Community College Adjunct Faculty Perceptions of Meaningful Professional Development

ABSTRACT Community colleges increasingly rely on adjunct faculty yet often overlook their professional and pedagogical development. Adjunct faculty in community colleges are key to the mission of educating students while operating in a fiscally constrained environment. This study contributes to understanding how community college adjunct faculty perceive the quality of the professional and pedagogical development offered by their institution. The phenomenological approach draws upon 19 interviews with adjunct faculty. These faculty teach across 15 academic programs that are nested within five departments at a single community college. This nested program‐in‐department‐in‐institution research design provided insight into departmental and institutional dynamics as well as cross‐departmental phenomena. The study has two main findings related to adjunct faculty development within community colleges. First, adjunct faculty perceive their sense of belonging to both the academic department and to the institution as critical for their professional and pedagogical development. These faculty members desire more communication from the institutional level about a range of topics. Some of these topics include messages to feel welcomed as faculty members to the institution, initial briefings on the policies and procedures to help navigate campus life, and ongoing communications to strengthen connections to the school community. The second finding related to onboarding and training. Adjunct faculty highly value the training that they have received from their institution. They particularly appreciated introductions to learning management systems and classroom technology. Universally, they feel even more training is needed to succeed in their teaching roles. Three specific areas of training they stated would be valuable for greater institutional investment include onboarding meetings, college‐supported technology training, and classroom pedagogy seminars. Scarce financial resources at many community colleges require pragmatic solutions for strategic investment in adjunct faculty development. As scholars who are aware of administrative constraints, we acknowledge that not every good idea can be implemented due to resource limitations. As such, based on the findings of the study grounded in the perspectives of the adjuncts, as well as extant literature on good practices for faculty development, we offer cost‐effective recommendations about adjunct professional and pedagogical development opportunities.