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Finding Useful Adjunct Jobs

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By Paige Reynolds

Let me open with a few concessions: Yes, adjunct faculty members are paid less than they deserve. And yes, the academy does itself a huge disservice by relying so heavily on part-timers to teach its classes. Institutions need to hire more full-time professors and to provide them with decent benefits.

That said, rather than engage in debates about the pros and cons of adjunct teaching, I would like to share some practical advice with those who want to test the waters of teaching through a part-time position. If you're thinking about becoming a professor, it's important to see if you actually enjoy teaching. Adjunct teaching will give you that opportunity, simultaneously allowing you to develop your classroom proficiency.

So while this advice is really directed toward graduate students seeking their first adjunct positions, I hope it offers valuable insights to those already teaching.

How can you find adjunct teaching jobs?

You won't have to look too hard, given how plentiful these positions are. Obviously, you can approach your own department for an appointment. But if you're interested in teaching at other institutions, you should begin by talking to your peers and advisers about departments where they've taught. This "insider information" will give you a list of colleges where you have a ready-made connection and where those who do the hiring will have a sense of what to expect from you as a teacher. Just from talking to your colleagues, you'll quickly develop a sense of which institutions you'll want to apply to -- and which ones you'll want to avoid.

As you decide where to send your applications, keep in mind that you're most likely to find part-time positions at schools with tighter budgets and expanding enrollments. You might also explore the evening and weekend continuing-education programs many institutions now offer to the public. Graduate students can often teach courses of their own design in these programs. Likewise, museums and local libraries provide classes to their patrons, so if you explore programs like these, you might discover a forum to teach material that reflects your research interests.

If you're interested in local teaching opportunities, and you have the energy to send out a pile of applications, the career-services office at your university may be able to provide you a comprehensive list of colleges in the area. On occasion, institutions will advertise part-time opportunities in local newspapers or in The Chronicle. In addition, Quidfit lets you post your C.V. to humanities, science, and social-science departments across the country that are seeking part-time teachers. And the same service will soon be provided by the Adjunct Advocate.

How can you select an adjunct position "strategically?"

If you're a graduate student applying for the first time to be an instructor, you probably will be asked to teach the courses in your field that are most basic and most in demand by undergraduates -- and, therefore, most readily available to part-time instructors.

Nonetheless, you can use adjunct teaching to develop your versatility and to show that versatility on your C.V. For instance, if you attend a top-tier research institution, try to teach at a small liberal-arts college or an open-admissions university. That way, you can demonstrate that you have experience working with more-diverse student populations -- an important asset, given that most professorial jobs are located at institutions unlike the universities where graduate students are trained.

This same advice holds for the types of courses you apply to teach. If you've traditionally taught undergraduates, see if you can teach graduate students or adult-education learners. If you are a doctoral student in English literature with experience teaching composition courses, find a way to teach literature. You might even offer to teach outside of your area of expertise to expand your knowledge of your field. If you're interested in a challenge, there's no greater one than teaching, say, early American literature when you study contemporary British literature.

When should you apply for an adjunct position?

There's really no single answer to this question. You can apply at any time of the year because you never know when a department will need to seek out a new hire. Most departments keep the C.V.'s of applicants on file, and simply check the file when it's time to hire.

That said, the best time to send out C.V.'s is most likely near the end of the academic year; that's often when department heads are looking to fill the next year's classes. But you might also land a position by sending a C.V. at the middle to end of a term, the point at which the department realizes how many additional instructors it will need to staff the next semester's courses. Or you can apply right before classes begin, hoping that someone will no longer be able to fill their part-time teaching slot. Much of getting your first adjunct job is arbitrarily showing up in the right place at the right time.

If you have no previous teaching experience, how can you persuade a department to hire you?

You can finesse your job letter and C.V. to reflect your interest in and expertise at teaching. In your job letter, adopt a tone that depicts you as a competent and engaging teacher. You might even provide a specific account of what you would do in the classroom. For instance, explain in detail how you would teach a Kandinsky painting in an art-history lecture or how you would guide a discussion group in an introductory physics class. On the C.V., emphasize any teaching experience you have. If you have none, frame other experiences -- such as tutoring, coaching, participating in your dissertation group, running labs, or facilitating workshops -- as teaching experience.

