Community college honors and developmental faculty: characteristics, practices, and implications for access and educational equity.

This study explores the demographic, personal, and professional characteristics of honors and developmental faculty in community colleges. The authors uncover significant racial and ethnic patterns and arrive at a preliminary typology of those who teach at the upper and lower margins of the two-year college curriculum.

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Community colleges enroll approximately 5.5 million students, or nearly half of all first-time college students. In addition, they serve a disproportionately high percentage of students of color (Cohen & Brawer, 2003). Therefore, community colleges are not only an important part of the higher education system in general, but they are integral in providing educational access for students of color. Despite the fact that community colleges educate millions of students, they receive scant attention in the research literature, especially in studies that marry two distinct aspects of an institution, such as its faculty and curriculum. This gap in the literature is especially serious at the margins of the community college: Very little is known about the instructors who teach the most and least prepared students through community college honors and developmental programs (Boylan, Bonham, Jackson, & Saxon, 1995; Bulakowski & Townsend, 1995).

Honors and developmental courses are significant for two reasons. First, they represent the "bookends" of the community college curriculum and, as such, provide an understanding of the range of courses offered at community colleges. Perhaps even more importantly, developmental and honors programs form highly important links between community colleges and other types of educational institutions. Developmental courses can bridge the gap between secondary and higher education for students who are not prepared for college-level work. For their part, honors courses can act as a stepping-stone to four-year schools through course content and by enhancing students' chances of acceptance at baccalaureate institutions.

After a brief discussion of the conceptual framework employed in this study, we present the literature on honors and developmental programs in community colleges, as well as the research questions and methods used to analyze honors and developmental faculty. We then present the results of this analysis and discuss the significance and implications for research and practice.

Field Analysis as a Conceptual Foundation

Our understanding of the ways in which educational institutions interact with one another draws upon the theoretical work of Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992). As these authors' notion of field analysis suggests, rather than viewing institutions as separate and distinct entities, higher education can be conceptualized as a field within which actors (in this case, colleges and universities) work within the context of one another. Field analysis reminds us that--while it might be convenient to study various segments of higher education in isolation from one another--students, and indeed society, interact with higher education as a whole rather than with merely one segment at a time. While field analysis has only rarely been explicitly applied to studies of higher education (McDonough, Ventresca, & Outcalt, 2000), Bourdieu's conceptual framework is useful in conceptualizing higher education as an integrated system in which institutions help students move, or attempt to move, from one segment to another, and this framework allows for the examination of instruments that facilitate or impede that movement. This study will focus on two such instruments in community colleges: faculty teaching honors courses and faculty teaching in developmental programs.

Literature on Community College Honors and Developmental Programs

Although the community college literature contains some information about honors and developmental courses--primarily studies of the students within these programs--very little is written about those who teach at the upper and lower margins of the community college curriculum (Boylan et al., 1995; Bulakowski & Townsend, 1995).

Honors Programs

Honors programs serve an essential function in community colleges, as they provide educational challenges for an often-overlooked portion of the two-year college student body--the educationally well prepared. Despite their importance, honors programs have received scant attention in the research literature (Bulakowski & Townsend, 1995). A few scholars, however, have attempted to gain a national perspective on the incidence and characteristics of honors programs in community colleges (Byrne, 1998; Cohen & Brawer, 2003). For example, we know that over 35% of community colleges offer this type of advanced curriculum (Outcalt, 1999). However, researchers who have focused on honors programs, by and large, confine themselves to single institution studies (Bulakowski & Townsend, 1995). Beyond these case studies, a few scholars have examined honors programs with a special emphasis on the role of advanced courses in the transfer process, and others have begun to consider the implications of these courses for educational access (Laanan, 1996; Lucas, Hull, & Brantley, 1995).

