The American Institute of Physics recently published the report of its study, Physics in the Two-Year Colleges

The American Institute of Physics recently published the report of its study, Physics in the Two-Year Colleges Physics in the Two-Year Colleges

The American Institute of Physics recently published the report of its study, Physics in the Two-Year Colleges. This study explored the faculty, students, and curriculum in physics at the junior college level. The report is available from: Education and Employment Statistics Division, AIP, One Physics Ellipse, College park, MD 20740. It is also available on the web at www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/twoyear.pdf. We present here a few of the highlights from the report (reprinted with permission).

Contacting over 1,785 two-year college campuses across the United States, we found that 1,056, or 59%, offered classes in physics during the 1995-96 academic year (page 52).

In the Spring of 1996, these departments contained 2,692 faculty teaching physics classes (p. 52). Department heads supplied the names of 2,542 professors, with 1,710 (66%) in full-time positions and 832 (34%) holding part-time appointments (p. 20).

All 2,542 physics faculty were sent a detailed 12-page questionnaire, with 1,194 responding, along with another 223 who responded to a shorter version, for a total response rate of 56% (p. 52). Faculty were overwhelmingly male (89%), with a median age of 49. Eighty-nine percent were white, 6% were U.S. minorities, and 5% were non-U.S. citizens (p. 21).

There was little difference between full- and part-time faculty in these demographic characteristics. More surprisingly, there was also little difference in academic background. In both groups, a little over one- third held a PhD, with almost all the rest holding a master's degree. And, in both groups, roughly two-thirds had earned a graduate degree in physics (p. 21).

During the 1996-97 academic year, some 120,000 students took physics at a two-year college. This represented only 2% of all students enrolled in two-year schools at that time. However, given the large number of part-time and non-degree students attending classes at two-year schools, a more useful comparison would be that it included about a quarter of the entering class of full-time students (p. 5). It also encompassed approximately one-fourth of all students taking introductory physics at the college level during that academic year (p. 45).

Included in the physics total were 31% women and 15% who were members of minority groups that are traditionally underrepresented in science, including African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native- Americans, and those classifying themselves as "other." The level of underrepresentation in physics becomes evident when we compare these figures to the overall representation among two-year college students of 58% for women and 23% for minorities in the same year. Nevertheless, the underrepresentation of women and minorities at the two-year level is significantly lower than at four-year institutions (p. 13).

Most two-year college physics students were enrolled in the same type of introductory physics course that is taught in four-year schools and universities. Some 33% were enrolled in the algebra and trigonometry- based course, while 28% were taking the calculus-based or other advanced version. Only about 10% seemed to be taking courses that were specially designed for the academic backgrounds and career objectives of two-year college students (p. 10).

In line with this latter finding, few faculty indicated that they had developed ties to or received regular input from potential employers of two-year college graduates. For example, only 8% reported that they received guidance from industry-based curriculum advisory group, and fewer than one-tenth taught any courses that had been structured to incorporate the needs of local employers (p. 17).

The major problems cited by full-time faculty included students' weak math backgrounds (53%), insufficient funds for equipment and supplies (47%), and inadequate space for labs/facilities outmoded (34%) (p. 34). Nevertheless, the survey registered a strong sense of job satisfaction among almost all segments of the two-year physics teaching community, with 69% saying that they would still choose two-year college teaching if they had it to do over again, and 77% saying they preferred teaching physics to other subjects (p. 32).

Along similar lines, we found extremely high levels of career and job stability. The vast majority of teachers were still at the school where they started teaching, and a high proportion indicated that they planned to remain with two-year college teaching until they retired. Thus, full- time faculty had taught for a median of 15 years and had been at their current college for 13 years, with 93% expecting to remain until retirement. Even part-timers had spent a large portion of their teaching career (with a median duration of 5 years) at their current school (median 4 years) (p. 34).