You might also want to be selectively aggressive about finding an adjunct position. This is not meant to sanction stalking a department head, but it's not unreasonable to follow up your application with a telephone call or e-mail message. I got my first adjunct position by showing up at a chairman's office, C.V. in hand. I called and found out what his walk-in office hours were for students, and I conveniently showed up, ready to demonstrate why I thought he should risk letting me into the classroom.

Use any connections you have. Your advisers or peers who have friendly colleagues at a local university or college can call and put in a good word for you. In the adjunct world, as in every realm of academics, word of mouth helps.

What can you do in an interview to improve your chances of getting the job?

Besides the obvious -- dress professionally, show up on time, speak clearly, look the interviewer in the eye -- you should be prepared to discuss which courses you could teach and how you would teach them. Which textbooks might you choose? Would you primarily use lecture or discussion? Also, create a few sample syllabi to present to the interviewer, particularly if you've never taught before. And don't overwhelm your interviewer with intellectual rhetoric -- you need to demonstrate your classroom persona, not your command of academic jargon.

What can you do to ensure that your adjunct experience is a positive one?

• Ask Around. Try to interview other adjuncts who teach at the colleges where you plan to apply. Are they included in faculty meetings? Do they have access to e-mail, health services, library privileges? Do they get office space? Are adjuncts treated with respect by the students and the department? Most important, ask adjuncts how much they're paid for each course -- the salary for the same course varies wildly at different institutions. If you have a chance to choose among offers, this information will be crucial.

• Clarify. Make sure the department's expectations for adjuncts are clear. When, where, and how often are you expected to hold office hours? Will you have access to photocopying, office space, the library, the Internet? Are there events like adjunct orientations that you'll need to attend? If you need video equipment or additional laboratory space or access to PowerPoint presentation equipment, can you get it? For large lecture classes, will you have a teaching assistant?

• Negotiate. Once you get the offer, see what kind of assurances the head of the department can offer you. Will you be guaranteed courses in future terms? Is there some flexibility in what you will teach in the future? Can they offer you summer courses or higher-level courses later in your tenure? Is there a policy recommending that adjuncts eventually be hired as full-time faculty members? Based on your interviews with other adjuncts, you can also ask for perks that they received.

• Prepare to Teach. When you accept an adjunct position, collect syllabi from the department to see how other instructors organize their courses. Use the syllabi as a means of making certain you're in line with department norms. If most professors require only two papers or exams a term, there's little sense in your grading six sets of assignments a term. If you have the time before your own classes, ask to observe a class to get a feel for the institution and its students.

• Set Limits. Remember to set limits for yourself on the amount of time you will spend preparing classes, holding office hours, or participating in department activities. You're not being paid enough to give your life over to your course -- unless that level of participation is what you enjoy.

• Take Advantage. Let's face it. When you're a part-time teacher, you're being used. So use the institution back in order to make your experience a constructive one. There is, of course, the small joy of free scholarly books that publishers routinely send faculty members. But the best part of being an adjunct is that it can serve as a kind of professorial apprenticeship. As an adjunct, the stakes of being a professor are as low as they get -- there's no tenure review, rarely any committee work, no publication expectations. And these low stakes give you the freedom to experiment with different teaching styles and methods with relatively little risk.

Clearly, adjunct teaching as a graduate student makes you a stronger candidate on the academic job market. Keep copies of your syllabi, and make copies of your student evaluations for your own files. Try to build relationships among the faculty where you're teaching, not only for support but also for a solid letter of recommendation. Ask a full-time faculty member to sit in on one of your classes so he or she can give you feedback and craft a stronger recommendation letter for you.

Adjunct teaching can be a pretty fun job, although not particularly easy or lucrative. Through a part-time position, you can build new networks of support and test drive different types of institutions.

But don't take my word for it -- there's an industry of information and advice out there for adjuncts. Take a look at Marilyn Bonnell's optimistic piece on the gypsy scholar in On the Market: Surviving the Academic Job Search (Riverhead Books, 1997), or, at the other end of the spectrum, there's Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt's bleak examination of part-time teaching in Academic Keywords: A Devil's Dictionary for Higher Education. There's also The Adjunct Professor's Guide to Success: Surviving and Thriving in the College Classroom (Allyn & Bacon, 1998).

On the Web, besides the Adjunct Advocate, take a look at Workplace: The Journal for Academic Labor. Or just plug in "adjunct teaching" on a search engine and see what comes up: Lots of schools offer advice to their own adjuncts on the Web.