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Grading Papers
"Grading Papers" is a podcast that sheds light on the challenges faced by adjunct professors in higher education while offering practical solutions for professional growth and time management through technology innovations.
Grading Papers
Adjunct Professors: The Unsung Heroes of Higher Education
This episode dives into the world of adjunct teaching, highlighting the challenges and rewards associated with this vital role in higher education. We discuss the realities of adjunct life, including financial instability, job insecurity, and the passion that drives many to pursue teaching despite these hurdles.
• Examining the transition to adjunct teaching
• Discussing the financial challenges faced by adjuncts
• Understanding the passion that motivates adjunct professors
• Reflection on personal teaching experiences and challenges
• Looking ahead to future episodes focused on adjunct support
Until next time, keep grading, keep growing, and keep making a difference in your students' lives.
Dr. Rutledge
Welcome to Grading Papers, the podcast dedicated to supporting and empowering adjunct professors. I'm your host, dr Randi Anita Rutledge, and I am thrilled to embark on this journey with you. I'm so excited that you're joining me for the first episode of the Grading Papers podcast. Today we'll be diving into the world of adjunct teaching its challenges, its rewards and why it matters. So let's start by talking about an interesting statistic. Did you know that over 73% of the instructional positions in the United States higher education space are now off the tenure track? That's right. According to the new analysis of federal data by the American Association of University Professors, most college courses are taught by adjuncts. Yet they're the ones that struggle the most and often go unnoticed. In this episode we're going to talk about the current state of adjunct teaching, some common challenges faced by adjunct faculty and why people choose this path.
Speaker 1:So adjunct professors, often called contingent faculty, are hired on a course-by-course basis. That means they get a contract. They sign that contract when it's over it could be over. They typically receive lower pay, no benefits or a few benefits, and they have less job security compared to their tenured counterparts. But despite these challenges, adjuncts play a crucial role in the higher education space. You know why? Because they bring real world experience to the classroom. They're typically industry experts and they've been out there in the trenches. They know what's going on and they know how to take what you learn in your course the content, the research they know how to practically apply it. That's why they are some of the best teachers, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:When we look at education overall, it has totally shifted, with adjunct professors now making up over 70% of those who teach in the university college setting. They're the biggest staff now. Right In the 1970s, almost 80% of the professors were tenured and they were full time. Now you flip it, it's almost that amount of adjuncts who's teaching full time. So it makes you wonder about the educational institutions and we're not going to get into that today. But when you think about it all the challenges that are faced by adjuncts with with the top challenge being the low compensation you have to ask yourself are universities making a profit by hiring adjuncts at cheap compensation so that they can bring in more funding? And there's probably a lot of reasons why that may happen. But let's stick to the challenges here.
Speaker 1:The average compensation for graduate school adjuncts is around $2,800 to maybe $3,600 per course. So, when you think about it, that course could be six weeks, eight weeks or 15 weeks and you're doing a lot of work. If you're a synchronous, you're doing two hours of teaching online or live on the ground there at the University and you could be doing that twice a week. You could also be preparing for that course with your slides, because you're not getting that assistance. You're doing all that prep work yourself and you come in, you teach the course, you fold in the stories, you answer questions, you work with students after the class and then you field your emails and then you answer any questions students have and you do the assignments, the grading, the quizzes, the midterm, the final etc. And post those grades on time. But then you also may get some tasks given to you by the university, some administrative tasks that you have to do, even training etc.
Speaker 1:But even though adjuncts are doing that, they scramble to earn money and they typically work at multiple institutions and they still sometimes often live below poverty and maybe they might be able to get $50,000 a year, but most of the times not. They have a low job security. The employment is normally just semester to semester. It is not guaranteed, they get no benefits, no health care, no retirement plan and they get limited to little support. Oftentimes the professional development happens on the adjunct's own dime. They learn on their own, just so they can be up and keep up with what's going on trending in the industry as well as academia. Again, they have heavy, heavy workloads If they work nine to five, heavy workloads across multiple institutions If they don't have a nine to five to make ends meet. I've read many articles where adjuncts who had worked for universities 10, 15, 20 years died in poverty and didn't even have enough for the funeral or any healthcare costs if they had a healthcare event.
