Balancing Budgets, Beach Floods, and the Blackboard: Andi Clemons on Faculty Resilience

In this inspiring episode of The Adjunct Files, Andi Clemons—director in the Provost’s Office, doctoral candidate, and first-time adjunct—shares her multifaceted journey through higher education. From managing academic budgets to surviving hurricanes and navigating dissertation stress, Andi brings a unique perspective to the classroom and campus culture. She discusses the importance of building resilience before adversity strikes, the need for better adjunct onboarding, and the power of community support. Her insights offer a compelling call to action for institutions to prioritize faculty well-being and connection, especially for adjuncts.

Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husni.

Adjunct Nation is a collaborative podcast under the auspices of The Lucas Center for Faculty Development at FGCU. You can learn more by clicking on this link:

https://www.fgcu.edu/lucascenter/

Transcript

Welcome to the Adjunct Files.
We're a growing, diverse community who face challenging work in an ever-changing, higher
education landscape.
Your co-hosts for this podcast are with you in this.
I'm John Roth, Adjunct since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida
Gulf Coast University.
I'm Maggie Hohne, Adjunct since 2022 and currently work in the Office of First-Year Seminars.
Together we hope to have conversations to empower, support, and elevate Adjunct Faculty.
This conversation today is one to do just that.
Hi everybody, welcome back to the Adjunct Files.
John, how are you?
Doing well.
We are having a good time this semester.
What I really appreciate is no hurricanes.
Knock on wood.
Okay, we just did.
But I'm excited about the guest we have with us today.
She is a rock star in my opinion at this university.
She does an amazing amount of work.
She is so thorough.
She is so professional.
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
We are very lucky.
The first time I met her I was intimidated actually.
Don't say that.
It is a compliment though in a good way because it's like me and I feel like I'm so unprofessional.
But no, it's been great.
So Andy is with us.
Andy Clemens and she's in a unique role, right?
Kind of a trifecta of things just like you Maggie.
Andy, would you please introduce yourself to our audience today?
All right.
Well, hello everyone.
I am Andy Clemens and as they mentioned, I do work in the office of the Provost.
I have the pleasure of serving as a director of Academic Affairs Administration and Budget.
I often tease that that role means give it to Andy.
She'll figure it out.
And you do.
And I do.
But I also spend my evenings and weekends as a doctoral student, now doctoral candidate
in the program here at FGCU.
Congratulations.
Very busy.
Thank you.
Working on a dissertation and my free time.
And now adjunct professor in communications and philosophy.
Awesome.
So that's the newest role.
It's been an adventure for sure.
And that is a class on public speaking?
Public speaking.
So, yeah, this is my first time teaching at FGCU.
And interestingly enough, you know, I've always wanted to teach.
I've wanted to have that experience.
I've worked in higher ed.
Gosh, I think 18 years now.
Wow.
And I had various roles earlier in my career that had me interacting more with the students
than I do now.
My role now is largely supporting faculty.
Where I do a lot of faculty training.
So I host about 40 faculty trainings a year.
Wow.
One a week, almost.
Yep.
Yep.
And I was just thinking about the more successful classes we roll out in our new systems, the
more support we try to provide.
And so I just thought, you know, why not?
Let's go for it.
I reached dissertation phase and felt like, now I don't have night classes.
So why don't I teach a night class?
But the dissertation phase, I think, is the hardest part.
But my schedule is my own.
I know.
That's true.
But my goodness, that almost just put me under that dissertation.
I was ready to quit when I did it.
Yeah.
That does not happen for you.
I hope not.
So far, it's going well, it's definitely a lot of work.
I'm not going to lie.
I won't sugarcoat it for anyone.
It is an immense amount of work.
Yeah.
It's almost a hazing, I think.
So since everybody else has to go through this, you now have to go through this to get
your doctorate.
You're the second person in two days to say that.
I actually had someone in a meeting yesterday say the same thing.
And I thought I was the only one that felt that way.
I defended my perspectives on Friday.
So that was chapters one and two.
So now I'm moving on to methodology.
And I got great feedback.
But I did tease.
I said, I feel like this is kind of like, you know, earning my badge.
Like this is the hazing to be adopted into the academy.
Exactly.
It is.
It's not just you and it's not just here.
I've read a lot online then in a lot of doctoral programs.
That is a common sentiment amongst the students.
They're like, I'm here to learn and grow and teach me.
