6.15 Academic Instructors

• With a program like Bridging the Gap, all staff directly in contact with the participants must have a strong understanding and appreciation for this client group.
• Review the job advertisement for academic instructors and consult with the College to ensure that the most suitable academic instructors are hired for the Bridging the Gap Program – not selecting instructors just because they are next on the seniority list. Instructors selected should go through an interviewing process. Important for the College to set up some guidelines to say that Bridging the Gap is different from traditional programs, and state that it is a 45–week contract and that the instructor has to commit to the full program. The instructor's length of work day should be the same as the participant's work day. Curriculum design time to be included in the regular work day. There needs to be room for flexibility.
• Maybe on the beginning have all the sites starting the one time and all Academic instructors got together for a full week and better knew what they had to do. At least a few more of the teleconferences.
• Need more lead time. The instructor should have been started at least a month earlier (20 working days).
• For the instructor – when they are hired or interviewed their responsibilities should be outlined clearly up front.
• The Academic Instructor should have some back ground in that particular field. The job description should stress this. There also needs to be as much lead time as possible to give the academic instructor time to prepare for the program. The instructor should be hired several weeks before the program starts.
• Processes of selecting the instructor needs to be improved