Speaker 1:As an adjunct, you don't make any decisions at the institution. You have little decision-making authority, right? So then you might say, why would a person choose this path right? Well, despite all of the issues, there are various reasons why adjuncts choose this path right. Sometimes it's an opportunity to gain teaching experience at the college level. Other times it's ability to maintain industry connections while teaching. So you could have a nine to five and maybe teaching would help level up your brand, so to speak. And so then you would have the teaching and the nine to five which could help you to gain more opportunities.
Speaker 1:But more often than not, adjuncts have a passion for teaching. They're a person that has this passion for teaching and making a difference in others' lives. That's my reason. I have a passion for teaching and making a difference. The other thing I have a passion for teaching and making a difference. The other thing and even though it's a low amount, is the extra income stream. Some people use that to take vacations, do remodeling on their homes, to save for retirement that they didn't save or they had to use. People do all kinds of things and they have all kinds of reasons, but adjuncts are such a critical part in the university ecosystem and it is my goal to bring that to the forefront, but not only that talk about the challenges and find ways to assist them to overcome these challenges. So everything is not all gloom and doom. It can be a really rewarding career, and so why do people select to go down this adjunct path?
Speaker 1:Well, I can talk about my reason for becoming an adjunct. I was working at one of the big five consulting firms in the US and just working years and years doing what they required, that's, selling millions and millions of dollars of management, professional consulting services and delivering those services. I have these skills I have. I'm giving it all away and I I might be getting the money for it, but there's something else that I'm longing for. I want to use it for myself. I want to use it for some other good right.
Speaker 1:So I started seeking to teach as an adjunct for about a year, and it took like a year or more and I didn't hear anything, and it's probably because I didn't have any teaching experience. But one day I got an email. I got an email to come and do a teaching demonstration and I'm just like oh my god, a teaching demonstration. And I heard you have to have all this stuff together. So before the teaching demonstration, they asked me to send them my teaching philosophy, all of my credits and degrees, to make sure I had the 21 credits in a subject area, and they wanted to make sure that they validated my PhD. So I did all that and then it came time for teaching demonstration. Now I didn't know what to expect, but I figured I would use my consulting experience right.
Speaker 1:So I made this PowerPoint and, because one of the areas I worked in is conflict management and resolution, I did a presentation on conflict management and resolution in the workplace. So I put together the presentation. I copied the slides so I put together the presentation. I copied the slide so I would have some actual copies of the slides just in case the slide projector didn't work or the video projector didn't work. I also had some scenarios that I had recorded so that they can listen to them, and I had these little worksheets that they would write down everything that they heard. And this is after I taught them for 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:One of the things I learned as a consultant is chunking, and that's when you teach and train your audience something and then you show them more about it, and then you give them an opportunity to use what you just taught them. So I got there I was so nervous and I got there and I had everything in my little briefcase. And so I go in there and lo and behold, it's like six people sitting at a table and I'm just like, oh my God, I thought I was just going to be with the person who asked me to come in and there were six people, and so I had my laptop and I'm hooking up my laptop and I'm being calm doing the self-talk and then, all of a sudden, I hooked up the laptop. I have my PowerPoint presentation but the overhead projector what it didn't work. So not to worry, I had 10 copies of the presentation. So with there was only six people there. So okay, so far, so good.
Speaker 1:I passed it out and then I held the recordings and I could I could turn on the recordings on my laptop, so that was good. And then I had the sheets that I was going to pass out afterwards. So I went through the presentation and I taught them this and that and everything, and so then afterwards I had one of the slides said demonstration. So when we got to that point I passed out the worksheet and I gave them the instructions that we're going to listen to three different recordings. You're going to notice the conflict that's happening and I want you, based on what you've learned today in conflict analysis and resolution, to write down in the three spaces that you have your thoughts and ways that you would mitigate maybe questions etc. Thoughts and ways that you would mitigate maybe questions, et cetera.
