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VOLUME XVII, NUMBER 7

st INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD), COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, THE

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN * WITH SUPPORT FROM THE W. kK. KELLOGG FOUNDATION AND THE SID W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

 

Using Media to Deliver the Message

Distance learning instruction is routinely delivered
via Internet, cable TV, multi-media, CD-ROM, fiber
optics, loaned audio cassettes, and ITFS, to name but a
few methods. Speculation about future delivery mecha-
nisms sounds like science fiction. We are witnessing a
revolution in teaching and learning.

Yet when we look beyond the curriculum, when we
examine the ways in which we communicate with our
staff and students on a daily basis, we often are decid-
edly low-tech. We are still comfortable with writing a
memo, printing and mailing a class schedule, sticking a
post-it note on a flier, or calling a meeting. We readily
associate innovation and technology with instruction
but manage our own administrative affairs in a more
conventional fashion.

If we have the technology to make instruction more
exciting and meaningful, should we not use the same
technology to make our professional development
activities and daily communication tasks easier and
more enjoyable? Many colleges do, and we offer some
examples here.

Communicating with Adjunct or Part-Time Faculty
There are more than 200,000 adjuncts nationwide.
Almost two-thirds of all community college classes are

taught by adjuncts, representing 30% of all credit
instruction and nearly 100% of non-credit classes. In
California, we often call them “freeway fliers,” educa-
tors who teach part-time at one or more community
colleges, often logging 100+ miles a day to teach classes
at several locations for different employers.

Often (and unfortunately) they are hired at the last
minute; given a syllabus and a cursory orientation to the
college, division, or department; and told not to worry.
Professionals such as lawyers, accountants, and manag-
ers, brought on board to teach because of their discipline
expertise, can only shake their heads when given such
poor preparation for their first teaching assignment.
When this situation occurs, college statements about
educational excellence, caring attitudes, and valuing
staff contributions are hollow and self-serving.

Nor should we become smug just because we have
developed a thick adjunct faculty manual. It will

probably be reviewed in haste by the harried adjunct,
who gets no better sense of his new job or employer.
Burying the adjunct in a mound of policies and proce-
dures will not cause learning to take place in either
teacher or student.

One innovative attempt to reach and orient this often
underserved but vital contributor to our educational
efforts is a recent video package from St. Petersburg
Junior College, entitled “Excellence in Adjunct Instruc-
tion.” The program offers three video components on
teaching in a community college, preparing for success-
ful teaching and learning, and responding to diversity.
Augmenting the videos are printed guides for both the
prospective adjunct and the institution.

The videos touch all the important points without
making them location-specific, thus allowing individual
colleges to fine-tune their orientation activities around
the St. Petersburg tapes. Issues such as ADA legislation,
ethics, sexual harassment, standards of professional
conduct, college support services, and ethnic and
cultural diversity are handled in a professional manner.
The real-life situations and scenarios allow the viewer to
relate immediately to the issue at hand, and the printed
adjunct guide augments the visual presentation in an
effective way.

Many college orientation programs for adjuncts
decentralize the process, making it a departmental
challenge (or problem). Incorporating this video
package into the local orientation process ensures that
each adjunct will undergo a uniform experience, and the
burden of repeating materials each time a new adjunct is
hired is greatly reduced.

Developing Faculty and Staff

In a recent keynote address before the annual confer-
ence of the Association of California Community
College Administrators, President Steve Mittelstet used
examples of videos produced at Richland College
(Texas) to illustrate their approach and commitment to
staff development. The excerpts were informative and
humorous, and they gave the impression that the college
was a caring and fun place to be.

In one videotaped sequence, administrators partici-

 

  

\ THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD)
‘Community College Leadership Program, Department of Educational Administration
College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, SZB 348, Austin, Texas 78712