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

Abstract

Community college research studies have noted that full‐time faculty add quality to the curriculum and enhance the student experience, as well as comprise a significant investment in college budgets and futures. However, in the context of fluctuating patterns of student enrollments and staffing, determining which disciplines need additional full‐time faculty can be challenging. Drawing on both institutional enrollment and Human Resources teaching and hiring data, this paper develops a decision model that incorporates values and goals for staffing, to ensure that all disciplines are staffed equitably given available resources. By computing the instructional credit hours available by campus and discipline, we can identify true gaps in coverage. Using this model, we find that certain staffing policies impact the full‐time faculty coverage and total full‐time faculty needs, such as staffing by campus. Full‐time faculty are a significant investment that shapes the future of colleges. We propose strategies that other institutions could adapt to their own settings, to improve full‐time faculty coverage across both disciplines and campuses.

Multi-Semester Course Staffing Optimization

“…This can help ensure there is no bias of any kind in course offering and/or staffing [3]. Due to changes in the education landscape over the past years, faculty strength in many academic institutions largely comprises of adjunct or part-time faculty [4] thus making staffing of courses even more challenging because of additional availability limitations of adjunct faculty due to their full-time industry employment or teaching at multiple institutes.…”