The Adjunct Track

Juggling Multiple Gigs

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By Jill Carroll

Adjuncts who actually make a living in this business teach for several institutions at once during any given term. Sometimes it's difficult to manage our varying commitments. You find yourself puzzling over questions like, Is it OK to seek work at other institutions while teaching at your current ones? How soon should we tell an employer that we will turn down some assignments for the next term? How soon should we give notice?

Unfortunately, no protocols exist for adjuncts. This should be surprising, given that the use of adjuncts is so high, and getting higher. You'd think there would be some rules or standards. But it's not surprising because adjunct life is, by nature, haphazard.

What I'd like to offer here are a handful of guidelines for adjuncts managing multiple gigs in academe. These are protocols I've observed in more than 10 years of "full-time" adjunct practice as well as things I'm suggesting for the larger adjunct community.

Let's begin with the issue of what you owe your current institutions if you are seeking out work at others. For full-timers looking for new jobs, the search process is somewhat secretive. In the adjunct world, everyone in their right mind knows that we must teach for several institutions at once in order to make a living, so there's no need to be secretive.

My general rule is, Always seek out other work if you have room in your schedule and if you need it financially. If hiring administrators seem shocked or offended by this, well, too bad. Focus on integrating the new work opportunities into your existing schedule so that your employers won't even feel your divided attention. This gives them assurance that even as you do lots of other things for lots of other people, you are still firm in your commitments to them and aren't shirking the responsibilities you signed up for.

But what are the rules governing the actual work that adjuncts do on a daily basis? Again, there are none. Adjuncts have students at several institutions, a little corner of an office or a table (if we're lucky) at several locations, and a herky-jerky schedule that has us running around from campus to campus. Can you do work for one institution while you are sitting in office hours at another one? My answer: Yes you can, and sometimes you must.

Say you are holding office hours at institution A and you've got a pile of papers to grade for students at institution B. Should you wait to grade them until you're actually sitting at campus B or at home? Heck no, just go ahead and grade the papers. Do any work whatsoever in that time and space. The minute a student walks up, drop everything, and offer your undivided attention. Once you finish with your student, get back to your other work. There is no inherent conflict here at all as long as you are fulfilling your commitments to the students.

Conflicts do arise when you use the expendable resources of institution A to do work for institution B. Some of this is just common sense: Don't photocopy materials for campus A on campus B's machine. Try to balance your use of office supplies so that you aren't getting all your pens and paper from just one college. Try to only take from institution A the amount of supplies you need to serve its students, and the same goes for supplies from campuses B and C.

What about giving notice or canceling teaching assignments? I had to deal with this myself recently. Because of a surplus of work at higher-paying institutions, I backed out of two courses for an institution where I'd taught for several years. The courses were for this fall and I was contracted to teach them back in the spring. I told my hiring administrator in June that I would not be able to teach the courses in the fall. That gave her about two months to find a replacement.

Given the way adjuncts are hired and fired on a moment's notice (based on enrollments), giving two months' notice to the college was fairly generous. But I had taught on the campus for several years and have a great deal of respect for the people there. I wanted to return the respect, so I gave plenty of notice.

That may not always be the case. You may land a higher-paying job just weeks or even days before the start of a term, and in order to take it, you need to cancel a previous commitment. Should you do it?

Well, you should strongly consider the offer, especially if the money is significantly higher and there's a chance of prolonged employment there. We have to get our foot in the door at higher-paying institutions when we can; that's the nature of the business. Colleges hire and fire adjuncts because of bottom-line considerations -- we are cheap labor, and if the tuition dollars don't materialize (via enrollments) then they can let us go. So, what's good for the gander is good for the goose. They should understand quite well when we have to make similar bottom-line considerations and back out at the last minute.

Having said that, I suggest avoiding last-minute notices whenever possible. Basic professionalism dictates giving people time to find your replacement. And you never want to burn your bridges. You may need to resume your work at that campus at a later term, and you don't want to be remembered as the adjunct who left them in a lurch. Ideally, you should try to integrate the new college's work into your existing schedule so that you don't have to let any of your assignments go.

Finally, how should we handle conflicting commitments? For example, what if institution A requires us to attend a meeting at a time when we normally teach a class for institution B? Or, say both colleges request your attendance at a meeting held at the same time?

Well, I'm not for canceling class except under extreme circumstances, and a faculty meeting or in-service training does not count as extreme. Secondly, adjuncts should be wary of "required" meetings anyway. Colleges pay us to teach -- period. Any work outside of that general job description is "service," and we aren't paid for "service."

This happened to me recently, as well. College A adopted a new online grading system and required all instructors -- full and part time -- to attend training on the new system. Unfortunately, all of the training dates and times conflicted with my class times. So, I told my administrator that, short of canceling class to attend, I -- and probably dozens of other adjuncts -- needed alternative arrangements. The next week, a printed booklet showed up in everyone's box explaining the new system.

Now, the online grading system directly related to my teaching, so I was willing to make accommodations -- even to the point of canceling the class I taught for that college, if it didn't make other arrangements. (I would not, however, have canceled class at my other colleges.) In the end, however, it all worked out.

In the past, I have failed to attend "required" meetings because the content of the meeting was out of the range of the adjunct job description, because the meeting conflicted with other scheduled tasks, or because I simply have better things to do with my time than attend all the meetings that colleges think we ought to attend. Colleges, like everybody else, tend to want more than they pay for. Plus, they often operate under the prejudice that we adjuncts need more professional development since we're, well, adjuncts. So, they require meetings.

Just say No. Don't get ugly about it or cop an attitude. Just explain the situation: You've got other commitments, you've got class conflicts, you are "only an adjunct" and can't be around their campus all the time. Professionally decline while offering to comply with some sort of alternative.

For financial survival, adjuncts must prioritize the jobs that pay the most. I, for example, have prioritized institution A over the various campuses of institution B for several years mainly because A pays me a lot more (so they get to have more of my time), and their contract terms in general are more favorable. I'm very candid with the administrators at B about this, and we work together to arrange a schedule that works for everyone.

You must do this, too, if you plan to make a living as an adjunct. Just maintain a professional attitude and go about your business conscientiously, getting work whenever and wherever you can.