The Delphi Connection - Montclair and FGCU

In this episode of The Adjunct Files, John Roth and Maggie Hohne sit down with Courtney Crimmins from Montclair State University—one of this year’s Delphi Award winners alongside FGCU. Courtney shares how Montclair built a comprehensive, collaborative model to support its 1,400 adjunct faculty, including initiatives like the 360° Support Network, professional development funding, union-driven changes, and community-building programs. From orientation to teaching innovation, discover how Montclair is transforming adjunct engagement and why these efforts matter for student success.

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.

Adjuncts since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University.

I'm Maggie Han, Adjuncts 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.

So hello everybody.

Welcome back to the Adjunct Files.

John, how are you?

Doing okay.

How are you?

Pretty good.

Live in the dream.

Is it the dream or is it the nightmare?

Sometimes I can't tell so I just like to think that everything's a dream.

Oh good.

Awesome.

Well, we have a great guest today.

Courtney from Montclair University, State University in New Jersey.

And what's exciting is both FGCU and Montclair State University have won the Delphi Award

for this year.

And I got to meet her at one of the SIGs.

SIG is special interest group part of the POD network which is a lot of us who are doing

work in faculty development centers for teaching and learning.

And we got to talk there and I thought this would be great.

Let's talk about what our two universities, I especially want to hear about Montclair

State University.

What they have done for Adjunct faculty and their support and success.

And I believe Courtney, you have many more Adjunct faculty.

We have 430 that are active here.

But I think you have more.

So tell us about yourself first how you got into this, your university, the size and scope

of it just to give us a little background.

Sure.

Thanks so much for having me.

I'm really happy to be speaking with you today.

So Montclair State University located Metro New York City region of New Jersey.

We have about over 23,000 students, about 19,000 undergrads.

There are 14 colleges and schools within the university.

I think about 300 different programs.

So it's very comprehensive, everything from school and nursing to music school to, you

know, College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Business School.

So in total, we have about over 1,400 adjuncts who work at the university.

Yeah, a large group, about 60% of our total faculty are adjuncts.

Wow.

And we're really fortunate being here because we can draw on so many, you know, professionals

coming in who can come and teach on their expertise, who in the industry in the professional

fields.

I think that might give you some, you know, understanding of sort of the context of our

university.

Do you know how many, how much of the coursework these 60% of the adjuncts are teaching?

That's a really good question.

I don't have the offhand.

I want to, I don't want to speculate.

I don't want to speculate.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be 60% less than that.

Yeah, because they're not teaching three or four classes a semester each, correct?

Right.

Yes, that's right.

And it varies obviously between departments, which ones have, you know, rely more on adjuncts

and which ones don't.

Course are by contract allowed to teach for courses per academic year.

So to essentially two classes, two courses per semester.

Okay.

Course development is not included in that.

So strictly teaching.

Yes.

So tell us more about you though.

How did you get into adjunct faculty support or centers for teaching and learning or all

of that?

Yeah.

I joined as an adjunct myself almost 20 years ago at Montclair.

So I've been here a really long time.

Were you eight years old?

What is this?

Not quite, maybe nine, ten.

Okay.

Cause like, yeah, 20 years.

It goes so fast.

It really does.

And yeah, I've had a really great experience teaching here and it, in the as an adjunct

and it's sort of developed in the past couple of years.

And this really aligns with the office that I'm working for, which I can explain a bit

about our office.

I started working part time in the office.

I'm now currently full time in, which is the office for faculty excellence called OFE

and our center is the faculty development office for the university.

So we work with, with the faculty of all ranks, tenure track, non tenure track adjuncts.

So irrespective of an instructor's full time or part time, we offer tailored, tailored support

and faculty development to all instructors on campus.

So it's, it's sort of the university level as opposed to support from department levels.

So you started as an adjunct.

You came to part time and now it's a full time position.

Somewhere along the line, the university like here, figured out, oh my goodness, we have

a lot of adjunct faculty and we need to support them.

But many places, as you know, are still not necessarily putting that support together.

Right.

Yeah.

So it really was a priority from provost level and higher up president.