Despite the lack of strong empirical evidence regarding their availability and effectiveness, honors programs have been criticized for seeming to introduce a note of elitism into the egalitarian goals of community colleges, institutions that are supposed to provide education for everyone (Olivas, 1975). These charges have been exacerbated by limited studies showing that honors program participants are more likely to be White and female than are non-honors students. In addition, Outcalt's (1999) national analysis of honors programs found a negative correlation between the incidence of honors programs and the proportion of African American and Native American students in the program, suggesting that these programs are less available to students from under-represented racial and ethnic backgrounds than they are to White students. In short, the majority of honors program research focuses either on student satisfaction with a particular program, on the demographic characteristics of student participants, or on anecdotal evidence of program effectiveness (Bulakowski & Townsend, 1995). Very little is written about those who teach in these programs.

Developmental Programs

Developmental programs in community colleges have received more attention than honors programs in the literature, and several studies exist that describe the demographic makeup of students in developmental classes, that criticize or defend the existence of developmental education in general, or that examine the outcomes of such programs. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2003b), 42% of first-time freshmen in community colleges enroll in at least one developmental reading, writing, or mathematics course. Although the majority of developmental students express intent to complete either an associate or a bachelor degree (Knopp, 1996), there is conflicting evidence about how developmental programs affect a student's chances of reaching this goal. Adelman (1996) found that students who need remediation are less likely to reach their degree objectives than are more academically-prepared students; in his words, "the extent of a student's need for remediation is inversely related to his or her eventual completion of a degree" (p. 2). However, in a recent study using data from the Ohio Board of Regents, Bettinger and Long (2005) found that students in developmental courses are more likely to persist in college when compared to students with similar backgrounds and test scores who do not enroll in developmental courses. Developmental students are also more likely to transfer to a higher level college and complete a bachelor's degree than are similar non-developmental students.

The relationship between enrollment in developmental courses and degree obtainment is especially important to consider in light of the many under-represented minority students who enroll in these classes. Boylan (1999) reports that roughly one-third of developmental students across the nation are African American and that Hispanic students also make up a significant percentage of those in need of remediation. The high numbers of under-represented minority students in developmental courses, combined with the fact that 85.3% of community college faculty are White (U.S. Department of Education, 2003a), alarm some scholars who believe that minority students have a lower chance than do Whites of succeeding, in part because they have fewer minority role models (Kappner, 1991). Despite this alarm, Boylan (1999) concludes that developmental programs are essential for low-income and minority students because "participating in developmental education at a community college equalizes the opportunity for underprepared students to be successful" (p. 3). Despite discourse about minority students in developmental programs, however, the literature tells us very little about those who teach these courses.

Who Teaches Honors and Developmental Courses?

There are a limited number of comprehensive studies about developmental and honors instructors (Boylan et al., 1995; Bulakowski & Townsend, 1995). Of the studies that do exist, most focus on the preparation and employment status of instructors who teach developmental courses. For example, several researchers have attempted to measure whether full-time or part-time faculty are more likely to teach in developmental programs. Results of these studies vary. The Michigan State Board of Education (1990) reported that part-time faculty teach developmental courses much more frequently than do full-time faculty. Schults (2000), on the other hand, states that in his national study "the ratio of full-time to part-time faculty teaching remedial courses among respondent institutions did not deviate greatly from the overall ratio found in community colleges.... 60 percent of faculty teaching remedial education were full-time" (p. 4). Definitive studies that measure whether part-time or full-time faculty are more likely to teach developmental courses are needed, as research has shown that full-time faculty who teach in developmental programs have much more experience with this type of education (an average of 16+ years) than do part-time faculty (an average of 0-3 years). In addition, the turnover rate for full-time faculty is much lower than it is for part-time instructors (Michigan State Board of Education, 1990).

Further and more comprehensive studies of developmental faculty are essential to our understanding of this important segment of the two-year college community (Boylan, Bonham, & Rodriguez, 2000). Such studies of honors faculty are also necessary, as the literature on this topic is almost nonexistent (Bulakowski & Townsend, 1995). This study will remedy the gap in the literature by using a national study of community college faculty practices and attitudes to investigate the relationship between teaching in honors and developmental programs and other personal and professional characteristics.