Speaker 1:So they listened to it and while they listened I kind of walked around the room, showing that I could move around the room and all of this. I'm just I don't even know where it came from because I am winging it right. And so then I walked around and I came to the front after the first recording and I could see them looking up, which is a sign of them thinking and writing things down. Ok, so then I played the second recording. So, just so you know, each recording was at a certain level of conflict, so the first was kind of minor.
Speaker 1:The second recording was a little little more intense, and then the third recording was extremely intense and based on the 15 minutes of content I had taught them. Those were things I gave them. I showed them different types of conflict and how you go about looking and analyzing it in some ways that you might remediate it. So again, I walked around a little bit, and then the third one. I walked around, and so then after that they put their pencils down and I felt a little relaxed then. Right, I felt more relaxed then because I had walked around and I felt like I had some command over the room. So then I asked the first question about the first recording, and they all could not wait to talk about it and I said this is good, right, and then we went on and they had the great answers. Not only did they have answers that I had given them which I expected because these were adult learners, that they had their own experience, that they could fold in and give more to the dialogue. So then we went on to the second and then the third, and everything just went so smoothly. And then after that I did the wrap up and I left them with some job aids so that they would have this one sheet, this one pager, to help them remember some of the things that they had learned. And afterward I felt relieved because I had finally got through my first.
Speaker 1:And do you know, that's my first and only teaching demonstration on face-to-face. The other ones have been online, which is kind of easier to do, but that was my first and only one, and I was biting my nails. Anyway, almost like a PhD defense, when you're doing your dissertation defense. They asked me to go out of the room, which that, to me, was unexpected. I figured I'd leave and then they'd send me an email and blah, blah, blah, but that didn't happen. I went out of the room and then in about 10 minutes someone came out to get me, and then it was the person who had asked me to come and do the teaching demonstration, and then all five of the other people left and I thought that was odd. So then she asked me to have a seat and she sat down and she was like, well, welcome to. And then she said the university. And I was just like you know, I was ecstatic. And then she talked to me about when I would be coming on.
Speaker 1:I came on in October of 2013. And the reason why I was coming on in October which she told me afterwards is because she was going on a maternity leave, and so you know, know, it's very interesting for a year and a half almost, I had been applying and applying, but I didn't even make any headway until someone had something going on with them and I guess, based on those who had applied, if I met the teaching demonstration, I would be able to come on in. I was so thankful to get the opportunity and so thankful to go through this experience because it enabled me, when I was teaching industry adjuncts how to become adjunct professors. It gave me some experience that I could talk to them about, as it related to face-to-face teaching demonstration as well as online. So I'm going to put a pin right there that was me trying to be an adjunct professor, or applying and then going through the experience of them with the teaching demonstration. So let me fast forward. So let me just say I didn't get any training. All I know is I got the contract. It said what day I was supposed to start. It gave me the IT People, sent me my user ID and password, log on to I think we were using Blackboard and look at the course and no, let me put a pin right there, I did not have a course.
Speaker 1:I had to create a course. So that's a whole nother can of worms Creating a course and trying to figure out what's the best practices, what do you use, how many modules where you get your book from, the tests, the quizzes and everything. But I did know one thing from working as a consultant. I asked myself what did I want my students to learn? And, based on what I wanted them to learn, I backed into teaching the course and I aligned what I wanted them to learn, those objectives, with the actual reading, the quizzes, the assignments, the discussion, etc. So in the very beginning I crafted my own style of creating a course that would give me the outcome because, again, I'm an industry expert. Everything I do is to have an outcome and the number one thing in my teaching philosophy is that I help students apply what they learn. So that whole teaching philosophy is a whole nother thing. You know talking about that, but that's one of the values that I have.