And then also those, so leadership, those in leadership who were in a position to recognize

the fact that adjunct faculty needed support and were able to sort of doing something about

that more and more of like a cohesive way that's it really was just prior to the pandemic.

So 2019 director Emily Isaacs, who is also now she, she still leads the office, but she's

also now the interim associate provost for faculty affairs.

She had come in as somebody who worked a lot with adjuncts.

She was in writing studies as a professor and director of the first year writing program

and you know, worked with many, many adjuncts in that capacity and recognized the fact that

there could be a more university level supportive programming that certain departments do that

have many adjuncts.

So I think it takes some recognition of the fact that the support is actually needed and

then these small initiatives, so it doesn't happen overnight.

This has been over the course of many years that the support has been developed.

And I think it really came into focus during the pandemic, especially because we shifted

it immediately to online teaching in the spring of 2020.

And this office was in a position to do even more outreach to adjuncts.

And I participated in the offerings as well, you know, how to teach in this new environment.

And we have a really terrific instructional design group and then sort of collaborating

also in this faculty development office and showing folks how to teach, not even just

teach online, but how do you manage the technology in the classroom.

And so really it was an inclusive outreach to adjuncts and we're offering this join us

in these workshops that we're doing.

I think that really sort of made a difference.

And so that snowball is into offering more and more outreach and support and becomes

a little bit more structured also to where we are today.

So thank you for laying the foundation on how to history of your office, the initiatives

that you're doing.

So your 360 degree support for adjuncts initiative, that was a key reason Montclair received

the Delphi award.

Could you walk us through what that initiative looks like in practice and how it came to

be?

Really, what the idea is with the 360 degree support is that it's inclusive and comprehensive.

We not only provide direct support to adjunct faculty and I can outline some of those things

that we do.

We also do a lot of collaboration as well.

So supporting the supporters.

So for example, department chairs and providing support to departments to in turn support the

adjuncts who are in their department as well.

So it's sort of this comprehensive collaborative support network and bringing together various

offices from departments to HR, to our adjunct union and other offices as well on campus to

provide this 360 and compassing support.

So it's the pay disparity that a lot of universities encounter and that topic, we can't really do

much for that in our office.

That's beyond our purview.

But we can support and address the support disparity that a lot of adjuncts might face

and that's what we're trying to address by the things that we're offering.

The press release is that there was a new union contract.

We do not have an adjunct faculty union here.

What were some of the impactful changes in that contract?

We have two faculty unions on campus.

One is for full time and one is for adjuncts.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we provide support in our office, faculty development

for all instructors, which include full time non-tenure track faculty as well.

There was a negotiation there that provided non-tenure track faculty with promotion,

opportunities and new titles.

But specifically about the adjuncts, the new contract also included language for new titles.

So adjuncts initially coming in to teach or had the title of adjunct instructor and

then after 13 semesters, then received the title adjunct professor.

So this is new language that wasn't the case before and then also an addition of adjunct

emeritus professor as well.

So that was one thing in the new contract.

Other things had to do with adjunct representation as well.

In the new adjunct contract priority consideration for adjuncts who have been employed longer

at the university than others.

Also there's new professional development funding as well for adjuncts to apply for

after they've taught at the university for four semesters.

So when you say priority, does that mean priority in classes or priority as well as when a

full time position comes open that they have a little more of a leg up in terms of applying

for a full time position?

The priority is in course assignments.

Yeah, so the priority would be with course assignments.

Okay, cool.

1400 adjunct faculty, how do you handle, tell me how do you ensure hearing their voices,

understanding what's going on, getting a pulse and organizing such a diverse population?

We have access in our office to an adjunct listserv.

So we're able to communicate, this is really important I think, we're able to communicate

directly with adjunct faculties.

So as part of my role and I probably should have explained this already, I think if I

understand correctly, John's counterpoint at Montclair.

In OFE, I'm a faculty developer generally and I work on other projects as well, but I'm

also the adjunct liaison.

So I'm sort of a main point of contact for adjuncts at the university, you know, at a

university level as opposed to the departmental contacts that they have.

I send out, this would be also part of our 360 degree support where we're really trying

to bolster communication, direct communication.

