a reflection of
how neoliberalism is not only applied to Mountain College, but to community colleges
throughout the nation.

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Part-time Faculty as a Cost-saving and Flexible Option
The reliance on part-time faculty at Mountain College is the direct result of
neoliberalism at work (Wagoner, Levin, & Kater, 2010). Mountain College has over
1,500 faculty and approximately 72% of them are part-time. The majority of part-time
faculty stems from the rationale that part-time faculty are a cost efficient way to offer
services to students compared to using full-time faculty. The college serves a large
population of approximately 65,000 credit and non-credit students. Their non-credit
student population is large. As Cara, the dean of the division for continuing education
noted, “All of our faculty are adjuncts, and I have one of the largest divisions on campus
[in terms of faculty population]…We couldn’t offer this many programs without them
[part-time faculty].” Offering numerous programs and classes to students is not the only
reason for hiring adjuncts, they provide flexibility as well.
With average estimation of costs, hiring an adjunct verses a full-time faculty
member, the institution saves money in terms of salary, health and retirement benefits,
and institutional resources (e.g., office space, professional development, or office
supplies). If adjuncts were not a cost-efficient way to instruct students, Mountain
College, as well as other institutions would discontinue using them. During times of
financial strife, some departments at Mountain College look to ways to make adjuncts
more cost-efficient. For example, Mark a part-time faculty member in continuing
education mentioned, “We used to have a yearly picnic, to bring everyone together. I
guess in the last few years with the budget, we don’t have those anymore.”

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In times of increased student enrollment, Mountain College hired numerous part-
time faculty from local graduate schools. The hiring process for adjuncts can be quick
and cost-efficient, compared to full-time faculty. English writing instructor, Shelly spoke
about her hiring as “a large group of us all at once” when the department needed more
instructors. Andrew, a long-time humanities adjunct remembered “my interview
happened over the phone while I was driving my car back to California.” However, with
quick hirings, some departments at Mountain College are also quick to not renew the
contracts of adjuncts when budget cuts need to be made. When asked about the recent
five percent cuts that all departments must make, some chairs saw cutting adjuncts as
their first option. Barry, a department chair in the business division noted, “I have to look
after the full-timers first.” With the possibility of more budgetary cuts in the future, many
adjuncts, who do not have seniority, know that their jobs are at risk. A few faculty
already lost classes in the upcoming semester. “I have a class for summer,” says Peter in
continuing education, “but I don’t have any for fall. So I’m not sure what’s going to
happen.”
Dual-market Labor and Adjuncts
The neoliberal framework supports the delineations between those adjuncts with
highly marketable skills and those adjuncts without. Wagoner (2008) and Levin et al
(2007) argue that neoliberalism creates a system that values those adjuncts whose skills
make them sought-after employees outside the academy over those adjuncts whose skills
make them only marketable in the academy. At Mountain College this is reflected in the
treatment of adjuncts in some professional/vocational departments such as nursing,

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education, and business verses those adjuncts in some departments that are traditionally
considered academic such as the humanities and sciences. Those faculty in the
professional/vocational fields seem to be treated with more respect compared to those in
more academic fields.
Because professional and vocational faculty had skills that were marketable
elsewhere, there appeared to be a lack of a division between full-time and part-time
faculty in terms of perceived quality. In the professional departments, the part-time
faculty rarely expressed desire to seek full-time employment at Mountain College to the
same extent as other faculty. Paul is in his late 40s, teaches in the business division, and
has his own business. Though he was interested in a full-time position at Mountain, he
saw it as a good opportunity rather than a necessity, “Sure I’d like a full-time job at
Mountain. If a position opened up I’d apply…the hours are good and I could still do this
[running his business] in my extra time.” Some full-time faculty in the health sciences
“moon-lighted” at hospitals or centers, having part-time or even full-time positions. Other
professional faculty, because they were employed elsewhere, were not interested in a full-
time position, even when offered. Jessica has been teaching at Mountain College for over
seven years and was encouraged to apply to a full-time position in her fourth year, “I’m
not just interested in that right now, maybe later, but I want to see where this [her current
full-time job] takes me first.”
In the traditional academic departments many of the part-time faculty were
aspiring academics wanting a full-time position at Mountain College, or any full-time
position for that matter. Aspiring adjuncts want to be part of the institution, and much of

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their identity is linked with their professorial work (Shaker, 2008; Levin & Shaker,
2011). Many full-time faculty assume that lack of a full-time position is an indication of a
poor instructor. Because many adjuncts spoke of working at different institutions to
create a full-time workload, they did not seem to have full-time positions elsewhere.
Instead, these faculty worked in hopes of obtaining a full-time job, though others have
come to terms with being permanent part-timers. Daniel has been a part-time faculty
member for over 14 years at various institutions, Mountain College being one of them.
The distance from campus to his home ranges from 30 miles to 65, and even with the
traveling he has accepted that he probably will not get a full-time position. “See,” he said,
“I’m not like them [full-time faculty]. They’re interested in keeping people out and
themselves separate and I don’t do that.” Instead, he focuses on his students and teaching,
“I love it and I’m good at it.” Unfortunately, not everyone sees adjuncts as on par with
full-time faculty. Horatio is a full-time faculty member in the Math/Sciences division of
campus, and he reflected on the difficulty he had when he was a part-time faculty
member. He noted that faculty function under an assumption “if you were good, you
would not be an adjunct.”
Individualism and Adjuncts
This idea of individual talent or effort results in success is another expression of
the neoliberal framework (Castells, 2000; Wagoner, 2008). Often this idea is paired with
the isolation of the individual employee to either succeed or fail under his or her own
merits. In this study, interviewees appear at times to be equating this form of
individualism with professional autonomy, which focuses on a person’s ability to self-

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determine action based on his or her professional knowledge (Gappa et al, 2007). Though
similar, professional autonomy does not necessitate a separation from others in order to
succeed.
At Mountain College, this understanding of individualism is one that many
faculty and administrative leaders ascribe. Though the isolation is often de-emphazised, it
often is implied. For example, Associate Dean Henry was once an adjunct faculty
member who eventually obtained a full-time position at Mountain College before
becoming an administrator. As an adjunct he spoke about his positive experience in his
department where “there was not a lot of contact [with other faculty], but it was very
supportive atmosphere and the chair was very accessible.” With regards to support,
Henry saw it as a lack of barriers to facilitate his work, rather than policies or practices in
place to encourage his work. The chair did not actively seek Henry out, but was happy to
meet him if he wanted.
Even the help that Henry did receive was ascribed more to his value as an
individual. As a full-time faculty member, Henry received mentorship from other senior
full-time faculty. He noted that these faculty were very involved on campus and
“practically pulled me along” to join. Though he attributes some of his success to his
mentors, he seems to attribute obtaining mentors to his own talent and skill. When asked
about a formal program to mentor adjuncts, Henry said “faculty mentorship happens
informally…there is a natural gravitation toward people with skill. If you’re curious,
you’ll find people who are willing. They will never make themselves known, but they
will be there.” Henry made two points that were reflected in other conversations with

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faculty. The first is that mentors choose few mentees because they recognize individual
talents and skills. Second, for those faculty members who want mentors, the onus is on
them to actively seek someone. These two points together imply that those who need to
seek mentorship from others may be less qualified than those who were offered
mentorship.
It is important to note that the neoliberal idea of individualism is not limited to
only full-time faculty and administration. Part-time faculty also ascribed to this idea.
Humanities instructor Rebecca spoke about needed to be more assertive in looking for a
mentor “I want one, and I’d think it’d help. But I don’t know where to start or even who
to ask…but I should [actively look for mentorship].” This idea prevents adjuncts from
even mentoring one another. Numerous adjuncts talked about going back to graduate
school to obtain a doctorate in hopes of getting a full-time position, thinking that is the
only way to advance.
This neoliberal idea of individualism can help create a difficult work environment
for adjunct faculty in two ways. The first way is through supporting the assumption that
adjunct faculty are less qualified than their full-time colleagues because they were unable
to obtain full-time positions on their own merit. Functioning under this assumption, full-
time faculty may be disrespectful or dismissive of adjunct concerns. The second way is
through the isolation that is implied by this individualism. Even if faculty do not see
adjuncts as less qualified, there still is the propensity towards a “hands-off” approach that
may prevent faculty from offering assistance, or establishing more pro-active polices and

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practices. For part-time faculty, this idea of individualism can dissuade them from
seeking outside resources or help from others.

Cost-efficiency, flexibility, dual market labor, and individualism are only a few
ways that neoliberalism can be seen throughout Mountain College that have a more direct
influence on adjunct faculty work experience. There are many other ways that
neoliberalism has shaped Mountain College, and some of those ways can be seen as
positive. Competition is one of the values of neoliberalism and is one of the reasons why
hourly rates at Mountain College are higher than other institutions in the county.
Associate Dean Ron noted that a higher pay rate at Mountain “means we get to cherry-
pick our faculty…we can get the best of the best.” The large number of adjunct faculty
who want to teach at Mountain means that the institution is able to also easily replace
faculty evaluated to be sub-par. The neoliberal framework also encourages the institution
to be more efficient with funds and reduce unnecessary costs. This emphasis on fiscal
conservatism over the years is well known among faculty and administration. Dean of
Instruction, Laura spoke of the budget surplus that exists due to that conservatism, “For
years everyone complained because we were so careful with our spending, but now we’re
in better shape than lots of community colleges in this state.” Because of the surplus,
deans anticipate a few extra years before drastic cuts to departments and programs
become necessary. Dean Henry noted, “If we feel it [the state fiscal crisis] we’re going be
the last ones standing. It’ll a bad sign for the overall state of community colleges in
California if that happens.”

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Community Framework
With the influence of neoliberalism in Mountain College, it is possible to
understand how the work environment for adjunct faculty remains largely unchanged for
many years. The issues facing Mountain College vary little from issues facing other
community colleges in the area and the state. However, the trajectory of Mountain
College shifted to make it one of the more promising places for adjuncts to work. From
the data, it appears that neoliberalism is not the only framework that has been influencing
the policies and practices of adjunct faculty work. From the interviews, phrases like
“Mountain family” and “the right thing to do” also arose. This alternative framework to
neoliberalism stemmed from people’s connections to one another and to the institution: a
community framework.
Unlike the ubiquity of neoliberalism, the ways Mountain College reflected the
community framework were so striking that they first appeared to be anomalies than
trends. However, after speaking with many faculty and administrators, the community
framework became more apparent—a strong, though not necessarily the dominant,
framework throughout the campus. This section highlights the ways that the community
framework has shaped the work environment for adjunct faculty.
Stewardship and Adjunct Faculty
There were many faculty and administration that took a keen interest in the
welfare of the adjunct faculty either in their department, division or overall campus. This
interest went beyond the formal duties of upholding contractual obligations to actively
advocating for policies or participating in their worklife. Humanities department chair,

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Richard is an example of this stewardship towards adjunct faculty. When talking about
his responsibility towards adjuncts, he noted that one of his responsibilities was to “keep
adjuncts in-the-know about other full-time positions available” and offering to write
letters of recommendation and advice to the adjuncts in his department. Richard moved
away from the removed-chair model of adjunct management that is reflected in the
literature (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Levin et al., 2007). Other chairs tried to be thoughtful
about determining adjunct rehires. Chair of a fine arts department, Joseph, talked about
the factors he takes into consideration, “First I have follow the seniority clause in the
contract, but after that I have to think about the adjuncts. Some have full-time jobs
somewhere else and are only teaching here because they like teaching. Others rely on the
classes to make a living…” To make these choices, Joseph felt he needed to take the time
to know the adjuncts and their situations.
Other faculty and administrators who were once part-time faculty also saw it as
their responsibility to advocate for policies and practices for adjuncts. Some examples
include pay parity, health benefits, and paid office hours. When asked why faculty would
advocate for such changes, some faculty acknowledged that adjuncts were not necessarily
in a space where they could always advocate for themselves, Dean Theresa noted “I’m
sure some people [adjuncts] don’t want to say anything because they think their jobs
would be at risk, and for some they’d be right.”
Sacrifice and Adjunct faculty
For the upcoming fiscal year, faculty and administration were awaiting a report on
projected state budget cuts that could impact Mountain College for the next five years.

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Associate Dean Ron described the report as “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” The report
would contain potential budget scenarios and how Mountain may have to respond to
those scenarios. Already, departments were asked to cut five percent of their classes.
Due to the faculty contract, part-time faculty courses must be cut first before full-time
faculty, and newer part-time faculty are more vulnerable to cuts that senior adjuncts.
Because many of the faculty and administrators realized that some part-time
faculty rely on classes to make a living, they also realized that cutting adjunct courses
could adversely affect their income. Dean Rose spoke about her meeting with the
department chairs, “We’re asking chairs to think of different ways to meet the 5% cut.”
One of those ways was to ask full-time faculty to voluntarily sacrifice their extra courses
(also known as course overloads) so that adjuncts may keep their classes. Rose noted
“We want to be mindful of adjunct faculty and first will look to overload and see if
people would be willing to give up some of their overload work to keep faculty.”
Associate Dean Ron said, “All we can do is ask, but already faculty have come forward
to offer their classes.”
Cooperation and Adjunct faculty
Just as the neoliberal framework places a value on competition and independence,
the community framework supports cooperation among faculty and administration. The
prior two values of stewardship and sacrifice focus on how full-time faculty and
administrators support adjunct faculty, this value focuses on adjuncts working with other
faculty and administrators to accomplish mutual goals. For example, Mountain College
has a yearly fundraiser for student scholarships, called “Puttin’ on the Hits.” This

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fundraiser was a school-wide performance that includes faculty, administration, staff,
and students. Many interviewees mentioned that it was a “big success.” Some adjunct
faculty like Rena were active participants, “this is my first year…I was assigned two
dance numbers with people I didn’t know, but it’s been fun getting to know them.” Rena
volunteered her time because she felt she was ready and comfortable enough to take a
more active role in the fundraiser. Adjuncts who did not actively participate still attended
the event to show support.
Cooperation with adjuncts can be seen throughout campus: WASC committees,
departmental projects, co-advising for various clubs, and even campus governance.
Though adjuncts may be compensated for some of these activities, other adjuncts
volunteer their time. Daryl, a part-time faculty member in continuing education,
explained his reasoning for volunteering his time, “You want to help the school develop
and sustain itself…” Researchers and leaders using the neoliberal framework question
adjunct commitment and dedication to an institution because adjuncts are rarely
compensated for their time (Umbach, 2008; Benjamin, 2003). However, with the
community framework it is possible to see that compensation is not the motivating factor,
only a facilitator for faculty commitment.
In this study, the community framework did not replace or supersede the
neoliberal framework. Diagram A represents the relationships of the Mountain College
work environment to the neoliberal and community frameworks. The blue and purple
squares represent the frameworks that influence the Mountain faculty work environment.
The largest purple square represents neoliberalism as a greater sociological framework

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that exists beyond the academy, such as the private sector, in public policy, and
globalization efforts. When applied to the academy, and more specifically to this study,
Mountain College, neoliberalism is reflected in the drive for institutions to reduce costs
and expenditures, increase revenue efficiency, and meet market demands. For part-time
faculty this means that they are be a cost effective, second tier workforce that allows for
the institution to maintain fiscal solvency and flexibility—all the while providing services
necessary to meet student demand. Use of this framework discourages changing the
status quo for adjunct faculty because it would undermine the very reason why adjuncts
were hired in the first place.

Diagram 1: Neoliberalism and Community Frameworks in relation to the work
environment at Mountain College

Neoliberal Framework
Community
Framework

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However, providing Mountain Collage a buffer from neoliberalism is the
community framework. Represented by the smaller blue square, this smaller framework
of community is localized around Mountain College, and acts as a mediator between
neoliberal influences and Mountain College. It encourages connections within the
institution and provides alternative values in addition to the values of neoliberalism. For
example, cost-effectiveness is still important, however equity is also importation—so
members of Mountain College think about the most cost effective way to achieve equity.
For part-time faculty, this means policies like summer pay parity, health care, and paid
office hours. It is this framework that tempers some of the neoliberal influence, just
enough to encourage and support positive changes to the part-time faculty work
environment. It is difficult to determine what necessarily brought about the community
framework at Mountain College. It could be that the unionization of the institution
brought faculty closer together, or it could be the series of events that had occurred at
Mountain College that helped develop this sense of connectedness. In the next section, I
examine the historical context of Mountain College, and provide some possibilities to
how the framework developed.
The interconnecting circles represent Mountain College, and the various levels of
interactions that make up the work environment. At the most basic are one-on-one
interactions between individuals. These can include informal interactions and
communications between faculty (such as greeting in the hallways, or conversations
during lunch) to more formal interactions (those than occur during meetings or
ceremonies). Next are smaller units and programs of faculty that can exist within

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departments and divisions. The departmental work environment incorporates these
individual and unit interactions, but also include policies and practices of the department.
The institutional work environment encompasses much of the departmental environment,
and includes the policies and practices of Mountain College as a whole.
These two frameworks, both neoliberalism and community shape the various
levels of interactions among and between faculty, and part-time faculty are included in
that mix.
Historical Development of Mountain College.
In the case of Mountain College, it seems the framework of community can
influence the work environment of part-time faculty by acting as a buffer towards the
neoliberal demands and influences that shape policy decisions. Rather than using only a
neoliberal framework to guide policy, the faculty at Mountain College also had a
community to refocus their attention to the institution and the people within that
institution. It appears that when pivotal faculty and administration used a combination of
both frameworks, they brought about a large cultural shift at Mountain College for
faculty, and the remnants of that shift still remain visible today. This section on the
historical development of Mountain College demonstrates the two frameworks, and how
they relate to one another, with neoliberalism establishing the dominant rationale and
values and community framework redirecting and buffering neoliberal tendencies. This
section also explores how the community framework may have developed at Mountain
College. The concepts from both frameworks will be noted in italics to provide further
clarity.

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In the 1970s, the first increase of part-time faculty occurred in the community
college sector, including Mountain College. Consistent with neoliberalism, Mountain
College increased in part-time faculty to meet quickly rising enrollment in the most cost-
efficient manner possible (efficiency and cost-effectiveness). Suddenly, what was once a
predominantly tenure-track faculty body turned into a two-tiered system with a large
number of adjuncts (though adjuncts were not yet the majority). However, full-time
faculty largely ignored the growing part-time population. Full-timers saw them as a
temporary second-tier workforce used to fill in the gaps of instruction (dual-markets).
The full-time faculty body also had other concerns that took the bulk of their attention.
The full-time faculty were also dealing with the influence of neoliberalim that
resulted in conflicts with the district and administration. The faculty and representative
Faculty Senate felt powerless to enact changes that they considered beneficial to
Mountain College such as class size limits, faculty protection, and a redistribution of
resources towards better facilities. As Steven, one of the key faculty activists at the time.
noted, it seemed like “the President and the trustees either hated the faculty or just didn’t
care.” As time progressed, these conflicts pushed faculty to look into unionization and
collective bargaining (managed professionals), which only further increased problems
with the administration. This move towards unionization further shaped faculty into the
managed professionals that Rhoades (1996) discussed, and also continue the fragment
stakeholders in Mountain College. Steven remembered, “The process was incredibly
adversarial. It was an ‘us-them’ scenario and we almost went on strike in the mid-80s”

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(competition). This move towards unionization, though initially divisive, later may be the
event that helped faculty see the need for unification amongst themselves.
There were two distinctive leadership groups at Mountain College at that time: the
faculty senate and the district with the administration. Neither of these communities
included part-time faculty as their members. Full-time faculty saw adjuncts as
competitors and the result of administrators taking away more power from faculty. They
also saw adjuncts as disinterested in faculty concerns and uncommitted to the institution
(competition and isolation). Administration viewed adjuncts as faculty. However this did
not stop the administration from trying to create further rifts between full-time faculty
and adjuncts as “districts and administration use[d] information to pit one against the
other [speaking of full-time and part-time faculty], and this weaken[ed] the faculty as a
whole,” Dean Theresa (who was a faculty member at the time) explained. While full-time
faculty and administration were at odds, very little consideration was given to the work
environment of part-time faculty.
By the mid-80s and early 90s, Mountain College faculty had reached a new low in
terms of morale. Steven explained, “There were days that I woke up and thought ‘damn, I
have to go to work.’ I never thought that before, and after that time, I’ve never thought
that. But for that time it was bad.” Part-time faculty also were discouraged, Dean Jerry,
who was an adjunct then explained, “We had no place to work, no healthcare, no
benefits, and very little pay. It didn’t help that no one respected you.”
As these events were developing, another phenomenon had occurred—many of
the part-time faculty hired in the 1970s and 80s had become full-time faculty at Mountain

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College. During this time a stronger sense of community and Mountain College identity
began to take shape, creating a sense of responsibility and reciprocity among faculty.
This sense of unity may have come from the new full-time members, who were once
adjuncts, now being members of the union that once ignored them. Having once been
part-time faculty themselves, these faculty were cognizant of adjunct issues and concerns.
They also began working with many of the original full-time faculty on both the Faculty
Senate and newer Faculty Association. Rather than an uncommitted auxiliary workforce,
the previous adjuncts showed that they wanted to work towards the betterment of
Mountain College and its students. This “new” combination of full-time faculty realized
that in order to challenge the executive leadership and administration they “had to be a
unified front” which included part-time faculty (cooperation). They also realized that in
order to have adjunct support, full-time faculty had to also meet their work needs.
Members of the “old guard” faculty who were opposed to working with adjuncts “had
mostly retired by then” or “were no longer in their [leadership] positions.” The leadership
was changing, with some faculty having a different understanding of who should be
considered a member.
The shift to seeing part-time faculty as members resulted in a change in policies
within the leadership community. For the first time two adjunct positions opened up on
the faculty union and the faculty leadership “formally acknowledged the importance of
adjuncts to the whole campus community” (cooperation and stewardship). The Faculty
Association president at the time explained, “to make it more than lip-service we had to
hear what they had to say and value their input.” Because faculty leaders understood that

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it would be unfair to expect adjuncts to volunteer their time while full-time salaries
covered the same work, these adjunct positions were monetarily compensated. Currently,
many Faculty Associations and senate leadership positions have some form of
compensation for adjuncts (stewardship).
Eventually the faculty found trustees and executive leadership who supported
them, so they turned their attention to strengthening rest of the faculty contract.
Throughout this time Mountain College faculty and administration really began to think
about the overall learning environment of the college and what is best for the students.
They emphasized the Mountain community as one that “is shared responsibility for
student learning.” Rose explained: “It [student learning] includes all members in the
college, beyond just faculty members, all units of college.” Faculty also began to
establish and strengthen the general Mountain community, emphasizing “family” and the
“Mountain way.”
Despite these changes, the influences of neoliberalism were still present, just
tempered by this new sense of community. For example, part of the unification of full-
and part-time faculty was the establishment of a wall-to-wall contract, meaning that the
faculty are represented as one. The mindset of “faculty issues are faculty issues” began to
develop, emphasizing that adjunct issues are also full-time faculty issues and vice versa.
Through a series of surveys, the faculty leaders determined that adjunct faculty wanted to
establish policy changes based on medical benefits, pay rates, re-hire rights, and office
hours. These policy changes would not only require monetary resources, they would also
require the support of both the full-time faculty and administration. Cost efficiency,

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market demands, and competition were still important, but the community framework
helped reconnect those influences to other values. Using the “Mountain Family” values
and emphasizing the importance of quality instructors for student learning, faculty
gathered support for the changes in policies. Richard stated, “we want the best faculty for
our students, that includes adjuncts. That means we have to be prepared to encourage
them to come here and stay here.” Rather than focusing on competition among different
types of faculty, the neoliberal value of competition was mediated by the community
framework to focus on how Mountain College can be competitive with other community
colleges in the area.
The changes that had taken place for part-time faculty required a different
framework for decision-making. Rather than focusing on how using part-time faculty can
save on monetary resources and are an efficient use of funds, the leadership at Mountain
College had to think about the goals of Mountain College, and how adjunct faculty are a
part of those goals. They had to see part-time faculty as instructors and members of the
same community working towards the same end as the full-time faculty: student
achievement. These changes still are in effect for the part-time faculty and can be seen
throughout different campus artifacts such as the faculty contract. The mindset of
community can also be seen in more symbolic ways, with adjunct faculty having campus
e-mails and listed on department web pages with full-time faculty.
In this historical case of Mountain College, three key ideas emerged from the
data, which can help us understand how the neoliberal and community framework shape
an institution.

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The first idea is that the community framework helped refocus competition away
from part-time faculty. Full-time faculty needed to see adjunct faculty as members of
their community and not as competitors. One of the issues for the part-time faculty at
Mountain College was full-time faculty saw them as outsiders when they were first
introduced. This perception was not completely unfounded. Adjuncts were a less
expensive way to employ faculty, so they represented a potential hiring pattern that could
threaten the availability of full-time employment. As noted earlier, administrative
leadership encouraged this divide between faculty types. Adjuncts also had little to no
responsibility outside of classroom instruction, so full-time faculty perceived adjuncts to
be less dedicated to the faculty efforts. It was not until adjuncts took on some leadership
and or became full-time faculty that perspectives began to change. Full-time faculty also
had to come to the realization that in order to accomplish their goals and to be a stronger
institution, they needed to see and treat adjuncts as members of their community.
The second idea focuses on how the faculty applied the framework of community
to their mission and goals as a way to encourage more support for faculty changes, as
well as encourage people to see themselves as connected and part of Mountain College.
Though faculty had student interests in mind, in the early years of Mountain College
faculty were fragmented and isolated. The union helped refocused the different types of
faculty towards a common goal. However, during initial unionization, faculty and
administration seemed more focused on their own groups. Each group had conflicting
interests (e.g. administration wanted to increase class sizes and adjuncts to meet rising
demands, and full-time faculty wanted to keep smaller sizes and hire more full-time

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faculty) and focus on these interests heightened the attention to the differences between
faculty, part-time faculty, and management. Even among full-time faculty there was
fragmentation, with those against unionization verses those who were for it. It was
difficult to get people to agree to different policy changes because it meant that their own
groups might lose ground in the process. Later, by focusing on what was best for students
and student learning, faculty were able to garner support from senior leadership, trustees,
and other faculty for many of their efforts. Faculty realized that by working together they
could achieve more working together than by working against one another. By
emphasizing connectedness with one other, faculty were able to garner support from
themselves. When change efforts were expressed in terms of the mutual mission and
goals of the overall Mountain community, people were able to view the bigger picture of
Mountain College, rather than only see the special interests of certain groups.
The third idea that helps us understand how the community framework can help
shape work environments is the compounding impact that members can have in
maintaining the changes that occurred. Even though few people initially accepted part-
time faculty as members of the community, as leaders began to emphasize adjunct
membership and importance, the number of supportive faculty increased. Faculty helped
change other people’s definition of membership by formalizing part-time leadership
positions and modeling adjunct-friendly behaviors. New full-time faculty were further
socialized to understand adjuncts as part of their community as well. There seems to be a
tipping point, where enough members of an academic community can shift an attitude
towards adjuncts and shape the way that future members perceive members.

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Ways that Conceptualization of Community Relate to Faculty Work Environment
In the previous section, I discussed Mountain College history as case to study how the
community framework can be a mediating factor to neoliberalism and help shape the
work environment for part-time faculty. In the process, I addressed the first research
question:
Does an academic community facilitate positive working conditions for part-time
faculty?
From the case, it does appear that academic community can facilitate positive working
conditions for part-time faculty. The sub-question that follows is:
If so, in what ways?
The next section examines this question in more detail, specifically looking at the ways
that academic community can shape working conditions. This study found that it was
faculty conceptualizations of academic community that played an important role in
developing and maintaining the community framework and shaping faculty behavior in
the workplace.
What is a Conceptualization of Community?
From the data, I have found that people’s conceptualizations of academic
community is a mental construct based on individual perception that can be applied
across all the different levels of the Mountain work environment. Conceptualization of
community is an interrelation between three components: membership definition, feelings
of belonging, and community mission/goals.

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Membership Definition
Throughout the interviews, faculty and administrators defined different types of
academic community, and each had various groups (e.g. faculty, student, administrators)
who may or may not have membership within those communities. It is through
membership definition that people determine the groups or persons who are important
and need attention. For example, at the program or class level, faculty spoke about
students being integral to the community, so the focus was on their needs: “the student
population is changing, we have to change with them.” Faculty spoke about the student
population in great detail. Throughout the different conceptualizations membership
varied. Some people included students; other people included staff or administration.
Some of the membership was implicit, as some faculty and administrators mentioned that
academic community included everyone “working towards the same goal” or who was
“involved with student instruction.” There were faculty members who were explicit
regarding the people included in their academic community—for example Roy, a tenured
member, noted, “As a department we have that sense of community, we’re isolated so the
group is small—but we do work closely with facilities and grounds department.”
With regards to adjunct faculty, naming them as part of an academic community
was only a small part of defining membership. It may be that people do not think about
community membership in such terms. To understand faculty ideas of membership, I also
looked to faculty behaviors and concern for other people. Some faculty did not mention
adjunct faculty specifically in their initial conceptualization of academic community
(they only said “faculty”), but throughout their interview they showed concern for the

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working conditions of adjuncts in their department, or they spoke about working with
them. Other faculty showed a lack of awareness of adjuncts. For example, Matthew noted
that his community consisted of the faculty in his department, but in his calculations he
did not include adjuncts as faculty. Another faculty member, Chris, said, “I can’t tell you
much about the adjuncts here” when asked directly about them.
When full-time faculty or administrators included part-time faculty as members it
appears that they were more aware of the work-environment issues of part-time faculty or
were cognizant of what part-time faculty needed to be successful in their work. For
example, Peter, a faculty chair in the sciences explained, “Adjuncts are an important part
of the program, we get their students. They often teach at night, so there is little
interaction, but to the extent they want to be involved, they are welcome.” He later spoke
about ways to support the different part-time faculty wants regarding class curriculum:
Some adjuncts are happy to get a curriculum, so Peter [another faculty member]
develops one for them and they teach it, others say they like some activities and
not others, or some want to come up with their own, we give them that
freedom…as long as their program meets up with the standard of the department
and teaches the needed topics…It comes back to the certain amount of faith in
them, and to give them the respect and space that they deserve.

