Rob Jenkins writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education on the recent interest expressed by more graduate students in a career teaching at 2 year community colleges:
His advice for aspiring applicants for a community college job: Teach, teach, teach.. put as much teaching experience on your resume as possible.
In any hiring cycle, about 40 percent of the available teaching positions are at two-year campuses. Moreover, a surprisingly large number of Ph.D. students are actually, and actively, interested in community-college careers, perhaps because they've discovered (as I did) that what they really enjoy most is teaching....
....However, the fact is, community colleges have been hiring more and more Ph.D.'s—mostly because they can, given the glut of Ph.D.'s on the market, but also because many two-year colleges these days aspire to become four-year institutions. I know of a few that are now hiring Ph.D.'s exclusively. I think it's a really bad idea for a teaching institution to effectively eliminate so many outstanding, qualified teachers from consideration just because they don't have research degrees. I also think that, in its own way, that sort of intellectual posturing on the part of some two-year colleges may actually contribute to the glut of Ph.D.'s. But alas, nobody asked me.
His advice for aspiring applicants for a community college job: Teach, teach, teach.. put as much teaching experience on your resume as possible.
"I think it's a really bad idea for a teaching institution to effectively eliminate so many outstanding, qualified teachers from consideration just because they don't have research degrees." Good point.
ReplyDeleteI agree too. I also hope all community colleges don't become overenthusiastic about transforming into 4 year institutions. that would mean getting further away from the current important role as a preparatory stepping stone to a higher degree or as technical diploma route to a job they are playing in the U.S. college education ecosystem
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