Cedar Valley College

A Process for Faculty Hiring

Cedar Valley College, one of the seven colleges in the Dallas County Community College District has been growing rapidly, and has been faced with the problem of deciding how to add faculty as the college grows. Although it would seem that the obvious answer to which disciplines need new faculty would be the disciplines growing the most, this answer was not a politically acceptable one. Both faculty and deans cited subjective variables they believed should count as much, if not more, than the numbers of enrollments per discipline. Among those variables cited were the difficulty in finding adjunct faculty in some disciplines, optimum class size, potential for future growth, and the need for new or different expertise in some disciplines.

Tasked by the President with developing a process for determining which disciplines would get new faculty, the Vice Presidents, faculty, deans and institutional research office worked to develop a workable model. The model has been tested once and refined. All involved believe the model will evolve over the next few years and become even more useful.

A team of 4-5 employees is formed to sift through the data, hear concerns from administration and faculty, and make a recommendation to the President. The team at CVC consisted of the VPI, a faculty representative from each instructional division, a representative from the IR office, and one other administrator.

Step 1. The team examines relevant data and shares the data with instructional deans.

Step 2. Each Instructional Dean makes a presentation to the team discussing their prioritized list of faculty they would like to hire for the coming year. They address the data as well as a set of questions designed to account for subjective factors.

Step 3. The team decides on one prioritized list to present to the President who, with input from the business manager, makes the final decision.

Data presented to the team by the research office for all disciplines taught at the college:

Excel spreadsheet with the following variables by discipline –

* % growth for the past 5 years

* % growth for the past 3 years

* projected future growth, 3 years

* full-time faculty to contact hour ratio

* cost factor

Each variable is given points so that each discipline receives a score. The disciplines with the highest scores would theoretically be most in need of new faculty.

Questions addressed by each Instructional Dean for each discipline where new faculty are requested:

1. Are there faculty in other disciplines who do not have a full load that can teach in the requesting discipline? If yes, determine the number of contact hours these faculty could teach in the requesting discipline.

2. Describe any release time contracts given to full-time faculty in the requesting discipline and the work being accomplished under this release time.

3. Does the current faculty staffing in the discipline preclude offering student demanded courses or services? If yes, explain.

4 Are there pedagogical issues involved in requesting new faculty for this discipline such as -

class size

expansion of knowledge in the discipline or specific expertise needed

distance learning issues

hiring effective adjuncts

5. What is the consequence of not hiring a new full-time instructor in this discipline?