I send out a newsletter every other week to adjuncts, alerting them to timely things

that are happening on campus, whether that's submitting progress reports and how to do that

or entering final grades, but also workshops that we're offering.

So in our office, unless something specifically tailored to say department chairs, adjuncts

are invited and welcome to participate in all of our offerings that we have, for example,

a faculty showcase twice a year where faculty members of all ranks are invited to present

on research, on teaching things that they're doing, that they want to share with the broader

community.

And we have a lot of adjuncts that participate in that, not only as presenters, but audience

members as well.

That's really important.

And also we do all kinds of different workshops and we offer one-on-one consultations as well.

So if you wanted to talk through confidentially, a student issue might be encountering or if

you want some feedback or brainstorm ideas for your teaching, you can make an appointment

to meet one-on-one with one of us in our office.

Also included in that biweekly email that I send out to adjuncts that I have on there,

upcoming events that our office is offering, but also a list of all the support resources

that we have.

And one of those things is a program called Just for Adjuncts that we started a couple

years ago where we have workshops and sessions and drop-in sessions tailored specifically

for adjunct faculty to participate in.

And the idea behind this is to create a space where adjuncts can come together, collaborate,

learn together, also get to know each other because as we all know, coming in as an adjunct

oftentimes you're just sort of dipping into campus and then leaving again and it's hard

to feel like you're actually part of the community.

So that was one of the reasons behind starting this.

And then it also gives that space of community building specifically for adjuncts.

So the topics vary.

And then we also bring in campus partners to those as well.

So our director of student conduct of this session for us recently on navigating the

academic dishonesty policy and what that might look like if you suspect a student of cheating.

So that was a great opportunity for adjuncts to connect directly with our director on that,

ask questions, get clarity on what that process looks like.

And then we do drop-in sessions too.

Half an hour super fast because we know that everybody's time is short and we want to respect

that.

So half hour every other week, come in with your questions.

It's a great place to sort of meet up either in person or online.

We do hybrid sessions for that too.

And all that is to say is that you've done away with every heart of mine.

Maggie, what are you hearing all of this?

What do you think?

What are your thoughts?

Well, I just wrote down adjuncts and academic integrity on my hosted note for a future collaboration

because, yeah, especially with AI nowadays, we need help.

But I just have a question.

Where you mentioned you had, I believe, 14 colleges?

Where is your biggest concentration in breakdown of adjuncts in these programs?

Like I know for us, we have a lot within our human health services and our medical areas.

I was just wondering kind of what the breakdown was at your institution if you knew where the

largest groups were?

I don't have the data right in front of me, but I think it's pretty well dispersed throughout

the different colleges.

I'm trying to think offhand.

If there's one that's more heavy than others, and it's not coming to mind.

It feels at least anecdotally as I'm doing orientations and engaging with adjunct faculty,

it feels rather dispersed.

You said that 60% of the courses taught are by adjunct faculty?

No, 60% of our faculty or of your faculty are at those.

So how do you all, I guess my question is since adjuncts are, as you mentioned before,

ingrained, embedded on there the day-to-day, how does that work with culture and the campus

culture and the values?

I know it's hard being kind of a part-time employee coming in and coming out, but I know

the faculty they do, they are a big part of that sense of belonging on campus for students

and just others that work there.

So why are some of the things that you all have done to try to help keep the culture

stable and up-to-date and just make sure everybody's on the same page?

Yeah, that's a really important aspect of this, belonging.

So at our university also, we've done, there's been a team researching student belonging

and students' feelings of how they belong on campus as we know that's really important

for student success and ultimately success later in their careers.

And we know there's just as important for faculty as well to feel that sense of belonging

as something that we've really tried to work on as well.

So with this new adjunct orientation that the adjunct union negotiated, every new adjunct

instructor coming into the university participates in a 75-minute live orientation on Zoom.

We've had 10 sessions coming up into the fall semester and onboarded about 250 new adjunct

faculty over the course of those sessions.

And a strong emphasis within that orientation is to really stress the fact that you are

part of the community here, that you're a valued member of the community.

