Most important qualities for adjuncts?

This is a question for the higher Ed. administration members who frequent this board.

In your opinion, what are the most important attributes you look for in hiring an adjunct? I'm providing a list below; would you mind speaking to a couple of these items that you feel are the most important? Which are the least important? (Given: Let's assume that the individual in question holds an RA degree in the subject matter he/she will be teaching).

-Professional work experience in the subject matter
-Which RA school the individual earned his/her degree from
-Level of degree held; master's or doctors
-Teaching experience (higher Ed or public school)
-Quality of dissertation or thesis written by individual in question
-Quantity of published papers
-Tech savvy and online teaching experience
-Your personal interview observations with the individual

 

I'm guessing,

1) academic credentials
2) relevant experience

Without these you probably will never get to the interview.

 

You forgot:

3) Willing to work cheap.

 

LOL ! Sad but true!

 

Disclaimer - I don't hire adjuncts, but I make recommendations to the Academic Dean who does...

I teach at a small rural community college in Northern Wisconsin - at our level we don't care about the dissertation or published papers. What I look for is:

1. Does the person have the appropriate credentials? (To us RA or NA does not matter - we are an HLC school and the HLC doesn't care about NA/RA).

2. Experience: I look at teaching and real world experience. Tech savvy helps if it is an online position.

3. Follow the directions - Did you complete the job application and provide the supporting documentation? While we try to make hiring decisions early for adjuncts, often hiring an adjunct for us is a last minute decision due to unexpected higher enrollment. If you are more qualified but your paperwork is incomplete, I'm more likely to go with a less qualified candidate who has completed all the paperwork and can start quickly.

Shawn

 

Where I work the important things are if the person has an RA masters in the subject they applied to teach or as a last resort (a masters and 18 semester credit hours), work experience in the field, and experience teaching online or teaching adult learners in a non traditional setting (night or weekend classes, etc..). Rarely does the number of papers or the quality of the dissertation come up, but then again, I do work for a for profit university.

 

Do you work for an online or a B&M school?

 

In my perspective the following qualities are highly desirable for online adjuncts:

1. Applicable work experience. I would rather take coures from a working professional that's skilled in his or her area than someone who has a doctorate but no applicable work expertise. I have 12 years of work experience in law enforcement therefore I would think certain fields like criminal justice or accounting would require more work experience.

2. Technical expertise. Someone who knows the ins and outs of an online course would be great.

 

So you might favor an individual who earned their degree online, all other things being equal?

 

I can only speak for myself but I would have to say the where/how the degree was earned is irrelevant in my opinion. Rather, the knowledge or expertise of the individual is more important for me. I earned one of my graduate degrees through traditional means and the instructors wrote many publications and authored zillions of articles but had a combined experience of zero years of actual field work experience. It was kind of hard learning about law enforcement when the person passing on this knowledge to me never once set foot in a patrol car, prison or conducted an investigation. But to each his own

 

Not that I have any experience at all, but I was going to say "passion to compensate for the dismal pay."

 

A much nicer way to say "wage slave" indeed.

 

That's interesting that you would experience a problem with graduate level teachers not following directions. I would think that someone at that level, who has gone to all that work to earn a graduate degree, would take the time to fill out an application correctly and follow all instructions. Very surprising that they might not.

 

Michael,

Why would this (inability to follow instruction) be so surprising – merely because they possess a graduate degree and wish to teach some courses?

 

Oh, how stupid of me to think that a teacher would be mature

 

The for profit school I work for has both B & M campuses and an online campus.

 

This happens all the time where I work, particularly when it comes to online faculty training. Its amazing how many doctorate and master degree holders who fail faculty training because they tick the wrong box or they do not complete the training course within the 3 week time frame. Often they will admit that they did not read the directions clearly or they were in a rush.

 

Are you asking about online adjuncts? I'd think having a DL degree would be a plus. As for B&M adjuncts, I think there would be concern about not having any in the classroom teaching experience as a grad student TA, etc. It can be overcome but that was the feedback I got from a local community college when asking if an AMU degree would be acceptable for adjuncting.

 

That reflects the standard bias that B&M schools have against DL. It would be interesting to start a thread asking for examples of people with DL degrees who have landed B&M teaching jobs. I'll bet they are few. Think I'll start that thread soon.