MCCCD Will Hire 360 Teachers to Cut Dropout

The Maricopa County Community College District will hire about 360 new full-time faculty members over the next several years to keep students from dropping out.

About 60 percent of classes are taught by part-time, or adjunct, faculty and 40 percent by full-time faculty. The colleges want to have more residential faculty who can spend more time engaged with students.

“We want to focus on outcomes, and that happens in the classroom,” said Rufus Glasper, chancellor of the 10-college district.

“We’re going to focus on the fact that faculty are going to be asked to not only teach students but to help us understand a better pattern of success,” he said. “We’ll be asking faculty to do more in terms of advisement and more things with clubs — to actually be on campus more and be around more of our students.”

The percentage of part-time faculty in the system grew over the last several years, mainly because of the economy. During the recession, enrollment surged by more than 33,000 students as laid-off workers went back to school and high-school graduates chose the more inexpensive community colleges over universities.

Latinos are the fastest-growing student population in America and a new effort is now focused on leveraging the critical connection between their educational attainment and the future of our national economy. 

In 2010, the district committed to increasing the number of graduates and students who successfully attain a professional certificate or transfer to a university.

Glasper said that filling all 360 full-time positions will take five years or more and will be funded at least partially by money saved by hiring fewer adjuncts.

This year, 32 full-time faculty positions were added across the district, which cost about $2.3 million. This past spring, the district raised tuition and the county property tax. Part of the revenue was used for the hires.

The district has about 1,470 full-time faculty positions and about 6,800 adjunct positions this year.

The Maricopa County Community Colleges Faculty Association said that many studies have found higher graduation and retention rates for students when colleges have more full-time faculty, and lower rates with more part-time faculty.

he District was established in 1962, with a single college and has since grown to serve over 270,000 students in credit and non-credit programs making it the largest provider of post-secondary education in the state of Arizona. Today, the district’s colleges and centers offer comprehensive educational programs in professional, occupational, special interest, and continuing education curricula to serve the needs of the rapidly growing county area.