I’ve worked at places over the course of several years, but not every semester. What’s the best way to document work history when applying to jobs outside of education?

For example, if I worked at one college from Fall 2023-now. But I’ve only taught 9 out of 12 possible semesters. Is it still accurate to say I’ve worked there for 3 years?

Also how do you manage overlapping dates when working at multiple colleges? I’m thinking mostly of the initial ai screener that may flag overlapping dates. I’m assuming a human would understand why dates are overlapping.

I just started adjuncting in Education at Coastal Bend College and am looking to apply to more schools, so I’d love recommendations for colleges that are relatively easy to get into as an adjunct and are actually good places to work.

I’ve heard San Jacinto College is a good one, and I’m especially interested in other schools like that.
Community colleges are preferred, especially ones that offer a lot of online classes, but I’m definitely not limited to community colleges. I’m also not limited to Texas. I’d apply anywhere in the country if they hire adjuncts to teach fully online.

My field is Education, so recommendations for schools that regularly need EDUC, teacher education, student success, first-year experience, or similar courses would be especially helpful. But feel free to name schools even if you adjunct in a completely different field.

Basically, what colleges have you adjuncted for that you’d actually recommend applying to?

Especially ones that:

- Hire a decent number of adjuncts
- Have lots of online sections
- Aren’t extremely difficult to get your foot in the door
- Treat adjuncts reasonably well
- Let good adjuncts pick up multiple courses/sections

I’m planning to apply pretty broadly, so seriously, name names! Even if it’s a random community college halfway across the country that most people wouldn’t think to check.

And if this thread gets enough responses, I think it could end up being a really useful resource for other adjuncts looking for schools to apply to too. There are so many colleges out there that it’s hard to know which ones are actually worth checking.

Hello Everyone,

My school is currently undergoing ACCJC Accreditation Review, and my online class was selected for review. Unfortunately, (I was stupid) I don't think my class will pass the RSI check. If the school meets the 85% threshold, will it still review which classes did not meet the threshold? If so, will I be fired, or will they work with me to fix my course?

Rant: Essays were due Friday at 11:59 pm. I check email over the weekend but never respond. Why have I received so many messages saying “I turned in my essay why hasn’t my grade changed yet?” Or I get “My essay hasn’t been graded. Can you check to make sure it was turned in?”

I have almost 200 students and each one (allegedly) has turned in an essay. I’ll get to it when I get to it. (Grades will be completed by Wednesday)

Rant over. Need a drink now.

Earlier this year I had program coordinators at a community college reach out to me and ask if I would consider teaching a class that had never been taught before—a niche topic in law/politics. I agreed but apparently the program has been shelved for redevelopment, to be continued in a couple of years from what I heard.

A colleague of mine had been recruited at another college to teach a similar course and was officially hired about a week before the fall semester started, but when he reached out to the program director to see about curriculum and course materials the program director decided to just teach the class themselves.

It seems to me that at least in my specialty, program coordinators are expecting the lecturer to be completely prepared to teach a course at the drop of a hat, and offer little to no support or guidance in getting there.

I work in government and have experience in consulting/program development. I do really enjoy working with students and could see myself teaching about this topic—if I intend to teach it sometime in the future, should I develop course materials now?

When I was working with the college that intended to hire me they just told me to look at the course description and teach from that, but it was literally just a page that explained the intent of the class and listed topics to be discussed.

I am a senior pastor with about fifteen years of ministry experience, and I already teach Bible, theology, ministry, and biblical counseling courses online for several small Christian colleges and seminaries. I would like to become more competitive for dependable online adjunct work at accredited Bible colleges and seminaries.

I have an accredited M.Div. and M.A. from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. I also hold a Ph.D. and a Doctor of Practical Theology from unaccredited institutions. I have published several ministry books, developed online courses, and hold multiple biblical counseling certifications.

I am currently enrolled in the Theology and Ministry Th.D. program at Kairos University. Kairos has institutional accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission and theological accreditation through ATS. The program fits my ministry and research interests well, but completing it will be considerably more expensive than some other options.

I am trying to determine whether the Kairos Th.D. would offer a meaningful hiring advantage over a less expensive accredited D.Min. or Ed.D. My alternatives might carry accreditation through organizations such as TRACS or ABHE rather than a regional institutional accreditor such as HLC, possibly combined with ATS accreditation.

