Freeway Flyer

• Frequent Flyers and a Different Slant on Job Security

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  06 Mar 2010 /  job security
  According to Allbusiness.com, the definition of  job security is “Freedom from the fear of dismissal or job loss.” In academe, the traditional definition of job security has been the tenure awarded position. In recent years, with fewer tenure track teaching positions being offered, it would seem that job security for the adjunct or contingent faculty member might be negatively affected as well. On the contrary, this is when it can be helpful to be a Freeway Flyer who teaches for two, three, or more colleges and college campuses.

  Dependence on one college for income as a part-timer can be a tough way to make a living. Obviously, higher education has been facing,  and will continue facing, challenges in terms of funding and enrollment—at least in the near future. This affects everyone, of course. For example, a part-time instructor always has to worry about a class filling, because if it does not, there may not be another class offered to him or her. Also, part-time instructors will be the first ones to be “bumped” if a full-time instructor with a contract needs another course.

  Here’s where the Freeway Flyer needn’t worry: if a class does not work out for an instructor at College A, there may be a class at College B or C that might work out. Keep in contact with department chairs or administrative deans and let them know you are interested in hearing about other classes or sections that might become available. In some cases, this might result in being assigned a class at the last minute, but the flexibility this requires is one of your strong suits. Also, being able to take over a class with very little notice demonstrates that you are the go-to adjunct, the one on whom they can depend.

  Having a friendly working relationship with a department chair or dean can be helpful in other ways. For instance, if I am bumped from a class at one of my colleges, my department chair at this school always gives me first pick of classes for the next semester, or will even offer me an extra class.

  Of course, this means that your schedule might change drastically from semester-to-semester, as might the particular classes you will be teaching. One semester, you might think you are working second shift because you have so many night classes. Another semester, you might only have to teach two days a week, but both of those days start at nine in the morning and finish at nine in the evening. But, this is also part of the fun of being an adjunct at multiple colleges: every semester is different and it never gets old. That is okay with you, though. If you wanted a 40 hour a week job with the same schedule every week, you would not have gone into teaching in higher education.

  Tags: Carol Weatherford, job security

• The Frequent Flyer Law and Guilty Secrets

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  26 Feb 2010 /  organization
  The Boy Scouts of America have a motto that simply says “Be prepared.” There is an adage called “Murphy’s Law” that says “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” If you put this motto and adage together and give it a slightly new twist, you have the Frequent Flyer Law: Be prepared, because anything that can go wrong probably already has.

  There are a multitude of things that can go wrong in any given day. Some of them are beyond our control, and some are not. For example, there can be problems with technology. If GroupWise is “down,” you may be inconvenienced, but that is outside your control. If you leave your pen drive at home with the documents you need for a class, that was within your control and now you’re stuck.

  Then, there are all the opportunities for something to go wrong on the road to school. Frequent Flyers, by definition, spend a lot of time traveling from college to college. In my experience, at least once a week there is a highway accident big enough to stop traffic. The accident is outside your control (at least, let’s hope so), but leaving early enough to give yourself extra time if there is such an occurrence, was within your control.

  Frequent Flyers are at certain campuses infrequently, perhaps only once or twice a week, and possibly at night. They may be the last to know when something is changed. For instance, I recently checked a library web page on the college web site to make sure they were open until 8:00. When the class and I got there, though, the sign on the door said they were closing at 6:30 each day instead. I couldn’t control the hours, of course, but I could take time to read signs.

  It’s probably a good idea to point out here that although you are super organized, highly intelligent, and darned cute, you are still not perfect and will forget things or make the occasional silly mistake. To demonstrate, I will confide in you and tell you a guilty-secret mistake I made once. It was very simple; I put on brown sandals and left for class. No big deal, right? It only became a big deal when I got to campus and upon emerging from my car, noticed that I was indeed wearing two brown sandals, but they were from different pairs. Yes, it was embarrassing (please don’t tell anyone). And yes, obviously, wearing matching shoes was within my control.

  My point is that while we do not have control over so many possible occurrences of day to day teaching life, there are things we can do:

  1. Don’t  be caught without an important document of part of a lesson. Follow your own advice that you often share with your students: save documents to your hard drive, your pen drive, and email them to yourself so you can access them anywhere. Remember, too, that pen drives do not last forever; they have a finite number of “fires.”
  2. Know alternate routes to all of your schools. Then, if you must exit the freeway, you can still find your way. Also, keeping county maps in the car for all of the counties in which you drive could be useful.
  3. Web sites are great, but they are not always up to date. Consult the site, but be smart and notice signs on doors, and send an email to check on what you need to know in advance.
  4. This one you already know: before you leave the house, verify that you have your wallet/purse/keys/school bag and so on. My last piece of advice is to look down and make sure your shoes match. Seriously, where do you think they got the idea that there are such things as absent minded professors? There are real life stories everywhere.