Don't just throw me out to the wolves.
Yeah.
I do feel sometimes the more of a doer you are and the more promise you show, the more
the faculty will hold you to a higher standard.
That makes some sense, I guess.
But at the same time, and your work, now your dissertation, I think, is on faculty resilience.
It is.
It is.
Pretty ironic that you feel like you're going through the rigor when you're trying to do
faculty resilience.
It's very inspired by my day to day work because I do work with our faculty so closely and
experiences that we've had in Southwest Florida.
You mentioned hurricanes.
I'll knock on whatever wood there is to knock on.
Let's not have any more.
Because it was quite an experience.
I can't imagine what that was like in your office.
It's probably traumatizing.
Yes.
Well, so I live at the beach.
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, my goodness.
Right.
So, yeah.
So personally, traumatizing.
It was a lot.
Did you lose everything in the year?
Everything.
We had about 15 feet of water in the house.
I hope you weren't in the house.
We were at the neighbors across the street.
Oh, so much better.
Yes.
It was a newer hurricane-rated building and not our 1966 wood cottage.
So we actually, just a few months ago, moved a couple miles off of the beach to try and
avoid further flooding.
But we've had coastal flooding in our home five times, counting in for additional times
after that.
Wow.
Oh, my goodness.
That's a lot to go through.
That's crazy.
But you know what?
Because of my role and I managed my calendar, I was able to navigate work.
Because you would have been in one of your first couple of years as a student in the doctoral
program too.
Oh, very much so, yes.
So coming to campus, classes from 5.30 to 8.
15 after a full day of 8 to 5.
Yes.
And then your home gets taken away.
Yes.
And I'm desperately trying to dry out all of my school books that got flooded.
But I had great colleagues in the cohort with me and I had great faculty that supported
me.
And it really planted the seed about the faculty experience.
And that's what started to grow this concept of looking at resilience and understanding
how do we better support people on campus.
And of course, you know, as you know, when you go through dissertation, you have to pick
a focus.
Because I work closely with faculty, that was a very obvious choice for me.
But I think in higher education in general, we've experienced a lot of transition and
change over the past decade, particularly, you know, to my knowledge.
And I feel like the conversation of support is really important.
Well, we always talk about student support, right?
But then who are the people supporting the students?
Right.
See, right?
And put your mask on first in the airplane before you put it on your child, right?
I think faculty are feeling a bit exposed and in under scrutiny from all different angles
in our culture right now.
And we're wondering, you know, am I alone in this?
How am I handling this?
So there's cultural issues than there are natural disasters like we have faced down here.
There's economic realities, both long term and short term trends.
So many things, right?
Yeah.
And I believe that resilience begins before adversity.
I hope so.
So I think if we wait until after the disaster happens to talk about resilience, we're really
binding ourselves to post-traumatic growth.
And if we start to have conversations about culture and climate prior and building a place
that feels supportive, right, for our faculty, for our students, for adjuncts, for our staff,
I think that shifts the conversation a little bit, right?
I think it prepares us a little bit better for when things happen that are outside of
our control.
Yeah.
You already have that foundation.
Right.
You have a landing pad to go back to.
I'm spiraling, but I'm going to go talk to this group, my group, and they're going to
center me and we'll get it figured out, right?
Which is a great resource that we have that's doing that right now with our adjunct coordinator
for our adjuncts, right?
We're trying.
We're trying to create that home base and that support here on campus.
Yeah.
And I am now on a new task for.
Congratulations.
I don't know.
Should we say I'm sorry or congratulations?
I just say congratulations.
It's employee engagement.
That's a perfect one.
Yeah.
No, Sarah Stensrude is running it, but we have about 25, 30 of us.
It's pretty large to get everybody at the table, but we're talking about things like
community connectedness, well-being recognition and respect these types of areas and how we
can create a more healthy, well-rounded working environment for faculty, staff, employees
of all types.
I think they wanted me on it because of the nearly 500 adjunct faculty that might work
here in any given year.
Now, here is a little broad because here can be anywhere in the country because we've got
30 or 40 that are out of state.
And then we've got others that are also just teaching online from places within the state
and then those who are present.
It's just all over the charts, right?
It is.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm a worker.
Right?
I'm a worker, right?
I get things done.
And so I started preparing way in advance because I had some summer conferences to attend
to.
And I have a class where they have a book that is assigned because the course coordinator
tries to align some of the content and their specific speeches the students have to give.