Research Questions and Methods

With the above lacunae in the literature in mind, we developed the following research questions:

(1) Who teaches honors and developmental courses in community colleges?

(2) Are there significant relationships between teaching developmental or honors courses and instructors' personal or professional characteristics?

Data Collection

Data in this study were drawn from a national survey of the professional practices and attitudes of community college faculty. The survey instrument consisted of 201 questions, most of which were designed to illuminate one or more of several analytical categories, including faculty practices and attitudes as well as background characteristics. Respondents were asked to describe their teaching practices, the level and type of their professional experience, their professional involvement both on their campus and in their discipline, and their opinions on their working environment, colleagues, and students. For example, faculty were asked to describe the way they used their time in the classroom, whether and how often they engaged in extracurricular activities with their students, how they understood the role of professional associations, and any professional development activities in which they were engaged. Most useful for this study, they were asked whether they had taught honors or developmental courses within the two years prior to completing the survey. The entire instrument was pilot-tested with a small number of community college instructors.

Surveys were mailed to 2,292 faculty at 114 U.S. community colleges in fall 2000. Prior experience (for example, Cohen & Brawer, 1977) suggested that over-sampling would be required to achieve the desired sample size of 1,500. Both institutions and individual respondents were selected at random. Institutions were chosen from a then recent--1998--directory of the American Association of Community Colleges (1998). If an institution declined to participate, the sample was refreshed by the selection, at random, of a college of similar size (as measured by student FTE). Within institutions, individual respondents were selected by choosing every Nth instructor on the fall 2000 course schedule. To ensure proportional representation of adjunct faculty, courses without a listed instructor were selected for participation in the same manner as courses with faculty identified by name. Community college presidents were asked to designate a local facilitator (most often the vice president for academic affairs) who was responsible for distributing and collecting surveys on their campuses. A double-blind system was employed that allowed local facilitators to determine which respondents had returned their surveys while at the same time preventing them from viewing the surveys themselves.

By January 2001, vigorous follow-up led to the return of 1,531 of 1,993 surveys, for a response rate of 76.8%. This response rate excludes a number of surveys (299) from the original 2,292 surveys that were not deliverable due to changes of address and alterations in course schedules. Even though our sample of 1,531 was a small fraction of the entire population of approximately 350,000 community college faculty in the United States (U.S. Department of Education, 2003a), we believe the randomization system that stratified by both institution and individual faculty member produced a representative national sample of the community college professoriate. Indeed, comparison of demographic data from the sample to statistics on the community college professoriate as a whole revealed that the random sample obtained via this method was fairly representative of the nationwide professoriate, although female and White faculty were slightly over-represented. Table 1 illustrates the sample's demographic characteristics. (More detailed information on the institutional and faculty selection and distribution method is available in Outcalt, 2002).

Data Analysis

Due to the dearth of data describing the characteristics and attributes of those who teach honors or developmental courses, our approach to data analysis was largely inductive in nature. To answer the research questions, we performed a variety of descriptive and inferential analyses, each structured so that it built upon information gained from the previous analysis. First, to gain a better understanding of the background characteristics of honors and developmental instructors and to answer the first research question, we ran cross-tabulations on the data to assess whether instructors were more or less likely to have taught honors or developmental courses when categorized by racial or ethnic group. Similar cross-tabulations were performed to see if teaching honors and developmental classes was associated with holding a doctoral degree, with teaching full time, or with an instructor's years of experience.

The next step was to run Pearson correlations to see which variables were most strongly and significantly related to teaching these courses. We ran further cross-tabulations on the variables that showed the strongest relationships so we could better understand how honors and developmental instructors differ in their characteristics, beliefs, attitudes, and professional associations. The correlations and cross-tabulations painted a very interesting picture of who teaches honors and developmental courses in the nation's two-year colleges. However, a more sophisticated statistical analysis was necessary to answer the second research question. Thus, in the final step of data analysis, we employed binary logistic regression. Binary logistic regression--especially appropriate when working with dichotomous dependent variables (Long, 1997)--allowed us to isolate and analyze the effects of certain variables, such as affiliation with a four-year university or previous experience as a high school teacher, on that instructor's likelihood of teaching honors or developmental courses. Ultimately, logistic regression allowed for analysis of the predictive powers of instructor characteristics, beliefs, and professional practices on the likelihood of teaching honors or developmental courses.