  Tags: adjunct faculty, Carol Weatherford, preparation

• Keeping a Sense of Humor: Yes, You Can (and must)

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  12 Feb 2010 /  teaching, time management
  The early weeks of a new semester can be a challenge to smile through when an instructor is on a different campus or college each day. At one college, the books for a new class are coming in to the bookstore, but seemingly, only three at a time. At another college, the parking pass is not working and you can’t get into the parking lot. At still another college, someone with whom you were to meet left a little early; can you come back tomorrow? All of these problems would be minor if you worked at the same college every day and were there to take care of these annoyances, but you don’t work at the same college every day: you’re the Freeway Flyer.

  Fortunately, there is a technique that can work in many cases to help you deal with frustration. With practice (and it takes practice), you can de-stress your life and impress your peers. Attempt to look for the humor in a situation and appreciate it. Almost any state of affairs has something funny about it; challenge yourself to find it. Emily Dickinson’s dear friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, said “There is no defense against adverse fortune which is so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.” Make it a habit to look for the amusing aspects of a situation.

  In the Seventies, I had a crush on the Mash television show character, Hawkeye Pierce. It was not only Alan Alda’s good looks; it was his knack at finding something funny in every situation. It occurred to the young me that humor gave one a sense of self-control. Also, if you can throw out one-liners, you may not come across as vulnerable as you feel. Humor is right up there with spring breaks as a way to stay sane and keep from hurting yourself. Comedian Bill Cosby says, “If you can find humor in anything, you can survive it.” Finding the humor may just take practice.

  Now that you’re a comic genius, you can share the humor with your classes. After all, studies have shown that students shown cartoons and jokes related to the concepts taught received higher scores on multiple choice exams than students who were not taught with humor (Ziv, 1988). For fun, check out “Fifty fun things for professors to do on the first day of class” http://www.ahajokes.com/profun.html and then don’t actually do most of them. But, reading about them will give you a laugh.

  Of course, this doesn’t work for everyone and humor should only be used by instructors who are comfortable doing so and are good at it. Avoid the use of sarcasm: it can have a negative effect. Be careful, too; there have been times in the past when I have been accused of being sarcastic when I thought I was only being exceedingly clever. Humor, like most things, is in the eye of the beholder. Know your audience; in fact, what’s sauce for the goose at one college isn’t necessarily sauce for the gander at another. Once I received a humorous email at College A, which got a major laugh at College B, but received dead silence at College C. Different reaction, different day.

  Share the joy if you like, but remember that laughter is good for your own mental health. Try to find the humor in day to day situations and see if your stress level goes lower as a result. Also, try to end your days with a laugh. There is a good reason to watch late night television. For example, tune in and watch David Letterman’s nightly Top Ten List. If you can’t stay up that late, check out the web archives. http://www.cbs.com/late_night_show/top_ten Or, have fun keeping your spouse awake while you are busy laughing at a Janet Evanovich novel. And, finally, try not to take it all too seriously; after all, today’s fiasco will be forgotten tomorrow and you will have new challenges to put into perspective.

  Ziv, A. Teaching and Learning with Humor: Experiment and Replication. Journal of Experimental Education, 57, 1988.

  Tags: Carol Weatherford, freeway flyer, stress

• Identifying Student Populations: A Guide for the Non Sociologist Freeway Flyer

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  04 Feb 2010 /  students, teaching
  Working at multiple colleges and campuses provides opportunities to teach students of many different backgrounds, needs, and interests. Here are some of the student population types you may encounter:

  • The Dual Enrollment Students. These students are easy to identify because they travel in packs; in fact, you can often hear them coming before you see them. It is almost unheard of for a high school student to go anywhere alone. This population often makes a complete turnaround: by the following fall when they are officially new college students, they enter the room timidly, quietly, and alone.
  • The New College Students. These students are harder to spot than they used to be, although they may still look shiny and new. They may be the traditional recent high school graduates, high school graduates who took some time off after graduation, or high school graduates who took a lot of time off after graduation.
  • The Viet Nam Era Veterans. If your class is held in a computer lab, these students will be the only ones who do not turn on the computer the minute they sit down. The last time they typed was on an IBM Selectric. Not only will you have to show them how to use Word 2007, you will have to teach them keyboarding. They are not afraid to ask questions, though, and are excited about new accomplishments.
  • The Auditing Students. Be careful: they may know as much as you do. The best way to handle these students is to use their expertise. However, if they raise their hands at every question, say something like, “Good, let’s hear what (insert Genius’s name here) has to say, then we’ll take comments from some other students.
  • The Husband and Wife Team, or Boyfriend and Girlfriend Team. The couple that studies together, stays together (and leaves together and misses class together). After all, they are a package deal.
  • The Overbooked Students. These students are carrying 18 or more credit hours and are working one or more jobs. They may have families of their own, or even two families. Be glad this student shows up at all, and be prepared for a lot of communication by email.
  • The Pretty Princesses. There will be  pink, jeweled cell phones lying within their reach on the table in the classroom. The surprise is that even after the discussion of classroom rules on the first day, the phone will still appear on the table each class. If you ask them to put the phones away, they will look at you as though you had requested that they remove their thumbs. You may need to warn student that any phone that rings during class will be answered by you; and, then if one rings, you need to actually do it. A department chair of mine does this; obviously, she is my idol.
  • The Laptop Kings. Under the guise of taking notes in class, these students are actually trying to make big bucks in online poker. Once when I was “working the room” during a class, I casually closed a student’s laptop computer as I went by his table. I hope he didn’t have a full house. On second thought, that would make an even bigger impression, wouldn’t it?
  • The Nontraditional Students. These students often work days and come to class at night. Be careful: these students are usually tired and hungry. These students are hard workers and will appreciate it if you get right to the content with no messing around. You may hear grumbling from these students if you ask the class to work in small groups or with partners. Just the facts, please.