But I had a lot of freedom to design them, of course, materials.
And it's not like you walk in day one and they give you a packet that says, here's
the assignment guides.
Here's a standard syllabus.
They gave me some examples of syllabi that people have used.
But there's not like this welcome to your job packet.
You think of any staff job you've had where you walk in, and sometimes there's like a
guide book, right?
There's none of that.
There's none of that, right?
It's a pliecie attached to your core syllabus.
Right.
Let us know if you need anything.
Here's some syllabi, you know, other people have created before and go, right?
I was very fortunate that course coordinator and faculty members in the program were very
kind in giving me some tips and, you know, being helpful.
Because I work on campus, I know people, right?
So I think the first observation I had was, well, what if I didn't know people?
Would it be the same experience?
You didn't work here.
Right.
Would that experience be like, would it have been the same?
For ever a student, so the first thing I do is go out to golf line and start pulling down
syllabi for classes, all sorts of classes.
Random people I know.
Send me your syllabi.
I want to see what kind of stuff you put in there.
And I mean, for goodness sake, we're the Provost Office.
We have the syllabus requirements on our website, but it's really more about wanting to understand
the flow of how people structure the class and, you know, when to put different types
of assignments in.
You know, I don't want to make it too heavy in the beginning of the class, but I don't
want to load up everything in the end and thinking through some of that structure.
So that was a bit of a learning curve for me to think about how do I structure this
over time.
Do you think that you being your recent past experience being a student in the doctoral
program helped you kind of guide and navigate your core structure?
Because you were talking a little bit earlier about how a lot of the syllabi and, for example,
college of that are very standardized.
Right.
Right.
So did that recent student experience kind of help Taylor or you knew what you didn't
want?
It didn't in terms of the syllabi, but it did in terms of some of the things that I did
or did not want to do in the class.
Right.
I had a horrible experience as a student with Respondus.
No.
Yes.
I will never do that to my students.
Mental breakdown.
Oh, yes.
Horrible.
Internet going out.
You name it.
Yes.
Traumatizing.
And I've been in school forever.
Right.
And so I will never do that to my students.
But I don't have to, right?
I'm teaching the class where I don't need to do that.
So in some ways, yes, that part of it, it kind of after you've been a student for a
long time, you start to think about what were things that were really effective for
me, not so effective.
Wanting to make sure that I balanced class time because it is a long class.
It's Monday nights.
Oh, three hours at once.
Yes.
I wanted to make sure I have enough time where we're getting up and we're doing things
versus lecture time.
You know, so everybody's not sleeping by 7.30.
Right.
Right.
So you got a syllabus or multiple syllabi.
Yeah, they gave me some examples.
And a book.
And a book.
Actually, the communication faculty have a Canvas page where they did have some examples
of assignments.
They were somewhat helpful.
I actually, like I said, I reached out to several people.
So I met with faculty from the program to ask their perspective on the class and what
they think is really helpful.
I also reached out to a friend of mine that teaches in the College of Education that I
just think is a phenomenal teacher.
And I sat down and shared with her my syllabus and my assignments and said, what do you think?
Right.
Tell me your thoughts on the structure.
I'll tell you one of the best resources that I didn't even realize how great they were.
I mean, I knew they were awesome, but I didn't know they were this great until I went through
the experience myself as digital learning.
Yeah.
I thought you were going to say that the instructional designers are amazing.
They're amazing.
They're amazing.
I had no idea.
I knew kind of what they do, right?
And obviously I knew that they would help me with Canvas.
Diane Marks was phenomenal.
Yep.
You know, trying to even guide, she looked at my syllabus.
She looked at some of the guides, gave me tips on things that I can do to structure not
only my Canvas, but some of my materials so that they would be better for my students
and for my learning outcomes.
They were phenomenal.
I mean, they're just, I really feel like they don't get enough credit.
They're not the best for the work that they're doing.
And I always have to think like, okay, well, because I work in the Provost Office, sometimes
I tend to get, and I don't want to make anybody jealous, but sometimes people respond very
quickly or they are a little bit more attentive because they want the Provost Office to have
a good impression.
Exactly.
Not that I have any clout like that, but you know, the Provost Office.
Your name's attached to the office.
But once I had that experience and I started talking to other faculty and saying, oh my
goodness, they are amazing.
I got, I know.
And blah, blah, blah, and they did this for me and they did that.