Even those faculty who could not make policy or formal practice changes, but
conceptualized part-time faculty as members of their academic community acknowledged
how part-time faculty could be treated poorly and tried to be inclusive in their
interactions—they took formal or informal mentorship roles, had open door policies for
all faculty, or made explicit overtures to part-time faculty, rather than just a general
invitation to everyone in the department.

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Community membership appears to direct a person’s attention to the groups or
individuals who are either important or who take precedence over outsiders of the
community. Though faculty members belong to and perceive different types of academic
communities, if part-time faculty are not included, adjuncts and their professional needs
may be ignored or left unattended. Likewise, those faculty members who included part-
time faculty seemed to be sensitized to the challenges that part-time faculty experience
and made moves towards being more inclusive.
Just as some full-time faculty included part-time faculty as members in the
academic community, there were those faculty (though not the administrators
interviewed) who did not include part-time faculty in their conceptualizations. It is
important to note that no full-time faculty member explicitly excluded part-time faculty.
For example, in many of the conceptualizations of communities, staff were not
considered as part of that particular academic community, as part-time faculty Gene
mentioned that his idea of academic community included “professional support staff,
faculty members, administrators and department chairs-I don’t extend it to all the
classified staff.” Though part-time faculty were not explicitly excluded, there were those
faculty members who did not mention them. Some professors used the term “faculty,”
and as the interviews progressed it became clearer that the “faculty” meant were
predominantly full-time faculty, for example when asked about faculty responsibility
some people answered that “faculty should realize that they have a 40 hour work week
and not 19.” The hours indicate that they are speaking of full-time faculty. These faculty

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members often did not speak of part-time faculty until I raised the topic specifically
during the interviews.
It seems that those faculty members who implicitly excluded part-time faculty or
did not include them in their conceptualizations, seemed less cognizant of part-time
faculty. This lack of awareness is very similar to the “invisible” faculty that Gappa and
Leslie (1993) found in their study. Though by no means were full-time faculty disdainful
or denigrating of the part-time faculty, sometimes it did not occur to full-time faculty to
actively include or engage with part-time faculty. For example, when asked about
inviting adjuncts to events, some people said that they “didn’t think about inviting them,”
even though adjuncts “would be welcome” at the events.
Feelings of Belonging.
During the interviews with faculty members and administrators the idea of
belonging arose when asked about the different types of community. For many faculty
members, it was the community where they felt like they “fit in” or they were the “most
comfortable.” This feeling of belonging may actually be a separate phenomenon from
actual membership and participation in any one academic community. For example, I
spoke to Craig, a chair who considered himself an active member of different academic
groups such as Senate and different committees. However, despite his participation and
having core positions (e.g. department chair and senate officer), the faculty member still
spoke about not really “belonging” to any of the academic communities. Another full-
time faculty member, Denise, spoke about feeling isolated from the rest of the faculty

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even though she is the lead coordinator for the full-time new faculty orientation and
mentors new faculty.
Likewise, some part-time faculty only interacted with their students and members
in their department spoke of belonging in their department or at Mountain College. Some
of the long-time part-time faculty, like Ryan, speak about feeling of connected to their
department:
There is camaraderie with the faculty. I don’t see any of the cliqués, they are just
some people with similar interests…There are meetings where we just talk about
topics, and there is a mix of both adjuncts and faculty. I’m comfortable because I
have been here for so long, new adjuncts may not feel that that same sense of
camaraderie, and there is a lack of interest [for new adjuncts] to develop
relationships.

There were those part-time faculty felt like they belonged in their community, even if
other members of the community did not necessarily feel the same way about the part-
time faculty. Belonging is an individual construct that seems heavily dependent upon the
perception of that person, but external factors have an effect on a person’s sense of
belonging in that academic community.
Why do feelings of belonging matter? Even though community membership and
participation may not necessarily lead to feelings of belonging, from this study it appears
that those faculty who felt particularly connected to an academic community participated
more in that community than any other. For example, Laura is full-time faculty member
who focuses her academic citizenship efforts predominantly within her department. She
is close with her colleagues and considers many them to be her friends, so she is the chair
of the social committee and the chair of the arbitration committee for faculty grievances
or disputes within the department. She noted on her participation, “I tend to be one of

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those ones who focuses on my classes, and my department—my smaller world. And I
venture out, like the spokes of a wheel to various people for various things.” Where
faculty seem to exert the most effort and time is in those communities where they feel the
most connected. Another full-time faculty member, Oscar explained, “I mainly
participate in my own [department] community. Maybe in the overall community of the
college is where I would be more willing to participate like graduation ceremonies and
campus clubs, and career days. There are many other things that come up… I didn’t jump
on many things because I don’t feel like it would be much fun and I’m not as connected.”
It may be that if part-time faculty felt like they belonged more to certain academic
communities, these communities may see more voluntary participation. However, if
faculty feel like they are not members, participation may be less likely.
Underlying Community Mission and Goals.
In this study, the conceptualizations of academic community connected to the
goals or mission of that specific community. Associate Dean Ron noted that a community
is “a group of people focused on a shared goal…even if we may not agree with how to
attain that goal.” This shared goal can unify members within that community. For
example, a community take takes place within a classroom, one of the shared goals was
learning the course materials or content, while in a community that may be among faculty
in a department, it may be student learning and maintaining the reputation of the
department. These community missions provide the underlying reasoning and
justification for policy and practice decisions, and can also guide which decisions are

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most important. Missions can also help determine members of the community, as people
define who the stakeholders may be based on the goals.
In terms of workplace policies and practices for part-time faculty, the community
mission often helped bolster support for changes. As noted in the previous section, one
goal found in all the academic communities of was that of student success, a goal which
helped drive policy-making decisions. First and foremost faculty and administration
pushed what was in the best interest of the students, and the idea that everyone had the
same goals eased possible tensions or hostile feelings that would have arisen, Steven
noted, “sure the discussion could get heated, but in the end it helps to know we all want
the same thing.” The goal of student success also allowed faculty to make reasoned
arguments for certain adjunct faculty policies. For example, in the early 1990s the
members of Academic Senate and association were still debating whether adjuncts should
be paid for office hours. Lisa, a full-time faculty member who was once an adjunct
faculty member, remembered one of the more compelling arguments made: “students
need to have contact with their faculty outside of class to be successful—this means full-
time and adjunct faculty.” That argument convinced numerous faculty, acknowledging
that what was best for student instruction needed to be made a priority. Lisa spoke about
how changes could be implemented on campus despite tight budgets, “as long as we can
link it to how it can benefit the students, people find a way to make it [a program or
policy] happen.”
One important community philosophy was the concept of “The Mountain Way”
that was described in the historical case of Mountain Community. From this study it

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seems that this philosophy permeated Mountain College and was instrumental in helping
create positive policies and practices for part-time faculty. The “Mountain Way” that
many faculty and administration spoke about created a faculty ethic that implies that
people “look out for one another” and look beyond personal interest. The Mountain Way
directes faculty into thinking about what is best for the school, which helped many of the
faculty and administration have both a long memory and a long-term plan. Joseph noted,
“We want to protect the people who have been here with us for a long time, who
dedicated their time, and who need the work,” thus recognizing that the institution’s part-
time faculty had made long-term investments in the community.
These three interrelated components comprise a faculty member’s
conceptualization of academic community, as seen in Diagram 2.
.

Diagram 2: Conceptualization of community
The curved lines connecting the components reflect a possible influence that one may
have on the other. Depending on the person’s conceptualization of community, the
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interplay among these three components varies. The strength of that influence depends
upon the conceptualization. For example, at the departmental level, the membership
(full-time faculty, part-time faculty, faculty chair, instructional staff) and goals (student
learning and content knowledge) may mutually influence one another, and influence a
professor’s feelings of belonging to that community (belonging shaped by success of
meeting goals, acceptance of other members).
Not to be confused with the Community Framework, the conceptualization of
community and its three components work together to shape faculty citizenship behaviors
within any given level of work environment.
Conceptualization of Community Mediating Academic Citizenship.
Conceptualizations of academic community help focus a certain type of academic
citizenship behaviors among faculty and administrators—the citizenship that has the
potential to looks to the welfare of other faculty, in such actions as collegiality and
mentorship. These actions could also include showing concern for faculty welfare,
advocating or voting for certain policies, or being more conscientious of how actions
could affect adjuncts. As noted in Chapter 2, positive work environments are not limited
to policies and practices, but they also include elements of inclusivity and respect.
Individual acts of faculty when combined with others can shape an overall work
environment for adjunct faculty.
When speaking about academic citizenship, this idea moves beyond just meeting
the contractual requirements of the employee position towards the sense of responsibility
that a person feels towards her perceived academic community. For example, many

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faculty members mentioned in their interviews that they “should” participate more in
different communities, such as being more active with their external community or taking
a larger role in the faculty union. These “shoulds” imply an obligation or imperative that
people feel towards certain actions or behaviors. This sense of responsibility carries over
to both faculty and administrators and their actions towards part-time faculty.
Conceptualizations of academic community (by providing a common goal or
mission, developing feelings of belonging, and determining which people are members)
then shape the ways that faculty and administration interact with one another, whether
collegial, adversarial, or not at all. When speaking about collegiality, most part-time
faculty interviewed spoke about working with other faculty in their departments and
feeling that their contributions were valued.
For example, in one of the social science departments, the chair realized that there
was a need to include more classes that both 1. Had transferability of credits to the four-
year institutions, and 2. Addressed the interests of the large racial/ethnic minority
population of the school. He asked Sue (a part-time faculty) member to develop and
possibly teach the course, if it were to be accepted into the catalogue. Sue was very
pleased to be asked because she felt the chair appreciated that Sue had obtained a PhD
from a well-regarded research institution, and so would have some experience developing
a more detailed course due to her research.
She noted, “He [the chair] asked me because I have done research on Asians and
my dissertation was on Latino populations and could develop the class he was looking
for.” Together, she and the faculty chair worked to develop the syllabus. Sue was

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compensated for the work she contributed towards developing the course. Even when it
was not approved, still felt that her input was valued, “We knew it might not get
accepted, but we had to try. The students really need a course like that.”
By recognizing the part-time faculty member as a member of his academic
community and valuing her own expertise, the chair chose who he thought was the best
person for the task. Sue accepted the task for different reasons, first because she wanted
to contribute to the department and saw the value in the project, and later the
compensation made it easier to commit the time. Both she and the chair saw how
developing the class could help students further their education.
Another example of citizenship behaviors is faculty mentorship. By establishing
who are the members and the purpose of the academic community, faculty may find
mentorship to be an important facet of their participation and reach out to other people.
By having a mentor, faculty may not feel as isolated on campus. Also, mentorship can be
an important way for faculty to gain access to further participation in the different types
of academic communities. Mentors may also advocate for adjuncts in ways that adjuncts
are unable. Numerous faculty in this study have experienced mentorship: as a mentor,
mentee, or both. More than helping faculty navigate the department environment,
mentoring also encompasses socialization into the professoriate. Craig noted “I was
lucky: my chair took an interest in me when I was an adjunct. She told me it was
important to attend faculty meetings, let everyone get to know me and see me contribute
to the department.”

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Faculty who see part-time faculty as members of their own academic community
may find it part of their responsibility to mentor them or offer mentorship to them much
like they had been mentored. Dean Rose remembered mentoring when she was a full-
time faculty member:
Why bother [mentoring]? We believed, all seven of us, “someone gave me the
opportunity to teach” … we wanted them to know that we believed in them [part-
timer faculty] and we wanted to support them—we didn’t want to destroy, we
wanted to build. All of us at some point started fresh. It would have been great for
us if we had the same type of mentorship that we wanted to give.

Long-time part-time faculty, especially those who were in the part-time only
departments, also took it upon themselves to mentor newer part-time faculty. This close
relationship between mentors and mentees can help part-time faculty gain fuller access to
academic communities, as well as provide the social capital and informational resources
that may help part-time faculty navigate the campus better.
When the academic citizenship behaviors of faculty are favorable to adjuncts, it
helps create an overall work environment that can be positive as well. Citizenship
behaviors can lead to the development and support of more positive polices. When
faculty citizenship behaviors treat adjuncts well, other faculty may also take note moving
towards a more inclusive environment for part-time faculty.

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Diagram 3: Conceptualization of Community and citizenship behaviors within a work
environment.

The conceptualization of community can influence citizenship behaviors of the
faculty member (attending department meetings, volunteering for tasks, behaving
collegially with other faculty, advocating or establishing certain policies). These
behaviors may occur as one-on-one interactions in the department or result in policy
changes in the institutions, but eventually citizenship behaviors become part of the
greater fabric of the general work environment. In turn, the work environment can
influence people’s conceptualization of academic community. For example, if in a
department it is commonplace for full-time faculty to invite part-time faculty to events,
ideas of membership may begin to change, especially for newer community members.
The above diagram reflects only one person’s single conceptualization of community and
series of corresponding behaviors. The faculty work environment consists of a myriad of
people with many conceptualizations and citizenship behaviors with resulting policies
Citizenship
Behaviors

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and practices. Some people’s conceptualizations and behaviors may overlap with
conceptualizations and behaviors, while others may not.
The conceptualization of community can also be influenced by the neoliberal and
community frameworks that help shape the overall work environment as well. In a more
neoliberal work environment, faculty may only perceive those people with valuable
professional skills as members, or it may be acceptable to behave as thought they are in
direct competition with other groups. The missions and goals may also be influenced
depending on the framework.
Examples of How Conceptualizations of Community Influence the Work
Environment of Part-time Faculty.
In this section we can see how these four components: membership, feelings of
belonging, mission and goals, and citizenship behaviors, interact with one another to
shape the work environments for adjunct faculty. Richard is an example of a faculty
member who is working towards a better work environment for part-time faculty in his
department.
Richard
Richard is chair of a liberal arts department who recognized that adjuncts were
part of his academic community. He also happened to be one of the faculty members who
was at Mountain College during the time of unionization. When Richard was a new
faculty member over 30 years ago, the faculty and administration were at odds with one
another because collective bargaining was being introduced onto campus, “The process
was incredibly adversarial. It was an ‘us-them’ scenario and we almost went on strike in

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the mid 80s.” It was around that time when Richard realized that if any changes were to
take place on campus for both students and faculty, then part-time and full-time faculty
“had to be unified front” (mission and goals). Many of those part-time faculty members
stayed at Mountain College, became full-time faculty, chairs, or administrators. From this
experience, Richard learned not to discount part-time faculty and valued their
contribution to his academic community: “it’s important to see their contributions and to
encourage them [part-time faculty]” (defining membership).
As chair of his department for the last 8 years, Richard recognized that he was in
a pivotal position in his departmental community and felt that other faculty both trusted
and respected him (feelings of belonging). He had a vested interest in strengthening his
department and making decisions that would best facilitate student learning (mission and
goals), and he felt that a strong faculty (both full and part-time) was one way to achieve
those goals. Richard made a conscious effort to be sure that part-time faculty felt
included in his department. This effort included invitations to monthly meetings where
faculty come together to talk about current events and socialize (citizenship behaviors).
He also realized that as chair, he had a responsibility towards the policies or practices that
affect his faculty members’ work. For example, Richard tried to give adjuncts their
schedules approximately a semester in advance to give them ample notice to prepare for
classes (citizenship behaviors). Even when faced with mandatory program cuts, Richard
tried to be sensitive towards the part-time faculty who may not have a position the next
year. He recalled semesters when part-time faculty had to be cut as “profoundly sad” and

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was trying to stall the inevitable cuts for as long as possible by asking full-time faculty to
willingly volunteer their overtime classes (citizenship behaviors).
Richard was also cognizant that a limited hiring market ,not the quality of the
adjunct, made it difficult for adjuncts to find full time work. He said, “We have the best
part-timers, but they’re not a lot of [full-time] openings for them.” His own department
had only one full-time opening in the last six years. Because of the few full-time
openings available, Richard also tried to ensure part-time faculty welfare beyond working
at Mountain College. He has kept his part-time faculty informed of any full-time faculty
position postings at various community colleges and four-year institutions and has
written many recommendations. Because he was familiar with chairs at other local
community colleges, Richard has also made it a point to call on behalf of the part-time
faculty members. Richard saw part-time faculty as members of his academic community,
and his behaviors towards them indicated that he found them to be valuable members.
Richard’s behaviors both shape his one-on-one interactions with the adjuncts, but it also
shapes the work environment of his department. By his example full-time faculty may
also see adjuncts as members in their community. Likewise, by his encouragement, part-
time faculty may be more active members.
Cara
The next example highlights another department chair with a different
conceptualization of academic community, one that does not include part-time faculty.
Cara has been the department chair in a Math and Sciences department for the last two
years and faculty for eight years before that and feels very connected to Mountain and her

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department (feelings of belonging). She came to Mountain College directly from graduate
school where she had very little contact with part-time faculty. She came to Mountain
College, with no prior college faculty experience, even though she knew her peers were
getting part-time positions, “I never believed in being a part-timer for a community
college…No one ever told me I shouldn’t be a part-time, I just didn’t want to do it, I
needed benefits and a full-time income. So I opted for something different.” At
Mountain, because most of her classes were during the day, she did not interact with
many part-time faculty, who “usually teach in the evening.” In many ways, she saw
adjunct faculty as a separate academic community, of which Cara was not a member.
Instead, she made friends with other full-time faculty through her year-long orientation
program, as well as other full-time faculty in her department (defining membership and
feelings of belonging). When asked about her academic community, she spoke of her
departmental faculty as part of that community, though through her conversations it
became clear she did not mean part-time faculty when she uses the term “faculty.”
Instead, she used the term “adjuncts” when discussing part-time faculty (defining
membership and citizenship behaviors). Similar to Richard, Cara was also interested in
strengthening the department and student learning, but she felt it could be achieved by
focusing on full-time faculty members. Her main concerns focused on the making sure
the “faculty get what they need,” in terms of scheduling, supplies, and service hours
(mission and goals and citizenship behaviors). Part-time faculty were secondary
concerns, “I have a big department and not a lot of time, I have to focus on the people
who are going be here [or have been here] a long time first” (mission and goals). Cara did

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note that the faculty contract protects part-time faculty, and as long as she upheld the
contract she was “working with adjuncts” (citizenship behavior). However, Cara does not
go any further than the contract language. Cara’s behaviors both shape her one-on-one
interactions with the adjuncts and full-time faculty making a distinct difference between
the two types of faculty. In turn, she shaped the work environment of her department. By
her example full-time faculty may also see adjuncts as outsiders instead of members in
their community. Likewise, part-time faculty may be more disinclined to be active
members.

What we can see from these two narratives are the ways that different changes to
the components in conceptualizations of academic community can result in different
work environment in Richard’s department than in Cara’s department. Though both
chairs had similar goals and similar feelings of belonging, in the case of these narratives
their definition of membership helped influence their different behaviors. Each of the
components, though influencing one another, are also subjected to influence from other
sources as well, such as personal experience (e.g., whether or not a person was previously
an adjunct faculty member) and other people.
Conclusion
This chapter is about how conceptualizations of academic community could shape
the work environment for adjunct faculty. In the first section, I explored the relationship
between the two frameworks; neoliberalism and community, shape the overall institution.
Next I explored how the conceptualizations of community: membership, sense of

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belonging, and mission and goals mediates certain citizenship behaviors, and illustrated
how the relationship among them may ultimately help influence how a person can shape
part-time faculty work environments. Individuals can and do shape community, yet
looking at collective action can also help us understand how community forms and can
potentially shape a more positive work environment. In the third section of this chapter, I
illustrated how the conceptualizations of many different faculty members helped create
the current work environment for adjuncts through a strong faculty contract.
Conceptualizations of academic community do not stand alone and unchanging in a
vacuum. One person’s conceptualization academic community can be shaped by the
components of other people’s conceptualizations, and the history of Mountain College
highlights how it could be done.

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CHAPTER FIVE: FIVE PERCEPTIONS OF ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
The individual conceptualizations of community in Chapter 4 is a construct that
can shape the work environment of part-time faculty. However, it is important to
understand how faculty apply the construct to their experience of an academic
community at Mountain College. In this chapter, I focus on how faculty perceived their
academic communities, and the responsibilities that each of the communities contain.
These perceptions are important because they give us insight into expectations that
faculty have of members in their own community in terms of membership and
responsibility. In this chapter, I answer the second of my research questions:
What are the perceptions of academic community for faculty and how do those
perceptions relate to their work experience?
From the data, several perceptions of academic community emerged, each with its
own set of members and responsibilities. This chapter describes the four distinct
perceptions of academic community found within Mountain College: student-
instructional, departmental, leadership, and campus community. I also describe one
perception of academic community that goes beyond Mountain College, the external
community.
This chapter is divided into five sections representing the individual communities.
For each section, I will first describe the faculty/administration perception of academic
community. I use the term “perception” to encompass a broader, more complex
understanding of academic community that incorporates three components. The first
component is the abstract definition of academic community that faculty gave during the

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interviews. The second component stems from their personal experiences of academic
community—either as a member or as an outsider. The final component is extracted from
my own interpretation of the data. “Academic community” was rarely recognized as a
commonly used term, and of the understanding stemmed from piecing together the more
tacit elements of academic community found in the data. For clarity, I use the term
“perception” to represent those three components.
Each section is subsequently divided into two parts: membership and participation
and responsibilities. The parts provide a better portrait of the community as a whole.
These facets reflect the work experience of different faculty and administration. The first
facet is community membership—the individuals or groups that belong to the
community. The second facet is responsibilities and participation—the faculty roles and
responsibilities necessary to be considered active members of the community. These
communities and facets stemmed predominantly from the different categories and codes
found within the interview data combined, guided by some of the ideas (e.g., academic
citizenship, professional organizations, and such like) found in the literature review.
Academic Community as Student-Instructional Community
When talking to the participants at Mountain College, many defined an academic
community as one involving an instructional dynamic—a community existing between
students and faculty. This conceptualization is not surprising: students and instruction are

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a predominant focus at the institution, and many faculty, especially the part-time faculty
interviewed, spend the bulk of their work time with students.
18

Perception
Many faculty members defined academic community as one that exists between
faculty and students and focuses on student learning. Faculty often equated this
community with students taking a course with the instructor. Steven, a long-time tenured
faculty member in the humanities noted:
There is a community that goes on within any classroom. It’s still early in the
semester—I just gave my first exam, and the students just turned in teeny papers
and one quiz, but there’s a community there—they’re getting it. If the classroom
really, really works, there’s a community there when [students] all come together.

Though most descriptions of the student-instructional community acknowledge the
limitation of such a community to a semester course, some faculty members mentioned
that academic community is also found in academic programs, which can last for up to
two years, depending on program completion. For example, Mountain College has a
bridge program for students to help them succeed in various subjects like math, English,
or reading. The program enrolls students “in linked or clustered classes that are taught in
a cooperative environment between instructors” (source taken from http://www.[Name
removed].edu/students/bridge/). In some of these programs, both full-time and part-time
faculty members work with one another and the same group of students for up to two
years.

18
For the number of interviewees that mention each of the different communities, please
see Appendix G.

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The perceived student-instructional community extends to extracurricular events
such as clubs, student government, and sports teams. Joseph, a full-time faculty member
in the arts mentioned that teaching students takes place in these venues:
Our ensemble directors, they have part-time people that work with their [student]
ensembles directly, so that’s their little community…they’re all working on the
same goal for their band or choir to sound good.

These various forms of the academic classroom community seem to rely on the direct
instruction of students and the interactions between students and faculty.
Membership
In the classroom community, members fall into two groups: students and faculty.
In some instances, such as traditional classrooms, faculty member teach the students
taking the course. In academic programs, the members include the faculty who participate
in the program and the students enrolled—though some faculty also include ancillary
staff (such as on campus tutors or lab technicians). Mitchell is a part-time faculty member
who serves a dual position both as an instructor for one and campus tutor for a bridge
program. He explained that an “Academic community is a learning community with the
teachers connect to the lesson plans and the support services to get the right help to teach
the students.”
Responsibilities and Participation for Faculty
In this academic community, the predominant type of participation for both part-
time and full-time faculty is equated to the faculty role as the instructor for the class.
Many of the faculty members spoke about their expectations for themselves to be better
instructors through class preparation and familiarity their course materials. “Whatever I

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do, I like to throw myself in it 100% . . . I would spend every Saturday working on prep
for my classes,” said Dean Rose, who was once a part-time faculty member, and later
became full-time faculty. Another faculty member also spoke about ensuring that the
tests given were authentic and reflected the course material. In the professional
departments or certification programs, giving authentic assessment was important.
Thomas, a part-time faculty member and full-time professional, stressed the importance
of authenticity for students to prepare them for employers “Some instructors really don’t
give ‘true’ tests, just true/false or multiple choice…I ask for real reports and true
examples of what is expected of them if they are in the business world.”
In addition to class preparation, faculty also discussed their responsibility to be
current in their field of study (e.g., nursing, history, or chemistry) or in the field of
instruction (teaching nursing, history, or chemistry). Faculty in professional and
vocational fields fulfill this responsibility by maintaining their various certifications and
licenses. For many of the departments it was a contractual requirement, that faculty must
“Provide evidence of valid licensure and/or certification for vocational subjects requiring
such licensure and/or certification” (Mountain College Faculty Contract, 2011, p. 91).
However, faculty also noted that such requirements are important to instruction: “How
can I teach students nursing if my own information is outdated?” asked Danielle, a full-
time faculty member in the health sciences.
Maintaining licensure and/or certification was only one of the ways faculty
remain up-to-date. Professional and vocational faculty as well as faculty in academic
fields (e.g., liberal arts and sciences) discussed attending conferences in their field of

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study. The conferences ranged from the Modern Language Association to the California
Grown Show, an exposition for those in the horticulture fields. Full-time faculty Matthew
attended the National Association of Physics Teachers workshops and hosts some of his
own. He explained the importance of attending these workshops and conferences: “It’s
important to keep us current, our business is teaching…The way I got to be a good
teacher was spending time at workshops.”
Some faculty members who no longer attended conferences or lacked the
resources remained current in their disciplines in other ways. Some, like Horatio a
tenured professor in the Math and Sciences mentioned keeping “up to date by getting
journals and taking the time to read them.” Ryan is a part-time faculty member in the
humanities with his doctorate. One way he maintains his content knowledge is through a
reading group where “A friend at another school and I usually pick one or two
philosophy texts to talk about refresh our own understanding. We have begun to reread
Kant’s Critique of Reason again.”
Related to keeping current in their field of study, faculty often spoke of their
responsibility of being a “good teacher,” which entailed a variety of activities ranging
from “being timely with letters of recommendations for students” to “being effective and
communicate myself clearly to the students.” In the classroom, faculty spoke of behaving
professionally, mentioning “being to class on time,” “good class management,” “giving
feedback to students in a timely manner”—many of which can be similarly found in the
faculty contract under “Teaching Faculty Performance Expectancies.” In the contract
faculty are expected to “develop and utilize effective pedagogical techniques in order to

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enhance the communication of ideas and promote optimal student learning, critical
thinking, and performance skills,” and to “be prompt and regular in attendance at all class
meetings and adhere to scheduled dismissal times” (Mountain Faculty Contract, 2011,
p.54). These responsibilities can also be found in the “Classroom Visitation Evaluation,”
where faculty are rated based on “positive and professional image,” “demonstrates
effective classroom management skills” and “ demonstrates subject matter expertise in
course delivery” (Mountain Faculty Contract, 2011, p.123-124). As a matter of fact,
when asked about expectations that faculty and department chairs have of other faculty,
many faculty mention “meeting their contractual obligations.”
Every interviewed faculty member spoke of a dedication to student learning.
Ryan, the part-timer, summarized this idea as a “conscious methodological thinking
towards helping students.” Two large components of this responsibility involve office
hours and taking time to support and mentor students outside of the classroom. Office
hours was one of those ways to offer support to students outside of class, “Students come
in, usually right before a test or quiz, but they do come in and it’s a time to help them one
by one,” stated full-time professor Horatio. Professor Oliver, a tenured faculty member
talked about the importance of extending the idea of office hours to a “Skills Day” for
health science students, where he “always participated … not because we’re paid to do it,
but because I’ve always wanted to. It’s important for students, and it’s important for me
to introduce students to concepts they’ll be learning about—to give them a head start.”
For others, this support comes in the form of extracurricular activities likes clubs and
sports. For example Matthew is also the advisor for the robotics team that “runs as full of

