What’s Obvious To You About Your Work As Community College Faculty, But Not To The Public?

I was reading The Chronicle of Higher Education and found this article fascinating.  Someone on Twitter asked professors to answer this question:  “What’s something that seems obvious within your profession, but the general public seems to misunderstand?”

Scroll through all the answers in the article, and you’ll find some jewels that apply to us as well.  Here are a few.

  • “History isn’t stuff that happened, it’s why.”
  • “Successful learning is not necessarily a 4.0[GPA] or a [score of] 100.”
  • “The quality of a professor is unrelated to the prestige of their institution.”
  • “Good teaching evaluations do not necessarily indicate that someone is an effective teacher.”
  • “Most professors don’t try to influence students’ political opinions, and those who do rarely succeed.”
  • “Half your college teachers are adjuncts with no job security . . .”

Next, someone on Twitter flipped the question:

‘What’s something that seems obvious to the general public, but your profession seems to misunderstand?”  And the answers were just as enlightening.

  • “That many first gen and low income college students are one family emergency away from having to leave school.”
  • “Literally everything.  We’re philosophers.”

So I thought I would ask a similar question.  What are some things that you think the general public does not understand about our work as professors in a community college setting?  Email me your answer and I’ll compile a list.

 

Picture credits:  National Security Agency, 1950s classroom; MiraCosta Community College 2018.

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