Part II: Deploying Your Personal Brand Companies love mission statements. Or rather, consultants who get paid to help companies develop mission statements love mission statements. Likewise, adjunct professors can spend countless hours agonizing about how to describe themselves and who to sell their expertise to. In a previous blog post entitled Building Your Personal Brand […]

Part I: Developing Your Personal Brand Adjunct professors know all about establishing a reputation. It’s important to position oneself as an expert by demonstrating research, study, and clarity of thought regarding a topic. The next step is to be recognized for this expertise. Do colleagues and administrators value the product of your knowledge? And finally, […]

In academia, one of the biggest trends in recent years is the rise of adjunct teaching. Since the early 1970s, tenured positions at colleges and universities in the U.S. have steadily been replaced by adjunct or non-tenure track professorships. There are many reasons for this decline, but it’s clear that the tenure system is changing rapidly […]

Have you heard this tired cliche? “Those who can’t do, teach.” It’s time to flip this phrase. “Those who teach have more to give.”  Successful entrepreneurs are celebrated, and those who rebel against traditional educational paths are lauded. However, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University, and Steve Jobs dropped out of […]

It’s common for adjunct professors to hold down more than one job. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reports that 60% of part-time professors have at least one or more jobs in addition to teaching. The question remains: how does an adjunct professor make more money? There are two paths to take. The traditional path […]

It’s the perfect symbiotic relationship: adjunct professors and small business owners. When paired, the two can grow revenue faster and with greater agility than their big business counterparts. So how can the two make money together? They must find each other and leverage each other’s strengths. Here’s the why and how of it. Small Businesses […]

Imbalance prevails as the number of awarded post-doctorate degrees increases, the percentage of those with PhDs securing tenure-track dwindles. How the Decline of Tenure Led to Alt-Ac To cut costs, colleges and universities are reducing the number of full-time, tenure track positions in favor of a contingent workforce of part-time and adjunct faculty. So, what […]

According to a 2011 study from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), fifty-six percent of college professors are part-time or full-time non-tenure-track faculty. Newer reports reveal that roughly seventy-five percent of college classroom instructors are off the tenure track. The trend is widespread and throughout every level of higher education. Elite schools like Harvard University, Stanford, […]

Adjunct professors used to be a small subset of the teaching population. Most professors at the college level were full-time or on a tenure track. Today, most available teaching jobs at colleges and universities in the U.S. are adjunct or part-time positions. How Adjuncts Became the Norm, Not the Exception Many in academia aren’t happy […]

Pursuing a career as an adjunct professor isn’t about the money. According to the job site Indeed, the national average salary for an adjunct professor is $67.58 per hour.  Likewise, ZipRecruiter posts a state-by-state comparison of average adjunct faculty annual salaries that range from $51-$71K. Statistics like this paint a picture of a career path […]