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a season as football.” He saw advising as part of his responsibility because “When I was
a student, I appreciated these events.”
Faculty saw their responsibility of instruction as moving beyond the classroom in
terms of content material to shows of support and mentorship. “If I have students in my
class who play a sport, I’ll try to go. I’ve been to football games, basketball games, or
plays … I won’t go to every one, but I’ll be there and it makes a big difference to the
student” said Denise, a recently tenured professor in the humanities. Some programs have
orientation days, where faculty attendance is neither mandatory nor compensated, Oliver
discussed his department’s student orientation, “not all the faculty participate in it, but I
do. It’s because I like to, because it’s a student-focused thing.”
Summary
The student-instructional community is one of the more common perceptions of
academic community, which differs from the many of the conceptualizations found in the
literature. Both full-time and part-time faculty noted the importance of trying to foster
this type of academic community to build learning relationships with their students, and
they take their responsibilities to these communities seriously. This connection may be
that faculty feel that they can best facilitate a student-instructional community when they
themselves are strong teachers and have the resources necessary to facilitate a good
learning environment. This perception of the student-instructional community is
important, because many faculty (both full- and part-time) who lacked a sense of
belonging with any other academic community at Mountain College found a connection

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through teaching. Even those faculty members who were connected to other communities
noted that it was important to build a community with students.
The challenge with this perception of academic community is that for many part-
time faculty members, it can propagate a feeling of separation from other faculty at the
college. The student-instructional community does not often include other faculty (except
for some of the programs mentioned). Though it can often emphasize the independence
and autonomy of faculty work focusing more on the neoliberal framework, it can also
deemphasize the importance of needing or helping other faculty meet their student-
instructional community responsibility of good instruction. For example, new part-time
faculty may not realize the benefits of having a mentor, while more experienced faculty
may not realize what a resource they could be for others. By utilizing other faculty as a
valuable resource or working collaboratively, faculty can help overcome many of the
barriers to a student-instructional community
Academic Community as Departmental Community
The departmental community was the second most-mentioned community after
the student-instructional community.
Perception
For many faculty members (especially the full-time faculty), academic
community resides predominantly within the department. Horatio, who had experience in
at a research institution noted the differences, “Academic community does not mean the
same at a four-year school as it does for a community college. You have your discipline
and research and conferences. At a community college its really your department and the

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people you work with.” Faculty noted how different departments have their own culture
and history separate from Mountain College, the division, and other departments. Peter,
chair of a department in the Math and Sciences, discussed the history and culture of
another department:
In Chemistry, everything, I mean everything, is decided by consensus.
Historically, the Chemistry department was at odds so badly that mediation had to
occur, to step in, so they decided to agree by consensus. 15 years later, even
though the same people are no longer in the department, they still have to come
together to agree on everything…

These differences give each department community their own characteristics, shaping the
interactions the faculty members have—one department is described to be very sociable,
so the majority of the full-time faculty spend time outside of work to do other
recreational activities such as line dancing or going to museums, while faculty in another
department may focus more on academic interactions. Peter continued about his own
department, “we’re cordial, but we don’t hang out.”
It is important to note that “department” and “academic discipline” may not mean
the same thing. At Mountain College the English department is only English—however,
other departments are a combination of different disciplines, such as the Political Science
and Geography department. These hybrid departments occurred for a variety of reasons
such as reorganization and consolidation for financial reasons, others occurred for
political reasons—Jean, a newly tenured faculty member in the agricultural sciences,
noted, “at one time we had the choice to either become part of the Science division or the
Technology division, we wanted to align ourselves with the more academic division to be
taken seriously.” Because of these hybrid departments, it was not the discipline that

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necessarily connected members of these academic communities. Instead, faculty spoke
about their departmental community as the people they work with. Peter’s department is a
combination of two different disciplines, “I see my department as an academic
community—these are my colleagues. I have sufficient faith in colleagues’ expertise and
competence to respect the choices that they make and they respect mine.”
There are also two types of departmental communities, which I highlight in this
section. The first are credit-based departmental communities and the second are non-
credit-based departmental communities. The credit-based departments are those
departments that offer credit to students taking the course; these departments academic
(e.g., English, sociology, or chemistry) as well as professional/vocational (nursing,
welding, or aviation). Non-credit-based departmental communities offer two types of
classes: fee-based courses such as driver’s education or CPR, or classes that do not give
credit, such as ESL, offered for enrichment of students or the community at large.
Though there are many similarities between these two types of departmental academic
communities, there is one striking difference, which at times results in different barriers
and pathways into the community: non-credit based departments are comprised of
entirely all part-time faculty and one or two full-time directors who play the same role as
department chairs. As I describe the various factors of the departmental academic
community, I will separate the two types when the differences warrant.
Membership
When faculty in credit-based departments talked about departmental community,
the faculty (though sometimes this omitted adjuncts) and the chair of the department were

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the main members. Matthew is a member from a hybrid department described his
community: “Well, locally it is my colleagues here (in the department) the seven of us in
[discipline] and [discipline],” not mentioning the other eight adjunct faculty who also
taught in the department. In this understanding of academic community only faculty were
considered the members of this community, with chairs also seen as faculty. However, as
noted in the above quote, some faculty did not include adjunct faculty in their perception
of academic community
However, adjunct faculty in non-credit departments were more inclusive in their
understanding of community membership and included their directors, lab technicians,
and support staff. Julie was a long-time part-time member who noted that in her
department, “I have it made, everyone pitches in, we are a family. Different people in the
past ran the department like a dictatorship, now there is a say—and everyone is invited to
say things and no one is afraid to pitch in.” This overall inclusion may be due to the fact
that there are no distinctions of adjunct or full-time among the faculty, and because of the
special nature of these part-time only departments, some allowances are made regarding
service, which will be discussed in the later section on pathways to community.
Responsibilities and Participation for Faculty
The roles and responsibilities that comprise academic citizenship in departmental
communities subdivide into three distinct categories. Each category will be explored
further in this section with subsequent quotes to support the inferences. The first category
builds from and includes the responsibilities found in the classroom community—the
faculty responsibilities focus on student learning and the ways that the department can

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facilitate or support the learning and connections that are happening in the classroom
(department sponsored programs or curriculum development). The second category
focuses on those responsibilities that benefit of the department and allow the department
to function (e.g., building bonds among faculty, departmental meetings, or departmental
committee work). The final category of academic citizenship focuses on those
responsibilities that establish the department in the larger context of the Mountain
College, the general public, or academia.
Departmental citizenship in student learning. Regarding departmental citizenship
as it relates to student learning, some faculty focus on the ways that the departments can
improve student learning or help build further relationships between the faculty and
students. Karla is a chair who explained why this type of citizenship is valued: “We want
to make sure the students are getting the quality education that they should be getting,
because we’re here to serve the students—that is our main goal.” This type of academic
citizenship overlaps very much with the academic citizenship found in the student-
instructional community. In one of the health sciences department, there is a New Student
Orientation day and Welcome Back to School day where “the family gets to meet the
faculty too” says one full-time faculty member. Oliver explained “None of the students
are going through this [program] in an isolated box. Without the support the student
won’t be able to make it, so it’s important to be there to talk with them and answer
questions.” These department-run events for students is just one of the forms of
citizenship. Unlike the much of citizenship found in the student-instructional community,

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this participation tends to be more of a departmental effort, including many faculty,
especially full-time faculty.
Not all the participation requires numerous people. Thomas, the part-time faculty
member in a professional school talked about “being a guinea pig” for the department
when they tested out new online software or programs. He gave an example of testing the
Blackboard ™ online format, where he realized:
There was a slight glitch in the online grading, so after realizing the problem, I
told students that 90% or above would count as a 100%. After explaining the
glitch to my chair, the chair actually started implementing that policy and
eventually everyone else implemented the same policy.

Other part-time faculty developed curriculum for new classes and propositioned the
division to add more transferable courses.
Informal or formal committee work and one-on-work that focuses on student
curriculum in individual classes or the program, constitutes another form of participation.
On an informal level, some faculty work with other faculty to help with course
progression: “In my department I am close with my colleagues [talking about full-time
faculty] and have been spending time with the new [faculty] to make it more seamless
between our two classes.” There is more formal committee work that focuses on student
learning. For example, some faculty members willingly have volunteered for the
committee to develop Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for their department. Chris, a
new full-time member in the social sciences, noted that despite the many hours he
volunteered because “it’s important to layout what students should know when they leave
our class.” Other faculty joined committees such as curriculum or even student
scholarship committees (more than one department actually offer departmental awards

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and scholarships to students) to still serve at the departmental level, but have a role in
student learning.
Departmental citizenship for the department. This type of departmental
citizenship focuses on the good of the department and its members. However, it can be
indirectly linked to responsibilities to student learning. I note the indirect link because a
department that functions well may serve the students better in the long run; but these
responsibilities and forms of participation predominantly benefit the department. There
are various ways that faculty participate in this type of citizenship, Janice discussed the
different “jobs” that faculty can take in her department in the Humanities:
I am the mentor coordinator for various groups. Doug does scheduling, Tony does
budget—we split up the duties that way no one has all control and it gives more
buy-in into the department. Some of the responsibilities are a choice, others
required that everyone does it. Everyone at times rotates into teaching
labs/required classes.

Janice noted that that some of the participation was required; the required participation
was expected of full-time faculty only, not adjuncts. She also spoke about some of the
responsibilities and duties that are often left up to the faculty chair in other departments.
Many of the smaller departments do not have administrative assistants or staff to help
with certain duties (ordering office supplies, photo-copying, requisitions, and so forth) so
it is up to full-time faculty and the chair to bear those responsibilities.
Attending departmental meetings is one form of academic citizenship that is both
a responsibility and a right for faculty. However, departmental meeting attendance was an
expectation for full-time faculty, not adjuncts. Bea, a tenured professor in the Math and

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Sciences remembered moving from adjunct to tenure-track: “As a full-timer I had to
suddenly attend all department meetings, in addition to the contract load.”
In credit-based departments, full-time faculty and administration noted that
adjuncts have a right to attend departmental meetings, but since there was no
compensation and adjuncts had little time, it was not fair to expect adjuncts to attend.
However, there were few part-time faculty members who did attend faculty meetings,
Ryan explained. “I go the meetings to be informed. I go to show interest and show
support for leadership. They spend time to make a presentation and create handouts and
flyers; it’s good that I should support it.” In non-credit based departments, adjunct faculty
were expected to attend departmental meetings; they were, however, compensated for
their time.
Some faculty members noted that part of their academic citizenship in the
department is connecting with other faculty members in their department. “As a full-
timer, my goals were to try to get to know other faculty and for them to get to know me,”
said one faculty member. One of the ways this could happen are through attending or
being in charge of social events for the faculty department. Attending these events,
though neither academic nor required, are a way for faculty to build camaraderie and
collegiality. These events are not limited to credit-based departments. Faculty in non-
credit based departments also spoke about the importance of going to department
sponsored events outside of work.
Academic citizenship representing the department. The final type of departmental
academic citizenship is the responsibility to represent the department to either the school,

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the general public, or academia. In terms of representing the department to the school,
this responsibility can take many forms. The most common ways that faculty participate
are representative positions on various campus-wide committees, such as the Western
Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) accreditation committee or the Mountain
Scholarship committee, and through campus-wide positions on faculty senate or Faculty
Association. Some of the committees, like the WASC committee, required each
department send a representative but the faculty often volunteered. Those faculty who
volunteered for the campus-wide committees mentioned that it was a way to “get to know
other faculty” but also to let other faculty know what the other departments do.
With respect to representing the department either to a broader community or to
academic community, representing to the broader community largely applies to
professional/vocational fields and arts. For example in terms of the performing arts
faculty, there were faculty who had written or performed in venues such as community
theatre. Charles, a full-time professor in the arts noted, “One of my responsibilities is to
maintain my own art projects and work. All of us have had gallery exhibits, we’ve even
had a faculty exhibit here…people can see our work and know that we teach.” This
aspect of their faculty work serves to both keep their skills applicable, but it also brings
prestige to the department.
For the more traditionally academic subjects, such as political science or
philosophy, some faculty see their service as to continue to conduct their own research or
inform research. Horatio noted that “research isn’t the goal, teaching is and teaching must
come first,” but few faculty spoke about either their own research or others. Matthew

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noted that part of his responsibility was to work with other researchers and teachers in the
Math and Sciences Divisions:
It is important to keep us current, our business is teaching. You can get a degree
in how to teach Physics, but we spend time in the classroom. It is important for us
to inform the research on what works in physics teaching … some of those
workshops and programs take place at Mountain College, because we [the
department] also have a good reputation to keep, and this keeps us on the map.

An added bonus to having a department visible to the general or academic community is
that departments can recruit future faculty members.
Summary
These three types of departmental community responsibilities at Mountain
College tend to also coincide with mandatory full-time faculty work, since they are
required to spend a certain number of hours in institutional service. This integration is
less true for part-time faculty, unless they are in a part-time only department. Some
faculty focus on one of these three components; those who feel particularly connected to
their departments may span all three.
Academic Community as Leadership Community
At Mountain College a close-knit community of leaders focused around those
people who determined the bulk of the policies that take place on campus. These
leadership communities were mentioned most by full-time faculty and administrators.
Perception
The perception of leadership focused predominantly on two major groups on
campus: The Faculty Association and the Faculty Senate. Ron, an associate dean,
described this as “everyone who is involved in the decision making process [of the

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school].” David, a chair, mentioned that “There is this core of involved faculty
leadership, and to me that is the academic community.” More specifically, this
community was comprised of members of the faculty senate, Faculty Association
(union), and administrative leadership (e.g., deans, president, trustees, and the like). The
faculty and administrative leaders at Mountain College were fairly interactive with one
another through their different groups, but the population of faculty leaders was small
compared to the overall number of faculty. David went on the explain:
There is a certain amount, a smaller percentage of people who are highly
involved. As a member of Academic Senate I see a lot of that. Only that 7% are
going to be actively involved—imagine if went to every activity meeting,
committee meeting whatever and you saw the same 7%. It’s kind of what’s going
on here.

Those faculty (both part-time and full-time) who were either members of faculty senate,
Faculty Association, or both, usually mentioned the particular group or groups as their
idea of an academic community. Bea noted, “For me, I am on Academic Senate, and I
feel that's its own little community. I am part of the curriculum committee and we are a
fairly tight group.” Even those faculty members who were not members of those groups
recognized that there was a community of leaders. Denise, who was thinking about
joining Academic Senate mentioned, “I see it more with the senate, there is a group of
people who are involved and generally it is the same people over the last 10 years.”
Membership
Though there were faculty leaders in various capacities (such as those who are
leaders in their classroom or department communities) for this specific community,
people predominantly spoke about those members of the Faculty Senate, the Faculty

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Association and administrative leadership. The three groups convene often with one
another and often work together towards mutual goals. Dean of Instruction, and one time
faculty member Teresa said:
At Mountain we all share the same values—senate, union and trustees don’t have
big issues, we’re connected and committed to Mountain family values, pro
student values, and providing a service to the community. There is a caring aspect
to this college and people care what happens to Mountain, to students, to faculty.

There tends to be an overlap of faculty between the senate and union: “There are many
senate representatives who are also union representatives so there’s this overlap of
people, and it’s the same people you see all the time.”
Responsibilities and Participation for Faculty
Because faculty membership into the leadership community was so small, often
simply being a member of either the faculty senate or association and voting on issues
was enough to constitute participation, especially for newer members. “For the first year I
really didn’t do much but listen and people were nice enough to let me catch up,” said
Rena, one of the part-time faculty member on the Senate. Moving beyond attendance at
meetings and voting, citizenship in these communities included taking on more
leadership responsibilities and creating connections among the various members. Joseph,
the chair in a fine arts department talked about his shift from membership to leadership:
Being on the senate, I’m a director this year, I’m on the executive committee—it
is a different sphere with regards to what we teach at the college and how we
interact with the administration at a higher level and how we chose the course for
the college. I served on committees—it’s been great to interact with senior
management because they have a totally different view on how the run the
college…it’s also great to see how the executives interact differently with each
other.

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Other types of citizenship within this community linked to citizenship in departmental
communities. Some faculty, like full-timer Jorge in vocational arts join to “make sure that
I can speak for my department and division, to make sure our interests are being heard.”
They viewed part of their responsibility in this community is to represent a larger
community.
The time intensive work that accompanies leadership positions may contribute to
only a select few faculty participating in the leadership community. Aside from weekly
meetings, faculty in these communities also dedicated their time to various sub
committees ranging from curriculum to labor issues to WASC accreditation reports.
Preparing for such committees and completing tasks takes time. For example, Mountain
College was updating its code of ethics and ethics statement. “I’ve been spending I-don’t-
know-how-many hours trying to wordsmith [the code of ethics] in such a way that
everyone can be happy,” said long-time member, David.
Aside from those responsibilities, there was a tacit expectation that members of
the leadership community be active throughout Mountain College in other ways.
Participation in school-wide activities, fundraisers, ceremonies, and student performances
was highly encouraged, though not required per se. Many of the faculty, both full- and
part-time, were active in these areas.
Summary
The leadership community at Mountain College played a pivotal role in the
policies and practices on campus. It consisted of a small group of faculty, usually
involving the same faculty members in different organization. The members of the

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leadership community were cognizant about the work conditions for part-time faculty at
their campus and established numerous policies and practices that other campuses have
not. The Faculty Association pushed for pay parity, non-instructional compensation, and
healthcare for part-time faculty. Both the senate and union established a seniority system,
protecting those adjuncts who have been with Mountain College. Despite these positive
changes, as well as that fact that part-time faculty are not discouraged from participation
and membership, adjuncts still faced barriers similar to other communities, especially
lack of time and policy limitations, which will be discussed in the later section on
barriers.
Academic Community as the General Campus Community
Full-time and adjunct faculty as well as administration often described Mountain College
as a “family” and the phrase “Mountain family” or “Mountain way” was used numerous
times.
Perception
Family is an idea related most often to the general campus community. Dean of
Instruction, Theresa explained that “there is something that we call ‘the Mountain
family” that is built on respect for faculty. Full-time faculty, like Nina in health sciences,
reiterated this concept as well:
At Mountain College you hear people talk about the ‘Mountain Way’ a lot. At
first it was a little scary, but I sort of get it now…it means being connected, being
on the same page with respect to our student achievements, and it means
supporting and encouraging others on campus and in our fields as well.

Part-time faculty also corroborated much of this idea. Ryan noted, “At Mountain, it is a
family. There is a connection. There is a lot here, like a real pride about the academics

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and the need to keep that standard very high.” All three groups, full-time and part-time
faculty and administration, focused on a shared set of values and goals: the “Mountain
Way.” Oliver spoke especially of a dedication to student learning and maintaining high
standards for both the students and the faculty:
At MT SAC we all share the same values—FA, Union and trustees don’t have big
issues, we’re connected and committed to Mountain family values, pro student
values, and providing a service to the community. There is a caring aspect to this
college and people care what happens to Mountain, to students, to faculty.
Many faculty mentioned the high expectations they have of the students as well as the
high expectations that other people had for them. They spoke of maintaining a good
reputation for the school, and of adding to that reputation.
Membership
When talking about the Mountain Community as a whole, many people focused
on inclusivity with regards to membership. Dean Rose, who once was a student at
Mountain College, said: “The notion of academic community is shared responsibility for
student learning—owning the work. It includes all members in the college, beyond just
faculty members, all units of college—administration and classified work at serving the
student.” However, they acknowledged that a distinction may be made that excludes non-
instructional staff, as Dean Theresa explained:
I think that Mountain College, the Mountain Family, our academic community
includes our classified staff, faculty full-time and part-time, and managers. I do
think that depending who you talk to would say they would have different
viewpoints about classified.

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In the various interviews, some faculty made it a point to exclude classified staff in the
idea of the general Mountain Community; Robert, chair of a vocational department said,
“Professional support staff, faculty members, administrators and department chairs—I
don’t extend it to all the classified staff.” Distinctions were made between professional
classified staff and those who provided academic support, as opposed to those non-
professional classified staff who did not.
Responsibilities and Participation for Faculty
Participation in the general Mountain academic community at first appeared
straightforward when faculty and administrators talked about expectations for faculty.
The resounding answer focused predominantly on the expectations in the faculty contract.
Many faculty referred to the contract, for example Denise stated that “all faculty should
be fulfilling their faculty contractual obligations, because that’s concrete” as well as to
“perform well, based on evaluations.” The contractual obligations differed depending on
the employment status of the individual. For example, one of the expectations for
department chair was to “represent department requests at the divisional level” (Mountain
College Contract, 2011, p.111). Also, it was mandatory for all full-time faculty to be in
attendance during graduation.
Moving away from the contractual language, most faculty and administration
emphasized that participation in this community required a joint effort to achieve the
Mountain College mission and vision statement, which is “to welcome all students and to
support them in achieving their personal, educational, and career goals in an environment
of academic excellence” and to be “regarded as one of the premier community colleges in

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the nation. We will be viewed as a leader in community college teaching, programs, and
services” (Mountain College Mission Statement, 2011). Part-time faculty member Daryl
said, “Well, it is really everybody working together because everybody’s role is
important. But specifically, I imagine what you’re thinking is mostly the faculty because,
you know, they’re the most direct line to students …” However, based on these two
particular understandings of citizenship, everyone who is connected to Mountain College
would then be a member of the community.
Family is the metaphor that most people used. Nina spoke about the connection
she had with people throughout the campus:
You know it’s funny. Sometimes I feel like we’re in our own little corner of the
world because we’re way out here at the end of the campus, but every time I go to
an opening meeting or any campus function, I see people I either went through
orientation with or I went on a committee, and it’s almost like that cousin you
only see at a wedding…there is almost that kind of family friendship that is going
on.

There were faculty members who saw their “part” as working towards to overall
Mountain College Community. As Daryl continued, “You want to help the school
develop and sustain itself, so you could keep your job and advance your career, but also
so the school can get a better reputation in the community for a quality education.” There
is an irony to the adjunct statement, because despite the responsibility some feel towards
the school full-time faculty actually expected little of them. One trend noticed throughout
all of these chapters is the lack of expectations full-time faculty and administration have
of adjunct faculty.

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Summary
The general Mountain Community was a rather complex community with a broad
membership network and the least defined in terms of responsibility and participation.
Many of the part-time faculty interviewed discussed being part of the Mountain Family
and what it means to be part of it, but exhibited little interaction with people outside of
their classrooms or their departments. One common element that members seemed to
have was the over-arching mission of Mountain College focusing on student learning.
Perhaps because this community was the most open and least defined, more faculty
believed themselves to be a part of this community when they fulfilled their contractual
duties to the institution and saw faculty doing the same, even if lacking a broader view of
Mountain College as a whole.
External Communities
The academic communities that I will discuss in this section are communities that
are external to the academic communities found within the Mountain College context.
Faculty who mentioned these communities often did so as additions to the other academic
communities found at Mountain College. For example, Marie, tenured faculty in the
Health Sciences explained, “For academic community, you have to look outside your
own department, look at the whole campus … we are also connected to hospitals and
[health professional organizations] and healthcare community.” There are three types of
external communities that will be covered in this section: Disciplinary/professional
community, Industry/Business community, and local community. I used these three broad

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categories to describe the types of external communities because faculty were often
specific about the communities most pertinent to their class, discipline, or department.
Perception
During interviews, there were faculty and administrators who mentioned that an
academic community “can mean more than connection among Mountain College faculty,
though. It can mean connections outside of the campus as well.” These perceptions of
external communities are not surprising given the intended purpose of community
colleges. Jorge explained that community colleges “had three separate parts: academic,
vocational, and community service.” The academic purpose focused on general
education, transfer, and matriculation of students. The vocational purpose focused on
certification and graduation from the college. The community service purpose focused on
those classes offered to the community at large, such as those classes found in the
continuing education division.
The three communities linked closely with the three purposes. The
disciplinary/professional academic communities linked with the academic purpose. These
communities include research groups like the American Sociological Association, or
professional groups like California Society of CPAs. This perception also included
connections to four-year institutions and other community colleges, Stephanie, chair of a
social sciences department noted that “One of our departmental goals is to establish and
maintain connections with CSU, UC, and other community colleges psych departments.”
In these communities members gathered during conferences or meetings, shared new
developments and research, and networked with other members. In other cases, faculty

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maintained connections with the local four-year institutions to help ease transitions for
some of their students. The professional communities can play a very large role in faculty
life, for some of them establish the requirements needed for program certification.
The industry/business community linked closely with the vocational purpose. This
community set the standards for employment and certification requirements that the
college had to meet for their students to be viably employable. This community included
businesses interested in hiring students when they graduate from Mountain College. As
David said:
The academic community involves those who are not only on campus—staff,
faculty—instead it is important to bring in the outside community, in this case the
business community to inform schools about what is it that they need from their
employees and the skills that everyone needs to focus more on.

For faculty, this community was key for students seeking employment after leaving
Mountain College, in order to maintain connections. Many vocational faculty also were
employers in the local area or current/past employees.
The last external community referred to the general community surrounding
Mountain College, from local schools, community groups, and politicians, and linked to
the purpose of serving the overall community. Many of the part-time faculty had strong
connections to community service groups, worked with local k-12 schools, and worked
on local projects. For example, one part-time faculty member was the director for a local
tutoring program for middle school students and a summer program for inner city
students.

