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Physics in the Two-Year Colleges: 2001-02

by Mark McFarling and Michael Neuschatz

Highlights

• During the fall of 2001, there were 1,072 campuses offering a total of 5,105 sections of physics. There were 2,560 faculty teaching physics, and 102,000 students taking physics.
• The typical two-year college physics program was small. Forty-three percent of departments offering physics had only one physics faculty member, and five out of six had two or fewer full-time physics teachers (Figure 1).
• Similarly, the number of physics sections offered by each department was limited. Nearly half of the campuses offered three or fewer sections in physics (Figure 2).
• Physics offerings were primarily geared towards students planning to transfer to four-year schools. The majority of courses offered were algebra/trigonometry and calculus-based physics, equivalent to the introductory courses offered in four-year college and university physics departments (Table 1). The largest two-year college programs were twice as likely as smaller departments to offer applied/technical physics and physics for education majors (Table 2).
• Over the past two years, 13% of departments had at least one faculty retirement, 7% had at least one faculty member leave prior to retirement, and 2% had seen both. On the other side of the equation, 5% of departments were currently recruiting new faculty, 7% were planning to recruit the following year, and 1% were recruiting in both years (Figure 3).
• 64% of faculty held full-time appointments, nearly all in tenured or permanent positions. The remainder were part-time, with nearly all being temporary.
• Full-time faculty had taught at their current campus twice as long (Figure 4), and taught about twice as many sections, as part-timers (Figure 5). The percentage of all faculty that had a PhD was similar for full-timers (39%) and part-timers (36%). The percentage of women among faculty members was also almost identical for full-timers (15%) and part-timers (13%) (Table 3).
• The main difference between men and women faculty was the median number of years they had spent teaching at their current campus (8 for men vs. 5 for women) and the percentage with a PhD (41% of men vs. 26% of women) (Table 4).