'Road scholars' serve multiple campuses

Anhvy Do didn't eat her Wheaties today. With her busy schedule — hopping around to as many as five different teaching jobs — she just didn't have time.

"If I can't eat on the go, in the car, I don't eat," Do says, as she drives around Orange County to teach her classes in English as a Second Language to immigrants. In fact, until recently, when a school nurse lectured her on the importance of healthy habits, Do would gobble a couple of cookies from a tin in her car and call it breakfast.

Eating right is just one of the challenges for the young community college instructor. Staying organized, keeping up her energy, and remembering which freeway to get on also keep her on her toes.

"Sometimes, I forget where I am and realize I've taken the wrong freeway entirely," she says.

Running from job to job forces Do to stay organized. The trunk of her car contains four cardboard boxes, one for each of the colleges where she teaches. She also stores a case of water, a box of trail mix and a stash of candy that seems to keep her going. Her cell phone alarm goes off to warn her when to return her library books or where she needs to be. And her mother, who is a counselor at Coastline College, provides her "care packages" of homemade food so she doesn't have to cook when she gets home at night.

Anhvy Do (pronounced Un-vee Doe) is one of about 35,000 part-time community college instructors in California who are also known as "road scholars" because of the miles they chalk up driving to the various campuses where they teach. They are a well-educated itinerant workforce that has to work at several jobs to make the equivalent of what their full-time counterparts earn at one.

Despite legislative efforts in 2002 to create a Part-time Equity Fund for adjunct faculty, part-time instructors on many campuses have still not gained parity, health benefits and other perks that include office hours, due process and payment for flex day activities (inservice days).

Although there are people who choose to augment their careers by teaching a course or two at the community college, most part-time faculty, like Do, rely on their teaching as their sole source of income. In fact, a survey conducted in 2000 by the Community College Association, one of CTA's higher education affiliates, revealed that 78 percent of part-time faculty do not work in a field other than teaching. What's more, the survey showed that 37 percent of the faculty had taught for more than 10 years and 25 percent have taught for six to 10 years, indicating it's not just a temporary job.

According to figures from the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, part-time teachers outnumber their full-time colleagues by almost 2 to 1 statewide.

Salaries for part-time (and full-time) instructors vary from campus to campus. While part-timers may earn as much as 80 percent of the full-time faculty on some campuses, they may earn as little as 39 percent on others. At Mount San Antonio College, for example, a part-time instructor could expect to be paid $50.72 an hour while a full-time instructor's salary might average almost $72 an hour. At Napa College, a part-time instructor might earn an average of $45 an hour while the full-time counterpart would earn an average of $62.45. (Both comparisons use 2003 numbers, the most recent figures available.)

In addition, part-time instructors were also laid off in much greater numbers than full-time faculty during recent budget cuts.

Do was fortunate not to be laid off from any of her courses this semester, although things were touch and go for a while. When she discovered that one of her courses at Santiago Canyon College only had seven enrolled at the beginning of the year, she phoned her students and urged them to bring their friends to class. She now has 23 in that class.

"I have to do my own marketing because I can't risk having a class canceled. There have been times when I've had classes canceled after I've put in the work to prepare a syllabus, and, of course, I don't get paid for the prep work," she says. "If I were full-time, they'd find something else for me to do."

In fact, between her adult school classes in the Orange Unified School District, the credit and noncredit classes she teaches in the Rancho Santiago Community College District, Fullerton College in the North Orange Community College District and the Coast Community College District, and her private tutoring, Do has plenty of students to go around.

If only she had enough hours in the day. On Mondays and Wednesdays, she teaches from 8 in the morning to 7 at night. Tuesdays and Thursdays have her going from 8 a.m. to 9:15 p.m. She also takes on private students for tutoring on the weekends. There are times in the day when she has a break of two hours or more, but that's used to grade papers in her car, make copies and handouts, or squeeze in some private tutoring for high school students. She never allows herself to go home during the day because it would most likely mean getting caught in traffic during rush hour — the one thing she really can't stand.

"My friends say I never have any downtime, but I love teaching. When my students say, 'Thank you, teacher!' it warms my heart."

While she may complain about her schedule, she never complains about the work. Do came to the United States with her family when she was two years old, during the fall of Saigon. Although her parents urged her to become a doctor or lawyer, she found her calling in the classroom, when she first went to help out her father in his tutoring business. She went on to earn a master's degree in English as a Second Language. She has been teaching as a part-time instructor for the past eight years.

"I'd love to be in one place and not drive around everywhere, and get benefits, but I've seen how hard it is for part-timers to get full-time positions," Do says. "I think the colleges see that we are willing to work part time, so they want to keep us here. I had a co-worker who worked part time for 25 years, no kidding! She was very disgruntled when she left. When you hear stuff like that, it's not that motivating."

Working as much as she does, Do is able to make payments on her condominium, her student loans and her car — a silver Audi A4 that she absolutely loves. While it's a grueling schedule at this time in her life, she acknowledges she is willing to make the sacrifice.

"I'm not married. I don't have children. What else am I going to do?" she asks.

At the same time, however, she is aware that she works very hard without earning the same benefits as her full-time colleagues. For example, she currently pays for her own health benefits, which cost her $199 a month and a $25 co-pay. "Fortunately," she says, "I hardly ever get sick."

Nor is there much time for vacations, either. Due to her work schedule, Do hasn't gone anywhere for more than four days for many, many years.

Although Do loves teaching, she sometimes feels like she's doing a disservice to the students since she doesn't have as much time and energy to prepare for her classes as a full-time instructor might. In addition, she isn't given a space or pay for office hours, so her students aren't able to reach her outside of class.

"I know that when I was a student, my teachers were there to help me," she says. "But my students don't get that help because there's no place to meet with them."

Her schedule also makes it hard to meet other faculty and get involved on campus. She had to miss the orientation at Rancho Santiago because she had to teach that day at Coastline. At most campuses, it's "hi and bye," she says. She is currently a representative for part-time faculty in one of the campus faculty associations and she diligently attempts to attend the meetings.

"As part-timers, we need a voice. Who will speak for us? I hate talking about stuff and not doing anything. Besides, at the last meeting, we voted on hiring criteria. I was happy that they were asking us for our opinion."

"Sometimes, it just feels like we are invisible," says Do. But she doesn't have time to wallow in self-pity. It's going on 6:30 p.m. and she still has her evening class of 40 to face.