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Membership
Membership within these external communities often depended on the specific
type of community. For academic and professional communities it involved faculty,
students, researchers, and other professionals in the field. For example, the American
Sociological Association membership was predominantly faculty and students throughout
the nation; the California Society of CPAs only included certified public accountants in
California. For the industry/business community, there were members of certification
organizations like the Nursery Growers Association, or owners of local business.
Members if the general community included people living in the local and surrounding
areas, and service organizations like Kiwanis or Optimist clubs. Regardless of the other
members of the community, some faculty emphasized the importance of membership and
participation in these communities.
Responsibilities and Participation for Faculty
Faculty participation in these communities also varied in terms of involvement.
One of the more basic forms of citizenship involved formal membership to various
associations and groups. Numerous faculty and administration either paid membership
dues or signed up for certain groups, but aside from receiving information their
involvement in these groups went no further. As Horatio explained, “I am a member and
get their newsletters and publications, but that’s really it.” Moving beyond formal
membership, faculty participated in these external communities in other ways such as
attending conferences and sponsored events. Alan is a part-time faculty member at four
different institutions, and considers himself a somewhat active member of this

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disciplinary community “I attend the spring western conference of the National
Association of Geoscience teachers—I love to go for the information and for the
networking.”
Moving towards more active forms of citizenship, some faculty presented at
conferences or hosted events at Mountain College. For example, one department in the
sciences hosted a national workshops for teachers, Matthew noted, “You can get a degree
in how to teach [science courses], but we spend time in the classroom. It is important for
us to inform the research community on what works.” Even part-time faculty, especially
those wanting full-time work at four-year institutions, mentioned attending and
presenting at research conferences. Sarah has hopes of teaching full-time at a four-year
institution, “I think it’s important to present my research, to get feedback and try to get
publications, because that’s what professors field do.” Some of the participation entailed
bringing the community to Mountain College—via pubic events such as theatre
productions, art exhibits, or community groups like the Mountain Foundation, made up of
business and community leaders interested in fundraising, among other activities, for
Mountain College.
There were also core forms of participation that included faculty having
leadership positions within external communities, as well as having their classes or
departments work directly with the community. For example, Robert in a vocational
technology department integrated community service with student work: “Ten percent of
their grade goes to giving back to the community, churches, need-to-build projects …
community service. I believe it is good for the community to get involved with the

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students’ education and vice versa.” Many full-time faculty (though few part-time) had
leadership positions in their disciplinary/professional organizations, such as president of
the state or local chapter of their professional group. Some part-time faculty had
leadership positions in different community organizations such as political parties,
outreach groups, and other service organizations, Rick has been a long-time adjunct who
recently retired from his full-time professional job outside of academia, “I am very active
in my community, I am on the board for different charities.” One part-time faculty
member was a professional athlete and remains involved, helping coach local community
teams.
Summary
These external communities, though they did not play a pivotal role in the
instructional duties of faculty at Mountain College, added to the academic communities
found at the college. The different communities further supplemented missions and goals
of Mountain College. Throughout this study, those faculty who did not feel like they
belonged to any Mountain College community found belonging in one or more of these
external communities, and dedicated much of their time and effort to these other
communities. These faculty connections with external communities were valuable
resources for both faculty and students, but by not encouraging faculty to incorporate
these communities more with Mountain, they remained an untapped resource.
Conclusion
These five perceptions of communities—student-instructional, departmental,
leadership, general, and external—represent the different types of academic community

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that both full- and part-time faculty experienced at Mountain College. Though each
community can be understood as its own entity, it is also important to see how these
communities overlap and interconnect with one another.
The general Mountain Community was the most encompassing of all faculty,
administrators and students. In many ways the responsibilities and expectations of this
community were the most vague for faculty: uphold the mission of the school, fulfill
contractual duties, and participate in any capacity one can. Participating in any of the
other three Mountain communities fulfilled the citizenship requirement for the general
Mountain Community.
Though not as concrete with citizenship, the general Mountain Community did
provide a strong cultural message that resonated throughout the other communities and
provided rationale for many workplace practices and policies that other communities
establish. Faculty often referred to this rationale as “The Mountain Way” and “care for
family.”
Guided by the general Mountain Community values, the leadership community
was the main faculty body that dictates official policy for faculty. Despite this influence,
it was difficult to encourage more full- and part-time faculty to participate in the
leadership communities. One of the key documents created by the leadership
communities, though predominantly the Faculty Association (with input from the Senate,
and other various leadership groups), was the faculty contract and its formal institutional
policies of faculty work: pay parity, non-instructional compensation, healthcare,
seniority, evaluations, and judicial process, to name a few. Unlike many other contracts

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for part-time faculty, Mountain College exhibited many of the suggested
recommendations for equitable adjunct faculty employments, and protected to some
extent many of the part-time faculty from ill practices that have been documented
throughout the contingent faculty literature. The contract was the most referenced
document in interviews with faculty and administrators regarding faculty policy and
acceptable practices. Faculty also referred to the contract when talking about their
expectations of the responsibility of other faculty members. The faculty contract also
served as the basis for departmental policies and handbooks.
The department communities at Mountain College varied the most, depending on
history, culture, and distinctions between for-credit academic, for-credit professional, and
non-credit departments. In positive departmental communities, department chairs and
full-time faculty made a concerted effort to go beyond the contracts to make adjunct
faculty feel included and encourage their participation. Though none of the departments
exhibited an overtly negative culture towards adjuncts, an indifferent culture towards
adjunct faculty was prevalent. In this indifferent community, adjunct faculty were left to
their own devices or predominantly left alone—with interactions with other faculty and
chairs dependent upon the stipulations found in the contract. Otherwise, adjunct faculty
were left to teach their classes as they saw fit.
In the student-instructional community, faculty were most connected to students,
but were most disconnected from other faculty members (unless connected through
various interdisciplinary programs). Many part-time faculty and some full-time faculty
felt the greatest sense of belonging in this community, working with students. The values

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of the general Mountain Community that focused on faculty dedication to student
instruction and excellence in teaching was prevalent. Faculty had high self-expectations
and felt a large sense of responsibility that moved beyond the faculty contract, though
they admitted that some faculty met the bare minimum of expectations.
External academic communities were a resource for faculty, and helped them gain
access into other communities. Professional teaching communities helped provide
important professional development for instruction through conferences, workshops, and
networks to other instructors. Other professional groups, such as those found in the health
services, established certification and legislation policies for programs to follow that
affected the work environment.
This chapter described the different perception of academic community that
faculty had at Mountain College. However, it is important to note that access and
membership into communities is not necessarily available to everyone. For each
community there were barriers that prevented some people access, as well as access
points that facilitated their membership. These will be covered in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER SIX: BARRIERS AND PATHWAYS TO COMMUNITY
In Chapter 4, I explored the ways that Mountain College reflected the neoliberal
framework so common in many community colleges. I also highlight how Mountain
College is different, using a community framework to mediate neoliberalism, and how
faculty conceptualizations of community can shape work environments. In the previous
chapter, I exampled how the conceptualizations of community applied to faculty
perceptions of academic community at Mountain College. This chapter continues to
explore the second question in this study:
What are the perceptions of academic community for faculty and how do those
perceptions relate to their work environment?
However, this chapter focuses on the barriers and access points to those communities,
which relate to how faculty perceptions relate to their work environment. These barriers
and access points can influence how a faculty member meets their perceived
responsibilities in a community, how much a person feels like they belong, and how other
people determine his/her membership in the community.
Within the perceptions of academic community at Mountain College, the
neoliberal framework is still present. One of the prime examples that I gave focused on
how neoliberalism encourages and values individualism and with it a sense of isolation
from other faculty members. Ironically, when exploring perceptions of academic
community, many faculty and administration still maintain these ideas of individualism
when discussing community membership and participation. Many of the faculty and

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administration saw membership and participation to be largely determined by the
individual person.
However, the data shows a different story. To some extent the data supports the
idea that community membership and participation is linked to a person’s desire and
effort to be a member of a community, it also shows that there are barriers to
communities, and not all them can be overcome by a person alone. Likewise, there are
also access points that can facilitate entre and participation in different communities.
These barriers and access points are important because they are not the same for all
faculty: part-time faculty seem to be more at a disadvantage than full-timers. Even at an
exemplary institution like Mountain College, neoliberalism still has a strong influence.
Many of the barriers that exist stem from neoliberal assumptions of part-time faculty, or
from of neoliberal rationales and dictate both faculty behavior and policy development.
Mountain College still functions with limited resources, a shrinking monetary budget,
and continuing costs—these factors make monetary and resource allocations prime
concerns, and part-time faculty usually still bear the consequences of those concerns in
terms of barriers. These barriers that exist in the workplace shape individual
conceptualizations of community and influence the citizenship behavior.
These barriers and access points are more important given the various overlap and
interconnectedness of the different perceived communities. Many of the communities
have similar barriers and access points to membership. It could be that if a faculty
member has difficulty overcoming a barrier to one community, he or she may also have
difficulty overcoming a similar barrier (or the same) in another community. This chapter

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is divided into two sections. The first explores the barriers that hinder membership and
participation in the communities. The second explores the access points that facilitate
membership and participation in the communities.
Barriers
There are barriers which prevent faculty from fulfilling what they perceive is their
citizenship roles in different communities. This section explores the barriers that prevent
faculty from meeting their responsibilities in certain communities. By not meeting
responsibilities, other members may perceive the person as an outsider. This section also
highlights barriers that prevent faculty from gaining entrance into certain communities.
Though each of these barriers are separated in this next section, it is important to
highlight that some of these barriers are interrelated and can serve to make entrance and
participation into other communities more challenging.
Some of the barriers exist of both full-time and part-time faculty, though they may
be more difficult for part-time faculty to overcome due to the differences in their situation
and employment status. I will highlight the barrier differences between part- and full-time
faculty as they arise.
Lack of Teaching Experience. This barrier appears to prevent faculty most from
entering the student-instructional community, where teaching is a core responsibility.
Most faculty spoke of difficulties of teaching their first few classes at either Mountain or
another institution. Charles in fine arts said, “People usually don’t come into a college
classroom and do great their first or second year. We usually don’t go to school to teach.”
This sentiment was echoed by many other faculty ,who did not have teaching experiences

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while in graduate school or vocational school—instead they were familiar with their
subject matter. Lack of teaching experience prevented many faculty from meeting their
idea of a “good teacher”—as Sarah, an adjunct, noted, “I actually had a horrible first
semester.” She went on to explain that she was lecturing for two hours every class
meeting instead of incorporating more student-centered techniques, which she “had heard
of, but didn’t know what that meant. It was all theory for me.”
Both part-time and full-time faculty expressed that their transition to teaching had
difficulties: determining class management, developing a syllabus, creating activities or
lectures. Danielle, a health sciences faculty member remembered, “My first time teaching
my ‘mentor’ faculty just handed me a canvas bag full of stuff and said ‘there’s all you
need to teach the class’… much of it was outdated and I couldn’t use it at all.” Jean noted
“when I started, I wasn’t given a curriculum for the class, and didn’t get one until half-
way through the semester, I just based it on what I learned.” These examples highlight
how difficult it can be to create a stable classroom environment, much less a student-
instructional community.
Feelings of isolation. Some faculty perceive that they are “alone” in their
experience at Mountain College and lack anyone to speak with regarding their work.
Sarah talked about her concerns after her first evaluation, “Like I wonder, if other
instructors coming out of grad school, are they more prepared than I am? Do they do just
as, I mean—am I the worst?” Because she rarely spoke to other faculty members about
anything, much less their own experience, this new instructor was unsure of what her
colleagues’ classrooms were like. Fear of garnering negative impressions form faculty

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prevented another part-time faculty from asking her more experienced part-time
colleagues, so she, “I asked the teaching assistants instead.” Though it seems that part-
time faculty often experienced this isolation, some full-time faculty talked about not
knowing to whom to speak regarding work issues, especially if their assigned “mentor”
was unresponsive, or in one case hostile. Danielle remembered her first assigned
mentor—the same one who gave her the bag of outdated resources, “I couldn’t go to her
to talk about my class, she wouldn’t listen to me anyways.” These feelings of isolation
prevented many faculty from reaching out to other people who may help. Faculty either
felt it would be seen as a weakness, or simply assumed that no one would help them.
Assumptions and lack of information about students. For those communities that
rely heavily on students as members, assumptions and lack of student information can be
a large barrier to participating or even building a community, especially in the classroom.
Many faculty, either new faculty or those reminiscing about their first time teaching at
Mountain College, mentioned that they were not quite prepared for some of the students
in their classes. For the most part, faculty praised the general student population of
Mountain College and mentioned that they enjoyed working with the students overall.
Paradoxically, many faculty members also talk about being surprised initially at the types
of students they meet at Mountain College and being unprepared to teach them. Amber, a
part-time faculty member in the continuing education division noted how she initially
“didn’t know how to teach a class with the non-traditional students and the unmotivated
students.” Thomas, an adjunct professor in the Business division noted that initial skill
level of student was surprising, “I taught a remedial math class … I told [the chair] that

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what they needed was a 3
rd
grade math teacher.” Under- or over-estimating students may
be detrimental to building connections with students.
One of the reasons why a lack of information about students may be a barrier is
because faculty may assume that their academic experience and interests coincide with
those of the students. A few, like Sara, admitted, “As an English major, I loved to read
and write—I got straight A’s, so it’s hard to know what its like to struggle in that
subject.” Thomas taught a remedial math course and mentioned, “I had an MA in math so
it was hard to understand why the students were having so much difficulty.” Faculty may
need time to adjust to those students who are not similar to them in interest, as Horatio
noted: “I see that happen with a lot of math faculty. Math faculty end up being a faculty
member because they did good in school. They understood it the way that their teachers
did it, so that’s the way they do it.” In the meantime, faculty could alienate students,
making community-building difficult. David noted the importance of knowing more
about the students in terms of their backgrounds, “These students come from the local
neighborhoods and those neighborhoods have been changing, but we [Mountain College]
haven’t acknowledge it yet. We need to meet the needs of the kids from those
neighborhoods, give them skills for jobs in the future.”
Lack of opportunity. One of the barriers to different communities is the lack of
various opportunities for faculty to strengthen their own pedagogical skills (through
professional development, orientation, or other programs) or participate in faculty events
(like governance or departmental meetings). These opportunities to participate not only
give them chances to improve their own skills, but it also gives them ways to know

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Mountain College and other faculty better. This barrier seems to affect part-time faculty
more than full-time faculty. Because full-time faculty have six supplementary hours—
hours to work on professional development or service—built into their work week and
incorporated into their salary, full-time faculty can take advantage of more opportunities
than part-time faculty. Policies such as “Flex days,” which I will go into detail in the later
section, offer numerous professional development and mentorship opportunities to full-
time faculty. Part-time faculty often mentioned wanting to attend professional
developments or faculty-related meetings but “don’t have the time,” as they travel
between different schools or are not compensated
Some professional development, such as the New Faculty Orientation—a year-
long orientation for new faculty—are limited to full-time faculty alone. Many part-time
faculty were unaware of the professional development available to them. Sarah
mentioned how she was receiving information by mistake: “My e-mail address is similar
to a full-time faculty member in another department, so I was getting her emails not
knowing they weren’t meant for me, and that’s how I knew about what was going on.”
Though he was never turned away from attending, she realized that if not for the mistake
she would have never known the opportunities existed.
Lack of interactions outside of class. Interaction outside of the classroom also
aided in community-building for those communities that had students as members. Many
faculty, especially full-time, believed their relationships with the students were
strengthened through activities outside the classroom. Full-time faculty, Laura, noted, “I
have a PSA [public service announcement] I’ve been working on, and the students have

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been helping me outside of class to get the movie to be ready and screened for the whole
school. It’s been a great experience for all of us.” Unfortunately for part-time faculty,
such non-classroom interactions can be difficult to obtain. First, in terms of
extracurricular activities such as club moderators, many adjuncts noted that it was school
policy that adjuncts were not allowed to serve as advisors or moderators, though some
mentioned they could be a co-moderator with another full-time faculty member.
19
This
restriction, coupled with the lack of time and compensation, inhibits adjuncts from
working with students in different settings.
Office space and office hours further contribute to faculty connection with
students. Though part-time faculty have noted that the Mountain College facilities are
much better than other schools (where adjuncts have often lack space altogether), they are
compensated for office hours, and the contract even states, “Deans shall make every
effort to provide space/equipment for adjunct professors to meet with students and to
conduct other teaching and/or College activities” (Mountain College Contract, 2011, p.
23), logistical difficulties remain. Most adjunct faculty office hours are workrooms for
many adjuncts, sometimes from different departments. Faculty, like Devon, have
mentioned that “it’s hard to hold office hours because it can get loud and there is no
privacy for students” or “sometimes it gets really busy.” Though faculty are willing, these
issues of the adjunct office space, coupled with the knowledge that faculty may be
teaching at different institutions or have limited time, may deter students from seeking
further help. Rose noted, “You know what, students never came to me when I was a

19
It is important to note here in a review of faculty contract and department handbooks I
could not find this policy, but it had been mentioned by numerous part-time faculty.

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freeway flyer, but once I got a full-time position at Fields College the students came
saying, ‘would you be willing to mentor us?’” The lack of opportunities affects not only
faculty wanting to improve or extend themselves, but may deter students searching for
more involvement.
Adjunct bias. Despite the fact that Mountain College has good policies in place
for adjunct faculty, there are remnants of an adjunct bias in some full-time faculty. At its
most mild, faculty members failed to mention part-time faculty as part of their
community, similar to Gappa and Leslie’s (1993) idea of the “invisible faculty.” As noted
in the conceptualizations of departmental community, “us” or “we” to some faculty
excludes adjuncts. Even in their calculations of the size of departments, some faculty
could easily give the number of full-time members, but either omitted adjuncts entirely
from the count or were unsure of their numbers. During our interview, Joseph spoke
about adjunct attendance to his departmental meetings and reflected, “You know, I don’t
even know if I’ve ever formally invited them. I mean, they’re allowed to attend, I just
didn’t think about it.” Janice commented that when she began her position as new tenure-
track faculty, “I realized I wasn’t actively ignoring them [adjuncts] but I was caught up in
my own world trying to make tenure and being stressed that they just didn’t register.” She
acknowledged that it was not until after a few years that she realized what she was doing.
The invisibility of adjunct faculty in full-time faculty consciousness makes it difficult for
them to see the other barriers for adjunct faculty, or ways to overcome those barriers.
Another assumption some faculty make of part-time faculty is that in some way
they are inferior to full-time faculty. Horatio, who was once an adjunct, explained the

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bias succinctly “[people think that] if you can’t get a job [tenure-track], you probably
don’t deserve one.” This assumption that adjuncts are not on par as full-time instructors
can result in feeling like a “second-class citizen” and can influence other barriers such as
not valuing or encouraging participation.
Lack of local knowledge. One challenge for new full-time faculty is lack of
knowledge regarding the culture and personal dynamics that currently exist within the
department or on campus. For example, newer faculty members may inadvertently breach
social norms without knowledge of the culture of department. For example, Danielle
remembered her first faculty department meeting, “I was so excited to begin as a full-
timer, I baked a cake the night before to bring to the meeting. Apparently that wasn’t a
good thing. Later some faculty told me, ‘Your baking a cake makes us look bad.’ I’ve
never brought anything to a meeting since.” She continued to talk about the difficulty of
navigating the department that first year, “I kinda wish someone would’ve taken me
under their wing.” Few full-time faculty had similar experiences their first years, they
spoke of not knowing the department or institutional politics, past history, or general
climate. These actions, though alone not constituting a barrier to the community, made
faculty feel isolated and hesitant to offer input or suggestions their first years.
Long history and limited opportunity. Some of the barriers that exist are a result
of a combination of factors. In this case the combination involves the longevity of faculty
tenure and the few positions that are available for full-time faculty. Many of the full-time
faculty had been at Mountain College for over ten years, some had been students then
faculty at Mountain College, and others had been long-time adjuncts prior to moving to a

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full-time position at Mountain College. There are some faculty who actually incorporated
all three of these aspects, once being students at Mountain College, then taking adjunct
positions, and now are full-time faculty. Terah spoke about how her department had
many long-time faculty members, “I’m the ‘youngest’ [newest] faculty member here by
far, and I’ve been here for 7 years and considered the ‘kid.’” Both full-time faculty and
administrators spoke about how working at Mountain College is a lifetime commitment.
Department chair, Joseph noted: “When people come here they usually stay here … I
knew when I took this job, I’d be here until I retired.” This stable faculty population may
be good for both students and the institution, but it limits part-time faculty opportunities
to obtain a full-time position. When speaking about faculty openings, faculty talked about
the “first opening” in 4 to 9 years.
Physical Isolation. Physical layouts of departments and location of classes were
often brought up by part-time faculty as a source of isolation from the rest of the
department community. Physical layout and location often determined the amount of
interaction any faculty member had with other faculty (adjunct or full-time) and
department chair. As Iris, a part-time faculty mentioned, “I could go from my car, to my
class, and stop by my mailbox in the department and never see another faculty member
… I could do this for semesters.” The department mailboxes that she spoke about were
located approximately 3 feet from the front entrance of the department and during my
observations faculty entered, checked mail and left without having to pass by any faculty
offices. Because the doors were glass, some faculty would only glance through the doors
to check their boxes and walk past.

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For adjuncts there are other factors that can increase isolation. Though Mountain
College provides a work room for adjunct faculty, in some departments these workspaces
are removed from the rest of the faculty offices because of space limitation, or the
workroom is shared by adjuncts from different departments. Devon in humanities noted,
“We share our workspace, it’s nice but kind of removed from everyone else.” Isolation
can also increase if adjuncts teach evening classes (when many of the full-time faculty
have gone home) or weekend classes (when there are fewer people on campus overall).
Part-time professor, Terah said, “I teach here on the weekend. I like it because the
students are more serious, but no one else is here and I really don’t see anyone in my
department.”
For those faculty members who were in departments with non-credit courses, the
sense of physical isolation from their departments was even more striking. These faculty
members talk about their classrooms being at retirement centers, church meeting areas, at
other public high schools and the like. One part-time non-credit instructor, Jenna
explained, “I’m at three difference retirement homes spread out across the area. The
farthest on is at least 40 minutes away from campus, so I rarely make it to campus.”
Having classrooms distant from campus leads to a feeling of disconnect with their
department and to the Mountain Campus as a whole.
Unsupportive or divisive faculty. There are some faculty in departments who
make individuals feel isolated from other people. Some of the examples reflect the
section on adjunct bias, but full-time faculty experience unsupportive or divisive faculty
as well. For example, some faculty spoke of being left alone to deal with departmental

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issues like obtaining a desk, proposing a plan or policy, or even being new to a
departmental task (e.g., scheduling or obtaining requisitions). Danielle noted, “I think it’s
like hazing, no one helps you because they want you to prove yourself, like they had to
prove themselves. So you can need help and no one will give it to you.” In terms of
divisiveness, other faculty members mention factions of faculty within the department,
when Denise first began at her department she said “I felt like I had to pick a side, and no
matter who I pick I’m going to be wrong.” These experiences can lead to faculty feeling
like they are not a part of an academic community, even if they are otherwise active
participants.
Lack of time. For many faculty, especially adjuncts, time was a serious limitation
to their participation in communities like leadership, departmental, and external. This
limitation can occur because part-time faculty were at different institutions, as Randy
noted: “I’d like to be involved in the Academic Senate because it’s important to know
what’s going on instead of hearing about it after the fact, but between the different
schools I can’t commit the time to attend meetings.” Alan supported this statement with
his own. “I’d like to be involved with the union at some level, to get more things for
adjuncts … but right now with 8 classes a semester at 4 different schools, I don’t have the
time.”
Even adjunct faculty who spent time only at Mountain College had issues with
time depending on when meetings were scheduled. Julie mentioned being on the Faculty
Association, but added, “I couldn’t do it anymore because they moved the meetings to
Wednesday early evening, and I teach a class then.” The timing of meetings can be

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difficult for any faculty member: if it is held during the day many full-time faculty are
teaching, but if it is held too late in the evening most part-time faculty are unable to
attend and full-time faculty unwilling to attend. Jerry, an administrator realized this as
well and said, “I just wish there was a time, like some schools have, an hour during the
day where no classes are taught and we can meet then.” Busy schedules compromised
adjuncts’ ability to join committees or to network. “I know I should but it’s hard to find
the time” — many adjuncts used the word “should” but still were unable to participate.
This barrier did not go unnoticed by others. Dean Theresa noted, “Maybe some people
who come here don’t feel a part of the community—if you are teaching at six or seven
schools and barely getting by.”
Lack of appeal. Many faculty members mentioned a lack of interest in
participating in the different communities because they felt that it did not fit their
personality, personal work goals, or even professional opinions (for example, one faculty
member opposed unionization). Though not necessarily a barrier in the same way lack of
time is a barrier, the communities like leadership and external lack of appeal to some
faculty members prevented them participating. Roy, full-time faculty member spoke
about why he did not pursue a position on faculty senate: “There are some people who
really like to argue the details about things and to really pick at things, and I know its
important, but it’s not for me … I don’t want to spend my time arguing over how a
certain line is written or rewording [policy].” Regarding the faculty union, Jorge
explained, “In my field unions are a bad thing. I know that they have a lot of sway here at
Mountain, but I don’t want to be a part of it. I pay my dues and that’s all.” Many of the

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faculty who were not members of either group mentioned that they would rather spend
their service hours in different ways such as “working with students” or “focusing on the
needs of my department.” Some of the lack of appeal may have been due to
misperceptions regarding the communities, while other faculty formed these opinions
from personal experience through participation.
Lack of knowledge regarding policies. With regards to adjunct faculty, many
expressed a desire to participate in either Academic Senate or the faculty union, but were
unable to attend because they were not compensated for their participation. Full-time
faculty agreed regarding compensation: “It’s unfair to ask an adjunct to go and represent
us if we can’t pay them for their time.” However, while part-time faculty could not be
compensated for attending faculty senate or association meetings as non-elected officials,
policies accommodated for elected members, including adjunct faculty, to receive
compensation for their time. The Mountain contract reads:
Adjunct faculty who have been appointed to official governance committees or
elected to the Academic Senate shall be paid for hours of participation at regularly
scheduled meetings. Such payment shall be at the non-teaching rate that
corresponds to their correct step and column placement (Mountain Contract,
2011, p.98).

Though the rate is only at 60% of the hourly teaching rate, it is possible that more adjunct
faculty would be interested in more participation and more full-time faculty would have
suggested participating were they familiar with this policy.
Existing policies. Mountain College had policies that inherently prevented
adjuncts from becoming key members in communities, such as leadership or even
extracurricular clubs. For example Dean Theresa recognized the policy barrier to the

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leadership community, “Unfortunately, [adjuncts] can’t have the top leadership roles
because they only get paid x-amount of hours and it’s a full load for the top positions.”
She was referring to faculty reassigned time in the contract. For those members in the top
positions of faculty senate or union there was an Annual Reassigned Load that could
exceed the contract load. For Senate President the load was 30 LHE (lecture hour
equivalents); part-time faculty were permitted only up to 10 LHE per semester (due to
state legislation). Based on this policy, combined with the state legislative limits, adjuncts
were unable to be in core positions of leadership. Other policies prevent adjuncts from
participating more on campus, such as being faculty advisors for different clubs and
activities.
Unfamiliarity with norms. Unfamiliarity with the practices and culture of the
various communities also served as a barrier to participation. When part-timer, Rena first
joined the leadership community it took an entire year to “catch up” and she explained:
I mean everyone uses all of these acronyms and it took me a while to figure out
what everyone was even saying. I wrote some of them down and tried to keep
them straight … there are also a lot of procedures that I didn’t know and just sort
of watched everyone else first.

Joseph, chair of his department, spoke about his first time as a member of the faculty
senate:
I didn’t realize that there was a ‘certain way’ of doing things, so during one of my
first meetings I just went and challenged someone head-on because that’s how
I’m used to doing things … apparently that was a bad thing because someone had
to take me a aside to tell me that these are going to be the same people I’ll be
working with for the next twenty years.

There were also stories of faculty different communities who were too confrontational
and thus were effectively “ignored” during meetings and interactions.

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Vocational and non-credit bias. With regards to a barrier to participation
especially in the leadership communities, faculty members in the vocational/professional
and non-credit departments mentioned that they were often ignored or “looked-down”
upon by for-credit academic departments
20
. This at times resulted in an unwillingness to
participate, or even when participating a sense of “not being heard.” Marie mentioned
that even while in proceedings “There are true academics, like math, English, history,
science, and they look down their noses at [the health sciences]. They are taken more
seriously than vocational programs.” Jorge was once senate president, but he noted, “I
was senate president in the 80s, but in the entire history I think I was the only non-
academic [vocational] president, in at least 35 years.” Dean Dara of Continuing
Education noted that in terms of voting rights, non-credit faculty had less of
representation than for-credit faculty, and she stated “even if everyone voted, the
numbers are against us and we would still be in the minority.”
Lack of interaction with other departments and divisions. Both full-time and part-
time faculty often spoke about familiarity with their own department and divisions, but
acknowledged that they often have little contact with the rest of Mountain College.
Laura, a full-time member in a science department said, “I’m not sure of how strong the
academic community exists here [the whole Mountain Campus], not to say that it doesn’t
exist. I haven’t made an enormous effort to network on campus.” Numerous adjuncts,
discussed the “Mountain Family,” rarely interacted with anyone outside their department,

20
For more information on departmental hierarchies, please see Appendix H.

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Ryan explained: “Most of the people I know are in [department], no one outside of my
department. ”
Lack of resources. Most of the faculty who desired more involvement in
communities discussed a lack of resources (e.g., revenue, materials, or facilities). With
new facilities being built, some departments were moved to temporary buildings on the
outskirts of campus. Karla spoke about her department being housed in trailers while
buildings were being remodeled. The limited amount of space prevented faculty from
finding a place to meet, “two of our four rooms are currently not in use because of leaks.
My office is actually also a classroom. It’s temporary, but it makes it hard to bring people
together.”
Despite the opportunity to obtain travel and professional development funding
from the college, many faculty (part-time especially) stated they want to go to national
conferences but lacked the resources. “I’d really like to go the MLA conferences, I was
lucky because this year it was local so I went using my own money. I won’t be able to do
that next year,” Said adjunct member Sarah. It is possible not all faculty were aware of
available funding, but regardless the stipend may not have been sufficient to cover all the
expenses of an out-of-state conference or more expensive professional development
programs.
Divergent interests. Though this was not an issue for all faculty at Mountain
College, there were still some faculty interested in conducting research—many of them
aspiring academics wanting to work at a four-year institution. There were other faculty
members uninterested in conducting their own studies, but were still interested in

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research “to keep up to date in my field.” When asked about going to conferences, faculty
said, “You have to do professional development, but they [administrators/other faculty]
don’t care much for research conferences.” Because Mountain College faculty
predominantly taught, some believed that they should choose professional development
conferences instead of research conferences, even though they saw value in the latter as
well.
Adjunct or community college bias. This barrier occurred predominantly in the
external communities. For those faculty who did attend research conferences, there was
another experience that made them feel more peripheral. Sarah mentioned feeling very
much a part of the external academic community until she explained to people that she
was a part-time faculty member at a community college:
I was trying to look at some sample texts for my classes, and when they [vendors]
asked to send them [samples] to my campus address, I had to explain that I
wouldn’t be able to get them over the summer. Suddenly, their response was very
different. The same thing happened at the [conference] workshop I attended.

Sarah discussed bias that some full-time faculty at research institutions have towards
community college faculty, straining interactions. Her experience was not unique; other
faculty at Mountain College noted a difference between community college and research
faculty.
In Table 1, I have compiled a list of barriers found in data and I have indicated the
communities where they may be present. Many of the communities share similar barriers
with one another. From this table, it may be that a faculty member who experiences a
barrier to one community may also experience similar barriers to other communities. This
interconnection of community barriers may be detrimental to a faculty member if that

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barrier exists in numerous communities, for example “Lack of local knowledge” is a
barrier to four of the five communities. It is also very possible that these some barriers
can actually make other barriers difficult to overcome. For example, lacking the
opportunity to attend professional development can make it harder for faculty to gain
teaching experience or connect with other faculty. For faculty who do not feel connected
to different communities, there may by a myriad of compounding barriers that faculty
from becoming members of various academic communities. Some of these barriers
reflect the more neoliberal framework than community framework, and will be indicated
by an asterisk next to the barrier in the chart.

