Jon Mandrell

IDSL 895
Assignment One

Community colleges have long been known for their access and affordability, along with being
responsive to their communitys unique needs, all the while transforming lives. With these reactive
institutions facing new challenges tied to accountability, namely funding and completion, several
legislative mandates have changed not only processes in the community college, but simply how they do
business and serve their stakeholders.

The Affordable Care Act and Adjunct Faculty Workload

For years, community colleges have utilized adjunct faculty to provide a more comprehensive
schedule on their campus, provide instructors that work directly within industry, and also as a costsavings measure. Over the past two years, through the creation of the Affordable Care Act, the
legislation regarding the workload of adjunct faculty has changed the landscape of a colleges usage of
such critical contingent instructors. Under the new mandate, an institution must now extend benefits to
adjunct instructors that exceed 30 hours of work in a given week. Aside from the mandate itself,
calculating such a number in higher education has been a struggle. In response to such a challenge, the
federal government has provided a recommended formula for such a calculation, which is 2.25 hours of
work for each hour within the classroom. After the calculation, an adjunct instructor is not to exceed 30
hours of work in a given week, unless the institution is granting benefits. This is now requiring our
campus to hire more instructors to fill the same number of course sections. Due to our college being
rural, it struggles to find qualified adjunct faculty, particularly in the area of mathematics, philosophy,
and physics. Murray (2007) states, Much is being written about a potential shortage of qualified
community college faculty. Rural community colleges may be at the greatest disadvantage in attracting

and retaining new faculty because they cannot offer the financial, cultural, and social advantages that
more urban institutions can (p.57). In response, marketing for vacancies has increased, as well as
creating adjunct faculty job fairs.
Many adjunct faculty have opposed the new legislation as they were not seeking benefits
anyhow and this has limited their teaching opportunities. If the college were to extend benefits to all of
these adjunct faculty members in these trying financial teams, it would create a financial crisis that
could not be overcome. In response, Sauk Valley Community College now has an automated system in
place to alert administrators to any adjunct faculty that exceed such hours based upon this formula. If
such an instructor is identified as exceeding the maximum hours, load must be reduced by the
individual, often times creating a vacancy and a demand to hire.

The Dual Credit Quality Act in Illinois

At the state level, Illinois has legislated the Dual Credit Quality Act, which consists of eight
standards that secondary and postsecondary institutions must adhere to if they are offering such
enrollment partnership opportunities. Much of the act is focused on alignment and hiring practices, but
certain elements require financial support. While the act is sound and appropriate for its purpose,
reductions in funding have made it difficult to administer. For example, the act requires that high school
teachers and college faculty not only collaborate together in workshops throughout the year, but they
must also spend time in one anothers classroom. Extending the facultys workload is not only a financial
restraint, but also an issue in regard to scheduling and their availability. In reference to the scheduling
conflict at the secondary level, Sharfman (2010), states, *High school teachers+ often teach more
classes than college faculty do, have myriad extracurricular responsibilities, and lack the requisite
training that enables college faculty to introduce best practices in the field. A small institution such as

Sauk Valley Community College must use its faculty to meet its own internal course offerings and
providing oversight in the high schools for dual credit courses is not reasonable in these trying times.
To conclude, federal and state mandates are changing the way in which institutions operate.
Some of the unfunded mandates are adding further burden to the bottom line of the budget, but
community colleges are long known for adapting and overcoming challenges. Historically, community
colleges have refrained from hiking the cost of tuition and fees to students to meet such legislative
hurdles. Those efforts are now being threatened. Heightened accountability will require institutions to
rise to the occasion and produce, but hopefully not negatively impacting the colleges operations.

References
Murray, J.P. (2007). Recruiting and retaining rural community college faculty. New Directions for
Community Colleges, 137, 57-64.
Sharfman, G. (2010, December 16). Whats high school for? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/12/16/sharfman#sthash.lORufiLv.dpbs