Limitations

Because the approach to analyzing the data was largely inductive, further studies are needed to confirm and support the findings. In addition, small sample sizes for some groups, such as Native American faculty, do not allow us to draw as many firm conclusions as we would like. Further, 25 respondents identified with more than one racial or ethnic group (22 of the 25 identified as White and another race). Because we did not feel it was our place to determine dominant racial or ethnic group identification for these respondents, we counted them in all groups with which they expressed identification.

The method for determining which faculty had taught honors or developmental courses (i.e., asking respondents whether they had taught such a course within the 2 years before completing the survey) had strengths and limitations of its own. On one hand, this method allowed us to identify those with any recent experience teaching honors or developmental courses, and so was usefully inclusive. On the other hand, the very inclusiveness of this approach meant, inevitably, that we were not able to determine the relative proportion of an individual instructor's workload that was devoted to honors or developmental teaching. In other words, the study prioritized breadth over depth. The data are also a bit dated (fall 2000), and further studies with a newer data set would be helpful in confirming or challenging our findings. As well, because institutions were chosen at random and because the presence or absence of honors and developmental programs was not a selection characteristic, it is possible that not all faculty had equal opportunity to teach either of these types of courses. Finally, it must be kept in mind that honors courses are structured in various ways at different colleges--some treat them as extended versions of regular courses while others offer separate classes (Outcalt, 1999).

Results

Results of this study showed that 131 of 1,531 respondents, or 8.6%, reported that they had taught at least one honors course within the 2 years before they completed the survey. In addition, 404 of 1,531 respondents (26.4%) reported that they had taught at least one developmental course within the same time frame. Of the 1,531 respondents, 3.7% (56) had taught both developmental and honors classes. To bring the characteristics of those who taught honors but not developmental courses (and vice versa) into better focus, the analyses focused on those instructors who reported that they had taught one or the other type of course but not both. Seventy-three respondents, or 4.8%, had taught honors but not developmental courses, while 336 (21.9%) had taught developmental but not honors classes.

Descriptive Results

As Figure 1 demonstrates, this study uncovered interesting patterns in regard to the racial and ethnic backgrounds of those who teach honors and developmental courses. Asian Americans and those classified as "other" are far more likely than are members of other (identified) groups to teach honors courses; members of other groups did not differ greatly from one another. However, as will be demonstrated in our logistic regression results (reported below), none of these racial or ethnic differences were statistically significant after we controlled for other instructor characteristics.

In contrast to the results for honors instructors, noteworthy racial patterns existed among developmental faculty. Although Whites, Asian Americans, and Latina/os did not greatly differ from one another in the teaching of these classes, African Americans and Native Americans were far more likely than were other groups to teach developmental courses. In addition, instructors categorized as "other" were much less likely to teach developmental courses than were any other groups. The logistic regression results (reported below) further examine these racial and ethnic patterns.

In addition to the racial characteristics of developmental and honors instructors, interesting results also emerged with respect to academic preparation, work status, and length of service. In particular, instructors who held a doctorate were three times more likely to teach honors courses than were those without a terminal degree. Conversely, doctoral degree holders were less likely than those who did not receive a PhD to teach in developmental programs. In addition, full-time faculty were 10 times more likely than were part-time instructors to teach honors courses, but they taught developmental classes at the same rates as part-time faculty. Finally, instructors in the midpoint of their careers were more likely to teach honors courses than were new faculty or those with many years of teaching experience.

