The Faculty Lounge: Designing a “Local” Space for Online Adjunct Faculty

Introduction

A general Google search of “adjunct faculty” yields many results; more interestingly, Google results include a section called “People also ask…,” which lists the most popular questions concerning a topic, in this case, “adjunct faculty.” The questions include: “Are adjunct professors in demand?,” “Why is adjunct pay so low?”, and my favorite, “Is it worth being an adjunct professor?”

These questions illustrated my early career in higher education when I began as an adjunct faculty at a tier-two university in Michigan. At the time, the university did not have a mentorship initiative, a center for teaching and learning, or any supplemental support to calibrate new instructors to the life of an adjunct faculty; therefore, I learned the nuances of teaching in isolation.

In my twenty-three-year profession in higher education, I have served as an online adjunct as a primary and supplementary means of income. I know the ins and outs of being a “subset” of a population that makes up most of the university’s teaching pool. Yet, as an online educator, why do many feel they’re out-of-sight, out-of-mind? I have come to understand the rich skills and industry experience adjunct faculty bring to the virtual learning environment. Without the benefit of participating in department meetings or frequent communication to represent the university’s culture and climate, many adjunct faculty forge ahead in isolation without frequent communication, mentoring, support, and guidance. The intention is to offer cost-effective solutions that respect the time constraints of adjunct faculty and methods to mitigate burnout. So, is it worth being an adjunct professor? Yes, when an institution provides the same type of targeted support we, as faculty, are expected to use with our students, targeted support designed for adjunct faculty by way of relevant professional development, opportunities to connect with the community, and class-specific resources that support facilitation and grading. As core faculty at an online university, we set out to develop a local “space” for our adjunct population who teach within our area of purview. We provided targeted instructional guidance on course-related content, professional development events, sample feedback, and weekly announcements to support adjunct faculty to encourage the reallocation of efforts in other areas of the course where individualized instruction is needed (e.g., embedded comments on assignments and one-on-one instruction).