Mentoring Curriculum for New Adjunct Faculty at Community College

Community College (CC) has limited the number of credits adjunct faculty can teach. This ‘capping’ has resulted in a rapid increase of new adjunct hires without sufficient support in the onboarding process. Since CC is a state-run school, instructors are only allowed to teach at one state school. Due to the increase in new adjunct faculty, there is a need to ensure the quality of the teaching. This addition requires a more robust onboarding process for new adjuncts. An adjunct mentoring curriculum can improve the quality of the onboarding process by providing new adjuncts with a support network. The purpose of this mentoring training project for the new adjunct faculty is to develop more robust onboarding experience in supporting the new influx of the adjunct faculty in teaching at Community College and offering the required onboarding as well as continuous support for them. Information revealed that since 2010, the college had experienced a reduction in enrollment year over year. There is a relationship between the increase of new CC adjunct faculty and the reduction of enrollment. For example, reports indicate that when there are fluctuating adjuncts each semester, student enrollment simultaneously decreases, and when adjunct faculty levels remain steady, students remain enrolled in the college longer. Thus, CC can retain both staff and students through staff training and mentoring. CC relies on the majority of adjuncts to teach its courses; retention is essential to consider. Adequate mentoring for new adjuncts would reduce both staff and student turnover. To combat the increased influx of adjunct instructors, mentoring will be beneficial for new adjuncts, students, and the overall college’s performance