A focus on faculty professional learning, given the challenges that California community colleges and students face, must remain a high priority and continue to evolve. The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) has long been an advocate for the development of robust professional development policies as part of senate purview…

In April 2013, "NEJHE" launched its "New Directions for Higher Education" series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs, and practices. In this installment, DiSalvio interviews Adrianna Kezar, professor of higher education at the University of Southern California…

At three different institutions, public and private, in varying roles, I have found the very particular problem of how to inform micro-level classroom practices with macro-level disciplinary knowledge to be centrally important to our field's development and our students' learning--and singularly difficult to overcome. In this program profile, I…

One of the author's enduring concerns about the concept of academic freedom is with semantics. It has seemed to him that one of the biggest difficulties with discussions of academic freedom (as with many conversations about "value-laden" terms such as "democracy," "equity," and "justice") is that people begin from different positions and with…

The older teacher in today's college environment may find the generation gap between him and his younger colleagues wider than the one between him and his students. He may have trouble initiating shoptalk with the younger generation of careerists whose dossier is scrutinized annually by multiple pretenure review committees. When it comes to…

This reflective essay describes the distinct ways that the scholarship of teaching and university has been integrated into the academic culture at two very different universities with the suggestion that universities who actively study their own relationship and history with [Scholarship of Teaching and Learning] (SoTL) can make some empowering…

A combination of destructive trends in higher education--shrinking state budgets, stagnant student aid, the growth of corporate-style management, the overuse and exploitation of contingent faculty, increasing workloads and attacks on academic freedom--is weakening the educational integrity and professionalism of American colleges and universities.…

In this article, the authors provide a description of the academic climate in New Mexico. Like many other places in the world today, New Mexico is trying to find an identity in an environment that the authors label "increasingly privatized, corporatized, and militarized." New Mexico's higher education salaries are lower than those in…

As anyone who has ever defended a thesis or been on a tenure track must know, American institutions of higher education have rigorous and finely calibrated ways of according respect to those who work in them. What they do not have enough of is respect from those beyond their gates. The author argues that the system that created the two-tiered…

The federal government should act quickly to formulate a rational policy that will encourage the use of part-time faculty members as a means for promoting affirmative action in colleges and universities. (Author/IRT)

Presents a rationale for the orientation of part-time instructors and suggestions for orientation program design and areas to be covered, such as emphasis on quality, college-level work, textbooks, class attendance, grades, examinations, prerequisites, academic deficiencies, visitation of classes, student evaluations, and facilities. (AYC)

The current economic squeeze on campuses has resulted in the increased use of part-time faculty. The advantages and disadvantages are outlined with emphasis on the advantages and the obvious growing necessity for the use of part-time personnel. (JMF)

A "Bill of Rights" for part-time adult educators encompasses the right to (1) discrete budgets; (2) initial training; (3) management support; (4) practical support; (5) peer support; (6) ongoing staff development; (7) access to adequate resources; (8) multiagency support; and (9) recognition of the value of part-time teachers. (SK)

Describes the experience of two nursing faculty members who shared an assistant professor of nursing position. Discusses positive and negative aspects of the experience and notes that a unified and creative approach must be taken for it to succeed. (JOW)

Focuses on the differences in managing in private and public organizations. Discusses those factors that affect management in adult education organizations. (Author)