Is adjunct professorshipat night a good way to start towards tenure?

[x-g.o.p.er]

I've had a couple of offers to start teaching night and weekend classes at a local college once my Master's is finished...which should be soon!

Is this a good way to start out and work towards a full time gig, with an eventual eye on being tenured at the school, or should I just be content in the fact it's teaching nights and weekends and be happy with the extra pocket money?

Just wondering. Thanks!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. By law, full-time jobs have to be advertised nationally

so even if the school decides that it needs someone full time in your specialty, you will have national competition.

Two additional factors:

1. Colleges are cutting back on full time positions and are trying to get by with adjuncts as much as possible. Gotta pay for all those administrators and their endless chains of assistants, you know.

2. IF a full-time job opens in your specialty and IF the department chair likes you, s/he may write the job description to fit you. However, if you're teaching on nights and weekends, you'll probably never see the department chair or most of the other full time faculty either.

Basically, working as an adjunct is unlikely to lead to a full-time job at that school. However, it is teaching experience, and as long as you don't stay in the adjunct ghetto too long, you have a chance of moving into a full-time position somewhere else.

Then "all" you have to worry about is tenure. If you don't get it, you're out on the streets after seven years.

I got out of academia when I was denied tenure and saw that all the other jobs in my field were one- and two-year appointments or adjunct positions in places where I didn't want to live.

[Runcible Spoon]

2. doubtful.

since you don't have a PhD they're gonna string you along at rock bottom adjunct pay for as long as you will stay, unless terminal MAs are the end point of degrees in your field. There are so many unemployed PhD's that if tenure positions open up they will most likely be filled by people with established records and publications. If you're serious about working in academia I would look at getting a fellowship for PhD studies. The pay, at least when I was in PhD, was better than the adjuncts got.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Oh, right--thanks for pointing that out

I guess I skimmed over the part that said that the OP is about to finish an M.A.

Yes, in most fields you need a Ph.D. for a tenure-track position.

[quakerboy]

4. No offense to anyone

But Adjuncts tend to be asshats.

[JCMach1]

5. Not really, adjunct work is basically the scab work of academia

unless you are on the retirement end of things...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. you need a phd to be on tenure track

[mike_c]

7. as others have noted, you will amost certainly need a union card for tenure....

Otherwise known as a Ph.D. Plus you get to wear the funny hat.

[x-g.o.p.er]

8. Thanks for all the replies!!

I kind of figured what you guys told me, so I'll just be content to pocket the extra walking around money.

I really don't want to do a PhD program right now, anyways.

[ForrestGump]

9. Nope, but

the experience will be good, as will the paycheck (well, not GOOD in comparison to many other fields of endeavor, probably, but a revelation to most grad students).

I had (I guess I still do, given that it was never revoked) an adjunct professorship with a northeastern university while I was still a graduate student. I got it because I used volunteers in my field research, overseas, who could get university credit through that institution for their time in the field. The only thing it was good for, really, was for flooring my PhD advisor when, during my public part of the dissertation defense, the fact that I was an Adjunct Professor was read off along with the rest of my awards and so on. It's always good to keep the PhD advisor in the dark as much as possible, in my experience (Sun Tzu would probably agree)... :D

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

10. It's the fast track to nowhere...

Adjunct Professors are the academic equivalent of migrant workers. You see seven-eight of them packed in a creaky old jalopy crossing the desert so that can teach at USC.

Serious. Unless you have a Ph.D, you're spinning your wheels.

[ForrestGump]

11. Even if you HAVE a PhD, much wheel-spinning can occur...

In my field, applying for at least one hundred (often 200 or more) jobs or postdocs was the norm before one was landed. That was a few years ago, too, when I was still working in that field; it's undoubtedly worse now that the Bush years have had their full effect on funding and other support of natural sciences.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

12. My brother...

drifted from post-doc to non-tenure position for about ten years (research scientist) before giving up and going to work in the private sector. Me? I sold my soul immediately and then was an Adjunct for fifteen years just for the fun of it.

And to the poster who said that most Adjuncts are "asshats," when did you take my class?!

[triguy46]

13. From what I read in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, adjunct is limbo, not many make tenure track.

But! There have been recent articles about the aging professorship, which makes sense, so hang in there and keep your options open. Also, as if you didn't know, publishing is everything. Keep after it.

[triguy46]

14. As pointed out, PhD is mandatory in all but the fewest fields...

Engineering for example, in some areas, a Masters and professional credential can = tenure track. But if you're talking anything other than community college, PhD or bust.