‘Part-time’ is not enough time

By Natalie Coreas

Staff writer

All hardworking part time instructors at City College should be made full time instructors for the benefits of the students and for the college.

I don’t know about you, but I for one would like to have all my teachers available in a permanent office, at convenient office hours, more often then now.

This way whenever I am completely baffled on an assignment they issue or I just have a question on acquiring an A in the class, I could just drop by and ask how I could achieve my goals. All this, without the worry that my teacher departed, not to be seen again until Thursday when my assignment is due.

Currently City College employs 728 full-time faculty and 1,371 part-time faculty according to the City College Faculty and Staff directory.

Many of these teachers are employed at two to three other Universities, according to Dr. Don Q. Griffin, interim chancellor of City College.

If City College decided to make all part time faculty full time faculty, teachers would be on campus more often, instead of being somewhere else helping other students.

As we all know, due to the lack of full time teachers, there are certain classes that only have one or two sections available, which make it more difficult to get into to the class we need.

“Opening more full time positions would be healthy for both students and the different departments,” said Griffin.

These different departments could then make more sections of a class available. Which would present a great opportunity for students to get into classes they direly need to complete their General Education requirements to transfer or their graduation requirements, so they could finally move on in life.

All this wouldn’t even cost City College extra money. Sure, for the first four years it would cost a couple thousand to train and review the new teachers.

 “In the long run it would actually save City College a minimum of 10 to 12 thousand dollars a year,” says Griffin. 

This money could be used on support services for students and  for hiring more full time teachers.

Everyone would win this way. Students would get a better education, part time faculty would get a better position and the college would save money. 

Now, with that in mind, wouldn’t it be wise to hire all the faculty full time?