Furthermore, honors instructors differed--in both statistical and practical terms--from their non-honors counterparts. Honors instructors were much more likely to engage in activities related to research and scholarship such as publishing articles, authoring books, applying for grants, and subscribing to community college journals. Overall, honors instructors seemed more oriented toward four-year institutions, as revealed in their belief that university professors are good sources of teaching advice and their strong views that important ideas in their discipline originate in the university. This orientation toward the university is especially evident in the fact that honors faculty cite pre-baccalaureate transfer and preparation for further formal education as two of the most important functions of the community college.

Instructors in developmental programs also differed from their non-developmental counterparts. Developmental instructors were much more likely to have taught in a high school setting and to believe that secondary school teachers are useful sources of advice. They were also more involved in community college-specific organizations and attended association meetings more often than did non-developmental faculty. In addition, developmental instructors were less likely to have recruited high school students for their programs or to believe that the institution places too much emphasis on developmental education. These results will be explored in more detail in the regression discussion below.

Logistic Regression Results

Logistic regression allowed us to assess the degree to which changes in the independent variables affected the likelihood of respondents reporting that they had taught honors or developmental courses. As mentioned above, the paucity of research literature on the teaching of honors and developmental courses compelled the adoption of an inductive method, especially for determining which independent variables to test in the regression equations. Accordingly, all survey variables with statistically significant correlations to the dependent variables were introduced into the regressions. Because the variables with significant correlations to teaching honors differed from those with significant correlations to teaching developmental courses, different variables were introduced into each logistic regression. To run the regression analyses, we employed the statistical program SPSS, using default variance estimates. The odds ratios reported in Tables 2 and 3 represent the likelihood that a one-unit change in the value of a particular independent variable will bring about a change in the dependent variable. For example, an odds ratio of 10 would mean that a one-unit change in an independent variable would make the dependent variable 10 times more likely to occur. In addition to the odds ratios (reported under the exp(B) column) and significance levels, Tables 2 and 3 show the significance of the independent variable, the Wald statistic, and the degrees of freedom.

Table 2 presents results from the first logistic regression, in which teaching in an honors program was the dependent variable, and the measures with statistically significant relationships to teaching honors courses, as discussed in detail above, were independent variables. This table shows only those seven independent variables that proved to have significant predictive power for the likelihood of teaching honors. No other variables (including all other personal background characteristics, attitudes toward teaching as a profession and attitudes toward students, disciplinary and professional affiliations, and classroom practices) were significant at the p [less than or equal to] .05 level. The strongest variable in the honors regression was full-time employment. Full-time instructors were three times more likely than were part-time faculty to teach in an honors program. Interestingly, in a reinforcement of the trend identified above, most of the significant variables in this regression were related to engagement in traditional scholarly activities. For example, those who had authored or coauthored a published book were almost three times as likely to have taught honors classes, while those who believed that pre-baccalaureate transfer is the most important function of the community college were nearly twice as likely to have taught honors courses. In addition, instructors who had obtained the doctoral degree were more than twice as likely as those without the degree to teach in an honors program. Finally, as Table 2 shows, the more time an instructor spent per day in work for a profes sional association, the more likely he or she was to teach honors courses. Unfortunately, Table 2 demonstrates a limitation of logistic regression: Although the individual variables presented were significant, the model was not very effective at predicting who would teach honors courses, likely because so few instructors actually did so.

Just as the logistic regression results for honors reinforced trends identified earlier in the analysis, the regression related to teaching developmental courses also clarified and supported many of the earlier findings. As in the honors regression, we employed only those variables with statistically significant relationships to teaching developmental courses (as discussed previously) as independent variables. Table 3 shows the 14 variables that were statistically significant (no other variables were significant at the p [less than or equal to] .05 level). As Table 3 illustrates, racial and ethnic patterns were evident in this regression analysis: Native Americans (n = 22) were over five times more likely than were other faculty in the sample to teach in developmental programs, and African Americans (n = 74) were two and a half times more likely to teach these courses. In contrast, faculty categorized as "other" were much less likely to participate in developmental education.