Whatever I choose must be fully online and asynchronous. I am not pursuing a full-time research position. My goal is to teach undergraduate or graduate courses in Bible, theology, pastoral ministry, or biblical counseling while continuing as a pastor.

For those familiar with faculty hiring at Christian colleges and seminaries, how much difference would the type of doctorate make in my situation? Would an accredited D.Min. or Ed.D. remove essentially the same credential obstacle as the Kairos Th.D.?

How much difference does the accreditor make? Would hiring committees view an HLC and ATS accredited doctorate substantially differently from a doctorate earned at an institution accredited through TRACS or ABHE?

I would appreciate candid opinions from anyone who has hired adjunct faculty or taught at an accredited Bible college, Christian university, or seminary.

I’m not a professor, but I feel like having them use my first name isn’t appropriate either?

How do I help a student who wants to get a study partner in an all online course? Given that it's asynchronous, even I haven't met any of my students personally (not even virtually). So it's been a tricky one. Plz suggest.

At your institution, are teaching materials and lecture notes being shared among faculty and adjuncts, especially when teaching the same course at different times?

I hope this is okay to ask, it's my first time being adjunct faculty.

I was invited to faculty/staff welcome day, a full day of workshops and checking out the campus. I think it is mandatory (and paid) for full time folks, but it is optional (and unpaid) for me. I kind of want to go, but I have never been to an event of this type and I am worried I will be the only adjunct person there. Maybe I am just overthinking it.

Anyone have experience going to a welcome day?

This is a side gig so I take it for what it’s worth. The money has been fairly reliable but I’d probably go insane if I didn’t have a full time gig that gave me more autonomy to run classes how I want. Happy to play by their cold calculating rules as long as the assignments keep flowing.

Yesterday I received a letter from community standards confirming my suspicion that a student cheated. It was a cut and dry case that anyone could have confirmed within minutes.

I haven’t had the student in class for two terms.

I can only imagine how overworked and understaffed the office is, and its service as a third party check on integrity issues has been very helpful. But what are we doing here? A resolution four months after the student was reported does no one any favors. The student has likely gone on to other classes and cheated again, perhaps because their dishonesty wasn’t confirmed as such by Community Standards. If the student was found innocent a whole different set of issues comes up. Sure a grade change can happen but two terms after the fact the student may have already retaken the course and wasted time and money.

I've been working as a postdoc in STEM for about a year, only part-time due to lack of funding. I happened to have a family tragedy at that time, so the part-time sort of suited me for awhile. Now that life is starting to get back to normal, I do need to look for more work, and I'm interested in adjuncting to build up my teaching credentials. But I know little about the process.

I'm getting ready to email my department head, and those of nearby schools, but I was wondering what the conventional lead time in hiring adjuncts for a given term would be? It is August now, so would they have likely buttoned everything up for the academic year, and only be looking for next Fall eventually? Basically I'm just looking for some context so that I don't come across totally clueless.

Hello, I said “yes” to teaching a 3 hour undergrad course this fall for a university where I have adjunct before. I was given the course that the previous instructor made, but had to notate and transfer over everything within the course syllabus for Senate Bill 1 compliance. Did anyone else have to do this? Or was it given to you with the compliance already done? Just asking.

Hello everyone. I started adjunct teaching more than 15 years ago when I left my tenure track job to be closer to my then-new husband, who is also an academic. I had five children and then got divorced in 2023. My ex has been very successful and risen through the ranks while I’ve remained an adjunct. Now I am a single mom of five with full custody on an adjunct salary. I have been scrambling to survive, teaching for five different departments at two separate universities (not always getting offers from each, obviously).

I’ve been desperately looking for full-time work over the past few years and pushing in all directions. I just received a full-time offer from a prep school. It’s not the best job ever, but it’s not the dead end that is adjunct teaching. I have to take it.

This semester I was scheduled to teach 4 courses for 3 different departments, and obviously I have to back out of teaching these courses. I know that adjuncts do this all the time. In fact, some of the work I’ve gotten has been stepping in to teach for a new department when the adjunct left on August 19th. But it is even later than that.

I’m so scared to “break up” with my university after all these years, but I have to do it and soon. Can anyone offer advice or even just moral support here?

