Perceptions of the Willingness of Part-Time Instructors in Community Colleges in the U.S. to Engage in Professional Development Opportunities and the Best Method(s) of Delivering These Experiences

Higher education personnel have found that the use of part-time teachers helps to meet the institutional needs of maintaining current and relevant training programs in the technology driven climates of new and emerging career and technical areas; providing training programs on an occasional, on-demand basis; and reducing the risk of offering ongoing programs for which low enrollments are anticipated. Additionally, numerous part-time faculty have been hired to maintain close ties with business and industry as many are practitioners in the field in which they are teaching. In this way, colleges can remain on the cutting edge in the face of changing career needs, skill expectations, and the world of work (Leslie, 1998;Phillippe & Patton, 2000). Community colleges have begun to realize that these very same part-time faculty/industry practitioners strengthen their career and technical programs with the application of real world perspectives. In fact, many new skills-related technology courses often have required the expertise that full-time faculty do not have.