Teaching physics at community college vs .a four year college

[sabq]

I have two job offers: one from a community college (CC) and the other from a four year liberal arts college (LAC).

Location: both are in the same area (with 20 minutes from one to the other).

Salary: both jobs offer comparable salaries (four year college about $5K/year higher)

Benefits: CC offers better benefits: I will pay about $100/month for family health insurance coverage at CC and about $700/month for family health insurance at LAC. (I guess combining the salary difference and benefits contributions, both are about the same, financially).

Rank/Type: both jobs are tenure-track assistant professor.

Teaching scope: In both jobs I will be teaching similar courses (introductory level physics).

Duties: at CC I will teach 3 courses/semester + service to the college. At LAC I will teach 2 courses/semester + service to the college + research/seek grants.

I honestly want to take the CC over the LAC because I love teaching and don't think I want to do research anymore.

On one hand, I am afraid I will regret my decision in the future (i.e. leaving a more "prestigious" position for a "simple" CC position). On the other hand, I am afraid I won't get tenure when I am up for it at the LAC for not fulfilling my research activities and duties.

Some of my friends think I am out of my mind if I don't choose LAC over CC. However, the only reason they give is "prestige" which ranks fairly low in my list of things.

Does anyone have experience in working at CC and/or LAC? What do you recommend?

 

[phinds]

I don't have any such experience, but my advice is follow your gut and do what you will enjoy the most. Everything else is other people's opinion. As they say, if you really enjoy your job you'll never work a day in your life.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

My first teaching job after my PhD was at a community college. It did not hinder my involvement in research nor my candidacy for later jobs at 4 year schools. In fact, my CC teaching experience was an important factor when I was hired at the Air Force Academy.

But since both myself and several colleagues have been pressured to pass students far from meeting any reasonable requirements in a physics course at several institutions, I tend to recommend asking some hard questions before accepting either position. Will each institution allow you to teach physics with real academic rigor, or will you be pressured to gift grades to students who refuse to do the work needed to learn?

This question is closely related to the math skills students come into the course with. Getting students without even rudimentary algebra skills in an algebra-based physics course is a recipe for low passing rates. Will you be allowed to fail all the students who enter without the math skills to complete the course requirements?

 

[sabq]

Thanks, phinds, it is always best to work in an job you enjoy and can do for the next 30 years.

Thank you Dr. Courtney for the insight. I will be sure to ask about the preparedness for students taking the courses. It is not only frustrating when you assume a certain prerequisite and some don't have it, it is also not fair for the students who have taken those prerequisites to have to be in the same classroom as those who didn't.

 

[jtbell]

I have two job offers:

Rank/Type: both jobs are tenure-track assistant professor.

From my point of view, that's pretty good for an academic job search! In both of my searches (as a searcher), I had two on-campus interviews and one offer. I ended up with first a temporary position (two years), then the tenure track position from which I retired a few years ago. Both were at LACs.

I honestly want to take the CC over the LAC because I love teaching and don't think I want to do research anymore.

I am afraid I won't get tenure when I am up for it at the LAC for not fulfilling my research activities and duties.

That's definitely a serious consideration. Did the LAC offer you the job even knowing that you're not interested in doing research, with the (perhaps unspoken) expectation that you would be moving on when you come up for tenure? Or did you keep that to yourself?

If it's the former, and you don't mind moving when the time arrives, you might consider the following possible pluses: (a) the experience would look good on your resume, (b) you might get to teach a couple of upper-level courses in addition to the introductory ones. That's basically what happened with my two-year position. I got good recommendations from my colleagues there which helped me get my second and final position.

On the other hand, as you know, competition for academic positions is tough, and there's no assurance you'll actually be able to move on to somewhere else.

There used to be a number of "lesser" LACs where research and publication were not required for tenure and promotion. The place I retired from was like that when I arrived in the mid 1980s. In fact the atmosphere here was somewhat hostile to serious research, from the administration downwards. The general attitude was that our job was to teach, with a teaching load of 4 courses per semester (labs counting as about half a course). Faculty who wanted to do research had to do it mainly during the summer. Students who were aiming for grad school did research-like activities that didn't involve publication. In physics we steered them towards summer research programs (REUs etc.) elsewhere.

But that's changed. Over the years there's been more and more emphasis everywhere on formal undergraduate research for physics students, and students have come to expect that. We've followed that pattern, too. The physics faculty here has turned over completely in the last ten years, as previous faculty left or retired, and all the current faculty do some research. Even in the humanities, there's pressure on faculty to publish something.

So in your situation, I'd be inclined to take the "bird in hand" of the CC position as the one that you're more likely to keep for the long term. The big thing I would be concerned about would be the prospect of teaching only introductory courses. You should try to develop some kind of professional activity to keep your mind stimulated with new material. Fortunately for me that wasn't a problem, because I usually had to teach 3 different courses per semester, including an introductory computer science course. I ended up teaching almost all of our physics courses at one time or another. Also, in the 1990s when the college got its first Internet server, I helped out with administering it, learning Unix from scratch, and installing and maintaining software (email, Web server, etc.). This went on for several years before the college got around to hiring administrative staff to do this stuff.

 

[PCJJSBS]

I have heavily considered becoming an instructor at a community college. I would never want to be one at a university though.

In my experience, CC instructors I have dealt with are far superior when it comes to teaching classroom material. At university, everyone was concerned with their research, and teaching came second. It showed.

I doubt that helps at all, but do whichever one you like best. Don't worry about how the job looks. Consider the environment, coworkers, and general culture of the two separate jobs. Pick a place that fits you better.