And so then I thought, oh, it isn't, I'm not just getting any kind of special treatment
because I work in the Provost Office.
They're just this phenomenal.
They are.
They're so on top of things.
Right.
Do our adjuncts, John, regularly know about that service.
I mean, I know about it because I work here, but do our adjuncts regularly know about that?
Well, we have them join us at the new adjunct orientations that we have.
And we put that in the Canvas course of adjunct orientation if people can't make it.
But I think people don't realize how good that resource is and how effective it is to
really assist you in teaching until they actually reach out.
And then it's like, oh my gosh, you should have done that two months ago.
And Diane always says, if you're taking more than 15 minutes to figure something out,
call us.
This is our job.
Right?
Yes.
They're fantastic.
Well, and still currently the orientation is for outside adjuncts, right?
So staff do not attend yet.
They could, but it's on a Saturday.
And so I am looking and we've been talking about this, of trying to create a number of
different things for the staff adjuncts.
Because the other problem we have at this point yet is adjuncts are listed as adjuncts,
but staff often it's listed as job added.
And so it's hard to know who actually is an adjunct among the staff.
It is interesting.
So we're trying to solve that issue.
So we don't necessarily know.
But secondly, I think we could hold an orientation for staff adjuncts during the work week.
Oh, yeah.
At like lunchtime or even four to five.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so the thing that we are going to, the two of us I think are working on this, the
sort of spring.
Oh, there you go.
Staff advisory council.
We're going to do a couple of workshops on active learning or assignment design or something
for staff adjuncts because we're all stuck here during that week.
I mean, I'm.
And we're glad to be here.
Yeah, we're glad to be here.
But we all.
Time for professional development.
Right.
The students are gone.
It's a perfect time to do that.
But it's in spring, that spring break week, we need something at the beginning of each
semester for staff adjuncts who might be new.
And so we're going to try to figure that out.
That might also serve as a good recruiting tool.
So if there's units that are having a hard time filling some classes and need adjuncts,
you may have a pool of talented qualified people right here on campus that you're unaware
of.
Right.
That also just, we're trying to come up with different resources for adjuncts who are
the clinical prefectors for the clinics in nursing or the supervisors in the College
of Ed who are supervising student teachers and traveling.
They are still considered adjuncts and they're teaching, but not in a classroom setting.
And right now, there's not a body of material or a resource or a system in place to really
resource them well for things like formative feedback, how to start out well with your
clinical students, all of those things.
And these nurses are great.
They've got master's degrees and all, but they don't necessarily have a master's in
education.
And most masters don't.
No.
But especially in that program where it is so hands on.
I mean, you're dealing with people's lives.
We had Jose Carbella Gomez here who talked about this whole area and how he has a master's
in nursing education.
So he does have that inter mix.
I think we're going to be using partnering with him and others to develop this.
It's one of my potential goals for the year.
So and the staff adjunct stuff is also a potential goal for the year that we actually find resources
and support because I think they get left out assuming like, hey, they know what's going
on here.
They understand this place.
Yeah, well, we found out and he didn't we?
Right.
Well, you know, and sometimes the volume of communications and emails, which I know a
lot of people say they don't like email, but then they also say that's how they want to
receive communications.
But when you're trying to manage your day to day, you might maybe miss some things.
I'm sure there's an email or two I've thrown into a folder and I'm like kind of glanced
at it.
But at the time it didn't feel really relevant.
We kind of had that talk about the A plus attendance.
Yes.
I was like, what is this?
I know.
I think a lot of adjuncts were thrown off by that.
Yeah.
Yes.
And I tried to go back and look for a communication about it.
I think there was one in Canvas perhaps at the beginning of the semester.
But you know, life is the way that it is.
And I think that could thrown into a folder somewhere.
Fortunately, I phoned a friend who had already figured out how to navigate that and showed
me at least their way of doing it.
So I am taking your time as...
We learned there's like 12 different ways.
Right.
Yeah.
And those are the types of things that I don't think when changes are made at a university.
They're thinking more in terms of full-time faculty or people who are connected to the
university well.
But for adjuncts who might come in for A class or two, after hours, at this time in unusual
ways, you have to think through a different mindset to understand how are we communicating
with them?
How would they really know what's going on and who would they ask if they're struggling
with something that we throw at them?
Well, and I'm going to add to that, I would love to see some consolidated communications
in some areas because as you're prepping for class, so even if you are a full-time
faculty, maybe you're off contract for the summer.
