Connecting College and Community in the New Economy? An Analysis of Community College Faculty-Labor Market Linkages.

Strengthening the linkages between educational institutions and the labor market is an important component of improving U.S. education and training system. In an effort to gather data on faculty linkages to their institutions, local labor markets, and communities, surveys were mailed to 3,500 academic and vocational faculty at community colleges across the United States requesting information on their characteristics and involvement with business and community organizations. Study findings, based on responses from 1,725 faculty, included the following: (1) vocational faculty were more connected to the labor market, largely because their programs depended upon enrollments and placements for survival; (2) part-time faculty had generally weak connections to their institutions, as well as lower levels of connectivity to the labor market; (3) faculty had very little available time to undertake intensive linking activities; (4) a lack of institutional resources limited professional development and workplace placement opportunities for faculty; (5) institutions did not formally reward linking behaviors and faculty received little support from their colleges, with the exception of vocational faculty in career assistance activities; (6) faculty in multi-campus districts generally showed lower levels of connectivity; (7) strong boundaries existed between academic and vocational departments and between credit and non-credit programs in most colleges, limiting collaboration and information sharing; and (8) local conditions greatly affected the opportunities for faculty to build linkages. Contains 18 references. Data tables are attached. (TGI)