In addition, faculty who had earned a doctoral degree were almost 50% less likely than those without a PhD to teach developmental courses. This finding is consistent with the result presented above showing that doctoral recipients are more likely to teach higher-level courses. Developmental instructors, however, are quite engaged in community college associations: faculty who have attended a community college-specific meeting within the past three years were over twice as likely to teach developmental courses than those who did not attend such meetings. The connection identified earlier between high school and two-year college teachers is also evident in the regression results. Instructors who believe that secondary school teachers are good sources of advice were 40% more likely to teach developmental courses, and the more years of secondary school teaching experience a community college faculty member had, the more likely he or she was to be teaching developmental courses.

Regression results also show that those who teach pre-college courses strongly believe in the work they do: instructors who believe that developmental instruction is the most important function of a community college are 30% more likely to be teaching developmental courses than those who prioritize other functions as most important. The results also show that developmental instructors spend more time in instructional activities--as measured by the survey--than do faculty teaching non-developmental courses. For example, the more time per day instructors spent reading student papers or tests, the more likely they were to be teaching in a developmental program. Similarly, developmental instructors devote larger percentages of class time to discussion, quizzes, and exams than do non-developmental faculty.

Discussion

The results of this study uncovered several interesting patterns among those who teach community college honors and developmental courses. First, both the descriptive and regression analyses point toward a typology of honors and developmental instructors. In addition, this study unveiled several interesting racial and ethnic patterns among developmental faculty. Finally, several other findings bear significance to both honors and developmental education and carry implications for future community college scholarship.

A Typology of Instructors

The results demonstrate that particular "types" of instructors teach honors and developmental courses in the community college. The honors instructor is characterized by an attachment to curricular and disciplinary practices that are more common in a four-year college or university, as evidenced by the higher priority that honors instructors place on advice from university professors and their belief that important ideas in their discipline originate in the university. In addition, honors instructors engage in traditional scholarly and research activities--such as publishing and grant writing--more often than their non-honors counterparts. This four-year orientation may be of great benefit to students in community colleges honors programs, as it could help to prepare them for further education at a four-year institution. In addition, this orientation could subtly but significantly strengthen the relationship between the two- and four-year segments of higher education.

In contrast, the developmental instructor is characterized by his or her attachment to secondary school teachers, ideas, and methods. Developmental faculty often rely on their colleagues in high schools for advice and frequently have prior experience teaching in a high school. This orientation might help ease the transition from high school to college for some students, but the attachment to secondary school teaching methods and ideas might not expose developmental students to the types of instruction and disciplinary practices they will encounter in upper-division college courses.

Racial and Ethnic Patterns

As can be seen in the regression results, while race and ethnicity are not significant factors in predicting who teaches honors courses, there are several statistically significant racial and ethnic patterns in the teaching of developmental courses. These patterns must not be taken lightly and could be a cause for concern. Although the data show that African Americans and Native Americans are much more likely than are White or Asian faculty to be teaching in developmental programs, we can only speculate as to what has caused this pattern. It could signify that African and Native Americans are being employed to perform what historically have been the least desirable jobs (Cohen, 1998), but it could also reflect a respect and commitment to developmental education among minority faculty. As well, it may reflect the fact that many minority faculty teach in institutions where a large percentage of the student body requires developmental coursework. Regardless of the reasons why these racial and ethnic patterns exist, they are important findings with implications for racial equality and community college hiring practices, and further research that delves more deeply into why these patterns exist would be extremely valuable.

Significance and Implications

One of the most encouraging findings of this study is the strong commitment to developmental education displayed by teachers in those programs. The belief that developmental education is central to the community college mission is extremely important given its unique role in facilitating access to the transfer curricula for millions of students, especially those who are currently under-represented in four-year colleges and universities. The results are also encouraging for honors students, because they indicate that instructors in those programs tend to create richer academic climates within their classrooms and are more involved in professional disciplines than are non-honors faculty. Unfortunately, however, this finding might also perpetuate concerns that community college students who are better prepared for college-level work receive a more comprehensive education than those who are under-prepared.

