9 Faculty Credentials
Define the required faculty credentials for faculty teaching this program:
NIC instructors are required to have a master’s degree in History or a related field, with graduate courses in history. Dual Credit instructors are not required to have a master’s degree in History. However, there are other requirements such as having a BA in History, with full-time teaching experience at the high school, AP teaching experience, and most recently, a BA in a related field and History teaching experience, with their first semester teaching NIC courses in a team teaching model, with a tenured NIC History faculty member.
Percent of full-time and part-time faculty with the required credentials:
100% of full-time and part-time faculty have the required credentials. Dual Credit instructors: the department currently has three to four Dual Credit History instructors (depending on the semester). Three of the four Dual Credit History instructors have MA degrees; 2 in History and the other has an MA degree in a related field with an emphasis in history with a total of 15 graduate credits completed in History. The third instructor has a BA degree in history with History teaching experience, which is within the allowance for Dual Credit instructors.
Discuss the trends (e.g. changes in full-time to part-time ratio; special appointment versus tenure track positions):
We anticipate continued declines in on-campus history enrollments at the same time that in-high school dual credit enrollments continue to increase. This will result in full-time to DC ratio changes, not just in number of faculty but in courses taught by tenured faculty and DC faculty. There is currently just one NIC adjunct history faculty, who teaches at the Sandpoint and Bonner’s Ferry High School outreach locations. Continued demand for history courses there is difficult to predict, but at the moment we do not anticipate any change there.
Please describe whether you are able to readily hire faculty with appropriate qualifications and credentials when needs arise:
Though there is no current open pool for adjunct History faculty, finding qualified applicants who possess the appropriate credentials to teach History courses has not been difficult in the past.
Please describe any exceptions made to hiring requirements:
The Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies is qualified to teach, and has taught, a range of History courses, should the need arise. Also, as noted above, a new path for those desiring to teach as a new History dual credit faculty were established in the 2022-23 academic year, where experienced high school faculty can teach a course they may not have a degree in, provided they have coursework and related teaching experience, and pair up with a tenured NIC faculty, who regularly teach the course the high school faculty are wanting to offer as a dual credit course on their high school campuses. While this has been applied in other fields, there has not been a need, thus far, to actualize this option for a high school faculty wishing to teach a History dual credit course.