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Table 1: Barriers and Academic Community
Barriers Student
instructional
Departmental Leadership Campus External
Lack of teaching
experience

X X X
Isolation from
other faculty*
X X X X X
Assumptions
and lack of
information
about students
X X X
Lack of
opportunity to
strengthen
skills*
X X X
Lack of student
interaction
outside of class*
X X X X
Adjunct Bias* X X X
Lack of local
knowledge
X X X X X
Long history,
limited
opportunity*
X X
Physical
Isolation
X X X
Unsupportive or
Divisive
Faculty*
X X X X X
Lack of time* X X X X X
Lack of
interest/appeal*
X X X X
Existing
policies*
X X
Unfamiliarity
with norms
X X X X
Vocational and
non-credit bias*
X X X
Lack of
interaction with
X X

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other
departments or
divisions
Lack of
resources*
X X X X
Divergent
interests
X X
Community
College faculty
bias
X
Table 1: Continued
Though these communities have similar barriers, it is also important to note that
they may also have similar access points which can either help faculty gain entre into the
community, or encourage members to participate more. The next section highlights
access points to the communities.
Access Points
Just as barriers exist that prevent faculty from facilitating an academic community
or fulfilling their academic citizenship to that community, there are pathways that aid
faculty to gain access or to strengthen their participation in various communities. These
pathways seem most available to full-time faculty; there are many of the policies in place
to encourage full-time faculty to take advantage of the numerous resources Mountain
College has to offer.
Professional development and good resources. Full-time faculty note that
Mountain College offers a vast array of in-service and professional development
programs, and part-time faculty often mentioned that there are more programs for them
compared to other schools. For those part-time faculty who participate, these programs
are also accessible. Iris mentioned that “we have in-services, improving student learning

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outcomes, professional developments, workshops—meetings four to five times a
semester.” Sarah described how these workshops changed her teaching:
They had a basic skills initiative…where instructors can demonstrate these
lessons—that kind of was a turning point for me. It showed me how to put
students in groups, and make them construct in groups. It taught me to get them to
work together, how to do lectures…

These professional developments played a role in helping faculty facilitate a learning
community or strengthen their skills to fulfill their responsibilities in the different
communities around campus.
However, in relation to both professional development and resources, Mountain
College has funds allotted to the Professional Development Council to distribute to part-
time or full-time faculty who wish to attend a conference or workshop outside of
Mountain’s offerings to further their knowledge. Though requests are not guaranteed to
be approved (applications must be approved by department or division first) and most
part-time do not realize the option exists, those faculty members who did apply (both
full- and part-time) remarked that they received some funding. The policy noted that
“Any funds that have not been spent or earmarked for future travel by March 15, 2011,
will be released for additional requests from individuals or groups until all funds have
been exhausted” (Mountain College, 2011, p.1), so the council has no incentive to deny
faculty requests for funds.
Mentorship. Faculty mentorships helped many overcome the barriers in the
previous section, such as inexperienced teaching and isolation. Both full-time and part-
time faculty had mentors who helped guide them in terms of pedagogical issues,
community participation, and department/institutional policies. Full-time faculty are

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formally assigned mentors once they join Mountain College. Some departments also
assign mentors part-time faculty, though many departments do not. It is important to note
that the faculty I interviewed made a distinction between formally assigned mentors and
“real mentors,” especially if the two were not the same. Mentorship of part-time faculty
seem to have most often occurred informally (as opposed to a department assignment).
Mentors provide the support for faculty in different communities simultaneously,.
For example, in terms of the student instruction community, some mentors help newer
faculty navigate teaching. Daryl, a part-time faculty member in the Continuing Education
Division said that he had more than one mentor: “I had to observe other teachers in three
classes, talk to them and then write up a report on them. Those teachers impacted me.”
These mentors also helped him in the department community “in the break-room, we’d
joke around, but they’d ask about class and how it’s going.” Charles remembered the
support he received as a part-time faculty member. Now as a faculty chair, he finds that
he wants to help faculty with “potential.” He stated, “There are part-timers, who aren’t
the best now, but the have potential to be great … they just need encouragement.”
Both part-time and full-time mentioned mentors who helped them navigate the
various dynamics of the department. One full-time faculty member was grateful to his
officemate: “Dave is my faculty mentor, and it’s been great. He’s sort of steered me away
from certain conflicts and drama that I wasn’t aware of. He wants me to not make the
same mistakes he did his first year.” These faculty mentors seem help ease newer faculty
into the department culture, as well as help explain tacit expectations of faculty. One part-
time faculty member said her mentor was “the best mentor I could possibly have. She is

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understanding, very professional, and has experience.” The part-time faculty member
described her mentor as “a model” for her. Mentorship does not always have to be an
active experience; mentors can also be models for newer faculty to follow and determine
what may be appropriate behavior depending on the department culture.
Advantage of full-time status and presence. One of the pathways to being a
member a community is simply having full-time status and all of the advantages that this
status entails. One faculty member noted that when he went from part-time to full time he
was finally “able to hold office hours, which enabled the more time with the students. As
a full-time instructor, you are able to be your own boss and have control of your own
classroom, as long as you do a good job. The free time that you had could be used for
grading, and for improving lectures.” This also includes attending events, participating in
departmental and institutional meetings, and professional development. The other
pathways noted in this section are made more readily available for full-time faculty (e.g.,
supplemental hours, formal mentorship, compensation, private office space)
Related to full-time advantage is the idea of presence. Mountain College expects
full-time faculty to spend much of their workweek on campus in order, among other
reasons, to be available to students. They are asked to attend some student events and are
required to attend others (e.g., graduation). Though not all full-time faculty meet those
expectations (some interviewees noted that “Some people think full-time is an 18 hour
work week”), there are those who spend 35+ hours on campus.
Conscientious effort by other faculty and department chairs. Those part-time
faculty who felt like they were a part of a community noted that there was a conscientious

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effort on the part of other full-time faculty, especially chairs, to make them feel welcome
or invited. As Chris, a full-time faculty member noted:
As an adjunct I think it depends on what type of department you have, what type
of chair, if you’re invited to meetings. That’s probably the first thing, if you were
invited to meetings that would be the first step in being a part of something. I
think you could move from feeling disconnected to, depending on the situation of
your department, to feeling more connected to your department.

This effort meant that chairs and full-time faculty acknowledged adjuncts as colleagues,
rather than the invisible faculty mentioned.
Those faculty members who became part of either faculty senate or association
did so with the encouragement from other faculty. For part-time faculty it was
predominantly the department chair or director, Mitch noted “My director told me that
there was an opening and that if I got it I could get paid for my time and still get
involved.” Full-time had either their chairs or mentors explain to them the importance of
being on one of the leadership groups, especially if they wanted to advance towards
administration later in their careers.
Physical Layout. Just as adjunct faculty mentioned the physical isolation they felt
with the placement of the workroom or class, other faculty felt that the location of their
office, workspace, or even department enabled more interactions with other faculty, both
full- and part-time. Jerry, a chair in a health sciences department mentioned how the
department was able to design the layout of their offices. The offices are in a “pod,”
where each office faces in towards a center workroom to maximize interactions amongst
faculty, “I think it has a lot to do with how we work with one another. Everything is out
in the open.” In numerous departments I observed faculty with offices adjacent or across

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from one another speak across the hallway or socialize with one another when office
doors were open.
Several departments also had a shared workspace where faculty could meet to
make copies, check mailboxes, or find office supplies. Some of the shared workspaces
included the adjunct faculty workspace, which could lead to challenges as noted in the
previous section of classroom community, but it also had some benefits such as increased
social interactions. In one non-credit department, the faculty area was “a break room, and
in that area I bring dinner, and during the time I get ready and check my mail box I meet
up with the other teachers. The people in there really helped me, by joking around, asking
me how class was going, that kind of bonding.” The shared space allowed for faculty to
be together in a less formal setting.
Social capital. Numerous faculty have mentioned that Mountain College is a very
close knit community, where everyone is familiar with one another. This closeness can be
beneficial to those part-time and full-time faculty who had connections with the
department at Mountain College, either before they obtained the position or while they
were part-time faculty. Daryl remembered when he applied for the position:
I had an older friend, we worked together at a language school and his wife
worked at Mountain College, he told me to apply there. Some of my best friends
were working at Mountain too, and when I applied I mentioned [to the chair and
administrators] that I knew them, I think that probably helped me get a job.

Administrators also speak about how members of departments also advocate strongly for
some part-time faculty that they have known. Regarding one opening, Dean Rose noted
that she is “on a couple of the hiring committees, they [the faculty] are really pushing
someone from the inside … they [the faculty] keep saying that they already have people

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who would be perfect for the job.” Though the advocacy is not the final say, the support
from a department does hold some weight during the application process. These informal
connections that faculty can have with one another and administrators can encourage
other members to accept a new person into the community, compared to faculty who
know no one.
Existing policies for participation. Mountain College, unlike many higher
education institutions, have policies in place to be able to compensate adjunct faculty
who wished to be representatives of their departments. This compensation enabled
faculty relying on hourly work to continuing earning a wage while also contributing and
participating to this community. Also, there still were some options of course releases for
adjuncts who are in positions of leadership within the communities. Though unable to
obtain the highest levels of leadership, the course releases for secretary or various faculty
liaisons would allow for adjuncts to receive course release while still being under the
required 66% of FTE mandated by the state.
Leveraging existing resources. There were few part-time faculty involved with
communities such as the Faculty Association or the faculty senate without being elected
or acting as representative of their departments. The part-time faculty who were de facto
members because they possessed either resources (such as connections to outside
businesses or foundations) or skills that proved useful. For example, Thomas was an
active member of the Mountain Foundation, a foundation consisting of the President of
Mountain College, administration, trustees, and various businesses in the community to
build partnerships between the business community and Mountain College. Thomas

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became the liaison between the faculty leadership groups and the Mountain Foundation.
He also “helped work out the union payroll and taxes,” and handled finances Mountain
College raised from their yearly scholarship fundraiser. “I made myself indispensable to
the Faculty Association,” he said. Whenever there was an issue regarding funding or how
to “do the numbers” Thomas asked to participate and was privy to many key meetings.
Other academic communities. Some communities were a de facto part of the
general Mountain Community; specifically, the leadership community that spanned
across departments and divisions. This connection may have existed because members in
the leadership communities “have a broader view of Mountain as a whole.” These other
communities were communities within their own right, but membership here forced
faculty to participate more within the general Mountain College community. For
example, there were classroom communities that included students from various aspects
of campus and were not limited to the particular course being taught; Julie co-advises
with a full-time faculty member a Young Republicans club on campus. Part-time and
full-time faculty were members of committees such as the school-wide WASC not just to
fulfill their departmental responsibilities, but to “know what’s going on everywhere else
at Mountain, and be a part of it,” as Mitch mentioned. These interactions with various
people throughout campus allowed a sense of the greater Mountain Community.
Campus-wide orientation or professional development programs. Mountain
College had many professional development programs that were both department-
specific, as well as campus-wide. Though the department program were beneficial as a
pathway to departmental community, the larger campus-wide programs may have been

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more beneficial to the general campus community. For example, Mountain had a year-
long orientation for those full-time faculty new to the campus. Once a month every
Friday this cohort attended various professional development workshops, ate lunch
together, and acquainted themselves with one another. More than a few full-time faculty
and administration had the cohort picture up in their offices. Sarah accidentally went to
one of the full-time programs, and though she was not turned away she noted, “When I
went to the full-time day, that was a sense of real community—everyone knew
everyone’s names and I thought, I don’t know anyone here … they have lunch together,
they get these goodie bags and break-out sessions and get to talk.” These programs also
helped those people in departments usually isolated from the rest of the community, such
as the distance learning departments and ESL.
Inclusion in campus-wide events and committees. Many faculty, more full-time
than part-time, spoke about knowing people throughout the campus beyond their own
division and department. Many of them mentioned being members of Faculty Association
or Faculty senate, as discussed previously, but also about attending events and
committees. For example, Peter, a full-time member was on a technology committee. He
was part of the committee looking to redesign the information technology on campus,
from a mainframe business model to something that worked better. “By and large my
colleagues are smart, and being with people who were smart and creative trying to come
up with a good solution to a problem was very fun,” He said. Peter met many people
from around campus in that meeting, including staff. The school also had campus-wide
events, including the annual fundraiser that takes place as a lip-sync and dance

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performance by faculty, administration and student. Participation in these events helped
forge connections among faculty as well as students and administration.
In Table 2, I have compiled a list of pathways found in data and indicated the
communities where they may help gain access. Though there appears to be fewer
pathways than barriers, it seems that there are more similar pathways for the
communities. These pathways in many ways reflect the community framework buffered
some of the more negative barriers influenced by the neoliberal framework. Those
pathways are marked with an asterisk in Table 2.

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Table 2: Pathways and Academic Community
Pathways Student
instructional
Departmental Leadership Campus External
Professional
development*
X X X X X X
Good resources X X X X
Mentorship* X X X X X X
Full-time
advantage
X X X X
Campus
presence
X X X X
Conscientious
effort by faculty
or chairs*
X X X X X
Physical layout X X X X
Social Capital* X X X X X
Existing polices
for
participation*
X X X X X
Faculty
encouragement*
X X X X X X
Leveraging
existing
resources
X X X
Other academic
communities*
X X X X X
Campus wide
programs
X
Inclusion in
campus-wide
events*
X

From this table it appears that there are numerous ways faculty can become
members in various academic communities. More importantly, pathways highlight the
idea that communities themselves and members of the community can play an important
role in encouraging or dissuading faculty from becoming active members—for example

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faculty mentorship and encouragement. Some pathways are also institutional, as certain
policies and practices like campus-wide orientation can help build community as well.
The access points in this study can help encourage ideas of community by highlighting
the interconnection among people and inclusive membership. Access points also facilitate
faculty’s ability to meet responsibilities towards particular communities, shaping their
own feelings of belonging. These access points are also the result of the community
framework and conceptualizations of community, reframing decisions and behavior
towards connecting with others.
Conclusion
From the various barriers and pathways found in this study, the data shows that
community membership and participation is not dependent only upon the efforts of an
individual. Rather, it is a combination of factors: faculty, administration, and institution,
that help determine if a faculty member feels as though they belong to an academic
community on campus.
From the types of barriers and pathways, it also shows that in many ways part-
time faculty can be inherently and systemically disadvantaged compared to full-time
faculty. Linking back to the larger framework of neoliberalism, some adjuncts may be
inherently disadvantaged due to the nature of their work, trying to create a full-time
schedule at numerous schools, which leaves them with little time and lots of isolation.
Some adjuncts may be systemically disadvantaged due to the policies and practices in
place that support full-timers but are not offered to adjuncts. For example, the context of
being new to a school, class (in terms of subject matter), or department can add additional

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challenges to any faculty fulfilling their responsibilities. However, full-time faculty have
different resources and opportunities at their disposal to help them cope with the lack of
teaching experience compared to adjuncts.
The access points in this study, however, reflect how the community framework
can mediate some of the effects of the neoliberal framework. Though still leaning to the
benefit of full-time faculty (who have more opportunities for access points), the access
points in this study are not necessarily limited to full-time faculty or require monetary
calculations. Rather, they focus on getting faculty to feel a part of a community through
encouragement, support, and more interactions with other faculty. These access points
remind members of Mountain College that they are working towards common goals and
should take an interested in the people they interact with every day.

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CHAPTER SEVEN: FACULTY NARRATIVES
In the preceding chapters, I have described how conceptualizations of academic
community may affect part-time faculty work environments, and the types of academic
community perceived by faculty at Mountain College. However, it is important to see
how adjunct conceptualizations and perceptions of academic community interact with the
conceptualizations of others to shape adjunct experience of the existing work
environment. This chapter combines various perceptions of community (e.g., student-
instructional or departmental) with conceptualizations, and provides a narrative of
different adjunct faculty experiences. The current chapter takes the ideas in Chapters 4, 5,
and 6 and illustrates how conceptualizations of community can influence part-time work
environments, from the perspective of part-time faculty.
Each of the narratives in this chapter has two parts. The first part illustrates the
different perceptions of academic community found in Chapter 5, and the barriers and
access points that each person experiences to gain entre into each community from
Chapter 6. The second part then synthesizes the ideas in Chapter 4, and illustrates how
adjunct faculty conceptualizations of academic community may or may not help shape
the work environment for themselves and other adjuncts. Like full-time faculty, part-time
faculty also can have an influence on shaping the work environment; unlike full-time
faculty, adjuncts appear to have more challenges to overcome, which some of the
narratives will illustrate. The following are narratives of three different types of adjunct

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faculty, which I chose because they are indicative of the range of experiences found
within the interviews.
21

New Adjunct Faculty in Large Traditional Academic Department
The first narrative focuses on a new part-time faculty member who is entering a
large department and teaching for the first time. New faculty experience unique
challenges and find themselves trying to adjust to many different changes all at once: new
workplace environment, new courses to teach, and a new culture to name a few. Certain
workplace policies and practices could either make this first year an easier one, or more
difficult for adjunct faculty. I chose this narrative because it can be representative of what
many first-time adjuncts experience, especially those who have just finished graduate
school in an academic subject, but are unfamiliar with teaching those subjects. New
adjunct faculty may have to overcome numerous barriers in order to gain entrance into
the various academic communities and, without pathways to help, this can be a
challenging task. This narrative also reflects a predominantly neoliberal framework that is
common in the literature. As a member of a more traditional academic department in the
Liberal Arts, this narrative reflects a faculty with less marketable skills outside of
academia in a department that has a significant majority of part-time faculty. As a result
she has less of a sense of community and access to different communities.
Leslie is a recent hire to Mountain College. She recently graduated with her
Master’s degree in English Literature from a local state university. Some of her

21
Because Mountain College is an exemplary example, none of the interviews mentioned
overtly negative work experiences, so the range is not particularly extreme as may be on
some campuses.

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colleagues from her graduate program suggested she apply to Mountain College as well
as other local community colleges in her area because they were in need of adjunct
professors to teach their introductory writing courses. This practice is a very common
way for Mountain College to obtain new faculty and most of them come from the local
four-year institutions. From her past experience, Leslie is very familiar with the external
academic community the Modern Language Association, which is the predominant
research association in her field. Her graduate school experience had been a supportive
one, with a sense of community between students and faculty.
For the upcoming fall semester, Leslie was able to obtain three adjunct positions
teaching one class at each campus. At two of the colleges Leslie is paid approximately 45
dollars per instructional hour, with no compensation for faculty office hours. Meanwhile,
because of Mountain College’s faculty contract that includes adjunct parity, Leslie is paid
69
22
dollars an hour, as well as an additional 20 dollars for office hours during the week:
“The pay is much better at Mountain College, so if I could pick one place [to work], that
would be one of the reasons.” With these three positions, Leslie is able to provide a
serviceable salary, but she knows that she will need to take on more classes or obtain a
full-time position if she wants to live comfortably and pay back her student loan debt.
Mountain College’s ability to pay a higher rate is one of the reasons why many of the
administrators feel confident in the quality of part-time faculty they hire, and it is one of
the main reasons why part-time faculty have mentioned wanting to work more classes at
Mountain than at most other campuses.

22
The faculty contract stipulates a rate of 69 dollars per instructional hour; this amount is
atypically high for many faculty teaching in two-year institutions.

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A few weeks before the semester started at Mountain, Leslie met her department
chair in person for the first time, though she had spoken to her chair during her phone
interview when she was hired. This practice is not uncommon for many part-time hires,
especially in departments where there are a large number of adjuncts to full-time faculty.
Leslie also attended a department orientation for new part-time faculty. Because the
English department has required courses for all students to either graduate or transfer, it
is also one of the two departments with the largest pools of adjunct faculty (the other
being the Department of Mathematics). Both of these departments determined that there
was a need for new faculty orientation and professional development, and since there
were enough faculty to attend orientation, they offered it and the institution compensated
new adjuncts for their time during the orientation. During the orientation she was
introduced to other part-time faculty, her chair, as well as her assigned mentor, a tenured
faculty member in the department. The division dean also stopped by to introduce herself
and to welcome the new faculty to Mountain College. In terms of materials, Leslie
received a faculty handbook, sample syllabi, and she was shown both the adjunct faculty
office, her mailbox, and where copies can be made and supplies kept.
Though this orientation and introduction is more than most adjuncts experience
during their first days at a new campus, Leslie still felt overwhelmed. She never really
had a chance to get to know any of her fellow adjuncts well, and only met the two full-
time faculty who were the assigned mentors for adjuncts. Though this practice is
laudable, there are a total of 70 adjuncts in the department, so each mentor has
approximately 35 possible mentees.

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In terms of preparing her syllabus and course instruction, Leslie was nervous. “I
never really taught before, so all I know was from my own experience,” she said.
However, at first this proved to be a challenge when working with students, “I was
always a good student, I mean, I got good grades in college and that’s why I went to grad
school … Motivation was never a problem for me, but it can be a problem for some of
my students.” Students needing remedial help were also a challenge for Leslie. Because
she had no formal training or experience as an instructor, her main focus for the semester
was “just getting through teaching the classes.” Without any pedagogical training and
classroom management skills, much of her first semester was a trial and error. Rather
than creating or gaining access to the student-learning community, she found herself on
the outside and unable to really connect with students.
Even though mentorship is one way for faculty to obtain entrance to the student-
learning community and she was assigned one by the department, Leslie was not
comfortable asking her mentor any questions. She felt like she was being a bother and did
not want to draw any undue attention to herself. With her three courses at different
colleges, Leslie was also unable to meet other faculty to discuss her challenges in the
classroom. Especially with her one course on Saturday, Leslie has not met any full-time
faculty at one of the colleges. Isolation from other faculty made it difficult obtain
information that may have helped her those first few months teaching.
Her performance during her first semester suffered. After her faculty observation
from her mentor and student evaluations, she was called into a meeting with her
department chair. Her chair told her that she needed to improve her teaching performance

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if she wanted to remain teaching at Mountain College and Leslie felt disheartened. “I
thought I must have the worst evaluations of all the adjuncts, it was like everyone else
knows what to do [about teaching] except for me,” She said. After being assured of a
course the next semester, Leslie’s chair directed her to some various workshops
Mountain College offered to all faculty that are both on-campus and online. She also
encouraged Leslie to utilize her mentor more often, as well as offered her own support.
The department chair was the predominant full-time faculty who had contact with Leslie,
and eventually became Leslie’s de facto mentor, offering encouragement and directing
her to resources that could help Leslie in the classroom. This example highlights the
difference between those faculty who are mentors in name, versus actual mentors. The
issue is that this mentorship occurred more so by accident, with the department chair
taking a liking to Leslie rather than a rethinking of what mentorship may mean to all part-
time faculty. In interviews, many of the part-time faculty members I spoke with wanted
mentors, but were unable to know how to find them. Meanwhile many of the full-time
faculty noted they would be happy to mentor adjuncts, but often defer the responsibility
to finding a mentor to the part-time faculty.
The following spring semester went more smoothly for Leslie. She had taken
various workshops offered at Mountain College and even went to a local conference
where she learned ways to motivate students and improve her instruction. She explained,
“My first semester I lectured almost the entire class because that’s what I thought I was
supposed to do, now I lecture only a little bit and do more activities and discussions with
students.” She also learned ways to manage her own grading time efficiently; previously

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it was taking her hours to grade papers, which made her hesitant to want to assign more
papers. By the end of her spring semester, both her faculty and student evaluations
improved significantly, and she was ensured a summer and fall class to teach.
Despite these improvements over the course of one year, Leslie never really
considered herself a member of an academic community beyond her classroom—and
even that did not happen until the second semester. Despite assurances and congenial
interactions with both her chair and assigned mentor, Leslie did not make a concerted
effort to build relations with them: “I’m just one adjunct and my mentor has, like, 30 of
us to worry about. I try not to bother him unless it’s something that can be easily
answered in an email.” No one told her of the opportunities for Faculty Senate or
Association, and she felt as though she may not be welcome since she only taught one
class. She also had not made many connections with other faculty, though she had made
friends with the facilities staff. Here connections with the staff were created through her
interactions with them late in the evening when almost all the full-time faculty had gone
home. Because of her teaching schedule, Leslie rarely taught classes when other full-time
faculty were on campus.
Remembering her experience as a graduate student, Leslie did try to make
connections to the research community at the yearly Modern Language Association
Conference that happened to be local one year. She noted that networking was difficult,
even during the workshops, because there were so many faculty in attendance. But, Leslie
also noted that once she introduced herself as an adjunct instructor or even a community
college instructor, she felt like other faculty then treated her differently.

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In the meantime, Leslie is hoping to pick up another course at Mountain College
and to buy into the healthcare program. Though she hopes to eventually obtain a full-time
position at any of her institutions, she still would prefer Mountain College because it is
the most “professionally run” of all her schools, she gave an example “if the computer
goes down at Mountain, it’s fixed by the next day…at other places it can take weeks or
just never happens. They are on it here.” For the future she is thinking about pursuing a
doctorate in English in hopes that it may make her more marketable for a tenure-track
position. Upon reflecting on her first year as an adjunct faculty member, there was one
question that she would have liked to have answered: “I wanted to know if anyone else
was going through the same things I did [their first year], I was by myself so I didn’t
know if this is what all new teachers go through or just me?”
Academic Communities
This narrative is a culmination of different part-time faculty experiences, many of
the barriers: lack of teaching experience, isolation, lack of information, lack of
mentorship, and so forth, were common in many of the adjunct faculty interviews,
especially those in larger academic departments.

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Table 3: Leslie’s Academic Community
Academic
community
Barriers Pathways
Student-focused
community
Lack of experience Professional
development
Assumptions of
students
Mentorship
Departmental
Community
Lack of local
knowledge
Conscientious chair
Physical isolation
Leadership
Community
Lack of time
Lack of knowledge of
opportunity

General Mountain
Community
Lack of opportunity
Lack of interaction
with other faculty

External Community Adjunct bias

Leslie experienced a work environment that was better than many adjunct faculty
members with equitable pay, healthcare, and adequate resources—however, many of
these policies and practices were established through a pre-existing faculty contract.
Actually, none of the adjunct faculty mentioned poor or negative treatment from any of
the full-time faculty. Instead, the challenges focus on a disconnectedness from faculty,
where adjuncts are not thought about beyond the requirements that contract. Because
Leslie could not gain access to many of these communities, she experienced a
disconnectedness and isolation in her work environment. In a circular fashion, it may
have been because many full-time faculty members did not consider her a member so
gaining entrance into the community was difficult.

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Conceptualizations and Work Environment
In terms of Leslie’s own conceptualizations of academic community, we can see
that for the most part she did not feel as though she belonged to any of the communities
although she wanted to be a member.
Even in the student-instructional community, Leslie at first did not feel like she
belonged though that changed as the year progressed. Feeling like she did not belong in
many of the communities made her hesitant to participate in activities or reach out to
other faculty. She felt like she was not in a position to change the work environment for
her self or others beyond the classroom community. Much of her citizenship behaviors
revolved around her instructional responsibilities in the classroom, which improved her
experience of her classroom work environment. However, there were few citizenship
behaviors that sought to change the work environment for other adjuncts.
Experienced Adjunct Faculty in a Professional Department
The next narrative explores an adjunct faculty experience meant to highlight some
of the pathways into the different academic communities. This narrative focuses on a
faculty member who was familiar with the Mountain College campus. I chose a
professional department to highlight the influence that external policies and legislation
may have on some of the communities. Also, since the literature shows that adjunct bias
may occur less in professional departments (a finding also supported by this study), I
highlight a narrative that has a lack of bias among departmental colleagues. This narrative
represents a portrait of part-time faculty who had the opportunity to be full-time faculty,
but instead chose the adjunct career path and remained an active member of various

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academic communities. Again, the neoliberal framework still is present but has less of a
negative impact on the faculty member in this narrative because he has skills that are
valued outside of academia. However, there is an added bonus that his department
exemplifies the community framework as well because members in his department
encourage responsibility and stewardship towards one another, and realize that in order to
function well as a department they have to work together to accomplish their
departmental goals.
John has been a part-time faculty member in one of the childhood development
departments for the last 10 years. For his first 7 years teaching at Mountain, John was
going to graduate school and later employed full-time at another company. Originally he
was a student at Mountain, “I actually got my start at Mountain College.” He added, “the
department chair was actually on my Master’s thesis committee because I asked her to be
on it and wanted her input.” Already, John had a mentor who worked with him and
helped guide him through various elements of his own career. It was his mentor who
suggested that John work part-time at Mountain College while working at his other job.
In the last three years he has chosen to start his own consulting firm, which has grown
over that time. One of the full-time faculty in his department actually helped him begin
his consulting firm, by directing John to resources and other possible mentors, “I got my
start because a school called her [the full-time faculty member] looking for someone who
could speak to parents at a school in Spanish about different things, and she thought of
me and said I would be good at it.” Unlike many adjunct faculty, John had a mentor
whom he could trust and talk about teaching and career development.

