The Gig-Juggler: Part-Time Faculty in the For-Profit University

After leaving the professional rat-race riddled with a life of overwork, burnout, and enormous stress, I needed a break. Since I was already teaching part-time online, I figured our family could simplify, hunker down in an RV and reconnoiter what might come next for us. I was teaching two courses with 30 students each, and I was earning more than $1,000/week. It would turn out to look great on the surface: a professor mom and road-schooled kid having rich experiences, seeing national parks, learning all kinds of things; but I hid a troublesome reality. I became a very low-income sort of person four months into this plan, when the university shifted gears, the course no longer loaded to two full sections, and I was teaching one very small section of the course. My income went from over $1,000 a week to under $1,000 a month in one day. I’d learned the most important rule of gig-juggling: Never depend on one school. For the next two years, I would jump on any crumbs that came my way developing volumes of course prep, feedback banks, resources, videos, and became very creative with how to live for free in an RV by doing volunteer work. When I added my second university, a lot more doors opened, a lot more opportunities came around for me, and I started to think perhaps this could become a viable career option instead of a temporary filler. A decade later, gig juggling is what I do. I have taught 280 individual sections of 39 different courses during 21 years.