Earlier, we invoked the theory of field analysis within the (implicit) argument that it is essential to study higher education as a whole, rather than as a set of more or less discrete segments. Field analysis highlights the importance of these findings for those interested in the characteristics and practices of community college honors and developmental faculty, as well as those who seek to understand the relationship(s) between community colleges and other types of postsecondary institutions. A thoughtful analysis of the complex and often obscure relationships among the segments of the U.S. postsecondary system is especially important for understanding the ways students interact with institutions of higher education today. For example, a recent National Center for Education Statistics study (U.S. Department of Education, 2005) found that 59% of all students who earned a degree at a four-year institution had enrolled in more than one college or university prior to attaining their degree. Such student "swirling" has been documented in the educational literature (e.g., de los Santos & Wright, 1990). In short, any conceptualization of attendance patterns that fails to recognize the interrelationships among institutions and, just as importantly, types of institutions, will fail to contribute to our understanding of the educational reality faced and created by contemporary college students. The great advantage of field analysis lies in its foregrounding of the interconnected nature of institutions and institutional types--a web of relationships often invisible to scholars who focus on the transfer process but apparent to students seeking to define their educational pathway.

In particular, field analysis informed this study by providing a conceptual framework for understanding the complex fact that community college honors and developmental instructors are connected to both secondary schools and four-year colleges and universities, and it demonstrates the extent to which community college faculty and curricula are intertwined with the educational system as a whole. For some students, honors and developmental courses effectively function as bridges between different levels of education and, subsequently, play important roles in ensuring access and success in higher education.

This study uncovered significant differences between honors and developmental instructors in community colleges and those who do not teach at the margins of the community college curriculum. Some of these differences are merely interesting from an academic perspective, but others have real implications for hiring practices, pedagogical styles, and educational equity, and they deserve further consideration and research. As noted, research into the relationship between instructor characteristics and teaching practices at community colleges is only just beginning. It is our hope that this study's findings will be the basis for future research, both with the dataset employed here and with other national datasets. Although this study has uncovered a few important findings with respect to racial and ethnic patterns among developmental instructors, future analyses utilizing datasets with larger numbers of minority faculty will be extremely valuable and may help to explain why these patterns exist. In addition, deeper analyses of how honors and developmental courses can function as bridges between community colleges and other types of educational institutions would be valuable. Such research would allow us to explore further the inquiries suggested by field analysis and, at the same time, would allow us to probe the role of honors and developmental courses in educational access--both to community colleges and to baccalaureate institutions. Finally, in-depth qualitative studies of the teaching practices utilized in honors and developmental courses would also be valuable additions to the literature.

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U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2003b). Remedial education at degree-granting postsecondary institutions in fall 2000. Statistical analysis report. Washington, DC: Author.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2005). The road less traveled? Students who enroll in multiple institutions. Postsecondary education descriptive analysis report (NCES Report No. 2005-157). Washington, DC: Author.

Carrie B. Kisker is managing editor of New Directions for Community Colleges and a doctoral student in higher education at the University of California, Los Angeles. [e-mail]

Charles Outealt earned his PhD in higher education from UCLA and holds graduate degrees in theology and anthropology from Harvard and the University of Chicago. He worked in student affairs administration at UCLA for several years and was most recently vice president for research, policy, and planning at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH. [e-mail]

Table 1
Demographic Characteristics of Sample (N = 1531)

                                        Percent
Characteristic                   n     of sample

Gender
  Male                           743     48.5%
  Female                         740     48.3%

  No gender listed                48      3.1%

Race or Ethnicity (a)
  African American                74      4.8%
  American Indian                 22      1.4%
  Asian American                  28      1.8%
  Hispanic/Latino                 30      2.0%
  White/Caucasian               1327     86.7%
  Other                           32      2.1%
  No race or ethnicity listed     43      2.8%

Age
  Under 25 years of age            2      0.1%
  25-34 years of age             150      9.8%
  35-44 years of age             340     22.2%
  45-54 years of age             586     38.3%
  55-64 years of age             352     23.0%
  65 years of age and over        70      4.6%
  No age listed                   31      2.0%

Status
  Full time                     1064     69.5%
  Part time                      467     30.5%

Note. Totals may not equal 100% because of rounding.