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When he looked back at his first few years of teaching, he remembered how at
first it was strange transitioning from student to teacher in higher education, but because
of his academic background in childhood education, he quickly adapted: “I think it’s
because of the topic [which is instruction] and practicing what I teach, it just comes
naturally to me, so teaching for the first time really wasn’t that bad.” Both his
background in pedagogy and student-teaching gave him experience in the classroom that
other first-time faculty may not have had. He also noted how easy it was to talk to people
in his department if any technical issues did arise or if he wanted new ideas. John had
already built relationships with many of the full-time faculty at Mountain College, and
his mentor helped him continue to build those connections. Once these connections were
made, John did not feel hesitant to ask for advice or help.
Even though he is a part-time faculty member, he did not experience any of the
bias mentioned by other adjuncts, but realizes that it exists: “I know that other adjuncts
can be treated poorly at other places, but I don’t get that here [in his department].
Everyone treats me like family.” He describes his department as “very supportive of me,
and they treat their people well.” The lack of adjunct bias may have made John more
confident to contribute to the department, and also not feel so self-conscious at any
challenges he may be facing. This feeling of community is also highlighted by the values
of the departmental community that heavily reflected the general Mountain College
community.
John continued about the department philosophy that “saw the value in every
person and had a strong sense of community and student involvement, which carries into

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faculty life.” This philosophy is very close to the overall Mountain Community mission.
He saw the full-time faculty, especially the current chair as mentors and described them
as “watching out for me, but let me grow too.” He himself was a mentor to one or two
new adjunct faculty. John spoke of “welcome back” days that the department held, which
served as orientations and professional development, and how he was compensated for
attending. Because John felt that he belonged in his department community, he was
happy to participate in events when he could even those events where he was not
compensated for his time. It is important to note that since John was not working at
different campuses as his sole income, giving his time to both his departmental
community and Mountain College did not cost him as much as it may other adjunct
faculty.
One of the differences between John and Leslie’s department, is that the early
childhood development department at Mountain is subject to the Commission on Teacher
Credentialing. In order for the department to have a certification program, the courses
must meet specific standards and guidelines to be deemed acceptable. The department
also is working with a local four-year institution to ensure that the childhood
development courses at Mountain will be transferable. This means that John has to work
within specific guidelines for his courses and must work with other faculty to ensure that
cohorts of students receive similar instruction that allows for them to either transfer or
receive their certification. Mountain College also has an onsite early childhood education
center so that students will have supervised experience working with children as well as
faculty. These labs also encourage John, and other instructional faculty to interact with

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clinical faculty at the center. The external legislation in some ways required that part-time
faculty be involved more in these departments than the departments that did not have
external policies or legislation.
Even though the department was not a small department, each faculty member
had to do their share of work. John found himself a representative for his department on
the faculty senate a few years ago. “Well, actually our original representative was a full-
time faculty member, but halfway through the year she went on maternity leave, so I took
her place. It was only supposed to be until she got back, but when she got back she was
happy to let me stay on.” John mentioned that he wanted to help when the department
realized that they would be without representation, since no one else volunteered for the
position. The first inquiries to see if John could participate on the Faculty Senate were
actually made first by his chair and mentor. By knowing the policies and providing John
the information, his mentor encouraged his participation and showed his support. In the
literature, many adjunct faculty are unaware of their ability to be on governing bodies and
are unwilling to ask for fear of rejection or reprisal. By inquiring for John, his mentor
removed a small but important barrier to his participation in the leadership community.
John mentioned that on senate, “it’s nice to get to know everybody, being off
campus is hard…I got to know more about the benefits and give the information to other
adjuncts and see what’s available.” He did note that his first few meetings he was
“nervous at first. A lot of stuff was happening that I didn’t know about,” but soon he
became comfortable. This barrier was common for new members of the leadership
community, where various rules of order, behavior, and even language prevented faculty

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from fully participating at first. He spoke about the camaraderie experienced on faculty
senate and a part of the greater Mountain Community, as well as “giving back” to his
department. He just recently decided to participate in the school-wide fundraiser
performance hosted by both the Faculty Association and faculty senate. “It’s a little
intimidating,” he explained, ”some of the faculty knew each other already and had their
groups set, I was put with a group of faculty I didn’t know, we’re doing three songs
together. At first it was hard, but after all the rehearsals I’ve gotten to know them better.”
It seems that building networks and connections with the department or leadership
community may make it easier to faculty to participate in other communities.
When asked about his next steps, he mentioned, “I’m not quite ready to give up
my consulting business yet.” Though he did note that perhaps he will apply for a full-time
position in a few years time, “I want to try some other things first, maybe get my PhD.”
Academic Community
John’s inclusion in the various communities throughout campus is not unheard of
at Mountain College. His narrative, though, was a combination from adjunct faculty in
the professional/vocational and non-credit departments rather than the traditional
academic departments. And though he was in a for-credit department, there were other
part-time faculty who were very much involved in the non-credit departments as well.
One element that may play a role in the inclusion of adjuncts like John that would be
different for Leslie is that John’s department was a professional department. Because
most adjuncts in these departments had full-time positions elsewhere there may have
been less of the bias that adjunct faculty are “lesser” than full-time faculty. Another

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element may be that the professional fields like education, nursing, accounting and the
like also seem to rely heavily on mentorship outside of academia, which carries over to
the academic department. For example, one person in the health sciences noted
“mentorship is how we teach and learn, so it’s only natural that we do it here [meaning
the department].” Being very comfortable in one academic community may make it
easier for faculty to branch out into other academic communities such as the leadership
one, if so desired. In John’s case, his involvement was encouraged and supported, which
made it easier to try other venues. Below are the various barriers and pathways John
experienced, to the various communities.
Table 4: John’s Academic Community
Academic
community
Barriers Pathways
Student-focused
community
Professional
development
Mentorship
Full-time presence
Departmental
Community
Conscientious chair
Mentorship
Social capital
Leadership
Community
Lack of knowledge of
norms
Mentorship
Faculty
encouragement
General Mountain
Community
Participation in
school-wide events
Participation in
school-wide
committees

One of the important elements about John’s narrative is not so much the existence of the
different pathways that helped him gain entrance into the communities, but John also

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experienced a lack of barriers to these communities. Unlike Leslie, it seems as though
John was considered part of many academic communities and the members of those
communities tried to help facilitate his participation as much as possible. His experience
of his workplace, though similar in contractual policies and practices as Leslie, also had a
sense of inclusivity and respect.
Conceptualizations and Work Environment
John’s conceptualization of academic community is very different from Leslie.
Rather than feeling isolated or indifferent to the communities, John felt that he belonged
to many of the communities at Mountain College. Guided by the various goals of the
communities and his definition of members, many of John’s citizenship behaviors
reflected a very active participant.
In John’s narrative, similar to those examples given in Chapter 4, his
conceptualizations do help shape the overall work environment for adjuncts. By being an
active member on committees and representing his department, John serves to remind
other faculty that there are some adjuncts that are very invested in Mountain College and
are willing to do the service work that comes with community membership. He also
mentors other adjunct faculty, realizing that mentors were a positive influence in his own
work experience. Also, as a member of the leadership communities, John is in a position
to remind other faculty that adjunct issues are still important faculty issues.
Expert Adjunct Faculty in a Vocational Department
Not all adjunct faculty necessarily want to be participating members in the
different academic communities found at Mountain College. This next narrative reflects

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the experiences of an adjunct faculty who was hired for his experiences working in the
criminal justice system. This type of “expert” faculty is still very common at Mountain
College, many of them have full-time positions elsewhere and choose to be part-time. I
chose this narrative to highlight the many faculty who are not necessarily concerned with
the working conditions on campus, and are uninterested in gaining more faculty
responsibility or representation. Again, like the other previous narratives, this narrative
shows the influence of the neoliberal framework, with the least amount of community
framework mediating its effects. In this narrative, Brendan defines his professionalism
through his external career, and feels very little direct connection to the faculty at
Mountain College, though is dedicated to his students. This narrative is important
because it represents a large percentage of part-time faculty who have full-time positions
elsewhere and are not necessarily interested in being part of academia. For these faculty,
the issues of pay equity, benefits, or even faculty treatment are less of a concern because
they are working at Mountain College for other reasons.
Brendan has been teaching at Mountain College for the past 10 years, and though
he has been offered a full-time position, he noted “If I took the full-time teaching job
back then, I would’ve been taking a large pay cut…this is my first year of retirement and
want to just enjoy that right now, so I want to keep teaching part-time.” Brendan was not
new to teaching. In the early 1980s, Brendan was a professional athlete and upon
retirement he went and gave workshops and talks to high school students and teachers.
These speaking engagements encouraged him to apply to Mountain College after seeing a
job posted in the local newspaper, “By then I was an administrator in the criminal justice

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system, and they were looking for someone with my expertise to teach classes before any
curriculum was even developed for these classes.”
For Brendan, the most difficult part of teaching was developing a course without
any prior course existing, “I had to create my own reader made with texts from various
other books” and since no one had taught these classes prior (for example, one of his
classes focuses on race relations in the criminal justice system) he had little to pull from.
However, despite this challenge, Brendan found teaching to be relatively easy and
enjoyed working with students, “My evaluations have always been good.”
Other than his responsibilities in the classroom, Brendan is otherwise uninterested
in obtaining more responsibilities at Mountain College. When asked about increasing his
participation or joining the leadership community, Brendan responded, “I teach because
it’s different from what I do at work. If I start joining committees or groups then it’ll start
looking like my other job and I don’t want that.” Unlike Leslie, Brendan is content
having little contact with other faculty (full and part-time). He sees his department chair
on occasion, usually for evaluations or meetings about class curriculum changes. Though
he is willing the meet with other faculty or attend meetings when he is asked for his input
due to his expertise, Brendan does not make a conscious effort to be a part of the different
communities on campus, other than the student-focused community in his classroom.
However, even though Brendan is not particularly interested in most of the
academic communities on campus, he is very active in different academic communities
that are external to Mountain College. As noted previously, from his experience as a
professional athlete, Brendan is both co-founder and chair of a non-profit organization

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that works with high school athletes by providing resources such as tutoring and
mentorship. He was also active in his professional community at both state and national
levels, and does much to try to connect the students in his classrooms with people in his
profession.
Academic Community
In terms of communities, this narrative reflects the many voluntary part-time
faculty members who enjoy teaching and working with students and who are not seeking
any further involvement with other communities on campus. For faculty like Brendan,
even with various access points available to them, these faculty members may not be
interested in becoming members. With his departmental chair offering full-time faculty
position and inviting him to meetings, Brendan chose not to be a more active member in
the departmental community. Barriers may also not be an issue for similar reasons.
Table 5: Brendan’s Academic Community
Academic
community
Barriers Pathways
Student-focused
community
Developing new
curriculum
Previous teaching
experience
Departmental
Community
Conscientious chair
Leadership
Community
Lack of appeal
Lack of time
General Mountain
Community

External Community Professional
experience
Networking

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Instead, membership in the student-instructional and external communities was important
to Brendan. He even acted as a bridge between his student-instructional community and
professional community, bringing members together in various employment partnerships.
Conceptualization and Work Environment
Brendan’s conceptualization of academic community is different from Leslie’s
predominantly because he does not necessarily want to be a member of the other
communities at Mountain College, such as the department or leadership. Similar to
Leslie, much of his citizenship behavior focuses on the classroom as well as those
behaviors that are related to his role as a leader in of his external communities (e.g.,
networking, fundraising, attending meetings, and such). Brendan’s conceptualization
shapes his experience of the work environment at Mountain, and since he is not asked or
required to do additional faculty service work he is satisfied with it. However, little is
done for the overall work environment of adjuncts, except for perhaps maintaining a
positive example of part-time faculty.

Each of these faculty members represent different paths that adjunct faculty may
take during their career at Mountain College. What accounts for these divergent paths
varies greatly from faculty member to faculty member. Some possibilities arose from this
study. First, academic socialization in graduate school may explain why people to want to
participate in departmental, leadership, or external disciplinary communities. Many part-
time faculty spoke of their experiences in graduate school and how that shaped their idea
of faculty work. Second, related to socialization is mentorship, adjunct faculty like John

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may have senior faculty shaping their understanding of community, citizenship, and
responsibility. The third possibility can be that the type of adjunct faculty also shape
pathways. Those full-time professionals, free-lancers, and retirees who are uninterested in
obtaining a full-time faculty position may have priorities or interests that take them away
from further participation in certain communities.
Conclusion
This chapter combined the ideas found in Chapters 4 and 5, and illustrated how
academic community and its four components helped shape part-time faculty work
environments from the perspective of adjunct faculty. Several key ideas stem from this
chapter. The first is that part-time faculty can still experience many barriers that keep
them from being participants in different academic communities and, for those adjuncts
who are interested, the barriers can be daunting. The second is that faculty experience
feelings of belonging or isolation or indifference to a variety of academic communities
simultaneously. Simply because a person feels like she does not belong in one
community does not mean that she is not very invested in another academic community.
However, I must also acknowledge that there are people who have no interest in being a
part of certain academic communities. The third idea is that adjunct faculty do have
agency to help shape their own work environments and the environments as experienced
by others. However, enacting change is more difficulty when a person himself feels
isolated or marginalized from the community.

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CHAPTER EIGHT: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND DIRECTIONS FOR
FUTURE RESEARCH
Summary of the Findings
This study set out to better understand the ways that community college faculty
conceptualize their academic community and determine if those conceptualizations help
shape work environments for part-time faculty.
Neoliberalism and Community Framework
This study examines the conceptualizations of academic community and faculty
perceptions of community. However, this study also explored the dynamic between two
frameworks: neoliberalism and community, and how they shaped Mountain College.
Neoliberalism is a framework that faculty and administration still use to shape policies
and practices within Mountain College. The values of neoliberalism (e,g., efficiency,
individualism, and cost-effectiveness) still dictate much of the underlying culture
(Wagoner et al. 2010; Wagoner, 2007). In order to change the work environment for
adjuncts, an alternative framework is necessary to provide a different set of values to
shape decisions. Neoliberalism was buffered by the community framework. Community
is a framework that faculty and administration have used, which provides alternative
values to neoliberalism: stewardship, cooperation, self-sacrifice, and connectedness.
These two frameworks create a tension that faculty and administrators experience when
deciding the direction of Mountain College. It appears that when the community
framework guides campus leaders and redirects the influences of neoliberalism to focus
on what is best for the overall community, positive changes for adjuncts occurred.

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Conceptualizations and Adjunct Work Environments
The first question looks to see if ideas of academic community can help shape the
work environment for adjuncts. The question as stated is: Do conceptualizations of
academic community influence the working environment of part-time faculty? If so, in
what ways?
Through this case study of one exemplary institution, I found that faculty
conceptualizations of academic community can influence the work place of part-time
faculty. At this particular institution, conceptualization of community does so in four
connected ways.
Defining Membership. Conceptualizations of community determine which people
have membership. Membership determines which individuals or groups of individuals
have priority or importance, and those communities that include part-time faculty seem to
be more cognizant of adjunct working conditions. Likewise, for conceptualizations that
do no include part-time faculty, those communities may be less aware of the barriers that
prevent adjuncts from participation.
Providing underlying goals. Once membership is determined, conceptualizations
of community also provide underlying goals and values. With each community
individuals had shared goals in common, such as student-learning or community-based
projects. For part-time faculty, many of the positive policies and practices that exist in the
faculty contract stem from the idea that these policies help adjuncts achieve the
community goals.

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Encouraging feelings of belonging. Conceptualizations of academic community
can encourage (and at times discourage) a person’s sense of belonging to the community.
From the interviews it appears that to the extent a person feels like they belong to a
particular community the more likely they are to engage in certain citizenship behaviors,
especially the ones that require a greater investment in resources (e.g., time, energy, or
funds).
Establishing citizenship behaviors. Members, guided by the underlying goals and
mission of the community, also have community responsibilities to fulfill. These
responsibilities vary, depending on the community and the role of the faculty member. In
those communities that make collegiality or care for other faculty members (especially
adjuncts) a part of their citizenship, faculty may move towards inclusive behaviors such
as acting as mentors or being encouraging.
Each person at Mountain College has various conceptualizations of community
starting with one-on-one interactions with people to a broader understanding of Mountain
College as a whole. These conceptualizations help shape the citizenship behaviors of the
faculty at each level, and the culmination of these behaviors results in the work
environment of Mountain College.

The second question is: What are the faculty perceptions of academic community?
I found five distinctive perceptions of academic community in my case study of
Mountain College: student-instructional, departmental, leadership, general Mountain, and
external communities. Linked with these perceptions were barriers and access points that

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either prevented or facilitated a person’s ability to be part of one of these academic
communities.
Perceptions of Academic Community
Student-instructional Community. The student-instructional community focused
on the instructional relationship between faculty and students through courses, student
clubs, sports, associations, and academic programs to name a few. Because student-
instruction is the focus of this community, the academic citizenship and responsibilities
for faculty are closely linked to professional teaching expectations. Maintaining
credentials/licensing, preparing course materials, keeping current in their field, and
finding ways to engage students in learning are just a few of the responsibilities faculty
have in these communities.
There are some barriers to meeting these responsibilities; the most common
barrier from the interviews seems to be the first year of teaching community college
students. New faculty are familiar with their subject matter, but not necessarily familiar
with instructional pedagogy. The challenges of being a new instructor can be
compounded when faculty are isolated from other faculty, or lack opportunities (e.g.,
professional development) and resources (e.g., office-space). Part-time faculty seem more
susceptible to these barriers than full-time faculty. Full-time faculty also have an
advantage over part-time faculty to finding pathways into these communities.
Mentorship, professional development, and campus presence are ways to strengthen
faculty connections to the student-instructional community.

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Departmental community. The departmental community focuses on the
connections between and among faculty within their own departments on campus. The
focus is on faculty and their perceived colleagues, which may or may not include
adjuncts. Membership in these communities can differ depending on the department,
some tend to be predominantly full-time, others more inclusive, and some departments
are only staffed by part-time faculty. The citizenship in these communities can be
categorized into three types: classroom instruction (similar to the student-instructional
community), department maintenance (e.g., scheduling, social events, administrative
tasks), and representing the department in a larger context (e.g., committee work,
participation in Faculty Senate or Association).
In the departmental communities it seems that adjunct faculty bias is most
prevalent in traditional academic departments like liberal arts and sciences. In these
communities, full-time faculty still view adjuncts as apart from themselves, perhaps
because many adjunct faculty do no participate in a bulk of the departmental citizenship
activities. Unfortunately a cyclical process may occur: part-time faculty are not included
in departmental activities, so part-time faculty do not participate, so full-time faculty
assume that part-time faculty do not want to participate, which makes them exclude part-
time faculty. There are other barriers for full- and part-time faculty also: not knowing the
department culture, physical isolation, and not fitting with department norms to name a
few. However, like all communities there are pathways for faculty especially mentorship,
conscientious chairs, and more inclusive physical layouts.

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Leadership community. The leadership community consists of faculty and
administration in formal and informal positions in various influential groups such as the
Faculty Association, Senate, and Mountain Foundation. Citizenship requires participation
in these groups as well as committee work, and participation in school-wide events.
Much of the work tends to be time intensive, which deters many part-time and even full-
time faculty from participating, or wanting to participate. The barriers to this community
predominantly focus on a lack of information and certain policies that prevent adjuncts
from more participation. However, similar to the other communities pathways such as
mentorship and leveraging resources can help faculty obtain entre into those
communities.
General Mountain community. Perhaps the most inclusive and simultaneously less
defined of all the academic communities, the general Mountain community reflects an
overall familial culture of Mountain College. Citizenship revolves around faculty
upholding contractual obligations, as well as working towards student learning and
achievement. The predominant barrier to this community is the lack of interaction among
departmental communities and faculty within those communities. For part-time faculty
who divide their time among different schools it can also be difficult to feel a part of the
Mountain community. Joining campus-wide groups, and participating in and attending
school-wide events are just some of the ways faculty can be more involved with the
General Mountain community.
External communities. There are three types of communities that faculty
conceptualize as additions to the academic communities in Mountain College:

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disciplinary/professional, industry/business, and general community. Citizenship involves
different types of participation, among them are holding leadership positions, attending
conferences, or networking among members. There seem to be few barriers to these
communities with the greatest being a lack of resources and a lack of incentive to
participate. To obtain access, institutions can provide information, or encourage
coursework connect more with these different communities.
Discussion
From this study emerged various ideas that further add to the literature on
academic communities, especially focusing on community college faculty.
1. The community framework as a mediator to neoliberalism. This case study of
Mountain College examines the dynamic between the sociological neoliberal framework
and the localized community framework found in the college. To begin, this case
supports the general historical literature on the rise of part-time faculty majority in the
community college sector (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Cohen & Brawer, 2008), and the
influence of neoliberalism in higher education (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Levin et al.,
2006; Wagoner, 2009). Because Mountain College was a community college, it also had
the limitations of other community colleges: reduced funding and increased cost
(Brewster, 2000), limited ability to raise tuition, and needed flexibility (Cohen &
Brawler, 2008; Levin et al., 2006).
As noted in Chapter 4, Mountain College highlights the broader neoliberal
framework at work. One of the driving forces increasing the use of adjunct faculty in
higher education is market-driven decision-making, where hiring part-time employees is

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more cost effective than hiring full-time employees (Tilly, 1991). This type of decision-
making reflects a neoliberal framework whereby colleges model their employment
practices after privatized corporations. The neoliberal framework also helps explain why
campuses have been slow to change for part-time faculty, despite numerous calls for
reform.
In the early years of the adjunct increase, Mountain College saw adjunct faculty
as an inexpensive alternative to full-time faculty. This mindset pointed to a campus
already applying the neoliberal framework—hiring part-time employees to reduce costs
and meet efficiency needs (Tilly, 1991), basing hiring and firing policies of adjuncts on
demand per semester, and “unbundling” of faculty work with adjuncts who only taught
and full-time faculty who did everything else (Slaughter & Rhoades, 1996). Even the
early unionization of Mountain College indicated an employee/managerial relationship,
where faculty were becoming “managed professionals” (Rhoades, 1998). It was market-
driven decision making that determined that healthcare, pay parity, and compensation for
non-instruction hours and office hours for adjuncts was not cost effective and negated the
financial benefits from hiring them. By the late 1980s, Mountain College resembled
many of the community colleges represented in the adjunct faculty literature (Gappa &
Leslie, 1993; Levin et al., 2007; Outcalt, 2003; Schell & Stock, 2001).
However, unlike many other campuses, Mountain College began to move towards
improving the working conditions of adjuncts and implementing recommended policies
and practices. Many of these new policies and practices seemingly ran contrary to the
initial reasoning behind hiring adjuncts—healthcare, professional development,

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orientations, pay parity, seniority, and compensation for office and non-instructional
hours all cost revenue or inhibit flexibility, limiting some of the benefits of hiring
adjuncts. Another theoretical framework was being used to curb and redirect the
influence of neoliberalism: community.
Slaughter and Rhoades (1996) argue that campus leaders and members need to
actively choose an alternative framework to academic capitalism. They suggest faculty
working in a more collaborative model. Levin and colleagues (2006), along with other
scholars (Berberet, 2002; Giroux, 2002; Wagoner et al., 2009) also offer community as
an alternative framework. This study offers empirical evidence to suggest that community
as a theoretical framework can help provide a counterbalance to neoliberalism and its
values of cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and market demands. However, this study also
found that the community framework did not replace the neoliberal framework, nor did
the community framework provide an equal opposition to neoliberalism. Instead, the
community framework was a mediating force between neoliberal tendencies and
Mountain College. The community framework acted as an additional lens to refocus
neoliberal rationale towards the better of Mountain College, and provided additional
values to balance neoliberal ones.
The community framework focused on the connections between faculty,
administration, and students—namely how Mountain College as a whole can better serve
students. The framework provided such values as stewardship, cooperation, and unity at
Mountain College. Mountain College did not relinquish the values of neoliberalism.
Faculty and administrative leaders realized that part of maintaining the health of the

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community is also maintaining fiscal health as well. Leaders still valued efficiency and
cost effectiveness, but these were tempered by other values such as unity and respect.
For example, leaders realized that unless the inequities between full-time and part-time
faculty were addressed , they could not achieve the greater campus mission of student
success. They also realized that they had to ensure that Mountain College would be the
type of campus where the best adjuncts would want to work and stay. However, aside
from the more practical reasons, faculty at Mountain College also exhibited a concern for
adjunct faculty, a concern for their well being that many departmental communities
currently exhibit.
2. Contributions to academic community literature. This study contributes in
two very salient ways to the literature on academic community: 1. This study adds further
depth to our current understanding of academic communities and 2. This study introduces
the idea of intersectional communities.
The current study supports existing research, but delves deeper into the
components of academic community. All of the perceptions found in this study reflect
much of the literature. There are still the guild-like communities found in departmental
and leadership communities (Kerr, 2001), communities linked by institutional
interactions (Berberet, 1994), and communities linked by scholarships of research,
teaching, integration, or application as seen in some of the external, general campus, and
student-centered communities (Boyer, 1997).
In the literature, scholars focused on threats to these communities, for example
how certain trends of academic capitalism can threaten the collegiality of academics or

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render powerless faculty governing bodies (Levin et al., 2006; Slaughter & Rhoades,
1997). But little was said regarding the expectations and responsibilities placed upon
members, and even less was said about the ways these communities either bring
individuals in or keep individuals out.
This study found that active membership in an academic community requires
certain responsibilities, and there are various barriers and pathways that disadvantage
some and advantage others. This information is important because it dispels the
assumption that membership is based only on the efforts of the individual who wants to
be a member—in this study both the institution and the members of a community also
play a role in facilitating or preventing a faculty member entrance. Realizing that
communities have their own barriers and pathways may give some insight into why some
faculty members choose to participate in certain academic communities and not in others.
Combining the individual conceptualization of community and the perceived
communities that exist in Mountain College gives a better explanation to the relationship
between community and work environment. For each of the perceived communities,
faculty had a sense of who were members, what the goals were, and their place within the
community. These ideas gave shape to their responsibilities and behavior to different
groups of faculty. Meeting community responsibilities is important to way for people to
feel like they belong, and it is also a marker for others to determine membership. The
barriers and access points to community connect to the prevention or facilitation of
accomplishing responsibilities.

