Hiring and recruiting female faculty

Abstract

This chapter explores the attractiveness of community colleges for female faculty. It highlights several areas that need continued improvement to attract and retain female faculty and provides recommendations for changes to policies and practices. Hiring and Recruiting Female Faculty Jaime Lester, Trudy BersThe picture of gender equity in the faculty ranks at community colleges is murky. Community colleges are generally more inclusive to female faculty as compared to four-year institutions. Women represent 49 percent of fulltime and 50 percent of part-time community college faculty, a stark contrast to the low numbers of female faculty in four-year institutions (Cataldi, Fahimi, and Bradburn, 2005). Female faculty at community colleges also receive similar rates of compensation. West and Curtis (2006) found that women' s faculty salaries are 81 percent as a percentage of men' s in all public institutions and 95 percent at public two-year colleges. In contrast, gender segregation continues in traditionally feminized disciplines-professional and academic disciplines that are historically populated by women. English, education, human science, health professions, and library science are primarily dominated by women, with over 65 percent of the faculty being female, while more than 70 percent of the faculty in physical science and security and protective services are male faculty (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009).This chapter explores the attractiveness of community colleges for female faculty in order to understand why female faculty enter community colleges overall but in traditionally feminized disciplines. We also highlight the areas that need continued improvement and provide recommendations for how current leaders and faculty can continue to attract women to the community college and diversify the academic and vocational disciplines in which they are underrepresented. 5

Instructional faculty staffing in community colleges: A data-driven method for staffing multi-campus institutions.

“…As cited by Flannigan, Jones, and Moore (), each new employee could represent a $3 million investment over the course of a career (and this cost could be even higher today). The changing needs of the institution should be carefully examined so that hiring practices do not automatically “perpetuate…existing employee patterns,” but instead use limited resources to craft a diverse, highly qualified faculty that effectively meets current and future student needs (Lester & Bers, , p. 42).…”