Some of them don't like to check their email during the summer.
So they come back August 7th.
2000.
They're ready to go.
Right.
You know, and you've got an email about this change and an email about that change and
oh, there's another email about this other change.
It could be easy to miss an important piece.
Right.
I don't know how.
I mean, I'm just throwing out opinions without any way to solve them.
But it's one of the reasons why in Academic Affairs we started the newsletter so many
years ago because we were sending out so many, you know, communications.
Opportunities.
Yeah.
It was like, let's just put this all in one.
So at least if maybe you didn't read the newsletter this week and there's scuttle, scuttle
blood on campus, you can at least go back to the newsletter and see, was it in there and
I just didn't pay attention.
Right.
Yeah.
And some of the things that are like pieces that maybe you assume people know when they
teach, but maybe they don't.
Right.
We had the presentation about Wings Up.
That was great.
At Faculty Senate.
At Faculty Senate had my day job not been such that I attend Faculty Senate.
I may not have heard that.
Now, and I did put it in our adjunct faculty newsletter for adjuncts, but having a couple
articles is different than having someone explain it, right?
And be able to question them back and forth.
I will tell you, I really, I really like Wings Up.
I haven't had to utilize it for its purpose.
However, being able to go in and see my students because I have such a mixed class, I can see
their faces.
You can see their college.
Yep.
It's great.
It's good.
It's good.
So it's helping me not only to take my attendance for the attendance tool, because I could see
who everyone is to remember their names.
But it's helping me get adjusted with the class and comfortable with remembering my
students and which is a whole other thing.
If you're not a person that remembers names well, all of a sudden you've got 25 of them
in your.
I wish that their ID picture would just import to Canvas.
Right.
Yeah.
Instead of having to make an assignment to upload a profile picture.
So they have to do it.
Oh, is that what you do?
Because they will never do it.
Okay.
Well, you can see them and Wings Up except for some reason I have one student who's a
zoo.
Who's a zoo?
Who's a zoo?
That's because they just.
That is the student who has not uploaded a photo.
And so they become a zoo.
Our mascot.
So I wonder if they got an ID then because you can't get a printed.
I don't know because I've got one student like that too.
And I looked at him and said, you're a zoo.
And he goes like, huh?
I don't know.
He's like, well, you can upload a picture.
Can you do that, please?
But he's an older.
I have mostly juniors and seniors.
Okay.
The class I'm teaching right now.
But some of them haven't done it.
So I'm with Maggie though.
Like if we could just import the pictures from the badges to Canvas.
Just one last thing we all have to do.
Right.
But even with that, some of them, they very much look like their picture and others.
I have one fall out like swear hat a lot.
And I saw his picture and he took me a couple times.
I was like, it's not the same guy.
Look at me with your eyes.
Right.
Well, some of them have changed quite a bit.
Let me tell you.
100%.
Some of my students said they have uploaded photos of them in team football.
Oh, so it's like they're.
I'm like, you have a helmet on and there's 55 of you.
So it's like they're so sorry.
Exactly.
Or it's like a picture of their dog.
And I'm like, your dog is adorable.
But your dog's not coming to class.
Unfortunately, like just a headshot.
Career development services does them.
Yeah.
White wall, the library's full of them.
It'll be fine.
It'll be fine.
You can do this.
Yes.
We can upload profile pictures, everyone.
We can do difficult things.
So, Andy, with your background now, 18 years in academic affairs or at the university,
your work in the doctoral program in the College of Education, and now being an adjunct.
All of these things coming together converging for you.
What are the things that we need to be focusing on to support adjunct faculty in their roles
here so they can be successful so their students can be?
Wow, that's a big question.
So I think you're doing a lot of it, honestly.
I think if you would have asked me that question three years ago, I might have said we needed
a more concentrated focus on supporting adjuncts.
But we've been working on that, right?
We even won award for that.
Even won an award for that.
So I think that's the start, right?
Is the communication piece, is what you're doing, is putting together the newsletter,
is doing the orientation.
I think that going forward to try and think of the pieces that are missing.
Once the little pieces of information that I need to know day one going into my class,
and then maybe I would love to see conversations with the academic departments to talk about
how are they supporting their adjuncts?
Because I feel like I was blessed to be brought into a department where they were very welcoming
and said, let's meet, let's talk about the class.
Do all departments do that?
I don't know.
Maybe they do.
No.