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As suggested by the literature (Cohen & Brawer, 2003; Grubb & Worthen, 1999;
Levin et al., 2007), faculty at Mountain College perceived their academic community in a
localized manner, focusing on classrooms, departments or institutions. Much of their
participation and effort also seemed to be concentrated in those localized academic
communities. There were external communities mentioned, but very few extended
beyond the state level, and for those communities that were national, few faculty
mentioned active participation in them. Many faculty mentioned once being a member of
national disciplinary or professional society, like APA, MLA, or AAUP. However, it
appears that faculty felt that national disciplinary research societies have alienated them.
Even with additions such as instructional workshops and conferences, many of the
faculty interviewed felt that value was placed more on research and less on teaching. A
few noted feeling stigmatized for being community college faculty. So, rather than
investing time and effort to meet the responsibilities of the communities where they do
not feel accepted, some faculty invested elsewhere.
On an institutional level, student-centered communities actually drew many
faculty away from participating in the other communities. In many of the interviews,
especially of adjuncts, faculty felt isolated from other faculty and felt more connected to
the students. So these faculty (especially adjuncts) focused their efforts on the student-
centered community, letting other academic communities fall by the wayside.
Recognizing the various barriers and pathways that influence membership and
participation of communities can help members in communities be cognizant of the
influence they have of attracting members. Also, these barriers and pathways are not just

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limited to one community, some can prevent or provide access to a larger network of
communities. This broader perspective of academic community brings me to the second
contribution to the literature, which is the idea of a intersectional academic community.
This study found that to understand part of the work-experience of faculty, a
perspective that allows for both a unifying and fragmented view of academic community
is needed. As noted, each faculty member has a conceptualizations of numerous
communities, some she is a member and others she is not. They may have common or
divergent members, goals, and/or citizenship behaviors. These communities appear to fall
into one of the five perceived communities at Mountain College. I used the term
“intersectional community” to describe this perspective. I use this term to describe how
both conceptualizations and perceived academic communities can be within
communities, and linked to yet other communities. However, despite the interrelation,
academic communities must also be viewed as its own entity. For example, within the
General Mountain community there are numerous student-centered, departmental, and
leadership communities. A person can feel outside and inside different communities
simultaneously, and this can best be seen when taking a step back to see the bigger
picture. It is this more holistic understanding that can add further insight to the
complexity that academic communities may pose for faculty.
This intersectional community perspective is similar to the Bergquist and Pawlak
(2007) argument that within an higher education institution there are six cultures that
exist simultaneously, and that a broader perspective incorporating how these cultures may
relate to one another can strengthen organizational effectiveness and our overall

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understanding of institutions. Unlike Bregquist and Pawlak’s work culture, I focused on
both the multitude of communities and a person’s simultaneous membership and non-
membership to various communities within an institution.
From this study it appears that there is a push-pull effect that communities may
have on faculty members, likewise faculty members experience a draw towards
membership and participation while being diverted away from others. Some of the
barriers and pathways to certain communities can be compounded in the larger
communities—for example, a new faculty member who finds an active mentor may have
an easier time entering into various communities compared to one who does not have a
mentor at all. A faculty member who feels isolated from their departmental community,
may have a more difficult time gaining membership into the leadership community. As
faculty may feel pushed away or deterred by some communities, they focus on others
such as the student-centered community. This interrelation among academic communities
and how faculty move among them may be difficult to see without the intersectional
community perspective.
3.Belonging and the Communities. This study helps explain some of the
discrepancy between adjuncts feeling ostracized from the institution, but still experience
commitment to the same institution. One of the key findings in this study is that feelings
of belonging to a particular community may help influence certain academic citizenship
behaviors—especially those that may require more effort or time. Those faculty members
who felt like they belonged to certain communities seemed to participate more in those
communities (e.g., volunteering for committees, taking leadership positions, providing

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input, and so forth). This finding is in line with some of the organizational theory
literature on employees that found that feelings of belonging may increase employee
involvement in organizational activities or contributions to the organization (Rhoades,
Eisenberger & Armeli, 2002; 2001; Meyer & Allen, 1997). Increased belonging then may
lead to increased feeling of commitment to the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997).
However, there seems to be a contradiction in the literature on adjunct faculty,
their feelings of belonging, and their commitment to an organization. By most accounts,
adjuncts should be less committed to their institution. The literature notes that adjunct
faculty are not satisfied with their level of integration with an institution, and often feel
like outsiders to the institution (Weisman & Marr, 2002; AFT, 2010; Gappa & Leslie,
1993; Schell & Stock, 2001). This lack of satisfaction concerns some researchers because
it implies a lack of commitment to the institution and may affect performance (Umbach,
2008; Maynard & Joseph, 2008). However, researchers have found that despite the
challenges that adjuncts experience, many are still committed to their institution and
work (Anthony & Valadez, 2002; Maynard & Joseph, 2008; Merriman, 2011).
This study shows how commitment to an institution can be a complex
combination of belonging to various communities within the institution. Previous studies
have not parsed out the various academic communities that can exist within in a larger
community or within an institution. In this study, faculty felt connected or isolated from
different communities at the same time. An adjunct faculty member may feel like they
belong to the student-centered community, but separate from the departmental
community. Thus, adjuncts may be committed to the teaching responsibilities and invest

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a great deal of time in the student-centered community, but not participate as much in the
departmental community. Some of these communities within communities share similar
goals and missions, for example the general Mountain, departmental, and student-
centered communities shared similar goals and mission. So commitment to one
community can look similar to commitment to the institution as a whole. The institution
may also receive “second hand” commitment, where faculty are so connected to one
community that they are de facto committed to the institution that contains that
community.
4. Community as determined through care. So, what is an academic community?
Throughout this study I have examined the different ways faculty have conceptualized
and perceived academic community. I have found that there are different perceptions of
what an academic community entails, and what it means to be a part of such a
community. Each one of the perceptions offered is a lens that highlights various
components of community college faculty life: teaching, service, collegiality, even
research to name a few.
However, what is it that makes an academic community rather than a collective of
academics? Kerr (1987) and Tierney (1999) write of bonds of social obligation,
something that goes beyond market and state demands. I offer a further addition to this
idea of academic community—that it be an imagined network of individuals connected
by similar goals, values, and norms, with a membership determined by care. Care is the
other key word in my revised understanding of community. When I use the term “care,” I
borrow from the care ethic tradition of Gilligan (1982) and Noddings (1984; 2006),

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“responsibilities that stem from compassion for and (concrete) connections with others”
(Gilligan, 1982; as cited in Park, 1996, p.58). With regards to the term “imagined” I mean
the conceptualization of “others” that can exist in a more abstract form without the
necessity of knowing who they are in a personal way. This idea stems from Benedict
Anderson’s work on nations in Imagined Community (1983), where he argues that
nations are not created based on political boundaries, but by imagined connections that
people have with others. The same can be applied to members of an academic
community, where faculty need not know everyone personally but can still consider
others as members.
Despite the different ways of thinking about academic community in this study,
the perceptions that seem to be the most pertinent to faculty experiences are ones where
membership and citizenship are defined through a concern or compassion for others
(even if different members of the community do not know each other personally). Faculty
who feel a responsibility towards their perceived community members may also be more
inclined towards citizenship behaviors that reflect that concern—such as advocating for
policies that they believe to be beneficial, mentoring other members, being collegial, or
inviting them to events. These actions are manifestations of a person’s conceptualization
of academic community. Likewise, the feelings of belonging that a person feels can be
related to the citizenship behaviors of other people. If a community creates policies that
disadvantage a person or a group of persons, or ignores a person or group, then those
individuals may feel marginalized within that community. But actions that reflect care
and concern can make a person feel like she belongs to a community and is a member.

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Those persons can feel like members of a community, even if they have not met all its
members because they experience the manifestations of community in their experience.
There were many faculty conceptualizations of academic community that
included adjunct faculty as members, but other than mentioning adjuncts as members
there were no other shows of interest or concern towards the welfare of those adjuncts
that went beyond upholding the faculty contract. This idea of care does not just apply to
adjuncts. I would argue that the membership of an academic community for a faculty
member is based on the concern of the individual for the welfare of others, be they
faculty in other departments or at other institutions. For many of the faculty in this study,
their academic communities remained very localized to the campus and the surrounding
local community but extended no further. The broad changes for adjunct faculty at
Mountain College occurred because leaders and members of various academic
communities saw adjuncts as partners in the same endeavor to educate students. Very few
faculty (save one) spoke about advocating for part-time faculty at other community
colleges. I argue for there to be a larger understanding of academic community—on state,
national, or global levels—members need to look beyond their local institutions and
extend their imagined membership to include others and to feel responsibility for their
welfare as well.
It is this sense of care and imagined membership that can help form the localized
community framework that can mediate the effects and influence of neoliberalism on
campus. Neoliberal tenets like cost-efficiency can be re-directed to the benefit of the
members of the community, not just for the sake of cost-efficiency itself.

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5. Citizenship and Responsibility. Related to the above section of a community
connected by care, this study also highlights the connection between citizenship and
responsibility of members in an academic community. As noted in the literature review,
Berberet (2002) defines academic citizenship as “bond of reciprocal obligation” (p. 34).
However, his focus is on the obligations between faculty and the institution, or faculty
and department. What he does not explore are the obligations of faculty towards other
faculty in the community. Berberet (2002) sees the institution/department as the primary
mechanism to support faculty—he does not examine the bonds faculty have to one
another to ensure that members are treated with respect by the community. Instead, his
“circle of value” asks that faculty meet their work obligation to their
department/institution.
Work obligation is a rather common interpretation of academic citizenship. As
noted, Thompson et al (2005) divide citizenship into rights and responsibilities, and of
the five responsibilities, four are predominantly work related. However, the final
responsibility notes that faculty are to “promote the welfare of the collective”—what
would be best for the larger community. Though promoting the welfare of all members
may also be promoting the welfare of the collective, the two are not necessarily the same.
In this study, academic citizenship and responsibility link with ideas of
membership and mission of an academic community. Faculty who feel a sense of
responsibility towards members of their community seem to feel obligated to ensure that
those members are not marginalized. Rather than just a responsibility towards the

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institution, or towards one’s work, responsibility must also entail behaving justly towards
the members of a person’s community.
Citizenship behaviors and responsibilities are also markers for other faculty to
determine membership in a community. When faculty are unable to meet their
responsibilities (either through their own choice, or through barriers preventing them)
other faculty may see them as outsiders to their community. This study found that though
full-time faculty and administrators acknowledged that some of the barriers existed for
part-time faculty that were beyond the control of adjuncts, a large number of faculty still
also believe that faculty participation is the responsibility of the individual. This
assumption can lead to membership definition that excludes adjuncts.
6. Certain adjunct faculty continue to have more barriers and less access to
certain communities than full-time faculty. This study supports the existing research
regarding the challenges that part-time and non-tenure track faculty face in more
traditional academic environments (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Gappa et al., 2007; Levin et
al., 2006; Schell & Stock, 2001). This study also continues to support the literature that
argues that neoliberalism has influenced community colleges in such a way that makes it
difficult for adjuncts to receive the equitable treatment that they want. Adjunct bias, lack
of time and resources, and isolation, though not necessarily the norm for all departments,
were still issues for adjunct faculty at Mountain College. What makes this remarkable is
that Mountain College is an exemplary institution, regarded as having an overall positive
environment for adjuncts and still these problems exist in pockets throughout the

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institution. In another institution, the environments could be much worse and negativity
may be more pervasive throughout the campus.
From this study it also appears that certain adjunct faculty, mainly aspiring
academics, experienced barriers to certain academic communities more sharply than
other types of adjuncts. This issue may mean further challenges in building community
because demographic trends suggest that aspiring academics are a growing population of
adjuncts. For example, aspiring academics may experience more difficulty participating
in departmental and leadership communities than a free-lance adjunct, and unlike some
adjuncts, aspiring academics may want to be members of those communities. At
Mountain College, the aspiring academics tended to be the “freeway-flyers” found in the
literature (Gappa & Leslie, 1993) and many simply lacked the time needed to participate
in the different communities. This lack of time has broad implications: they cannot
commit to some community responsibilities, have fewer opportunities to network and
find mentorship, and may not be able to attend professional development initiatives when
offered. Aspiring academics also seemed to be the ones interested in becoming more
active members in departmental, leadership, general campus, and research communities.
Those adjuncts who had full-time employment elsewhere seemed less interested in those
communities, and more involved in other external communities and the student-centered
communities. The adjuncts who had the most time to dedicate to the communities,
mentorship, and the desire to participate seemed most involved in different communities
beyond student-instruction.

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Practical Implications
This study also has several practical implications for campuses and their
stakeholders. Though this study focuses on a single large campus, the implications can
still be drawn for other campuses.
1. On-going need to observe climate and sense of community. There is concern
that without maintenance the positive work-environment that exists for many of the
adjunct faculty at Mountain College may not necessarily be sustained in the upcoming
years. Communities can be fluid entities, and academic communities can be especially
susceptible to change. Faculty retire, administrators find positions at other institutions,
and both part-time and full-time faculty spend an average of 5-7 years at an institution
(Hollenshead et al., 2007). Departments may shift composition due to student interest, for
example Geography and Political Science were once separate departments at Mountain
College, now they are combined due to a lessening number of students taking geography
courses. External factors like an economic recession, budget cuts, or grant decreases may
require communities to change goals or missions.
This susceptibility to change is can be a good or bad trait, depending on the type
of change people want make. When the changes first began to take place at Mountain
College, there was a continuity of members in the different leadership communities—
many started as part-time faculty and moved to full-time, others became chairs of their
departments, participated in either faculty senate or the association, and later became
administrators. Almost all of the administrative leaders (deans, assistant and associate
deans) at Mountain College were once faculty there, and a majority of them were

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instrumental to the changes for part-time faculty in the early 1990s. There are also
department chairs who were also present and instrumental to the changes as well. The
result of their efforts was a wall-to-wall faculty contract that boasts one of the best
polices and practices for part-time faculty in the nation, and full-time and part-time
faculty are aware of it. The faculty and administrative leadership were cognizant of
adjunct issues and have remained so.
However, there are new full-time faculty who are beginning to replace some of
the older faculty. There are now department chairs and senate and union leaders who
were not a part of the Mountain College shift over the years. There are also fewer
adjuncts-turned-tenured faculty. The hiring model has shifted as well, because Mountain
College has such a strong faculty contract, it is able to attract faculty from a broader
geographic area and have a more competitive faculty pool to choose from. A more
competitive pool, plus very few full-time openings due to high retention rates means that
adjunct faculty working at Mountain do not have as many opportunities to move into full-
time positions as they once did. In interviews, many of the newer faculty were not as
cognizant of part-timers as others. They pointed to the positive policies found in the
contract, but did little to go beyond the contract in terms of encouragement, open
invitations, open lines of communication, mentorship and so forth. In these departments
part-time faculty almost never see department chairs or other full-time faculty and some
have even gone semesters with only one interaction.
With the impending California budget cuts to higher education, and Mountain
College’s own budget cuts to conserve resources, adjuncts in all departments are faced

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with the possibility of not being re-hired for another semester. Per the contract,
departments must make cuts based on adjunct seniority—those newest to Mountain
College will be cut first. This policy alone is more protection that most adjunct faculty
have at other institutions. For those departments with chairs who are cognizant of their
adjuncts, they are looking to see if there are ways to cut elsewhere before losing adjuncts,
for example asking for faculty to voluntarily give up their overtime classes. Other chairs
are making cuts to adjuncts first. There is a concern that as time progresses, and fewer
people who were present for improvements to the adjunct workplace remain, the overall
positive work conditions for adjuncts will disappear. Without revisiting why these
changes to policies and practices happened in the first place, the importance of protecting
what policies exist and the motivation to further other policies may be lost because full-
time faculty and administrators no may longer see the importance of such policies,
especially if the fiscal crisis continues.
Instead, campuses should revisit reforms and policies to remind both themselves
and newer faculty members why such changes happened originally. These polices and
practices also have to be evaluated to determine if there are any gaps or weaknesses in
implementation, as well as to determine if there are areas of improvement to push further.
Mountain College faculty mentioned that at one time there was a lot of adjunct faculty
buy-in to the union and senate process, but that buy-in may be waning. With newer
faculty with difference experiences taking leadership positions, it is possible that the
changes for adjuncts that have occurred in the past may no longer appear important.

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2. Assumption of personal initiative. Faculty are not the only stakeholders who
must be responsible for developing or maintaining community. The institution is also
responsible for helping build academic communities. In many of the interviews in this
study faculty spoke about participation in difference communities as an issue of initiative.
In terms of their own participation faculty spoke of themselves as having the personal
initiative to participate and dedicate their time. They noted that other faculty may not be
as inclined to participate or are more reticent about coming forward. Though this may be
true of some faculty, for others this reasoning may not apply.
Many of the adjuncts in the interviews spoke about wanting to participate more in
various communities, but were unfamiliar with ways to join. For example, it was difficult
for adjuncts to find a mentor to guide them through their first years of teaching. Even
with initiative, other barriers like lack of interaction with faculty and physical isolation,
can prevent part-time faculty from even meeting full-time faculty much less develop a
mentorship relationship. Full-time faculty also do not necessarily seek out adjunct
mentees, unless they themselves were mentored as adjuncts. There are also other barriers
to communities that may prevent faculty from entrance or further participation: lack of
tacit or explicit knowledge, limited time, and even limiting policies.
By assuming that community participation is an issue of personal initiative,
faculty and administration may overlook those barriers that exist for some faculty. The
assumption also ignores some of the pathways that exist for some faculty, but not for
others. For example, having a campus presence is difficult for some part-time faculty
who are free-way fliers or who work at remote sites.

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One of the ways the institution can help is to establish institutional structures for
some of pathways that also can help overcome barriers. For example, the institution or
the departments may want to establish a mentorship program where part-time faculty can
meet both full and part-time faculty who want to become mentor on a voluntary basis.
Rather than focusing on a goal for these programs (e.g. get faculty mentors), the
institution may want to focus on the process to obtain the goals—determining initial
challenges, checking to see how mentorship relationships are going, seeing if mentees
become mentors themselves—as a way to implement different structures. Otherwise, as
seen in one of the mentorship programs, faculty are assigned as mentors in name only.
Campuses can also be more aware that they have a responsibility towards
community formation by making people more aware. By emphasizing the good that can
come from faculty being active participants in the various academic communities around
campus—gaining higher morale, easing the service load carried by the few faculty,
creating stronger connections among faculty, administration, and students, or improving
on-campus experience and the like—campuses can remind leaders and faculty of the
importance of maintaining a sense of community. This reminder can occur through
campus-wide campaigns, professional development, and even modeling from executive
leaders.
3. Physical Environment. One of the implications from this study is the
importance of physical location for building community among faculty and providing
opportunities for creating networks. One of the key components of building community is
the day-to-day interaction among and between faculty. In some departments, faculty met

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in shared workrooms and spoke with other another, they visited each other’s offices, they
shared meals in meeting rooms. Though some of these interactions are initiated, others
were more of the result of a chance meeting that later built into something more
substantial. Even seeing faculty and putting a face to the name is important to building
community, where members move from abstract concept to actual person.
There were some departments that were very conducive to helping build
connections among people—faculty offices built around a common area, a communal
office area where supplies and copier are kept, even large communal office spaces where
full-time faculty have adequate space and permanent desks. Departmental placement is
also important. In those departments where faculty felt most isolated, they were also
located at the far ends of campus. There would be no reason for faculty in other
departments to be there without a specific reason.
Physical layout is often considered immutable; a department cannot necessarily
easily change the building where it is located. However, there are small changes that a
department can make to encourage more interactions. For example, a thoughtful
positioning of mailboxes for both part-time and full-time faculty in a centralized area
may make a difference. Institutional events that take place at different parts of campus
may help faculty explore their own campus further, moving them away from their more
familiar spaces. And if the opportunity to redesign or restructure the physical layout of a
department, the institution may want to take a closer look at office layouts and determine
ways that best encourage positive interaction.

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4. Existing hierarchies. When talking about faculty, a common hierarchy
mentioned is based on employment status (adjunct, full-time, tenured, managers, and so
forth). However, in this study one of the predominant hierarchies that faculty mentioned
as a barrier to fostering community was the hierarchy among different departments and
divisions throughout Mountain College. For-credit academic courses had precedence over
for-credit vocational courses. In turn they both had precedence over non-credit courses.
Among the for-credit courses, the liberal arts and science departments appeared to have
more weight than the fine arts and professional departments. This hierarchy manifested
itself in numerous ways in this study, for example in representative committees, in terms
of funding allocation, and even in voting rights in the Academic Senate.
Though the hierarchy order may not be the same for every institution, it is
important for campus leaders to be aware of the existence of such hierarchies and which
departments or division have more power than others, and therefore more of an
institutional voice than others. Departmental/divisional hierarchy was most mentioned by
those faculty in departments who felt marginalized or ignored by the greater Mountain
College Community. It was also mentioned by those in the leadership community, who
felt that their voice had little influence on the rest of the Faculty Association or senate.
From this study, it appears that departmental/divisional hierarchy may contribute
to two negative influences on academic community. The first is that faculty tended to
participate less in the Academic Senate, Faculty Association, or even campus-wide
committees. Some of the faculty removing themselves from their representative positions,
thinking that their time could be better spent elsewhere. At Mountain College, many of

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the representative seats from departments with less influence are empty, and many have
been empty for some time. The second negative impact is the continuation of
departmental isolation and disconnect from one other, which prevents interdisciplinary
collaboration and continues the established hierarchy. Representative faculty from
different departments are often the only contact that departments have with one another.
Interactions where one department representative makes another one feel marginalized
can be conveyed to other faculty in the department fostering distrust or strengthening
preconceived notions.
Instead, institutions should determine the hierarchy that exists and examine
policies and practices that may unintentionally establish structures to enforce the
hierarchy. For example, one division at Mountain College, despite having a large
percentage of faculty has the smallest number of representation on the Faculty Senate.
Accidental hierarchies may cause unwarranted rifts in the overall community. Though
hierarchies still exist, then it is important for the institution to minimize the
marginalization experienced by those departments. Distributing committee leadership
among different departments or acknowledging departmental voices and differences can
be some ways alleviate some feelings of marginalization. Faculty in strong departments
may also have to understand that departmental hierarchy, though good for departments in
power can be negative to the overall goals of the institution and its stakeholders. The
institution can also integrate faculty further so that their experiences of other departments
are not limited to those situations where the department is marginalized.

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5. Building community. As noted earlier, building and maintaining an academic
community is not only the sole responsibility of members to the community. Both the
institution and the community also have a role in fostering connections and encouraging
citizenship behaviors. There are different ways that this task can be achieved. The first is
establishing clear goals and mission that members can support, which include supporting
and unifying members. Mountain College had an overall mission to advance student
learning and achievement, but they realized that this mission could only be met by
unifying and strengthening all faculty. This goal included part-time faculty because they
taught the majority of students. The second way to build community is to be cognizant of
the ways that the institution or the community itself both publicly and tacitly defines its
members. Formal declarations such as those found in mission statements or formal
representation in governance are more public than pay equity policies or evaluation
practices. However, both are important for both defining membership for others and for
making faculty feel like they belong. There is also a role for campus leaders in building
community. The literature is rich in ways higher education leaders can bring about social
change (for example see Astin & Leland, 1991, Kezar, Carducci & Contreras McGavin,
2006). Encouraging community can easily fit into the category of social change.
Making people feel like they belong is the third way to build community and it is
not limited to defining membership. Institutions can encourage more faculty interaction
in various ways: sponsoring campus-wide faculty events or professional development,
supporting more interdisciplinary initiatives such as joint classes or extra curriculars, or
even establishing an interdisciplinary mentorship program. Institutions and communities

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must also put in extra effort to ensure that different people and groups have a safe venue
to express their needs and concerns and opportunity to contribute.
All of these are possible ways to build community, but the real focus is to create
ways for faculty to establish ties with one another and to make those connections part of
their work experience. The idea is to find ways to connect faculty members, even those
who have never met one another, so that they feel responsible and obligated to behave in
the best interests of their colleagues and trust that their colleagues are doing the same.
The neoliberal framework can constrain the development of connections between and
among faculty, such as promoting competition and isolation among individuals. It can
also create rifts by creating a system that values on type of faculty over another. By
emphasizing the responsibility and reciprocity that people have for one another, it may
help overcome the negative influences of neoliberalism.
Future Research
This study is a small step in further understanding academic community and what
it may mean to the professoriate. There are various avenues for future research that can
take the ideas in this study and go further.
Though I have explored these conceptualizations of faculty at one community
college, it is important to see if these conceptualizations ring true for faculty at other
community colleges. There may be other types of academic community, or the pathways
and barriers to these communities may change depending on institutional context and
existing policies and practices. Even more importantly, because Mountain College is such
a distinct campus in terms of its work environment, understanding academic community

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from faculty at a less exemplary school or a negative case study can provide further
insight into the topic. It may be that faculty at a negative institution feel less like they
belong to any academic community, or have a different conceptualization of how
academic communities “should” be.
Likewise, further studies need to be done regarding the conceptualizations of
academic community in other types of institutions: liberal arts, research, vocational, even
for profits. It may very well be that the idea of academic community in these institutions
vary greatly, or emphasize different components of faculty life, or have changed since
earlier studies because the academy has transformed so much overall. These distinctions
could be important, especially if the term “academic community” varies from type of
institution. With regards to this case study, academic community rarely involved faculty
from other institutions, especially research institutions. It may be interesting to determine
if the same perspective is seen at different campuses. Other institutions may also have
ideas of academic community that coincide better with the existing literature. Also as
noted in the methodology section of this study, I focused more on examples of
community rather than lack of community. In further studies, it would be beneficial to
understand the lack of community in a predominantly neoliberal community college.
Rather than focusing on the ways that people are connected with one another, further
studies can examine ways that people are kept apart and isolated from one another—lack
of community.
These are more than just conceptualizations of academic community, for many in
this study conceptualizations guide their citizenship behaviors and establishes their

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priorities and goals. Depending on how a faculty member defines who a member is in her
community, or whether or not she feels like she belongs, her actions towards others—to
either help create a supportive environment, maintain status quo, or even create a
negative environment—can be shaped by that conceptualization of academic community.
We need to further explore this connection between our sense of community and our
behavior towards others in that community because it can shape the sense of community
other people experience.
In terms of community versus neoliberalism, further case studies could be
conducted on other institutions that have made changes towards more progressive
policies and practices for adjunct faculty. The case studies can focus on the change
process to determine the reasoning and leverage points that may be instrumental in
convincing faculty to move away from the neoliberal perspective. Currently the status
quo for adjunct faculty is already a very cost efficient way to employ faculty, even if it
comes with other non-monetary costs. As higher education funding becomes a larger
issue and calls for fiscal responsibility and efficiency occur, understanding the ways that
campuses balance such demands with other values to change the status quo may be key in
providing an alternative to academic capitalism that Slaughter and Rhoades (1996)
recommend.
Our understanding of the work experience of part-time faculty is still limited. The
most recent empirical study, aside from this one, still remains Gappa and Leslie’s (1993)
Invisible Faculty, and even that does not necessarily focus on the work experiences of
part-time faculty in community colleges. With many studies coming out that focus on the

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negative impacts that part-time faculty may have on students, we have yet determined if
those effects are the result of poor instructors or poor working environments. Using
Mountain College and other positive work places as a variable, further studies could be
done comparing the student results from different schools with similar student
populations.
Continuing with the lives of part-time faculty, with the shift in hiring models and
increase of graduates with Master’s degrees and doctorates, it is also important for us to
know who are the adjunct faculty based on Gappa and Leslie’s (1993) typography. In the
early rise of adjunct faculty many of them were experts or retirees, that number could
shift with more faculty becoming aspiring academics. Understanding this demographic is
important because, as the study mentions, different type of adjuncts have different needs
and may face different barriers to academic communities.
Finally, the idea of academic community as an imagined community with
membership defined by care. This idea needs further exploration to determine if
academic community in the traditional sense really even exists anymore, or if the
professoriate has become a fractured group of different smaller communities with
competing interests and/or values. We need to understand to what extent faculty “care”
about the welfare of other faculty—does it extend globally or is it limited to only the few
people that they have personal interactions with? From this topic may stem a new call for
faculty to re-examine their ideas of academic community and who belongs and does not
belong, and to determine if change can happen.

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Conclusion
At a time when the Academy has been emphasizing the rights of autonomy,
academic freedom, and self-governance, inadvertently it seems to also be emphasizing
separation: separation from other persons, separation from undue influence, separation
from other groups. These rights are good and necessary for the Academy to continue the
scholarship of discovery, integration, teaching, and application (to borrow from Boyer
1997), and they should continue to be protected. However, the Academy must also
remember the responsibilities that connect members to one another.---the responsibilities
of stewardship, respect, and ethical obligation.
The purpose of this study was to understand the ways that community college
faculty conceptualized academic community and if those conceptualizations helped
change the work environment for adjunct faculty. In other words, the purpose of this
study was to understand the ways faculty felt connected to other people, the
responsibilities that came with those connections, and how a combination of those ideas
helped improve the work environment of group of faculty who are generally
marginalized.
The academy may be able to learn from this case of Mountain College. Some
scholars have suggested that the strength of the professoriate is dwindling. Tenure and the
professoriate are under public scrutiny and people have called into question the value
versus the cost of higher education. The AAUP saw its membership decline from 90,000
in 1971 to 43,000 in 2007 (Wilson, 2007). In order to protect the rights of separation so
important to faculty work, the academy may need to connect to the majority of faculty in

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the United States and re-unify a fragmented professoriate. Unification, however, probably
will not occur unless leaders in the academy begin making good faith efforts in
addressing the concerns of non-tenure track.

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Appendix A: Examples of Positive Policies and Practices

The following are examples of positive policies and practices have been recommended by
the various stakeholder groups such as NEA (ND), AAUP (1993), AFT (2002) and
various scholars such as Gappa and Leslie (1993) and Baldwin and Chronister (2001).

The format borrows from AFT’s Standards of Good Practice for Part-time Employment.
1. Part-time faculty should be paid a salary proportionate to that paid full-time tenured
faculty of the same qualifications for doing the same work.
2. Part-time faculty should receive pro-rated sick leave and pay for holidays and breaks.
3. Part-time faculty should receive proportionate healthcare and pension benefits.
4. Part-time/adjunct faculty should be paid for holding office hours for student
conferences.
5. Part-time faculty who participate in institutional committee work should be
compensated if not getting pro-rata pay.
6. Part-time faculty should have unemployment insurance available.
7. Part-time faculty members should be hired and subjected to the same interview process
as any other applicant
8. A probationary period of time should be set for the evaluation of part-time/adjunct
faculty members, after which they will achieve a form of job security.
9. Part-time faculty should achieve a form of seniority.
10. Part-time faculty should be permitted to order their own texts and design their own
courses unless these are departmental decisions, then part-time/adjunct faculty should be
invited to participate.
11.Part-time faculty members should be oriented to the institution and to the department
12. Class assignments should be made using the same calendar and time line accorded
full-time faculty.
13. Part-time faculty should have office space and paid office hours to meet with
students.
14. Part-time faculty should have opportunities to participate in governance and
departmental meetings
15. Part-time faculty should have access to secretarial and technological support services

266

Appendix B: List of Documents used in Document Analysis

1. Mountain College Faculty Contract 2008-2011.
2. Mountain College Main Website
a. Faculty Association Page
i. Agenda and newsletters
b. Faculty Senate Page
i. Faculty senate leadership
ii. Faculty senate minutes
iii. Faculty senate agendas
iv. Constitution
v. Resolutions
c. Mission and Philosophy
d. History
e. Institutional Research
i. Evaluation report, 2010
ii. 2010 and 2004 self study
iii. 2007 mid-term report and evidence
3. Departmental webpages
a. Mission and philosophy
b. Faculty pages
c. Extra-curriculars
4. Faculty handbooks
5. Program brochures
6. Student newspapers and community newsletter

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Appendix C: Faculty interview Protocol

Interviewee: Faculty Appointment:
Department: Date:
Start Time: End Time:

Hello! First I want to thank you for taking the time for this interview. My name is Cecile
Sam and I am a researcher at the University of Southern California, Rossier School of
Education. For the past two years I have been working with non-tenure track faculty and
faculty leaders, hoping to understand both their experiences at their institution and help
find ways to improve their working environments. I think that for students to have a good
learning environment, faculty should have a good teaching environment. For this study, I
am focusing on Mountain because I would like to better understand your ideas of
academic community and your sense of responsibility towards your work, students, and
other faculty. I think there is much to be learned from Mountain, and I am interested to
hear what you have to say about working here.

