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From Adjunct to Assistant

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By Gerardo Marti

It can be difficult for an adjunct to secure a tenure-track job, but I am proof that it can be done. And the feeling of having a steady position, free from the hustling of adjunct work, is wonderful.

But becoming a full-time member of a department, rather than just an occasional appendage, brings with it several other changes, and not all of them are easy to foresee.

Two years ago, when I finally landed a position as an assistant professor of sociology, I believed that my 12 years of adjunct teaching at seven different institutions had provided me with plenty of preparation for a full-time position. In actuality, it did little to ready me for the many new demands of a tenure-track appointment.

My adjunct life began when I was A.B.D. and accepted an invitation to teach a large, upper-division course at a nearby research university. I was thrilled to teach an exciting subject at a well-respected institution to an impressive group of students. My adviser warned that I would be "lured into the comforts of teaching" and said not to take the position for fear it would delay my finishing the Ph.D. But the chance for more teaching experience and the generous pay scale motivated me.

And I loved it. I found new purpose as a "visiting professor." I was elated to be issued an ID card with the word "faculty" printed on it. I carefully prepared lectures, crafted comprehensive written examinations, evaluated term papers, and recorded grades. Roaming the halls of the department, I chatted with the chair, the office manager, and the staff workers. I felt privileged to see the inside of campus offices and campus mailrooms from behind the counter.

That first teaching experience quickly led to others. While preparing my dissertation proposal, I thought to myself, "Why not teach a few more courses and accrue more academic experience?" And my previous teaching experience made me valuable on the adjunct market.

I was cheap and I was reliable. Department heads at other institutions learned about me, and I was often hired by phone or e-mail. Because I was not under critical scrutiny by campus administrators, I was free to experiment with pedagogical methods. And because I had no other institutional responsibilities, I would arrive for class and leave soon after it ended, telling students to contact me if they needed to arrange a private appointment with me.

My CV grew to include an array of different institutions and a dozen different courses. Finally, armed with a newly minted Ph.D. and a forthcoming book, I went on the job market and accepted a tenure-track position in 2004.

While my adjunct experiences made me a good teacher, they did not prepare me for the shift in identity from adjunct to assistant professor.

When I joined the tenure track, I was not prepared to enter the stream of decision-making about the policies, procedures, and priorities of the department. I remember in my first weeks on the job, people in my department had a vigorous discussion about lower- and upper-division courses. At one point, the chair turned to me and asked me what I thought.

"I'm new around here," I said. "Maybe I shouldn't be part of the decision."

The chair and another colleague sternly corrected me: You're part of this department, they said, and your opinion matters.

Up until then, I had always been on the receiving end of departmental decisions. Now here I was, expected to help make them.

A few months later, I served on my first search committee. Initially, I found the experience unnerving. From an adjunct's perspective, the department chair usually made unilateral decisions about contract workers. I was now part of hiring future colleagues. The inversion of roles from "please hire me" to "let's hire (or not hire)" that person involved a fundamental shift in my thinking.

And although I had expected I would have to take on service responsibilities on the tenure track, I had not anticipated the sheer number of additional requests for my time and expertise.

In just two years, I have met with potential students, led discussions with first-year students, given guest lectures, participated on panels, reviewed curriculum changes, organized workshops for junior faculty members, sat on thesis committees outside my department, and served on several short-term committees.

Commitments like those quickly become overwhelming, which is why I have added the word "no" to my professional vocabulary. I now decline many invitations and am learning to discern the core requests from the tangential.

The number of invitations I have received for professional involvement in my discipline has gone up tremendously, too. I review articles, assess textbooks, evaluate grant applications, lecture at other institutions, organize panels, comment on current events, and assist colleagues with their research projects.

Apparently, an institutional affiliation gives a tremendous amount of legitimacy to my scholarly proficiency. And it has been a pleasant surprise to sometimes receive compensation for my efforts. Things I might have done "for free" as an adjunct now merit payment because I am considered a busy scholar whose time is valuable.

My relationships with other faculty members have changed as well. As an adjunct, I found few full-timers willing to build deep friendships with me. After all, I was a temporary hire, I might not be around next semester, let alone next year. Now I actually have a few friends on the campus and am able to spend time with delightful colleagues. Those relationships have lasted more than a few months and have greatly enriched my life.

Perhaps most important in my shift from adjunct to assistant professor has been the change in how I define myself.

The role of professor is all-consuming and, without due caution, can quickly take over your entire life. I admit that I have credit cards that include "Dr." at the beginning of my name. That may seem silly, but I did that in my first flush of success after I defended my dissertation. As an adjunct, however, the role of professor did not become all-encompassing because educational institutions had so many ways of reminding part-timers that we were only guests in the academic world, not citizens.

In contrast, as a tenure-track professor, you take on an array of activities and commitments that threaten to swallow you whole. Obligations and expectations, both on and off of the campus, prompt you to act, well, professorial. Your opinions are sought. Your advice is solicited. E-mail messages accumulate, and manuscripts pile up. You are expected to be the expert.

As grateful as this former adjunct is to finally have a full-time job, I find it important to find ways to reinforce who I am aside from my job title. I spend more time than ever with my family. Although my wife and I are still relatively new in town, we have a small but growing pool of friends and are involved in church activities. Those involvements remind me that I am a person beyond my role as professor.

I hope others will successfully make the shift this year from adjunct to assistant professor. While the ranks of adjunct workers are growing, I know several who, like me, have moved from temporary to full-time status. And nearly all of them, like me, pursued adjunct work as they were finishing their degrees and while they were in the first years of the job market.

If you are among those who do manage to make the leap, you may find yourself as blind as I was to the actual conditions of life as an assistant professor. Know that you will greatly broaden your understanding of yourself, from being a teacher in a classroom to becoming an active, contributing member of the academic community. I hope I have helped here.