Search results

Community colleges are an under-recognized but vital component of higher education. Public two-year colleges provide a foundation for baccalaureate degree attainment, educate a skilled math and science workforce, and support local economic development. Our research, which examines women STEM faculty at community colleges, highlights the role of gender in reproducing advantages and disadvantages within the academy.

Data were collected by face-to-face interviews with 27 women faculty at nine community colleges in Ohio. We utilized semi-structured interviewing techniques to examine key dimensions such as decision-making leading to employment in two-year institutions, perceived advantages and disadvantages of such work, job satisfaction, and challenges to balancing career and family.

Results indicate considerable satisfaction among women faculty members, but contradict a popular stereotype that work at community colleges is easier for women with families. Despite relative parity in terms of occupational composition, pay, and tenure, community colleges are gendered in that they lack formal programs, institutionalized support, and leadership opportunities to support women.

Adjunct faculty play an important role in higher education but are underrepresented in our sample. Future research is needed to examine the unique situation of part-time faculty.

Community colleges are uniquely poised to contribute to improving gender equality for women in STEM. Understanding community colleges and the academic careers of women in STEM employed by these institutions is a vital step in our nation’s efforts to develop systemic approaches to increase representation and advancement of women in STEM careers.

This introduction sets forth the main themes of the volume, reviews the methods employed by the contributors, and demonstrates the relationships among the chapters.

Each of the chapters demonstrates the gendered nature of the academy and some of the ways in which women, especially women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, are disadvantaged. None of them provides complete catalogues of the issues confronting women and none reach definitive conclusions regarding the ways and means of transforming the academy. Additional research and experimentation will be required.

The gender transformation of the academy holds the promise of more opportunities for women, especially but not only in STEM disciplines and higher administration, and greater probability of balance between work and personal life for all.

The chapter serves as an overall introduction to the volume and the subject matter more generally.