Part-Timers Teach More in Ventura County

Ventura County community college students are taught fewer hours by full-time faculty than students in most other districts in California, figures from the state chancellor’s office show.

According to the findings, part-time and full-time faculty members at each of the county’s three community colleges split about 50% of the instruction time, while statewide, full-time faculty members, on average, teach 62% of the instructional load.

The data raise questions about the quality of education at the county’s colleges, say members of the faculty union, because most part-time instructors are forced to hold down several teaching jobs to make ends meet, and consequently have limited loyalty to any one college campus.

And while part-time faculty members are generally as educated and competent as their full-time counterparts, such instructors earn about half of the $60,000 average annual salary of a full-time faculty member.

Part-time instructors in the Ventura County Community College District make an average of $40 an hour without benefits, and are paid only for the time they teach, union members said. They receive no additional pay for class preparation or office hours, so very few offer advice or counseling to students outside of class time.

“Having access to teachers through office hours is an integral part of the higher-education experience,” said Ruth Hunt, executive director of this region’s California Federation of Teachers. “Two students could be taking the same history course, one taught by a full-time teacher, the other by a part-time [one]. But even though [the students] are paying the same amount of money, only one student will have access to direction and help outside of class. And that’s a travesty.”

Part-time instructors, however, say they often give students their home phone numbers and e-mail addresses to answer questions away from campus.

Recognizing the benefit of having full-time faculty members available for office hours and curriculum development, the state Legislature in 1988 attempted to limit the use of part-time instructors by requiring college districts to pursue a goal of using part-time faculty for only 25% of instructional time.

But an extended recession in the early 1990s interfered with reaching that goal. Tight budgets during the period led campus officials across the state to increasingly rely on lower-paid, part-time instructors to cover classes.

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As the economy improved, the state chancellor’s office found that California’s community colleges had generally added full-time faculty members. In 1997, 60.8% of instructional hours statewide were taught by full-time faculty members. In 1998, the figure rose to 62.2%.

But during the same period, the hours of instruction by full-time faculty in Ventura County dropped from 51.2% to 50.8%, figures show.

When ranked against other districts in terms of full-time instructional hours, Ventura County places 64th out of the state’s 71 districts, a union analysis shows.

While not disputing that some students may be at a disadvantage because of part-time instructors’ hectic work schedules and dearth of office hours, Ventura County district officials say insufficient state funding prevents them from hiring additional full-timers.

Deputy Chancellor Mike Gregoryk said the state does not equally distribute community college funding on a per-pupil basis, and the rates are somewhat tied to a community’s property-tax levels.

“If you have more funding, you can hire more full-time faculty,” he said. “But the state is not willing to look at inequitable distribution among students.”

He said his district, which serves 22,000 students, plans to join with those receiving a similar level of funding to demand additional money from the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis.

According to 1998-99 revenue figures, the district received about $3,500 per full-time student, $251 less than the state average.

But a number of other multi-campus districts with per-pupil funding even lower than Ventura County’s have full-time faculty teaching a higher percentage of classes.

For example, the North Orange County Community College District receives about $3,300 per student, but 67.5% of the instructional hours at its trio of campuses are taught by full-time teachers, figures from the chancellor’s office show.

And the San Diego Community College District, which at a little more than $3,000 per student receives one of the lowest funding rates in the state, still has full-time faculty teaching 59% of the instructional load.

Barry Garron, spokesman for the San Diego district, said his chancellor and board of trustees are committed to hiring as many full-time instructors as their budget allows.

“It’s important to have a large core of full-time faculty for office hours and curriculum development,” he said.

Students, he said, benefit from additional contact with instructors, even if it only means running into them in the cafeteria.

The California Federation of Teachers does not want colleges to cease hiring part-time instructors altogether. Real estate brokers, for example, are appropriate instructors of real estate courses, as are practicing attorneys who teach business law.

But the union maintains students are not getting the full value of their tuition when large numbers of general education classes are taught by part-time instructors. Dubbed “freeway fliers,” these instructors often drive as much as 50 miles between campuses in order to earn a living.

“Part-time teachers are preoccupied with making ends meet,” said Scott Suneson, part-time faculty coordinator for the California Federation of Teachers.

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Homer Arrington, an English teacher at both Ventura College and Santa Barbara City College, said that on the same three days of the week, he teaches a class in Santa Barbara in the early afternoon and two classes in Ventura in the late afternoon and evening. With such a schedule, Arrington said he finds it difficult to counsel students, especially when his last class ends at 9:20 p.m.

“There are built-in limitations with conversations in a parking lot at night, when both the student and I are at the end of a very long day,” said Arrington, who, like most part-time instructors, does not have any assigned faculty office space.

And because of the limited access, some of the more savvy students in the district may intentionally avoid classes taught by part-time instructors.

Valerie Starkgraf, a third-year student at Moorpark College, said that although she knows that part-time faculty members are generally good teachers, the lack of opportunity for one-on-one instruction that she experienced during her freshman year persuaded her to enroll only in classes taught by full-time teachers.

Starkgraf also said part-time teachers who hold down jobs at other colleges are not loyal to Moorpark College. “They’re not really connected with us,” she said. “They don’t put down roots.”