If numbers signify power, then women faculty are an important force in the community college. In 1991-92, almost 45 percent of full-time faculty in colleges offering the A.A. degree were women: 43.2 percent in the public sector and 54.1 percent in the private. By comparison, in four-year schools offering the B.A., only 35 percent of the full-time faculty were women; in doctoralgranting institutions barely 26 percent were women (Touchton and Davis, 1991, p. 28).
Comprising almost half the institution's full-time faculty, women faculty would seem to be in the mainstream in community colleges. However, those who study the professoriate view the high numbers of women community college faculty as evidence of the marginalization of women as faculty (Finkelstein, 1984; Moore and Sagaria, 1991). Implicit in this perspective is the view that the community college is a marginal institution, operating outside the mainstream of higher education. Those who teach in it are second-class citizens in the academic world. From this perspective, women two-year college faculty are margnalized at the margins: as women they are automatically marginalized and as faculty, they are marginalized by working in the community college.
How accurate a picture is this? Are women faculty in the two-year college marginal citizens in academe? Additionally, within the two-year college, are women faculty operating in the institutional mainstream or at its margins? To answer these questions, I discuss why there are so many women full-time faculty in two-year colleges, what we know and do not know about them, and conclude with suggestions for future research and practice.