Most departments do not currently have those once a semester even meetings with their adjunct
faculty to just find out how things are going and to answer questions from A++ to wings
up to any of the questions that they have.
We held one about three weeks ago or so for justice studies.
First time they've had 16 adjuncts showed up to it.
That's wonderful.
Yeah.
Which they have quite a few, but 16 showed up, they were thrilled with it and the department
chair was thrilled with the results of that.
It's like, yeah, that's what we need to do.
Just include them, welcome them in.
They might not show up to your department meeting.
At least they know what's happening.
Yeah.
Connect with them.
I think there's too many adjuncts still feeling like they're nomads here.
That would be, I think, first of all, that's a great step.
That's wonderful.
Are they including them on department communications?
Are they welcoming them in, like you just mentioned, or letting them know that they
have support structures?
Because maybe you're like me and this is the first time you've taught this class.
And so I would love to know what are the best practices from those that have been teaching
this for years and years.
What's worked?
What's not worked?
I'm thinking about trying this new thing.
Have you already tried this and it didn't work out?
Some way to connect with colleagues.
Like I said, I feel blessed because I work here at the institution.
And so I knew people, right?
And I was brought into a department that's very welcoming, but if I wasn't, how would
that experience differ?
So I wonder too, I often tend to be a little more on the positive side of things.
If it's not a mal-intent of the department, but maybe they just don't know where to start.
Yeah.
And so how do we give them kind of, just like I said, we don't get that instruction book
as adjuncts when we show up about, here's how you teach a class, right?
We're not giving the departments necessarily a guide on here's how you can engage your
adjuncts.
Bill Reynolds, myself and Rachel cooked did research a couple of years ago while I was
still just a fellow on how departments interact with adjunct faculty here.
And we found some best practices.
There are some departments that do a great job.
And quite a few that I would say are so overwhelmed with everything they have to do.
It's hard to put this on the front burner.
It's really on the back burner.
And I understand that.
And I've told department chairs, they're kind of like that in the nexus in the middle of
the hourglass.
All these administrative things from up top being told how they have to do the all of
this stuff, paperwork, everything, and then all these people below them.
And it all goes through them.
Yes.
And you might feel that way at an academic affairs too.
And so I understand that.
So I just said, I want to come alongside as now the coordinator to partner with you in
such a way that it's not extra work.
You can have your administrator do this.
It's just one meeting a semester online, easy peasy.
I'll even run it for you.
Right.
We'll help facilitate it.
What do your department need to support your adjuncts?
I'll do anything to try to help you bolster that.
We could create a best practices like mini workshop for department chairs to just share
some of those things.
I've kind of advocated for that, but I don't want to, you know, like, right and force it.
And every department is different.
Every unit is different.
So it's not like I can say you all have to do this.
Right.
I mean, do you have just like a best practices recommendation sheet for department chairs?
Like pre semester suggestions during the semester, semester follow up, just like some
guidelines to kind of give them a flow.
I can put that together.
That's for sure.
For the sake of the student success, we have to have adjunct faculty success in their teaching
and in their connection to the university.
And so what ways we can do that?
That's kind of.
Well, it never hurts to create the information.
Yeah.
And have it available for those that do want to help.
You know, if there's anything you want to, you know, want help with, I'm here to support
you.
Thank you, Andy.
You know, that's, oh, I was saying that you could say that to the departments.
Oh, yes.
I mean that as well.
I'm going to suck her into this.
I'm going to second.
How did I get home?
Because you're a doer.
I am a doer.
We know you get it done.
Yes.
No, this is great.
What have we missed, Andy?
What did you want to talk about?
We had questions.
We sent them to you and we have just jumped all over the place.
Yeah, I don't know.
So I think I will say you asked about advice for new adjuncts.
I would say if I were not me and I didn't work at the institution, the only bit of advice
I would give us, don't be afraid to reach out.
Sometimes it can be intimidating because you don't know people and you don't know the
reaction you're going to get.
But there's so many people on campus that really just want to do the best for our students.
And more often than not, you will find that they are open to helping.
Especially your instructional designer.
Especially, yes, especially John and your instructional designer.
And your first two phone calls.
Well, and your department, I think I was always afraid being an adjunct when I started out
here of like, I don't want to bother them too much.
I don't want to bring up the fact that I'm not sure what I'm doing.
I don't want to give them any reason not to hire me for next semester.
And get over that.
I don't know of a department chair that would hold any of this against you.
If you're asking for help or bringing something up that you need.