And we want you to engage in the community also.

So participate in homecoming, right?

Come to performances on campus and go to athletic events.

And then that's reiterated as well on the department levels.

So one of our, as I mentioned before, supporting the supporters and one of the things that

we offer are some templates for departments and department chairs.

So we've created basically a departmental handbook as a template, as a Google Doc, and

then departments can edit it for their contacts and then share that with adjuncts.

And in that, it really specifies here are department policies, here's where you can

find the copier machines, here's where your office is located.

When you have questions about XYZ, this is the office that you go to.

And so we do that also during the orientation too.

It's something that you would be able to figure out, but you shouldn't have to, right?

Like, having that right from the get-go, knowing, here's how you navigate our university.

It's just where you're going to find how to get your parking pass so that you don't

have to waste your time trying to figure this out.

We put it as a Google slide document that we continually updated and edit.

So as new information comes along, you always have that link and it's constantly updated.

So doing things like that to help you understand your role and then also understand how your

course that you're teaching fits into the overall program that you're part of or the

department.

That's incredibly important too, so that you know, okay, when I'm teaching this topic,

when I'm teaching this course, this is how students are experiencing it.

This is where they're coming from, you know, in the prerequisites and this is where they'll

be going afterwards.

So understanding how you fit in to the student experience is really critical as well.

Knowing how you actually fit in in terms of your contributions in the classroom.

The belonging aspect, you know, is important, making sure that adjuncts, you know, have

that connection not only with their department.

We always said, you know, your department is your home at the university, but you were

part of this larger community.

And recognition on that is also really important.

So this is another dimension is that over the past couple of years, adjuncts have also

received more recognition on campus.

So on our faculty senate, we now have three voting members, voting adjunct members.

So there's representation in governance.

And then also the university president started a presidential awards program and part time

adjunct faculty are representing those awards as well.

That inclusion and recognition and spotlighting adjuncts is really critical.

Maggie, I'm just hearing a lot of the stuff that resonates with us.

Are you not?

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, I love this.

And I would love, we'll see what Courtney's willing to share with us.

We're willing to share anything we got, but this all sounds so good.

You have a larger multiply by three, what we're dealing with.

And yet the same issues of recognition, community connections, I think it's called

ERG, which is existence, relatedness and growth.

Existence is the basic paychecks and other stuff like that, which is difficult for us

as well in our center.

It's kind of outside of our pay grade and purview.

The relatedness, the connectedness, you know, the community aspects and then the growth,

the professional development.

Those are the things that we're trying to work on as well.

I can see why you got the award, Courtney.

We were thrilled by that recognition.

Yeah, as I said, it's been a process, right?

And this is, I think, also an important aspect is talking to adjuncts too.

What is it that you need from us?

You know, I've had my own experience here, so I do have a particular perspective on that.

But on the other hand, it's important that we also, we do need assessment and we're going

to be working on a new one and, you know, solicit feedback.

So I have a Google form that I invite adjuncts to say, what do you need from us, right?

What kind of support do you need?

And we also invite adjuncts as well to be part of the programming.

So I mentioned our faculty showcase, but also we've had really terrific adjunct faculty

panels and that's just for adjunct series, really making sure that we're meeting people

where they are and trying to really address the needs that need to be addressed.

All ears want to hear how we can always do better.

So this is an evolving thing.

What are your initiatives, like you mentioned, is to enhance teaching effectiveness and professional

growth, kind of that third part, existence relatedness and growth.

Just give us a few more of those topics or areas of how you're helping them develop

professionally and the pedagogical kind of teaching effectiveness side.

Love to hear that.

Yeah, so I should mention that there's been a bit of a transition with the teaching support itself.

We have a new office that has been spun off from ours.

So we did, we included teaching support within our faculty development and professional development

support.

It's still a bit in process, but basically there's a new office, new director who was

just hired in the center for teaching and academic innovation.

So there's a there's a few different areas of focus.

So one would be sort of that technical training, like how you submit progress reports.

So I do live tutorials on that or submitting final grades, some of those sort of process

oriented things.

That's one thing that we get support.