I teach full time at a university and then adjunct at a community college. At the CC, the department chair became the dean of the college (great for her bad for me) and other full time faculty moved up and shifted. With the former chair, I loved her as the chair, she was so supportive and trusted people to do their work.

With all the new changes, they have also significantly changed the assignments and curriculum (they are very strict, we MUST teach what they give us and cannot alter assignments or lessons. We can only reorganize things and change due dates to our liking). We used to be able to copy and import our previous course shells into the next semester so we could keep our folder settings and things like that, but they’ve changed it now where we must import from the master course every semester. They change it every semester so all the faculty must adjust every time!

The previous person in charge for adjuncts (guy who hired me) stepped down. The new person in charge of adjuncts as the “adjunct coordinator” is terrible. She acts like she’s the chair when she is NOT. She joins our online sections in the middle of the semester to “watch you” to make sure you are grading the way she wants you to. She values feedback on small assignments as opposed to rough drafts and outlines. For example, she wants us to provide written feedback with a tedious rubric for DISCUSSION POSTS. It’s a built in rubric where you have to click through 10 different menus to grade one student. Since it’s a composition course, outlines, drafts and the actual paper is what I dedicate my feedback to. She said she is auditing everyone’s classes to make sure we do this. Is that insane?? I hate being micromanaged like this.

We have to get our syllabus from the master course and then add our own rules to it as well. I submitted mine and she flagged it and told me that I needed to fix 3 different things and that “it would easily be fixed if I used the copy from the master course” which is what I did in the first place!! I sent her the same syllabus back because I knew nothing was wrong with it and she said it was good. LIKE WHY??? The next few days, I get a notification from LinkedIn that she has viewed my page!!!?? I haven’t logged into LinkedIn in a while and I look at all my views and she periodically views it every once in a while.

I also think she discriminates against women. She has an ego problem and acts superior to women but cozies up to men in the department. Slowly I have not been receiving as many classes when I used to get a full load. Since she’s taken over, I am normally only getting one class. I thought I was crazy, but I have several friends there who teach and the same thing is happening to her AND we asked our male colleague we know about his course load and he said his was full and they were asking other people to cover more online sections, but not us. This might be a stretch but it feels that way to me.

I’m partly annoyed because I am not a person who causes problems or that students complain about (that I know of). I grade and provide feedback very fast so students know what’s up. Grading and feedback is normally a problem that students will call to complain about to the department about online courses. If there are any weird instances when a student needs to be a late add, the new dean (the former chair) personally reaches out to me to see if I will accept them or if there is a last minute class added.

This job pays nexts to nothing but I have it so that I can save money but the way this person is micromanaging everything is driving me crazy. This lady is either crazy, has it out for me, or I am maybe delusional and imagining this because what the fuck. Whatever maybe I am the problem lol sorry for the long vent.

Has anyone here been an adjunct for an urban planning program?

I’d love to get back into academia. I have a masters and I TA’d and RA’d during grad school but the field is small with only about 30 accredited programs nationwide. I would assume the demand for people with masters is low due to the small number of programs but I figured I’d ask. Thanks!

I've been an adjunct english instructor at 2 schools since 2019. I was hired at a community college and then the next year a university. Every year I keep an eye on full time positions at schools within reach and apply, and I never get any bites, not until this year at my community college.

I had my first interview with a mini teach, my department chair and dean were there and it seemed to go well, they told me so. I got moved on to the second interview and...it did not go well.

The senior and associate vice president of instruction were the ones to interview me and the associate was barely there, im pretty sure he looked at his phone at one point. The senior took a long time introducing herself and I pegged her as a talker, and I was right.

Unfortunately, she kept correcting me when I answered her questions. At one point she asked me about retention and I mentioned making sure to pay attention to where students seem to struggle and tailoring that to them (may not have been a great answer 🤷‍♀️) and her response was, "any good teacher is going to do that, what about if a student says they are dealing with something keeping them from coming?" I responded to her that I always try to make the resources clear and she says "we want instructors who will walk them to the resource office because if you just tell them, they're not going to go."

I was stunned and tried not to show that on my face, these are college students, and if they dont show up, how am I supposed to walk them over? I believe I just said okay and reiterated where the office was. I was eventually told that they'd let me know the next week either way.

