Nichole Neal, an engineering professor and a Society of Women Engineers affiliate faculty advisor at Chandler Gilbert Community College, or CGCC, in Chandler, Arizona, started teaching after she was laid off from an engineering firm in 2010, at the height of the Great Recession. Then a project manager, she had been overseeing the construction of two casinos on a Native American reservation in Phoenix.
Neal leveraged her professional network and volunteer experience tutoring students in high school through postcollege and at the Urban League to generate leads. A friend who worked in the community college system told her that engineering teachers were always in demand. So, in 2012, she applied, interviewed on a Thursday, and started as an adjunct instructor the following Monday.
Neal earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in manufacturing systems engineering from Kettering University. She said her success at a highly competitive co-op in college gave her a keen understanding of her future students’ psyches. “I knew that I needed to give students a space where they felt like they belonged and where they could talk to one another — to experience a fellowship beyond the classroom,” Neal said.
“Academia has given me more confidence in my creative thinking capabilities, as well as experience in running an entire program that requires wearing different hats.”
— Nichole Neal
Her experiences also provided insight on the need to build professional skills. “Our project-based curriculum in the engineering program at CGCC assesses students on not only their critical thinking and math and science [skills], but also on their ability to collaborate in team settings.”
Neal said her transition from industry to academia seemed natural because she has always been people focused. “Academia has given me more confidence in my creative thinking capabilities, as well as experience in running an entire program that requires wearing different hats: instructor, advisor, mentor, program director, and industry contact.”
Make a plan
Experts say engineers seeking to make a similar transition from industry to teaching at a community college should consider a variety of actions to prepare for the switch:
- Use professional and personal networks to learn of teaching opportunities and decision-maker contacts.
- Try out teaching by serving as a guest speaker at high schools, young people’s advocacy groups, and local colleges and universities.
- Be prepared to trade a higher industry salary for a lower salary with a guaranteed pension based on years of service.
- Research each potential workplace for its distinctive characteristics and requirements.
- Prepare for a high degree of autonomy. In most cases, strong unions permit community college teachers to be fully in charge of their teaching materials and classrooms.
- Expect a flexible but possibly heavy work schedule.
- Expect to help students beyond the classroom by, for example, taking them to professional society conferences, advising them about the often-complicated transfer to a four-year college, and possibly starting new clubs or creating other needed resources.
- Be open to helping students from a range of backgrounds and cultures and building personal relationships with them.
[For more information on the impact community colleges have on the STEM field, read “The Community College Connection.” ]
Prepare the next generation
Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh is a professor of engineering and physical sciences at Springfield Technical Community College in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she earned an associate in science in engineering degree. She then transferred to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she earned a B.S in civil and environmental engineering and a master’s in civil engineering with a concentration in structural engineering.
“I can relate to my students. I’ve sat where they’ve sat. They can talk to me.”
— Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh
McGinnis-Cavanaugh said she loved that her community college professors understood her circumstances as a student returning to school after raising a family. In fact, while pursuing a graduate degree, it was a community college teacher who convinced McGinnis-Cavanaugh to become a teacher herself.
“I can relate to my students,” McGinnis-Cavanaugh said. “I’ve sat where they’ve sat. They can talk to me.” She found the community college life the perfect way to pursue her dedication to expanding access to engineering. She enjoyed helping students pursue cutting-edge career choices ranging from artificial intelligence to infrastructure to quantum computing. “Engineering is a very creative field. It’s also a field that impacts virtually every aspect of human life and a field in which you can make great contributions to the world in many different areas.”
While at Springfield, McGinnis-Cavanaugh earned multiple grants to help steer middle and high school students toward engineering, established the college’s SWE chapter, and worked to increase the number of women and historically underrepresented students pursuing STEM degrees. For her efforts, she received SWE’s 2024 Engineering Educator award.
Do due diligence
“Working with college students every day is not a good fit for everyone, even those who enjoy guest lecturing or giving presentations.”
— Kimmy Kellet
Would-be teachers should get as much teaching experience as possible, as early as possible, and talk with community college teachers about their experiences. That’s the advice of Kimmy Kellett, Ph.D., associate professor of biology at Perimeter College, an associate degree-granting college within Georgia State University in Decatur, Georgia.
