Community colleges are becoming more competitive and should be seriously considered by anyone interested in post-secondary teaching. It is extremely important, however, that your primary interest is teaching. It is not unusual to teach five or six courses per semester. Also, it is very common to teach several sections of the same course. The emphasis is not on research, so you must truly have a passion for teaching. Pluses include a diverse student body and a competitive salary (many say that teaching salaries at community colleges are better than those at four-year institutions).
There has been a proliferation of Internet resources on community colleges. Examples include a site on "Teaching in the Community Colleges" that can be found at http://naio.kcc.hawaii.edu/kcc/kccinfo.h... and a site devoted to online "Community College Teaching Centers," http://www.ukans.edu/~sypherh/bc/cc.html.
In an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education on 2 April, Maureen Murphy Nutting focuses on "Landing a Job at a Community College," at http://chronicle.com/jobs/v45/i31/4531sp.... Nutting discusses the increase in students at numerous community colleges and warns anyone interested in working at a community college about the realities. Faculty teach a heavy load of large classes almost always at the survey level. It is also extremely important, as is true at large public universities, that prospective faculty realize that many students are reentry or part time.
If you are considering a community college position, check out some web sites throughout the country. The Chronicle of Higher Education, in response to recent market trends, has recently created a section on their web-site devoted to community college jobs, http://chronicle.com/cc. They include links to the American Association of Community Colleges http://www.aacc.nche.edu the National Alliance of Community and Technical Colleges http://adminl.athens.tec.ga.us/nactc.html and to the League for Innovation in the Community College http://www.league.org. The Chronicle also includes links to other relevant sites on research, professional development, and teaching and learning. A general site on community colleges is Community College Web at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/cc/ind....
Anyone interested in finding a community college job should check http://www.academploy.com, http://www.apnjobs.com and http://www.higheredjobs.com. For opportunities in Canada, you may want to try http://www.educationcanada.com.
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