Open Education 2017

More than half of courses in community colleges are taught by adjunct faculty, and institutions reliance on part-time instructors is growing. Often, part-time faculty are disconnected from their institutions and can be less able to effectively support students' use of campus resources, less knowledgeable about course sequences and program maps, and have fewer opportunities to participate in campus initiatives, such as the planning and development of OER degrees.



Faculty involvement has been critical to the success of past OER projects. However, despite the efforts of individual colleges, the field has not devised scalable strategies for more deeply integrating adjunct faculty into the strategic work of community colleges. In June 2016, Achieving the Dream launched the Engaging Adjunct Faculty in the Student Success Movement initiative to better understand both the opportunities and challenges faced by community colleges working to engage part-time faculty in their institutional student success efforts.



While this initiative is just over a year old, some early findings from the six pilot colleges have emerged that may be instructive for colleges hoping to involve adjunct faculty in OER projects. During this session, the presenters will introduce ATD's OER Degree and Engaging Adjunct Faculty Initiatives, provide a rationale for engaging adjunct faculty in the development of OER degrees, and offer several possible strategies, drawn from both ATD projects, for accomplishing this.