Two dominant individual- (faculty-) level factors emerge from the multivariate analyses of faculty survey data as important in explaining the connectivity of two-year college faculty to the labor market. First, vocational faculty are statistically more likely to say they are connected on almost all our linkage measures, other things being equal. Second, part-time faculty are far less likely to engage in linking activities, all else held constant.[27] These two characteristics stand in marked contrast to other individual factors which appear to have effects that are far less consistent. For example, there is no clear pattern to the effects of a faculty member's race/ethnicity, sex, rank, or seniority on labor market connectivity, holding other factors constant.
It was clear from our conversations with vocational faculty in our site visits that they have a strong incentive to connect to the labor market--linkages are essential to the very survival of vocational education programs for two reasons. First, linkages bring enrollments. Since many community college students are adults, the workplace is an important setting for recruiting students. Faculty repeatedly pointed out that many of the students in vocational programs are already working and are seeking a certificate or degree as a way to advance their careers. Second, linkages bring job offers for enrolled students. Community college vocational programs are held accountable for placing students in jobs in their fields--failure to achieve target placement rates threatens continued funding and, at minimum, ensures oversight and pressure from administrators. Thus, faculty sought connections to local labor markets to obtain job offers for students.
Faculty in programs with required internships or practica also have a strong motivation to keep work sites satisfied with the students. If the sites pull out of the training program or prefer another school's students, the vocational program's survival is threatened. Thus, when site personnel express dissatisfaction with students, faculty strive to respond through changes to curriculum or pedagogy. There is an inherent incentive to listen to and actively solicit participation from business representatives both through formal departmental/program advisory committees and through informal channels.
The position of part-time faculty was also clear. While they may work in the labor market outside of their college teaching assignment, they have only weak connections to the rest of their college colleagues. They spend fewer hours on campus, are less likely to have an office or a computer linked to other faculty, and are less likely to participate in decisions about curricula. Survey results clearly suggest that, other things held constant, this leads to less labor market connectivity, at least on the dimensions captured on our instrument. As noted in the section entitled, "The Nature and Extent of Labor Market Connectivity," though, part-time vocational faculty are still relatively highly connected compared to many full- and part-time academic faculty. Our site visit conversations with administrators and particularly vocational faculty suggest that part-timers add to the quality of occupational programs in terms of providing up-to-date skills in the classroom; in interviews they expressed the view that by virtue of their noncollege employment experiences, many part-timers had important linkages to local labor markets. They do, however, have less time available and less incentive to spend that time helping students with career matters and job placement.
These marked differences between academic and vocational (and to a lesser extent full- and part-time) faculty in connectivity are partly, then, attributable to differences in the nature of the faculty member's status. In other words, by the very nature of their field and program, vocational instructors are inherently more likely to be linked to the labor market. But there are other channels through which differences between the two types of faculty may be important: for example, suppose academic faculty were to work more hours and hence have less time for building linkages, or suppose academic faculty received less support from their institutions to undertake such activities. In this case, teaching field is only part of the answer. Hence, we now examine other factors which can help explain the patterns of connectivity observed in our survey data and in our case studies.