Speaker 1:So, ok, now let me talk to you about the first day in class, right, I didn't know what the classroom was going to look like. I didn't know what it was set up, as no one greeted me. I didn't know anything. I just went in there with my briefcase, with the book, but I had sense enough to create the course online and use the online course even for the face-to-face students, so that I could have them log online for assignments and quizzes, et cetera. So that was a good thing.
Speaker 1:When I got in there, there were all these adults and I was teaching them how to use Microsoft Word, excel, et cetera. So it was, yeah, microsoft Word, microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint, because this was for business and it was in the business school. It was one of the first undergraduate courses that I taught. So you just don't know what you just don't know. So I got to teaching them, you know, and there was someone who hollered out in the back we can't hear you in the back and I'm just like, oh my God Right, someone hollered out in the back, we can't hear you in the back. And I'm just like, oh my God Right, I'm teaching them, I'm at the board, I'm trying to follow my lesson plan and inside of my head I was just just relaxed. And the other thing is I forgot to give them breaks. And then students just start getting up and walking out of the class and I'm just like now what is happening here? I didn't have any idea what was going on, and so, when they went out to break, I went outside in my car and I thought to myself you know what? You're an adjunct, but you're also Dr Randy Anita Rutledge and you've been teaching adults, ceos, cfos, chief operating officers for the longest. And these are just students. They're just people. They're paying for their education and you want them to learn something that they can apply. Right.
Speaker 1:When they came back from the break, I had my lesson planned, but I flipped it. I asked them, I said how many of you have nine to five jobs? Everybody raised their hand. I need you to write down on a piece of paper. Don't put your name on it, just write down on a piece of paper. What are the things that you are challenged with when it comes to Microsoft Word, microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. And I want you to put it on the paper and I want you to fold it up and pass it all the way up. So it was 30 students, mind you.
Speaker 1:I had five students for a row and six rows. They all passed them up. I put them in this box and I said, okay, we have these 12 weeks that we're going to learn Word, excel and PowerPoint. Right, and every time I come into the class, we're going to pull something, several of these papers out of this bowl, and I'm going to teach you, based on my lesson plan, but I'm going to teach you what you would like to learn, and so I'll fold in the lesson plan through the challenges that you're having. And they clapped.
Speaker 1:I was like I felt so good then, you know, and so I went 15 minutes. I stopped and did a pulse check. Are you getting this? What do you not understand? What do I need to go over? Then I said, okay, every person in your row. Is there anyone in the row that understands what I did? Yes, okay, you got five minutes. Each person in the row that understands. I want you to huddle with the students in your row and help them to understand, and then we're going to pick up for the next lesson. Are you with me? And they were like, yeah, and it was almost like I had just jumped into this whole other realm.
Speaker 1:That was the actualization that I was looking for. I was looking for a way to give back. I was looking for a way to feel the knowledge that I had and to feel the impact of that knowledge, and I would venture to say that a lot of the individuals that work in the adjunct space they may be wanting to or had ideas of feeling the same thing. Right as we wrap up this episode of the adjunct life, let me give you a taste of what's coming up.
Speaker 1:On grading papers, we're going to talk about time management strategies and the overworked adjunct. We'll look at ways to get professional development on a budget, even free, and I'll talk to you about the art of teaching excellence as an adjunct and what I just explained to you, by pivoting and realizing that this education is a partnership. I was partnering with individuals who worked nine to five, who were trying to excel where they were or get other positions. They had all kinds of reasons having children, having grandchildren, wanting to buy a home, wanting to buy a new car. They had all kinds of reasons why they believe new education would accentuate and increase their means, increase their finances, their economics. I wanted to be part of that and I wanted to help them be able to do the things that they struggled with. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Grading Papers and until next time, keep grading, keep growing and keep making a difference in your students' lives.