So you don't have to spend time trying to figure out like how do I do this or that on

this platform and navigating some of our internal platforms.

So that's one thing we do.

And then in terms of professional development, other support, those workshops and groups

that I mentioned that our offices are open to all adjuncts.

So for example, we have a research and rating groups that meet weekly and over the course

of a semester.

So adjuncts are welcome and courage to sign up for one of those.

You come and go as you know, as they're able, but basically it creates a space and we do

them mostly on Zoom.

So you can come in, log in and check in, set your intentions, work quietly and then come

back for check-ins and get support from other faculty members and someone in our office.

Other upcoming things or other topics that we talk about, we have teaching principles

that inform the values of teaching at Montclair and one of them is teaching as a reflective

practice.

So that's something I'm going to be doing shortly is talking about, okay, we give our

students feedback.

What is the feedback we need to receive from our students on our teaching?

How can we solicit that feedback from students?

But also how can we thank ourselves and take a moment to take stock of our own teaching

and where we're at?

So we'll be doing a guided workshop on teaching as a reflective practice.

That panel that I mentioned, the adjunct faculty panel was coming from the profession.

So how faculty coming from industry translate that professional experience into a classroom,

successful classroom activities for their students and leveraging that experience within the

classroom?

I'm wondering about how many of your courses are taught online or in how many of the adjuncts

are coming to the campus physically out of the 1400 or so.

How many are teaching just online or hybrid and how that modality, how it sounds like

you're providing everything in multiple modalities.

It can be in person, professional development or online, on demand or synchronous.

But explain that a little more, it would be nice.

Yeah, so we have adjuncts teaching in all three modalities.

So on campus in person, online, asynchronous and synchronous and then hybrid, we do provide

support for each of those modalities.

We have an instructional design team that really focuses on the technology aspect of

that as well.

So if you're teaching online, they have courses that you can take as a faculty member to learn

how to teach effectively online.

In terms of our actual offerings, we try to be as convenient as possible for everyone,

but especially particularly for adjuncts.

So that means most of our sessions are offered on Zoom because it's sort of the easiest way

because we do certainly have faculty members who don't come to campus at all.

We also have our Bloomfield College is at a different location.

It's a few miles away.

And if you are in person, say at the Bloomfield campus, it might be easier just to jump on

a Zoom.

I try to record as many of these sessions as possible and then post those online.

So if you're not able to join live, you could watch it later.

And then also I try to schedule things throughout the day and the week.

So offering evening sessions, for example, for those adjuncts who are working another

job nine to five, for example, to offer something, say at six thirty at night, try to do that

too, just to provide as many opportunities as possible to connect.

So the press release highlighted the reduction in workloads and increase in preparation time.

How have these changes affected both faculty morale as well as student outcomes?

This reduction in workload time really is about providing support that allows adjuncts

more time to focus on their teaching.

So there's a couple things that come into play here.

One is our campus uses a third party tool called Simple syllabus.

And this has been integrated across all of our campus courses.

So every course, regardless if it's only in person or online, has an associated Canvas

course.

So that's our LMS.

And within that we have this Simple syllabus tool, which we brand as the Montclair syllabus.

And as I'm sure you're aware of what this is, it's a template syllabus and all instructors

are expected to use it.

So the uniformity that it provides in its sections makes sure that as faculty are completing

their syllabus, they have all the information that they need to have in it.

But also it allows like a department level at a program level and then certainly at the

university level to preload certain things in there.

So this is super helpful.

For example, at the bottom of every syllabus, there's the university level resources for

students, whether it's counseling center information, tutoring center information.

That's all included in the syllabus.

So as a faculty member, when I'm completing my syllabus, I can focus just on those sections

that are specific to my course.

So that's been one way of sort of alleviating some workload for adjuncts.

Another is our office.

And now this has been moved over to this new office I spoke about earlier, the Center for

Teaching and Academic Innovation.

We had this program called TIP, which is the Teaching Innovation Program.

And each year there was a different cohort of faculty who applied to be part of it and

it centered around a different topic.

So one recently was on multi-section courses.

And this is an area that is particularly helpful for adjuncts coming in.