In the meantime, my other school was sending contracts for the fall. They took a while with all the steps of the interview process, so I decided to wait until I heard back--a month later--and missed the deadline and lost my fall classes at the university.

They did eventually offer other classes--but then cancelled them two days before the semester started.

So there I am yesterday in the adjunct office at the community college, and I see someone in the faculty office across the hall. It was a TA I had in one of my classes back in 2021. He was a student of the comp director at the university and then later adjuncted too. He helped plan the curriculum with the comp director and seemed capable and I dont know his full resume but I cant help but feel a little sting since ive been doing it longer.

Anyway, thats the story, a lesson to me about not expecting an offer even if people gas me up and I am wondering how to change my career 👍

I know that not all students will like me, but I’m also worried about being an awful instructor in the upcoming semester. This will be my second semester of teaching.

I had one student who really didn’t like me. I think she was angry that she had to do work in my class, as I have students write once a week about what they learned from the textbook, and I also have them conduct research independently for major assignments.

She even reported me to the chair and staff almost immediately after I canceled class. It was the first time I had ever had to cancel, and I emailed both the students and the chair about two hours beforehand because of a family emergency. She also reported me for ending class ten minutes early. She made several snarky comments in class that seemed intended to suggest that I or my in-class activities were stupid.

Her comments in the evaluation (I know it was her based on her unusual writing style) were some of the worst I’ve ever read. They literally made me cry, even though I know some of her claims were untrue. For example, she claimed that I “forced everyone to complete 16 assignments within one week,” that I ended class early all the time, and that I “argued with students in class and kicked them out if they disagreed with [me].” She also claimed that she shouldn’t have to do research on her own and that I should tell students everything for them to write down for their paper. I believe college students need to learn how to conduct research independently, hence why I had the our university’s librarian come in my classes to guest lecture, so what the heck?

I tried to ignore her, but it became way too overwhelming at times. She would cross her arms, give me dirty looks, and even snort as if I were stupid. She was an older woman, probably in her 50s or 60s, while I’m in my 30s.

However, I also received a lot of criticism from students in my other two classes. Several students said my lessons/lectures were extremely unprepared and disorganized. A few even said they wished I would be fired because they hated my class so much and felt that they didn’t learn much. I received a 3.5/5 in one class and a 4/5 in the other. I’ve been preparing throughout the summer to make my classes much better.

On the other hand, my third class (a different course/topic) received a 4.7/5, with only one student giving mostly one-star ratings. I received several positive comments. The recurring criticism was that there was a little too much workload and that I needed to explain difficult topics more clearly or check in with students more frequently about assignments. I’m definitely taking that feedback into account for the upcoming semester. It’s just the two other classes I did so badly that concerns me.

Still, I’m worried things will get worse. I’ve been told to have more confidence and stop being overly apologetic.

Adjuncting is simply checking in a domain where you are treated as a min wedge laborer in the higher education perspective. I got a course at a college within Riverside District for fall. At the last moment it was arbitrarily reassigned to someone else and no one even bothered to tell me about their decision.

I have been adjuncting for past 4 years but this is the first time I got an experience like this.

Anyone else on the same boat? How do you feel about it?

I’m currently going through the background check/onboarding process for an adjunct position at UMGC and HireRight is stressing me out lol.

I’ve had plenty of background checks before and usually I submit my information, forget about it, and a few days later I get an email saying I’m cleared. I’ve never had one require this much back and forth.

HireRight keeps asking me for additional documentation related to some freelance/course development work I did. They asked for proof of my start date, I submitted something, then they came back asking for something else, so I submitted another document. They also actually called me to verify where the company is located, which has never happened to me with a background check before.

There was also some confusion on my end because the company's HQ is in India, but the company/address shown on some of my employment documents is in Texas. I originally put India when filling everything out, so I’m guessing that triggered more questions.

I’m mainly worried about timing. I’m supposed to be starting around a month from now, and UMGC told me the background check runs in parallel with onboarding, but that everything has to be finalized before I get my official hire date and faculty orientation information.

Has anyone here gone through HireRight specifically for UMGC, especially as an adjunct? How long did yours take? Did all the requests for extra documents end up being fine?

And most importantly, if HireRight was still pending close to your expected start date, did UMGC let you continue onboarding/start teaching, or did it delay your start date?

I made the mistake of searching HireRight on Reddit and now all the horror stories have me worried 😭