“Working with college students every day is not a good fit for everyone, even those who enjoy guest lecturing or giving presentations,” Dr. Kellett said. Early classroom experience also makes engineers more competitive for teaching jobs, helps them develop and fine-tune their teaching skills without the pressure of a heavy courseload, and connects them with potential mentors and resources that they can use throughout their teaching careers, she said.
Dr. Kellett’s favorite perk from teaching at a community college is the time off between semesters and during summer break, when she can choose to teach online or not at all.
She also enjoys teaching study-abroad courses to students who may have never traveled outside the country. For example, she traveled with Perimeter College students to Costa Rica and Mexico, to learn about biology, explore different habitats and ecosystems, and experience local culture.
Dr. Kellett serves as faculty associate of the college’s Hub for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In this role, she prepares students for the local workforce, organizes and helps fund student travel to conferences, and supports them in their growth as entrepreneurs and innovators. Through the Hub, students connect with career development and internship opportunities, take field trips, engage in resume workshops, and tour product development labs. The Hub also features speakers from local startup companies and has a collegewide innovation competition in which students pitch their business and product ideas to a panel of judges.
Consider a career move
“By creating effective professional networks, community college faculty will have more connections to share with their students, more opportunities to conduct research, and will promote a better understanding of the needs and challenges that community college faculty face.”
— Tess Weathers
Just as students can begin their education at a community college and later transfer to a four-year institution, teachers can also begin at a local college and move on from there. Tess Weathers, Ph.D., followed her dad’s career as a community college educator by teaching at Chabot College in Hayward, California, before taking a position this past fall as an assistant professor at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt in Arcata, California. Dr. Weathers worked at Chabot for more than six years, including as a tenured faculty member of the division of math and science, as engineering program chair, and as a faculty advisor to the engineering club and the robotics collective. She spearheaded a successful effort to obtain a $500,000 National Science Foundation Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education grant focused on using advanced microscopy for undergraduate research, curriculum development, and outreach to local middle schools.
She is fiercely committed to creating partnerships between community college instructors and those at four-year universities. Dr. Weathers and some of her colleagues have started advocating for professional societies, funding agencies, and academic institutions to “mindfully enable and create spaces for two-year college faculty to make connections” with faculty at four-year schools, she said.
“By creating effective professional networks, community college faculty will have more connections to share with their students, more opportunities to conduct research, and will promote a better understanding of the needs and challenges that community college faculty face,” she said.
Create balance
Ines Figueiras grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the daughter of immigrants from Spain — and fortuitously for her, only 20 minutes from Rutgers University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.
Figueiras worked part time in the human resources department of a transportation company during her senior year at Rutgers. She spent five years working in information technology for a transportation company and then five years as a systems consultant for a pharmaceutical company.
And then, she got a life-changing surprise. When her daughter was nearly 2 years old, Figueiras found out she and her husband were expecting triplets — two girls and a boy. Figueiras took time off from work, and after four years, decided she wanted to help contribute to the family’s living expenses yet still spend as much time at home as possible.
“For your students, you are a role model, a motivator, and an advisor.”
— Ines Figueiras
Her cousin, an instructor at Essex County College, a public community college in Newark, New Jersey, suggested she consider teaching there because it could offer greater flexibility than corporate work. She jumped at the chance.
The job as an adjunct professor took her back to within walking distance of Rutgers, teaching a pre-algebra class to 25 students. “I fell in love with it the first day,” she said, noting that she had a great deal to offer the students.
Figueiras likes that she and her students get to know each other in small classes and appreciates the diversity of her students, who may come from outside the United States or from low-income and historically underrepresented communities, or may be returning to school after many years.
Over her 18-year career at Essex, she rose from instructor to associate professor in the division of mathematics, engineering technologies, and computer sciences. “You need to love the job to be successful,” Figueiras said. “You must be confident in your field of study but also wear many other hats.
“For your students, you are a role model, a motivator, and an advisor. For the college, you develop curriculum, assess your programs and courses, maintain accreditation standards, and serve as student club advisor, as well as many other responsibilities.”
Figueiras earned a master’s degree in higher education in 2014, started a SWE collegiate group in 2018, and currently serves as co-lead for SWE’s Community Colleges affinity group, along with McGinnis-Cavanaugh.
“I am so grateful this is where my path took me,” she said. “It’s the best thing I ever did.”
