NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED COLLEGE ADVOCATE TO SPEAK AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA’S FIRST FACULTY RECRUITMENT OPEN HOUSE

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 9, 2008: – Community College of Philadelphia will host a unique faculty recruitment event featuring Dr. Gail O. Mellow, president, LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens, N.Y., and co-author of Minding the Dream: The Process and Practice of the American Community College.

The open house will be from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Friday, Oct. 10 at the College’s Center for Business and Industry at 18th and Callowhill streets. Mellow will speak at 9 a.m.

A nationally-respected advocate for community colleges, Mellow is known for demanding equity for community colleges in a higher education system which she says heavily favors four-year institutions. She argues that the way higher education is categorized, defined and financed works to the detriment of community colleges even though they educate nearly half (11.9 million) of all undergraduates (24 million). In addition, 300,000 of the 1.5 million students who earn bachelor’s degrees each year do so after transferring from community colleges.

"Higher education funding and quality assessment is still premised on what are now nostalgic memories of traditional-aged, upper-middle class college students," Mellow said in a recent interview with the Inside Higher Ed, a Web-based magazine. "Unless we let go of this myth and realistically face the modern demographics of the U.S. college population – who goes and who should go to college – the relevance and status of American higher education in a competitive global education market will erode."

Mellow’s talk and book signing will be followed by several workshops that will allow potential recruits the opportunity to network with current faculty while gaining a firsthand view of the teaching opportunities available at Community College of Philadelphia.

The College is holding this faculty recruitment fair in an effort to find qualified applicants to fill anticipated openings for the 2009-2010 academic year. Presently, the College expect openings in the following areas: Accounting, Biology, Computer Information Systems, Culinary Arts, Management, Philosophy, Nursing, History, English and Learning Lab. The event is open to qualified applicants, including adjunct faculty and graduate students from other institutions.

Like many community colleges across the nation, it is a challenge for Community College of Philadelphia to find and recruit qualified professors, especially in the fields of Science and Nursing. But given the national economic crisis, tight job market and growing number of layoffs, teaching positions may draw more interest than usual.

Mellow has written more than 30 articles on community colleges, economic development, diversity, faculty development, job training and pedagogical innovation. She is a consulting editor for Change Magazine, the national magazine for higher education.

A social psychologist with extensive experience in higher education, Mellow became president of LaGuardia Community College in August 2000. The Long Island City institution is one of the most ethnically diverse campuses in the nation, with more than 50,000 students from more than 160 different countries. LaGuardia has the lowest tuition of the schools within the City University of New York system.

Mellow has served in various capacities at community colleges in Maryland, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey: as adjunct faculty, tenured faculty, academic dean, provost and president. In addition, she was the director of the Women’s Center at the University of Connecticut and the director of the Project on Women and Technology.