This interview will be divided into approximately four sections. The first section will
focus on your background information. The second section focuses on work experience at
your college/s. The third section will focus on the responsibilities faculty may have as
members of a community. Finally, the fourth section will focus on your ideas and
experience of academic community.

I want to stress that there are no “right” or “wrong” answers, instead I am most interested
in the ways that you think how these elements both are or should be. I want to assure you
that your comments will be strictly confidential. I will not identify you by name in any of
my reports or publications. I would like to tape record this interview in order to have an
accurate record of our conversation. Would that be okay? If at any time you would like
for me to stop the interview early, I am more than happy to do so.

Do you have any questions before we begin the interview?

Background Information

1. How long have you been a faculty member at [institution]?
2. What department/s or programs are you affiliated with?
3. Have you worked at other institutions? If so, where?
a. How long were you a faculty member there?
4. Currently what is your faculty appointment?
[if part-time faculty]
a. Would you prefer full-time status?
b. Do you have full-time employment elsewhere?
c. What draws you to working part-time here?

268

Experience of Work Environment

1. Could you talk about your experience working at [institution]?
a. Is it different from your experience working in your department?
b. If so, how?
2. Do you feel included on this campus?
a. In the department?
3. In what ways does the institution/department make you feel included or
excluded?
4. How do you feel you are treated by other faculty members?
a. Could you give any examples?
5. Do you feel supported?
a. If so, in what ways?
b. If not, what makes you feel unsupported?
6. What are specific policies (if any) that you find beneficial to your experience at
[institution]?
a. Department?
b. How have they been helpful?
7. What are practices (those not explicitly or formally stated) that you find
beneficial to your experience at [institution]?
a. Department?
b. How have they been helpful?

Academic Citizenship

8. Could you please talk to me about your faculty responsibilities [what I mean by
responsibilities are those commitments or bonds you have to the students,
institution or other faculty, rather than faculty role] at [institution]?
9. Are there additional or different responsibilities for your department?
a. If so, what would they be?
10. Do you feel that you have responsibilities that are not explicitly stated in policies?
a. If so, what are they?
b. How do you meet these responsibilities?
11. Do you participate in campus or departmental activities outside of classroom
instruction?
a. If so, which ones?
b. Why do you participate?
c. If you do not participate, would you want to? Why?
d. If you do not wish to participate, why?
12. Do you feel you have responsibilities to other faculty members?
a. If so, what would they be?
b. If not, why?
c. What are the ways you feel you meet these responsibilities, or could meet
them?

269

13. Do you feel that other faculty members have similar or different responsibilities?
a. If different, how so?
14. As a faculty member, what do you think are your most important responsibilities?
a. Why do you rank these as most important?
15. What are the responsibilities, if any, would you like to see more faculty adopt?

Academic Community

16. Are you affiliated with any professional groups outside of campus?
a. Who is eligible to be a member?
b. What are some of the responsibilities of a group member?
c. Do you consider yourself an active member?
d. What would it mean to be an active member?
e. What are some of the values of the group?
17. Are there groups of faculty whom you interact with on this campus? Would you
consider yourself a community?
[depending on the groups in question]
a. Who are the members or who is a part of that group?
b. Do you consider yourself an active member? Why or why not?
c. What are some of the responsibilities members have towards each other?
i. [if different groups] Are they different for different groups? If so,
how?
d. What are some of the practices or events that happen as a group?
e. What are some of the values of this group?
f. How are these values expressed?
g. What challenges, if any, face this group?
h. How can they meet these challenges?
i. What are the strengths, if any, of this community?
j. What are ways to strengthen the community further?
18. What does the term “academic community” mean to you?
a. Could you give me some examples?

This interview is almost at an end. Is there anything else you would like to add or talk
about, that I may have missed?

I want to thank you again for your time, I understand that you are very busy and your
input is very valuable. Please feel free to contact me at any time if you have any
questions or would like to continue our conversation.

270

Appendix D: Administrator Interview Protocol

Interviewee: Administration Appointment:
Department: Date:
Start Time: End Time:

Hello! First, I want to thank you for taking the time for this interview. My name is Cecile
Sam and I am a researcher at the University of Southern California, Rossier School of
Education. For the past two years I have been working with non-tenure track faculty and
faculty leaders, hoping to understand both their experiences at their institution and help
find ways to improve their working environments. I think that for students to have a good
learning environment, faculty should have a good teaching environment. For this study, I
am focusing on Mountain because I would like to better understand faculty ideas of
academic community and their sense of responsibility towards work, students, and other
faculty. I think there is much to be learned from Mountain College, and I want to hear
what you have to say about working here.

I wanted to speak with you to get a different perspective about the academic community
here at Mountain College, as well as the directions you would like to see this community
go in the future. This interview will be divided into approximately four sections. The first
section will focus on your background information. The second section will focus on
some historical background of Mountain regarding changes in policy towards part-time
faculty. The third section will focus on the responsibilities faculty you feel faculty should
have to the institution, students, and one another and your impressions of faculty
collegiality. Finally, the fourth section focuses on future directions regarding the
institution.

I want to stress that there are no “right” or “wrong” answers, instead I am most interested
in the ways that you think how these elements both are or should be. I want to assure you
that your comments will be strictly confidential. I will not identify you by name in any of
my reports or publications. I would like to tape record this interview in order to have an
accurate record of our conversation. Would that be okay? If at any time you would like
for me to stop the interview early, I am more than happy to do so.

Do you have any questions before we begin the interview?

Background Information

5. How long have you been at Mountain?
6. What other positions have you held at Mountain?
a. How long have you been at your current position?
b. Can you briefly talk about your current role at this institution?

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Mountain Policies and Practices

19. Could you name some positive policies and practices for faculty that you would
like to highlight?
a. Could you describe XXX in it’s current phase? [implementation, is it in
contract language, etc.]
b. Could you please recount how XXX came to pass? [how the idea was
introduced, ways it was implemented, gaining support]

20. Are there any new or potential policies that are up for consideration?
a. Could you please recount how the idea was introduced?
b. Are there plans for gaining support for XXX?
21. Could you please describe the faculty collegiality you see?
a. Can you give me examples?
22. What ways does Mountain support faculty?

Academic Citizenship

23. Could you please talk to me the responsibilities expected of faculty [what I mean
by responsibilities are those commitments or bonds you have to the students,
institution or other faculty, rather than faculty role] at Mountain?
24. Do you feel there are responsibilities that are not explicitly stated in policies
[extracurricular participation, governance activities, mentorship]?
a. If so, what are they?
b. Do you feel faculty meet those responsibilities?
c. In what ways?
25. Do you feel that the responsibilities of full-time faculty are different from part-
time faculty?
a. If so, in what ways?
b. What do you think accounts for this difference?

Future Directions

26. What would an ideal academic community look like to you?
27. Do others share in this vision? Who?
28. What other policies or practices would you like to see get introduced to help
towards this vision of community?
29. What are the strengths of this academic community?
30. Other than the policies and practices mentioned, are there any others that exist
that help make that vision a reality or strengthen the current one?

This interview is almost at an end. Is there anything else you would like to add or talk
about, that I may have missed?

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I want to thank you again for your time, I understand that you are very busy and your
input is very valuable. Please feel free to contact me at any time if you have any
questions or would like to continue our conversation.

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Appendix E: Sample of Email Invitation to Participants and Faculty Consent Form

Hello! My name is Cecile Sam and I am a researcher at the University of
Southern California, Rossier School of Education. For the past two years I have been
working with non-tenure track faculty and faculty leaders, hoping to understand both
their experiences at their institution and help find ways to improve their working
environments. I think that for students to have a good learning environment, faculty
should have a good teaching environment. For this study, I am focusing on Mountain
College because I would like to better understand your ideas of academic community and
your sense of responsibility towards your work, students, and other faculty. I think there
is much to be learned from Mountain College, and I am interested to hear what you have
to say about working here.

I am writing to ask for your participation in a one-on-one interview with me to talk about
your experiences at Mountain College. The interviews range from 45-60 minutes at a
time and place of your choice. I would also be happy to conduct interviews over the
phone if it would be easier. Your identity would be kept confidential.

This study has received approval from both USC’s Internal Review Board, and Mountain
College’s Research and Institutional Effectiveness Department.

If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact me at cecilesa@usc.edu and we can
set up a time that suits your needs.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Cecile Sam

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University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angles, CA. 90089

INFORMED CONSENT FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

Part-time and Full-time Faculty Conceptualizations of Academic Community: A Mixed
Methods Case Study

Faculty Consent Form

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Cecile H. Sam, M.Ed, and
Adrianna Kezar, P.h.D. at the University of Southern California, because you are a
faculty member at Mountain College. The results of this study will be included in the
dissertation of Cecile H. Sam. Your participation is voluntary. You should read the
information below, and ask questions about anything you do not understand, before
deciding whether to participate. Please take as much time as you need to read the consent
form. You may also decide to discuss participation with your family or friends. If you
decide to participate, you will be asked to sign this form. You will also be given a copy of
this form.

This study has been approved by both USC’s internal review board regarding studies on
human subjects as well as Mountain’s review board for research on campus. Contact
information can be found at the end of this form.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
There are two purposes for this study. The first purpose is to gain a better understanding
of an academic community and academic citizenship from the perspective of faculty at a
two-year community college, and the second purpose is to better understand if
conceptualizations of academic community facilitate a positive work environment for
part-time faculty.

STUDY PROCEDURES
If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be asked to do the following:

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1. Participate in an individual interview. The meeting would last for no more than 45-60
minutes and be held at a location to be determined by you. . The interview is divided
into four topics.
a. The first topic is academic employment, questions may include: How long
have you been a faculty member at Mt. San Antonio? What is your academic
appointment?
b. The second topic focuses on you experience at Mt. San Antonio, questions
may include: Can you please describe your experience working at Mt. San
Antonio? Do you feel included on this campus?
c. The third topic focuses on your ideas of academic citizenship, questions may
include: Do you participate in campus or departmental activities outside of
instruction? If so, which ones? What do you feel are your responsibilities as a
faculty member?
d. The fourth topic focuses on your ideas of academic community, questions
may include: Are you affiliated with any professional/academic groups
outside of campus? Are there groups of faculty whom you interact with on
this campus more than others? Would you consider yourselves a community?

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no anticipated risks related to this study. The interviews will ask you to be
reflective of your work environment and explore your ideas of faculty work and
community, so certain topics may be more uncomfortable to speak about than other
topics. You are not required to answer any question that may make you feel
uncomfortable and you may stop your participation at any time.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
There are no direct benefits to you for your participation in the study, but the results of
the study will be shared with Mountain so that your commendations, recommendations
and concerns can be given a voice, while maintaining your personal anonymity.

There are anticipated benefits to academy as a whole, your participation can help other
institutions improve their working environments for faculty. In many ways, Mountain is
seen as an exemplary institution for faculty, and highlighting your institution serve as an
example for other colleges and universities. This study will also benefit the academy by
highlighting the idea that there may be a new reconceptualization of academic
community and citizenship that may be inclusive of all faculty, even at different
institutions.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
You will not be paid for participating in this research study

POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
There is no foreseen conflict of interest in this study.

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CONFIDENTIALITY
Any identifiable information obtained in connection with this study will remain
confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law.

Only the members of the research team, Cecile H. Sam and Adrianna Kezar, may access
the data.

The data will be stored in a locked office, and on a private external hard drive only
accessible via password. You have a right to review/edit your audio recordings if you are
interested, or request another interview if you wish to clarify anything. Once audio data
has been transferred to the hard drive, it will be removed from the recording device.
Detailed notes on each interview and data files will be coded based on date, faculty
appointment (part-time/full-time), and broad discipline (Academic, Vocational,
Professional, Fine Arts). Audio files will be destroyed no later than three years after the
completion of the study. If names are used, they will be pseudonyms.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
Your participation is voluntary. Your refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss
of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You may withdraw your consent at any
time and discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims,
rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study.

EMERGENCY CARE AND COMPENSATION FOR INJURY
If you are injured as a direct result of research procedures not done primarily for your
own benefit, you will receive medical treatment; however, you or your insurance will be
responsible for the cost. The University of Southern California does not provide any other
form of compensation for injury.

Mountain Student Health Center Hours: Fall and Spring Semester General Hours Mon-
Thurs. 8am-7pm, Fri. 8am-4:30pm. Winter and Summer Session General Hours Mon-
Thurs. 8am-6pm. Fri. 8am-4:30pm. The Health Center is not open on weekends or
campus holidays. Services are available only when classes are in session. Hours are
subject to change without notice, please call before visiting: (909) 594-5611, ext.4400.

The Mountain Health Center is located in Building 67B, lower level just east of the tennis
courts, north of the Pedestrian Bridge. The closest student parking areas are Lot F and
Lot H. Metered parking is available along Temple Avenue.

INVESTIGATOR’S CONTACT INFORMATION

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If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact
Cecile Sam, at Cecilesa@usc.edu or Adrianna Kezar at Kezar@usc.edu. You may also
contact them both at (213) 740-7218 during regular office hours – 8:30am through
5:00pm, Monday through Friday.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT – IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant
you may contact the IRB directly at the information provided below. If you have
questions about the research and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to
talk to someone independent of the research team, please contact the University Park IRB
(UPIRB), Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement, Stonier Hall, Room
224a, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu.

You may also contact Barbara McNeice-Stallard, MSc., at Mountain’s Research and
Institutional Effectiveness Department.
SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT

I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions.
My questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this
study. I have been given a copy of this form.

! I agree to be audio-recorded

! I do not want to be audio recorded

Name of Participant

Signature of Participant Date

SIGNATURE OF INVESTIGATOR

I have explained the research to the participant and answered all of his/her questions. I
believe that he/she understands the information described in this document and freely
consents to participate.

Name of Person Obtaining Consent

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Signature of Person Obtaining Consent Date

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Appendix F: Table Sample of Codes and Code table used in Analysis

Category Code Quotation
Membership Inclusivity
General Mountain “Mt Family”
Academic Community
as new term
You’re the first person I’ve heard it from
with those words put together. Here I
would think of it as more than just
faculty. I think that Mountain College,
the MT FAMILY, our academic
community includes our classified staff,
faculty full-time and part-time, and
managers. I do think that depending who
you talk to would say they would have
different viewpoints about classified.”
Barriers Lack of information
Barriers Lack of time
When you start as an adjunct, where I did
teach, there was never..I was never made
aware of the opportunities where I could
participate, but then again I wasn’t there
long enough. Maybe some people who
come here don’t feel a part of the
community—or are you teaching at 6 or 7
schools and barely getting by.
Barriers Conscientious effort of
inclusion

Departmental
Community

Leadership
community

Leadership
Community barrier
Existing policy
“As an adjunct I think it depends on what
type of department you have, what type
of chair, if you’re invited to meetings.
That’s probably the first thing, if you
were invited to meetings that would be
the first step in being a part of something.
I think you could move from feeling
disconnected to, depending on the
situation of your department, to feeling
more connected to your department. And
then again you know, the numbers that
participated in shared governance are
small compared to the overall numbers
that we have, but you know I think those
people feel more apart of the community,
they know that their voice and input is
valued. ..Unfortunately they can’t have
the top leadership roles because they only
get paid xx amount of hours and it’s a full
load for the top positions.”

Departmental
Community
Membership

As a department we have that sense of

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Physical Isolation community, we’re isolated so the school
is small—but we do work closely with
facilities and grounds department.
Overall campus
barrier
Hierarchy More from the English Lit group who
think that we are second-rate and it has
been said that we shouldn’t be at the
college level.
Friendship Academic
Leadership Academic Senate
“I made the few friends I did by being on
the senate”
Feeling of isolation “When I think of academic community, I
think its something that I’m not really a
part of..it’s something that other people
have?”
Academic
Leadership
Academic Senate “I see it more with the senate, there is a
group of people who are involved and
generally it is the same people over the
last 10 years. Some of them are new so
it’s nice to see. There is this core of
involved faculty leadership, and to me
that is the academic community”
Academic
Community as
researchers
“Academic community is a community
for researchers, people trying to tackle
big ideas and improve and increase
knowledge”
Academic
community
Socialization “AC, It is also teaching, and education
and socializing young people”
Student-instruction
community
Community within
community
“The AC is a teaching community,
whether you are a teacher, staff and you
work together for one goal. There are lots
of little sub communities and interacted
help one another, each department has
their own group and similarities.
External
Community

Academic Senate
It is a professional organization, and
Academic Senate
Student-instruction
community
Membership
Responsibility
AC is a learning community with the
teachers connected to the lesson plans
and the support services to get the right
help
Adjunct bias If you can’t get a job, you probably don’t
deserve one.
Departmental Similar Background These are people with a certain academic

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Community background—here it would be an MA, 4-
year a PhD, and not all PhD’s are created
equal.
Barrier to
Departmental
Community
Difference You and your colleagues are more or less
alike, and we don’t like people who are
different because that’s trouble, so you
have people who are similar to you in
your department.

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APPENDIX G: Communities and Interviews

Community Interviews that mentioned the
community
Student-Instructional Community o 19 were part-time faculty only.
o 9 were full-time faculty only.
o 13 were full-time, but once
part-time.
o 6 were administration

Departmental Community o 13 were part-time faculty only.
o 12 were full-time faculty only.
o 15 were full-time, but once
part-time.
o 6 were administration

Leadership Community o 8 were part-time faculty only.
o 10 were full-time faculty only.
o 15 were full-time, but once
part-time.
o 9 were administration

General Campus Community o 12 were part-time faculty only.
o 9 were full-time faculty only.
o 13 were full-time, but once
part-time.
o 9 were administration

External Community o 10 were part-time faculty only.
o 9 were full-time faculty only.
o 11 were full-time, but once
part-time.
o 9 were administration

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APPENDIX H: Hierarchy Among Departmental Communities.

Within Mountain College there were different departmental communities whose
members at times interacted with members from other communities. These interactions
often occurred in representational capacities, for example a representative from the math
department may be on the same committee as a representative from the ESL department.
However, for larger gatherings and events, such as graduation or fundraising events,
more members of different departmental communities come into contact with one
another. During these interactions many of the faculty experienced an established
hierarchy among the different departments. For example, one faculty member in the
health services noted that when all the departments come together that “there is a
hierarchy with different levels of respect and authority,” and it is visible when faculty sit
together at a meeting, “there is a cynical group, a self-interested group that goes [seats]
by seniority. [Her department] faculty sits in the back row together.” This hierarchy of
departmental communities plays a role in the part-time faculty work life especially if
those departments that are predominantly staffed by adjuncts are the lowest in the
hierarchy. Then, when issues arise that require representation from different departments,
those at the bottom have the least amount of leverage. It is important to note that the
hierarchy that exists at Mountain College may not be the same ones experienced at other
institutions.
At the top of the hierarchy seems to be the traditional academic for-credit courses
such as the liberal arts (e.g. English, Philosophy, or History), the social sciences (e.g.
Psychology or sociology), and the math and hard sciences (e.g. engineering or biology).

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None of these departments noted that there was a distinct hierarchy among the different
departments, nor did the faculty feel that their department was particularly marginalized
on campus. Some faculty did note a separation, but stated that it was because they were
not necessarily interested in what other departments were doing, for example on faculty
member in the sciences noted “I’m doing my stuff here, and their [other departments]
stuff isn’t as interesting to me so I am not over there”. This same faculty member has a
friend who teaches paralegal course but has no contact with her academically because
“there is no overlap in our disciplines.” It would follow that those departments that have
the most influence would not claim feeling marginalized or disrespected. However,
faculty in other departments at Mountain College mentioned these departments as the
ones who “look down” on them and their work.
The fine and performing arts departments at Mountain College are also an
academic for-credit course, but the faculty interviewed mentioned that for some time
their departments were not “taken seriously” by past administrators, nor was their work
“understood” by other academic faculty. For example, about fifteen years ago the theater
used by the theater, music, and dance departments were badly in need of renovations and
the programs were “in real poverty.” One faculty member noted that it was a “poverty
stricken program…there were certain well-endowed programs like the sciences that were
thriving, the situation with our program was peripheral. Administrative leaders at that
time “assured [him] that changes won’t happen.” It was not until a change in
administration and an injection of state money strengthened the performing arts program
to the “state-of-the-art program it is now.” Other faculty in the fine and performing arts

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departments also mention how academic faculty do not realize that in the fine arts “it
means keeping up with your own art and skills” in order to be a good instructor, that
producing work is their form of professional development. Faculty spoke about how
producing their own art is similar to “how other faculty do research” or attend
conferences. Though currently the departmental communities in the fine and performing
arts do not feel marginalized, they did so in the past and now just feel that some elements
of their work are misunderstood. The fine and performing arts department at Mountain
College straddles a line between the traditional academic for-credit courses and the
professional/vocational departments, which receive less respect.
Lower on the hierarchy are the professional and vocational departments. These
departments have for-credit classes and often provide certification or has an Associates
degree as its terminal degree, but the professional programs like business, education, and
health sciences may transfer to four-year institutions. Both groups, professional and
vocational, have mentioned that the academic faculty do not hold them in high regard, as
one faculty member mentioned “There are true academics, like math, English, history,
science, and they look down their noses at [health sciences]. They are taken more
seriously than vocational programs.” Numerous faculty in these departments corroborated
that they felt that academic departments “looked down” on professional/vocational
departments. Professional programs seem to feel this less, with their main complaint
being a lack of respect and a lack of understanding regarding their work, “if I could get
one message out there, it’d be to let them [academic faculty] know that are just as
educated as they are…We’re doing what they do, just a different subject.” More than one

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faculty mentioned that “the academic faculty does not have a good understanding what
goes on down here. It is us and them…” Though vocational programs also feel similarly,
there seems to be an added animosity, where some academic faculty feel that certain
programs/departments should not be at Mountain College, “I’ve heard faculty say aloud
that community college should be all academic and with no vocational programs.”
Another vocational faculty member said that he felt slighted by many departments,
“More from the English Lit group [traditional academics] who think that we are second-
rate and it has been said that we shouldn’t be at the college level.”
At the very bottom of the hierarchy are non-credit courses, mostly found in the
division of continuing education. Different faculty members have explained that because
they are physically removed, since many of the classes take place away from campus or
online—“we are isolated out here from everyone else.” These departments are also
academically removed as one faculty member explained:
At Mountain, I don’t think of what I’m doing as academic, as I would if I were a
full-time professor at [four-year university] or you know, our school is more
professional than other schools, but we’re non-credit. I teach academic skills, but
the students in my class are not academic bound, they are more vocation oriented.
Because these departments are not necessarily tied to specific disciplines, it could be that
this shapes how faculty perceive these departments, as another part-time faculty member
noted “When people think ‘academic community’ I don’t think they mean us. We don’t
teach actual disciplines or for credit.” These are also the same departments which are
only staffed by part-time faculty members, and their lack of voice within the campus is
made obvious when there is a faculty vote in either the senate or union, where non-credit
faculty have fewer representation with three representatives out of 46 total.

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These hierarchies among departmental communities may have implications with
the broader Mountain Community as well as for the part-time faculty work environment.
The first implication focuses on faculty voice and which faculty feel like they have a
voice and to what extent. For example, one faculty in a health professions department
said “I am a professional academic—I am heard, but not to the degree that I want to be.
Decisions are made above our heads, I wish I had a greater voice.” Some faculty felt that
their input was not respected, or even requested, and this lack of respect was due their
discipline, and subsequently their department. The idea of voice in one community may
be connected to participation in other communities such as the leadership community.
Some faculty were once active members or volunteered to participate in faculty senate or
Faculty Association, however after feeling “like no one really listened” or they stopped
participating or volunteering to participate.
For part-time faculty, this hierarchy among departmental communities may have a
impact on their own participation and voice in academic communities that include faculty
members from other departments. One part-time faculty member explained that she
stopped being a member of the academic association because “it took up a lot of my
time” and she felt that her input lacked impact. Instead, she chose other ways to dedicate
her time, like participating in outside communities as well as focusing on service within
her own department.

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APPENDIX I: Professional and Vocational Departments versus Traditional
Academic Departments
One of the components of this case study was to study different departments
within a community college. The idea was to obtain a breadth of experience from faculty
in these departments and to determine if any other factors may contribute to either ideas
of community or part-time faculty work environment. Of the different departments, the
organizational structure of the health sciences and non-credit programs seem to be best at
including part-time faculty into their academic community, compared to the traditional
academic for-credit departments at Mountain College.
The traditional for-credit departments at Mountain College are similar to many
other departments on different campuses, as well as those found in the research literature
on non-tenure track faculty experience. From the data, there appears to be an established
hierarchy, with the department chair, then full-time tenured faculty, then part-time
faculty. Though there may be pre-requisite and introductory courses with uniform syllabi,
each class is treated as a monad, with the individual faculty member responsible for
instruction within that class. Rarely are courses “team-taught” with two or more teachers
in a semester, though there are the rare few courses where two or more faculty work
together to teach a two semester course. Most faculty, both part-time and full-time, talk
about the relative freedom they have to be able to choose materials and content for the
course that they are teaching. One faculty member noted, “There is a recommended text
list, if you wanted to follow that, but those are only suggestions. I’ve never been told that

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I must teach from a certain book.” However, for those faculty members unfamiliar with
developing their own syllabus, many departments provide syllabi for faculty to use.
What does this mean for part-time faculty? Because of the more individualized
nature of the classes—part-time faculty can sometimes feel like they are isolated from
other faculty, especially in terms of instruction. The lack of interaction and autonomous
nature of the work means that often adjunct faculty are left alone to their own devices and
miss opportunities to network, gain mentorship, or even join in departmental activities.
The isolation may further strengthen the two-tier bias some full-time faculty may have,
since they have little interaction with adjuncts and assume “if you’re good, you would not
be an adjunct.”
Both the professional and vocational departments at Mountain College appear to
function differently compared to the traditional academic departments for part-time
faculty. Unlike the traditional academic departments, many of the professional
departments, such as nursing, law enforcement, education, and the like, are subjected to
state legislation or professional/accreditation associations in terms of requirements such
as course content, testing, practical hours (e.g. working in hospitals). These requirements
mean that departments need to be more hands-on with regards to course content,
instructors, and in some cases, student cohorts. For example, for the nursing program
cohorts of students must attend a series of courses and practicum, and take a test in
preparation for their board certification. Nursing students also have to take certain
general education courses throughout different departments to meet requirements. Even
in terms of leadership, external regulation is seen, as one faculty member noted:

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We have two people: a department chair, she takes care of the Mountain
requirements and handles what needs to be done here. We also have a program
director, she takes care of everything involving the BVNP (Board of Vocational
Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians). We actually are required by the state to
have someone appointed to that position…
How may this affect part-time faculty? Because of external regulations and
requirements, part-time faculty are an important element to help departments meet those
demands. In some departments, like the health sciences, part-time faculty are full-time
professionals in the field and fulfill the practicum courses that take place in their working
environments like hospitals, nursing homes, and so forth. For these departments, full-time
faculty and part-time faculty work in tandem—with full-time faculty teaching theory in
classes on campus and part-time faculty giving students hands-on practice. Instructors get
together to ensure there is alignment between the two courses, and work with various
directors to ensure their course aligns with the external requirements. Faculty must work
and interact with one another to ensure a successful well-regarded program. Especially in
the health sciences, most of the full-time faculty were first part-time clinical faculty. In
fact, many of the then part-time faculty were encouraged to apply to a full-time position
by their full-time counterpart. As one person noted “The faculty member I was working
with saw I had talent [with teaching] and encouraged me to apply when a position opened
up.” The adjunct faculty bias that seems to exist more in traditional academic
departments does not seem to exist as much in the professional departments. This lack of
bias may be due to the fact that many of the part-time faculty in the
professional/vocational departments tend to have full-time positions in their professional
field or prefer part-time work. Unlike academic departments, many of the
professional/vocational departments at Mountain College require that faculty either

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remain up-to-date with regards to certification (as in the health fields) or show that they
have the vocational skills necessary to instruct the class and in lieu of advanced degrees
and certification, show professional experience (such as welding).

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The poor work environment for part-time faculty in higher education is a topic that has been receiving more attention as the professoriate moves away from full-time tenure-track positions. In community colleges, the use of part-time faculty is even more prevalent. However, there are institutions that have been trying to create better work environments for their part-time faculty. It is important to understand how and why these few campuses decided to change. This qualitative case study of one of those exemplary institutions examines faculty conceptualizations and perceptions of academic community at a two-year community college, and explores the ways that these conceptualizations shape the work environment for part-time faculty. Among the findings, this study found that conceptualizations of community shape work environment in four ways: defining membership, providing mission and goals, create feelings of belonging, and influence citizenship behaviors.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Sam, Cecile H. (author)

Core Title Part-time and time faculty conceptualizations of academic community: a case study

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Education

Publication Date 05/01/2012

Defense Date 04/30/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag academic community,adjuncts,community college,contingent,faculty,non-tenure track,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Kezar, Adrianna J. (committee chair), Adler, Paul S. (committee member), Cole, Darnell G. (committee member), Wagoner, Richard (committee member)

Creator Email cecile.h.sam@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-18311

Unique identifier UC11290239

Identifier usctheses-c3-18311 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SamCecileH-686-1.pdf

Dmrecord 18311

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Sam, Cecile H.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA