|
|
 |
Table of Contents: Community College Historians in the United States |
Historical Scholarship and the Community College TeacherEvelyn Edson
|
|
|
When one joins the faculty of a community college, must one give up all ambition to do original historical research and publish the results? Of course, we know that historians engage in many forms of scholarship at all levels of the profession: preparing and revising lectures and materials, keeping up with literature in the field, attending lectures and conferences, and so on. These activities are certainly valued less than they should be, because as we also know, the kind of work most valued by our profession is the contribution of original scholarship to the discipline. Engaging in Historical Scholarship In preparing this article I interviewed five colleagues who have made their careers teaching in community colleges and have published scholarly work in their various research fields.(1) All are PhDs with strong interests in research and teaching. They agree that community college faculty who attempt to contribute in their fields face many hurdles. Time is a problem for everyone, but it is particularly acute for one who must be physically in the classroom 15 hours a week and in the office an additional 10. Add committee meetings and work, grading, and class preparation, and precious little time is left for research. Also there are no graduate assistants to help with the busy work and research for one's book. These conditions make released time and sabbaticals especially important. Many community college systems do not offer sabbaticals. Those that do, however-the California, New Jersey, and New York systems, for example-are competitive, with only a few spots funded each year. One may look forward to only one or two sabbaticals at half pay in the course of one's career. Until 1991 educational leave in Virginia was granted only to those working on degrees. A PhD was considered a "terminal degree," and postdoctoral research unnecessary. Now more sabbaticals are available, but they are still rare. The option of one semester with full pay is not offered in the Virginia system. Because of the teaching emphasis at two-year colleges, released time is usually granted only for course development or research into pedagogy. Administrators, who often hold their degrees in higher education administration, do not encourage "pure" research, which is thought to be largely irrelevant to the community college mission. Yet there are exceptions. Paul Devendittis praised the administration and faculty at Nassau Community College in New York for their support of his work on race and nationalism. "I'm blessed," said Arthur Verge of El Camino Community College near Los Angeles. "We have a great faculty," said Kevin Reilly of Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey, "interested in ideas and in their work." Elsewhere, community college historians who do research say their colleagues regard them as "big shots." A supportive environment clearly helps, but publishing is not required for promotion at most community colleges, and it may even be regarded with suspicion rather than acclaim. My own recent application for a professional development grant from the Virginia community college system came back with a terse rejection note: "Can't support because the primary emphasis is on publication of book." Researchers need grants, especially if the college is not going to pay for leaves, but these grants are generally less accessible to community college faculty than to those in four-year institutions. The nature of the grant game is such that one must have done a great deal of work to be eligible. When a friend in academia got a full-year National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, he said to me, "Now I've got a grant for the book I've already written. I'm going to use it to write the next book." Devendittis, turned down for an NEH grant, reported that his application was rejected because he hadn't already published widely in the field. This is true for everyone of course, but community college faculty are less likely to have published without some provision for leave. All but one of my respondents (Reilly) cited a leave or a grant as the beginning of their successful research. Max Reichard of Delgado Community College in New Orleans has switched from his original field, American social history, to the history of education, where he feels there is less discrimination against community college faculty. A sabbatical in 1990 took him on a Fulbright to Yugoslavia, where he did research for a comparative study of higher education. "I don't even go to [the annual meetings of] OAH or the Southern History Association anymore," he said, finding it more rewarding to attend meetings of the Community College Humanities Association or the History of Education Association. Access to publishers is an additional problem. Although textbook publishers court community college faculty for recommendations, hoping to capture the huge two-year market, academic presses display little interest in a potential manuscript from a two-year college teacher. Jane Donegan, recently retired from Onondaga Community College in New York, was stunned to receive a book contract from Greenwood Press in the mail one day in 1976. The press was interested in her dissertation on midwifery, eventually published by Greenwood as Women and Men Midwives. A single mother with a five-course teaching schedule, Donegan blithely promised the book within a year, and then wrote in the evenings after the children were in bed. "That's what I did during every vacation and holiday," she said, and added that she couldn't have done it if her mother had not provided childcare. Finding research and writing more to her taste than college politics, Donegan went on to write Hydropathic Highway to Health: Women and the Water Cure, also published by Greenwood. After her first book was published, she successfully obtained an NEH summer grant, then a full-year grant from NEH. "Irregular medicine and women's issues were timely topics," Donegan said. She found herself courted at conferences and received several job offers from universities, which she turned down to stay at Onondaga. Reilly began his publishing career in 1980 with a textbook, The West and the World. Nowadays, as general editor of the series Sources and Studies in World Civilization, he is doing the picking and choosing of authors. He is also at work on a book about film and national consciousness in the 20th century. When asked if they had encountered discrimination from other historians, all but one of my respondents (Donegan) answered with a resounding yes. "When you tell people at conferences where you teach," said Reichard, "it's a real conversation stopper. People are at conferences to network with more powerful people. They figure there's nothing you can do for them." Verge had been appointed codirector of a professional research group, but found his appointment opposed because of his community college affiliation. Reilly was a visiting professor at Princeton University for one semester. "It's a dramatic difference when you tell people you're at Princeton rather than Raritan Valley Community College," he said, laughing. When I myself was turned down for an NEH research grant a few years ago, every reader commented on my community college status, one positively ("Wow! A community college teacher who wants to do research!") and all of the others negatively ("She probably can't handle this project." Or, "A good idea, but she's the wrong person."). "Wake up!" Verge urges the profession, "There are many talented people teaching at community colleges." With four of every five of California's college students enrolled in community colleges, they are doing much more hiring than four-year colleges and universities. If the profession shuts out the aspiring researchers among them, it will be the poorer. Recommendations for the Professional Community of Historians So what do community college history faculty ask of the professional community of historians? First, let us know what is going on. Put us on your mailing list for speakers, seminars, and special events. Second, if you are on a grants reviewing committee, don't reject two-year college applicants out of hand. My respondents praised the NEH summer reading grants for college faculty (now, alas, no longer given) as being particularly appropriate for those who have not yet published. If you are a journal editor or a conference organizer, please consider our submissions without bias. Looking over a recent issue of the American Historical Review, I counted more than 250 book reviews and not a single one by a community college historian. The big professional organizations say they want to recruit us. Well, give us a place on the program, and not to talk solely about community college issues. If we as a profession really believe (and we do, don't we?) that research and teaching are vitally connected, our college faculty who teach the most need to be encouraged in their pursuit and publication of historical research. Notes 1. My sources for this article were the following. Paul J. Devendittis, now department chair at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, is the author of numerous articles and book reviews and has applied for a sabbatical to explore the European background for his book on neo-Nazis in America. Jane Donegan, now retired from Onondaga Community College in upstate New York, is the author of Women and Men Midwives (Greenwood Press, 1978) and Hydropathic Highway to Health: Women and the Water Cure (Greenwood Press, 1986). Arthur Verge, El Camino Community College in Torrance, California, is the author of "The Impact of World War II on Los Angeles," published in the Pacific Historical Review (August 1994). He has written a chapter on daily life in wartime California for Fortress California, 1910-61 (edited by Roger Lotchin, Oxford University Press, 1992), and is currently writing biographies of George Freeth and Clayton Russell for a forthcoming biographical encyclopedia from Oxford University Press. Max Reichard, Delgado Community College in New Orleans, works in comparative higher education and has made numerous conference presentations; among other writings, he is currently working on a history of Delgado for the college's 75th anniversary. Kevin Reilly, Raritan Valley Community College in Somerville, New Jersey, is the author of the textbook The West and the World (orig. Harper Collins, 1980, current edition by M. Wiener) and the editor of Readings in World Civilization (St. Martin's Press, 1995). He is general editor of the series Sources and Studies in World Civilization, now being published by M. E. Sharp, Inc. |
||