Professional Development Planning Tools for Community College Administrators
STEP 1– Identifying and Analyzing Your Institution’s Demographics
Examine the demographics of your institution. Reflect on the students you serve and the composition of the faculty who serve them. How can professional development be designed to meet the specific needs of your institution?
Consider the following:
How many full-time and adjunct faculty do you employ?
What is the average age of your student body? Could your faculty benefit from training that addresses the needs of a diverse, adult learner population?
What percentage of your students are pursuing academic degrees? Technical degrees?
What is the cultural diversity of your student body? Could your faculty benefit from training that would enable them to better meet the needs of minority students or those with cultural differences?
Are your students academically or economically disadvantaged? Could your faculty benefit from training to address these “at risk” factors?
The following data resources can provide you with a variety of demographic information for your institution.
Critical Success Factors
for the Colleges of the North Carolina System--
http://www.nccommunitycolleges.edu/Publications/docs/Publications/csf2008.pdf
A Matter of Facts--Contains
enrollment data by college and considerable aggregate system
data
http://www.nccommunitycolleges.edu/Publications/docs/Publications/fb2007.pdf
The NCCCS Data Warehouse--Contains information on student
enrollments, faculty and staff employment, and course offerings.
Requires a login password. System manuals are available
online, but training is also available.
http://www.nccommunitycolleges.edu/Training/DataWarehouseTraining/data_warehouse.html
A better explanation of the reports available from the Data
Warehouse can be found at this site:
http://www.sandhills.edu/faculty-staff/planning-research/ncccs-reports.php
The Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) College
Navigator website--Allows you to search
for basic demographic data about your institution, including
enrollment by gender and ethnicity.
http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
The North Carolina State Demographics website--provides
county and municipal population counts and projections for
future census
http://demog.state.nc.us/
The North Carolina State Data Center census information
website
http://census.state.nc.us/
To help yourself plan discipline-specific professional development,
determine what percentage of your total faculty teach in
the following program areas. (Check with your institution's
research and planning office if you need the number of faculty
per teaching area.)
| Program Area | Number of Faculty |
| Agricultural and Natural Resources Technologies | |
| Biological and Chemical Technologies | |
| Business Technologies | |
| Commercial and Artistic Production Technologies | |
| Construction Technologies | |
| Criminal Justice | |
| Early Childhood Education |
|
| Engineering Technologies | |
| English | |
| Health Sciences, including Allied Health | |
| Humanities/Fine Arts | |
| Industrial Technologies | |
| Natural Sciences | |
| Mathematics | |
| Public Service Technologies | |
| Social/Behavioral Sciences | |
| Transport
Systems Technologies, including Automotive |
|
| Continuing Education | |
| Developmental Education |
Keep this profile close by as you complete Step 2 in the planning process, the Professional Development Analysis. Think about the implications your college’s demographics will have on your professional development planning efforts.
