News & Events
City Tech Awarded $500K FIPSE Grant to Create
‘Adjunct Academy’ to Increase Student Retention
An initiative to better integrate adjuncts into the academic life on campus while at the same time providing professional tutoring and mentoring to students is underway at City Tech.With the support of a three-year, $500,818 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), an “adjunct academy” and a “tech hub” -- providing a centralized facility for students and adjuncts to work with each other and with their peers -- are being established. The project will initially impact the 5,000 students in the School of Technology & Design, which has 81 full-time faculty and 207 adjuncts.
“We are confident that our initiative will demonstrate an effective way to prepare under-represented students for hi-tech careers,” says Elaine Maldonado, project director and director of the College’s Learning Centers. “Nationally, less than five percent of African Americans and less than four percent of Hispanics go on to careers in high-tech occupations and scientific fields.”
Traditionally, adjunct faculty members’ role at a college is very limited, as many teach just one course and then promptly leave the campus. Some travel more than two hours just to teach one two-hour class and then rush off to another college to teach another class.
“Now, we can offer adjuncts extra hours (between 10 and 15 hours, on average), to mentor and tutor students in small groups, strengthening the academic relationships that are so crucial to the retention and success of our students,” Maldonado explains. “Plus, by compensating adjuncts for attending academic conferences and making available to them other leadership activities, new opportunities for professional development will be provided. It’s a win-win situation for our students and adjuncts, alike.”
Last year, Maldonado did a pilot study using the College’s Freshmen Comp (English 101) classes and found that having a teacher rather than a peer tutor working with students yielded better results. “The pass rate in Freshman Comp went from 77 percent in fall 2002 without faculty support to 90 percent in fall 2003 when students were mentored and tutored by faculty members. We’re expecting similar outcomes on this expanded scale, in which School of Technology & Design adjunct faculty will be available outside the classroom to support students.”
According to Maldonado, who has already received requests from other colleges to replicate her model, the initiative has been very well received by City Tech’s adjunct faculty and by officials at CUNY’s faculty/staff union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY).
“There is nothing in the current labor contract for the professional development of adjuncts, and we believe City Tech’s adjunct academy is a real breakthrough,” said Marsha Newfield, PSC-CUNY vice president for part-time personnel. “We have asked Elaine Maldonado to do a presentation on this very creative prototype for professional development and hope that other CUNY campuses pick up on it.”
One City Tech adjunct professor of English, Marcelle Massara, who was part of the pilot program and is teaching three sections of freshmen comp this fall as well as working ten hours as a faculty tutor/mentor, had this to say about the adjunct academy: “As an adjunct teaching nine credits, I was entitled to only one paid hour a week to meet with my students and any extra time I spent had to be on a volunteer basis.
“The academy will give adjuncts the chance to take part in faculty meetings, socialize with our colleagues and get reimbursed for attending professional workshops or conferences. We’ll feel like we’re part of the faculty instead of feeling marginalized,” she adds.
Another important component of the project is the development of the current School of Technology & Design learning center into a vibrant hub. Like many commuter colleges, City Tech had less than ideal facilities for students to meet with one another or with their professors and no space for collegial interactions among part-time faculty. Plans call for a centralized area for this purpose that cost-effectively shares computers, software and other resources.
“We expect the adjunct academy and tech hub to improve retention and graduation rates of underrepresented students in our technology programs,” Maldonado says. “Eventually, we hope to replicate the program in our Schools of Professional Studies and Liberal Arts & Sciences.”
FIPSE, a unit of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education, supports innovative educational reform projects that often serve as national models for the improvement of postsecondary education. Forty-three percent of the budget for City Tech’s adjunct academy and tech hub is being funded by FIPSE, with the remainder provided by a reconfiguration of the College’s existing learning centers budget.
Maldonado expresses special thanks to Barbara Burke, City Tech’s director of grants and contracts, for her support and guidance in the writing of the FIPSE grant.
12/13/04