And there's already sort of a structure for particular courses, many sections.

And so the things that we were working on with the faculty in developing this is having

a course guide for all courses.

So just a simple document that outlines these are the student learning outcomes.

These are the text book that we want you to use here, particular assignments or components

or particular policies for this course that would be the faculty should include.

And it makes it much easier coming in, especially if you're being hired right before the start

of the semester.

Even those courses who don't know what the expectations are, you know what the content

is, obviously, you're an expert in this field.

But what are their specificities of this particular course?

What am I supposed to be covering?

Is there particular assignments or activities I'm supposed to be doing?

Is there a particular grading scheme that I should be using?

Instructors have autonomy, obviously, in making certain decisions, but it can make it much

easier to come in and know exactly what the expectations are, how the course we're teaching.

It also connects in that teaching innovation program.

Having a course coordinator, too, so a point of contact in one of these large multi-section

courses to say, okay, here's the person who's going to be your point of contact.

They're going to provide more information and be able to coordinate between the sections.

So that was also another intervention that can ease the workload.

But Courtney, we are also moving towards a simple syllabi campus.

So that has been encouraging to hear from your end as somebody who has kind of already

gone through the growing pains of adaptation and adoption and all that, that it has really

streamlined and really helped just kind of narrow everybody in so we can really focus

on what's important, like you said.

But one of our last questions that we have is, since you've received the award, what

has it been like and what are your next plans or your next stages in providing support to

adjunct faculty at your university?

Having the award has been really affirming.

We're sort of on the right track here.

I mentioned that we've done needs assessments and we do surveys also and recently, I think

our last spring maybe, we saw a big uptick in the number of adjuncts who are engaging

with our office with OFE, which has been really great to see 89% of respondents say that they

engage with our office.

I think that receiving the award, it's sort of validating that hopefully we're making

a difference and really supporting adjuncts, making them feel that they're part of a valued

member of the community at Montclair.

And we do want to keep continuing to get better and better support.

There's always areas that we can work on.

So in terms of what we'll be doing, we're still working through exactly how we'll be

spending that $15,000 award.

We're talking through some different ideas of using that money well to support adjuncts.

And yes, we will be at the AAC and you meeting as well in January.

So that'll be really exciting.

We're really thrilled and hopefully, John mentioned earlier about connecting with other

universities and doing cross-institutional collaboration or at least getting ideas from

what other institutions are doing.

It's been so helpful to see across the country what other colleges, universities are doing

in this regard and to be able to share ideas and say, oh, that could really work well for

us too.

I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this all really comes down in the end to the

student success, right?

That by supporting our adjunct faculty, we're not only creating those great connections

and supporting instructors and not differentiating in this regard between who's one rank or another,

but saying in the classroom, we all need to feel supported as instructors as best that

we can.

And because in turn, we are all making a difference, hopefully in students' lives and in their

education and in their path.

That's really what's at the heart of it is that we're sort of a team in supporting our

students in turn and supporting their education.

This is fantastic and I'm so excited for your university and what you all are going to be

doing.

I still cannot get over over 1200 adjunct faculty.

That's absolutely crazy.

I know you all are doing such good work and like you said, collaboration opportunities

are endless, which is kind of the beauty and the thorn of what we do.

I would be remiss in not mentioning also and really emphasizing the fact that this collaboration

across the various offices on our campus from HR to our adjunct union to the department.

But we all come together on this and I think our office in some ways is sort of a hub

for that, that we're able to sort of bring these pieces together and hopefully we'll

continue to do good work here in supporting our adjuncts.

Will you appreciate your time?

Thank you so much and congratulations to you.

I'm looking forward to hearing even more about what you're doing as well.

Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun.

We'll have to schedule a follow up.

Maybe like six months, where are they now?

Or like a year from now?

Like what have we spent our money on?

How have we improved things to circle it back?

And John, we'll see you in DC.

Yeah, we'll see you there.

Well, thank you so much for having me on.

Great to talk to you.

We'll be in touch.

Have a great rest of your day.

Thanks.

You too.

Bye, y'all.

Thank you.

See you.

Bye.

The music composed, performed and produced by James Husney.