(a) Totals by race or ethnicity do not equal 1531 as
respondents were able to select more
than one category.

Table 2
Logistic Regression Predicting Teaching Honors Classes at Community
Colleges (N = 1114) (a)

Variable                      Exp(B)    Wald     df       Sig

Is employed
full time                     3.050     5.431     1      0.020

Authored or                   2.779     7.674     1      0.006
co-authored
a published book

Holds a doctoral degree       2.203     5.132     1      0.023

Believes pre-baccalaureate    1.818    10.774     1      0.001
transfer is the most
important function of
the community college

Disagrees that making
use of entrepreneurial
opportunities, such as
partnerships with the
private sector, is an
important element of
professional life             1.322     4.276     1      0.039

Amount of time per            1.298    10.681     1      0.001
day spent in
professional
association work

Believes it is most           0.767     4.822     1      0.028
important that students
gain knowledge and skills
directly applicable to
their careers from a
two-year college education
(negatively related)

Model chi square               74.7
Degrees of freedom              7

Classification Table for Dependent Variable

                              Predicted   Percent Correct

Observed                        0    1
0                             997    0         100.0
1                              44    3           6.4
Overall                                         95.8

(a) This analysis excluded those instructors
who taught both honors and developmental
courses. In addition, pairwise deletion of variables
during the analysis further reduced the
number of respondents in the equation.

Table 3
Logistic Regression Predicting Teaching Developmental Classes at
Community Colleges (N = 1114) (a)

Variable                       Exp(B)      Wald      df       Sig

Identifies as
Native American                 5.136      7.694      1      0.006

Identifies as
African American                2.543      7.286      1      0.007

Has attended a community
college-specific                2.062     13.631      1      0.000
meeting within the
past three years

Rates high school               1.409      7.314      1      0.007
teachers as
useful sources
of advice

Believes developmental          1.302     25.088      1      0.000
education is the most
important function of
the community college

Disagrees that                  1.294      9.338      1      0.002
institution places
too much emphasis
on developmental
education

Number of years                 1.117      4.664      1      0.031
teaching in
secondary school

Amount of time per              1.103      6.337      1      0.012
day spent reading
student papers
or tests

Devotes a large                 1.026     13.810      1      0.000
percentage of
class time to
discussion

Identifies racially             0.144      3.894      1      0.048
or ethnically
as "other"
(negatively related)

Talks often with                0.319     45.227      1      0.000
industry-related advisory
committees or with
practitioners in field of
study (negatively related)

Holds a doctoral                0.586      3.949      1      0.047
degree (negatively
related)

Devotes a large                 0.846      8.267      1      0.004
percentage of class time to
field trips (negatively
related)

Devotes a large                 0.937     11.193      1      0.001
percentage of class time to
viewing or listening
to films or taped media
(negatively related)

Model chi square                235.8
Degrees of freedom               14

Classification Table for Dependent Variable

                              Predicted   Percent Correct

Observed                         0    1
0                              770   45         94.5
1                              161   85         34.6
Overall                                         80.6

(a) This analysis excluded those instructors who taught both
honors and developmental courses. In addition, pairwise
deletion of variables during the analysis further reduced
the number of respondents in the equation.

Figure 1
Honors and Developmental Faculty by Race or Ethnicity

Percent of Race or Ethnicity Teaching Courses

                          Honors   Developmental

African American (n=74)     4          36.5
Native American (n=22)      0          45.5
Asian American (n=28)      11.1         2.5
Latina/o (n=30)             3.3        26.7
White (n=1327)              4.6        21.3
Other (n=32)               16.7        12.5

Note: Table made from bar graph.