I think they would be thrilled or happy to find the right resources for you.
That's what I'm finding.
But I kind of had that fear of the boss is going to not like me if I bring this up.
Well, and so many of our units don't have yet a consistent way of evaluating our adjuncts.
Correct.
So, I don't know will I get feedback at the end of the semester?
What would that feedback look like if I were to get it?
I plan on probably reaching out and asking.
I've also had, again, it's a luxury of working on campus.
I've had a friend say, if you want someone to do a peer observation, I'd be more than
happy to come do that for you.
And so, first, I said, not the first couple of weeks.
Yeah.
I need to get to know my students first.
Let me settle in.
But I think just don't be afraid to reach out because people here really do want the
best for the students.
And they're often ready and willing to help.
Right.
Peer observation of teaching is one way through the Lucas Center or just a colleague
that can really help.
I believe right now in the College of Arts and Sciences, it's a one time every two years
observation that happens.
Okay.
So, it's a little less than I think ideal.
So, who does the does the department chair do those observations?
Not necessarily.
I've always had a different professor assigned by the department chair do it.
Somebody who understands religious studies since that's what I do.
I think we need to find ways that work so that adjuncts and all faculty have the proper
evaluation, both formative and summative evaluation.
And it doesn't overburden the administration of the department.
And somewhere a balance.
Maybe once a year.
If I have two years to wreak havoc, I mean, just saying.
Yeah.
We need a little accountability.
No.
And I think that is that was one of my questions when we were, you know, in accreditation is
how do you know how 20% of your courses are being taught right now if you're not regular
evaluations of adjunct faculty.
Another great project for the future.
I know.
Lots of stuff to do.
It's not like this job.
It's like, oh, yeah, we're good.
We don't need to do anymore.
There's plenty of things to do in this area.
I think that's part of the joy of working at such a young institution.
Yeah.
Because, you know, yes, it's a lot sometimes.
But if we were at another institution where these things have been figured out, we wouldn't
maybe be able to be as much of a part of them.
Yeah.
It's the opportunity to be part of the change to learn to grow with the university in ways
that I may not be able to do at another institution.
This is a unique place that way.
You can get involved and adjuncts out there.
If you're listening and you feel like you're disconnected, I get it.
Please be proactive.
Don't wait for us to reach out to you even though we should be.
But at the same time, don't just use that reality of, well, I'm just stuck out.
Reach out yourself.
And you might be surprised at how you can change the whole system by just your involvement
and your decision to do things proactively here.
Any other suggestions for new adjuncts being one yourself?
I would say be kind to yourself and allow yourself some grace and patience.
One thing that Diane Marks from Digital Learning, of course, shared with me was about moving
my canvas materials like four weeks at a time instead of loading the whole course.
I did that.
I actually really like that recommendation as a new instructor because I'm learning to
pace my class and things that I thought would take much longer, maybe don't, or things
that I thought would go by very quickly.
Don't.
Trying to move around assignments and figure out the best timing for things to spend.
Just allow yourself the grace to learn.
You're learning too.
Right?
Very good.
Maggie, what do you think?
This has been fantastic.
I've heard so many positive things about you and your work on campus and even with faculty
in the doctoral program, I'm just starting my second year now.
They all are like, talk to Andy.
She's great.
That's wonderful.
So all good things and I'm just very happy that you're able to join us this morning.
I know your calendar slammed.
Lots of moving parts in the Provost's office right now.
So I appreciate your time.
This has been great.
And welcome to the madness of the program.
So that's exciting.
You're a poster.
You're one.
I thought it was a lot.
You're two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
At least my eyes are on the road instead of just free falling.
Like what is going on.
I felt like a true freshman last year.
Don't be afraid to try and publish.
Okay.
That makes me very nervous.
No, don't be.
Yeah.
That's what he will help you.
If you say, I want to try and do something with this, they'll help you.
They'll write.
Even they'll mentor you.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm looking forward, Andy, to your dissertation.
Thank you.
I'd love to see how we can incorporate faculty resilience into adjunct faculty support, let
alone the whole university, right?
Right.
So my research agenda is growing every day.
I'm just trying to focus on the dissertation and get that done now.
But there's so many different ideas.
Maggie, it's been great, hasn't it?
Yes.
Another one in the books.
All right.
Well, we'll see you next time.
Bye, y'all.
Only remember them?
The museum use section was composed, performed and produced by James Husney.