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Palomar College is starting the fall semester with 19 newfull-time professors, the most the college has hired in adecade.

The new professors include instructors in the traditionalacademic disciplines of math, English, foreign languages andeconomics, as well as teachers in professional programs such asnursing, counseling, drafting and fashion design. Earning between$63,000 and $85,000 per year, the new faculty include out-of-staterecruits and instructors who’ve taught for years as adjunct facultyat the college.

This year’s additions represent the largest surge in facultyhiring since 2000, when the college recruited 31 new professors. In2005, it hired 18 new faculty members, but has brought in only afew instructors each year since.

The college made the hires this year to fill vacancies left byrecent retirements, and to maintain student-faculty ratios that thestate requires, said Berta Cuaron, vice president for instruction.Officials also wanted to ensure that the college has enoughfull-time faculty to advise students, develop curriculum and buildprograms —- tasks that aren’t filled by part-timeinstructors.

“Outside of what faculty do in the classroom, there’s so muchmore leadership they provide outside the classroom, and you can’tsustain that with part-time faculty,” Cuaron said.

The college conducted a national search for candidates, shesaid, attracting numerous qualified applicants for eachposition.

“Our applicant pools were just phenomenal, because there werevery few community colleges, let alone other colleges, who werehiring,” she said. “We really managed to pull in the creme de lacreme.”

For child development professor Laurel Anderson, the new job issomething she’s dreamed about for decades.

A former junior high school and high school teacher, Andersonsaid she became interested in child development when she had herown children, now 23 and 25.

“I didn’t feel like I knew what I needed to know when I gavebirth, so I started taking classes and got involved in parenteducation,” she said.

Anderson said she earned a doctorate in child development fromCapella University in Minnesota, focusing on parenting, attachmentand brain development, and began teaching as an adjunct instructorat the college in 2003, while also teaching at MiraCosta College,Cal State San Marcos and other local schools.

Describing Palomar College as a “student-centered” campus, shesaid she’s “thrilled” about the new position.

“My teaching and educational philosophy matches Palomar, so it’sa beautiful blend,” she said.

Maryellen Schultz, a nursing instructor who will run thecollege’s new simulation lab, said the job was an ideal fit for herexperience.

The lab employs robotic patient simulators that can mimicphysiologic functions including heartbeat, pulse, respiration

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