The Philosophers' Cocoon

Moving from a CC to a 4-year university?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

If one accepts a job offer from a community college, how difficult would it be to make a lateral move out of this position? In other words, imagine I'm on the tenure track at a CC. Would that likely put me out of the running for jobs at four-year universities (even if they're primarily teaching schools)?

These are good questions. I have to imagine that a lot depends here on how one publishes while at the CC. If you have a strong teaching record and publish sufficiently to be in a good position to get tenure at a 4-year university (teaching-focused or otherwise), then I have to imagine that you could move--or, at least, that search committees at a fair number of 4-year colleges or universities would seriously consider you. At least in my experience serving on a number of search committees, we really are looking to hire whomever we think is best for the position, given what we are looking for--and so if you have a great teaching (and service?) record at the CC while publishing, I see no reason why you wouldn't be competitive. That being said, not all search committees may be so open-minded, and people may have implicit or explicit biases.

What do you all think? It might be good to hear from people who are at CC's who apply for jobs (are you competitive?), as well as from search committee members. 

Summer community college teaching?

In our November "how can we help you?" post, Anthony writes:

Question: How does a graduate student find summer teaching opportunities? I would be happy to adjunct this summer at a community college.

Context: I'm currently earning a masters degree in humanities. For it, I'll take a couple philosophy-related courses. I'm actually halfway through a PhD in philosophy at a different institution; I'm officially on a leave of absence from my PhD program to complete this MA. I've completed graduate coursework at my PhD program. But my PhD program only grants masters degrees to those who exit the program early (which seems unjustified to me, but that's a different matter), so I won't have a MA degree until June. My only experience as a primary instructor was at a summer school, but I do have several semesters of TAing under my belt.

Good question, and I have to confess to not knowing the answer. I suspect it's easier to get teaching opportunities at a community college during the normal academic year, as there are presumably more course sections then. I taught at a CC for a couple of semesters during grad school, and if I recall I just applied when I saw an advertisement. But I never did during the summer, so again, I'm not quite sure what the answer to the OP's question is. Do any of you know?