Teaching as an adjunct can be a valuable part of an artist’s career. The work can be a bit longer-term and steadier than other gigs, the pay can be a bit more consistent, and it provides the continuous new experiences and new acquaintances and perspectives vital to an artist’s work. As with any project, all offers of a term teaching as an adjunct vary in quality. It can be hard to tell whether an offer is one you should accept from the start, but there are a few red flags to watch out for.
Schools that require you to download an app onto your phone that allows students to contact you anytime are telling you that you are expected to work around the clock.
High-quality adjunct teaching jobs require a reasonable amount of communication with students. You will be expected to check your faculty email each day and respond to the messages you find from your students. In-person class students who approach you after class or in the hallways at their school have every reason to expect you to stop and talk with them about their class work. Many schools require at least some office hours, where you will be expected to be available to discuss students’ work with them. Whether or not you give out personal contact information, such as your cell phone number, is entirely up to you, and you are absolutely allowed to set limits on the use of that if you do choose to give it out.
Beware of any school that requires you to allow students unlimited, constant access to communication with you, even indirectly. A school that puts all kinds of limits in their handbook, tells you giving out your personal phone number is optional, lists their communication app as optional, and has a policy of only needing to check your email and messages once every day or every other day is only protecting themselves from employee complaints if there are things you have to do that can only be done through their communication app on your phone. The students will know that you have that app, and they will expect you to respond to their messages right away, just as if they were texting you through your personal phone number. No matter what it may say in the faculty handbook, you will get complaints from students if you do not continuously check that app and respond to student messages throughout the day, every day, and your supervisor will ultimately agree with the student. You will be asked to check in more, regardless of what you were told when you took the work.
Supervisors who try to do things outside of the college or university are not trying to be warm and friendly, they’re trying to escape accountability for what they say to you.
Offline meetings should be held on school grounds. Most full-time faculty members have an office you can meet in, and if that is not practical, there are plenty of desks, tables, and seating areas around any college campus. Online communication should be done in a way that can be recorded and saved. If the whole class can be taught online, your supervisor can communicate with you through email or chat. Should they want to have a “warmer,” more in-person chat, the university’s zoom or other video or audio chat or conference account should be used.
There is absolutely no legitimate reason why anyone you work for as an adjunct needs to come to your house, invite you to their house, meet you at a coffeehouse or diner that is not on school grounds, or call you on your personal phone to discuss something work-related with you. If you find that your supervisor continuously pushes for this type of contact, or keeps calling your personal phone to discuss ordinary classroom business, that may be a sign that this is not someone you want to do any further work for. The only exception is if there is some type of emergency and someone at the school needs to reach you immediately.
Pre-written lessons mean you won’t get to do much teaching
Any school you teach for is going to have standards for the class. There will likely be a small collection of textbook options. In the most beginner-level courses, you may even find a required textbook, a diagnostic test or project you must assign, and some pre-scheduled lessons or guest presentations arranged throughout the course. This is all normal, expected, and nothing to worry about. They’re just trying to make sure the students have a similar base from which to launch the rest of their academic career.
Classes in which every lesson is pre-written, most of the learning resources are already in the classroom, and you’re handed a set of grading rubrics to fill out are going to quickly become tedious to teach at best. You’ll be doling out grades, answering questions about lessons you didn’t write, and providing supplemental instruction. This does not mean you won’t be busy. Often, administrators at schools that do this demand constant attention to busywork, and there are excessive demands on the time you’re asked to devote to student communication. You just won’t get to spend much of your time actually teaching concepts and skills in your field.
Marketing language making the classes sound overly easy and stress-free draw students there to buy their degree
Every school markets itself on some level. There is nothing even slightly suspicious about a school having a public relations department, setting up booths on college and career days, or having promotional materials. They all do. The important thing to note is how the school markets itself to potential students and those who have newly enrolled.
Phrases such as “Earn your degree in your car on the way to work!” or “Take your classes on your phone!” are trying to entice people with no genuine interest in going to college to pay for some classes. The message they send goes along the lines of, “Most colleges and universities may not be for you, but here at Easy College, you can pop in, do a few simple tasks, get some grades for a transcript, and come out with a degree that doubles as your ticket to anything you want in the world.”
As you might expect, this type of marketing draws in two types of people; those who want an easy school because their skills are low and they’re afraid they’d never be able to make any progress at most schools, and those who have no interest in gaining any skills in anything, and just think this looks like a good opportunity to collect some financial aid money and then get handed a magic ticket to a high-paying job with a corner office. Students in the first group will be worth your time and effort to help. Students in the second group will have no interest in being taught anything, and may even see your attempts to do so as a threat. In their mind, the person who recruited them promised them that dazzling degree if they just go through the motions, and you’re an obstacle in the way.
No adjunct teaching assignment is going to be perfect, but some are certainly more worthwhile applications of your time and energy than others. Should you decide to go ahead with any adjunct teaching assignment that displays any of these red flags, at least be prepared for what you are walking into when you walk in or log in to do your work.
By Jess Santacroce
Writer/Editor: The 315
Inspiration: The main character in many of my novels, Heather (Toth) Sartini, teaches as an adjunct.
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