  These students are what define a class and make one section of a class memorable against the dozens of other sections you teach over the semesters. Enjoy the many mixes of personalities, levels of abilities, and types of students. They are all unique and make the classes unique rather than all blended together.

  Tags: Carol Weatherford, students, teaching

• The Top Ten Reasons It Is Great To Be a Freeway Flyer

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  29 Jan 2010 /  top ten list
  I am sure there are more than ten good reasons to be a Freeway Flyer, but here are the top ten, David Letterman style.

  10.  Save a fortune on your wardrobe. You can wear the same outfit two days in a row if you go to two different colleges. Professional wardrobes can be expensive, so you can buy a few nice pieces and make them work.

  9.  Save money on taxes. If you itemize your federal return, you are allowed to claim mileage if you have to travel from one college to another to teach in one day. You will need to file IRS Form 1040, Schedule A, and Form 2106.*

  8.  Don’t wait too long between paydays. If you work at multiple colleges, there are likely to be different paydays at each one. You might have a paycheck from somewhere every week.

  7.  Have Fridays off (or Mondays, or Tuesdays). Yes, a day off is necessary to recover from the other five to six days you work. If you teach mornings, afternoons, and evenings, you need a day when you don’t have to go anywhere.

  6.  Skip some boring professional development. “Sorry, I can’t be there that day; I have a class to teach.” Maybe you won’t mind missing certain PD days at a college (after all, how many times can you sit through training for the habits of highly effective instructors?).

  5.  Have more opportunities for good professional develpment. For example, one college I know has workshops and seminars every week with adjuncts welcome. The topics may be college-specific, teaching theory, or software refreshers. Another college has an annual amount of money avilable for adjuncts to use for professional development to attend conferences and pay annual dues for professional organizations.

  4.  Work out whereever you wish and as many places as you like. Adjuncts usually are able to use the college’s gyms for free. Enjoy circuit training at one college, Zumba at another college, yoga at another.

  3.  All that time to yourself. Okay, it’s time spent in the car driving from college to college to home, but technically, you are alone with your thoughts. You can mentally prepare for a class, plan lessons in your head, or muse about life in general.

  2.  All of the wonderful opportunities to explore the different books, lessons, and other materials different colleges use. You get a chance to review a lot of books and to see a lot of content particular to your field. Free.

  1.  And, the number one reason it is great to be a freeway flyer: You can reuse assignments without worrying about a dual submission problem. Use your best lessons and be a genius without having to recreate the wheel every time!

  *This is my disclaimer: I am not a tax expert; I am merely speaking from personal experience.

  Tags: Carol Weatherford, freeway flyer, top ten list

• How Not to Burn Bridges (Hey, what is that smoky smell?)

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  22 Jan 2010 /  employment
  I had planned to write this week about how to avoid burning bridges with colleges if someone has to turn down a class. Then, the phone rang at 8:30 this morning and shortly after, I began to smell smoke.

  First, some background. This semester was going to be my biggest yet in terms of number of schools and number of classes. I would have some new preps, but they were for some classes I looked forward to teaching at some schools where I wanted to teach. I was offered a class at one of the new schools for Fall semester, but when I went to adjunct orientation, I was told I would not be needed that semester after all. This happens sometimes: occasionally a class won’t have enough people sign up and it does not run. Another time, for example, a department chair bumped me from one of my classes because enough students did not register for one of hers and she had a required number of hours to teach.

  Colleges make decisions that are best for the students and for the schools thenselves. I know not to take these things personally. I was pleased, then, when the director told me that I would be on the schedule for the Winter semester. By the middle of Fall semester, he emailed me and said he would put me down for one class and would have another instructor contact me about curriculum and materials.

  By the end of Fall semester, I hadn’t heard anything, so I emailed the director and asked if the class was a go because I wanted to begin preparing to teach it. A week later, I had a reply that the class looked like a go but he was waiting to assign instructors until the full-time faculty made their teaching load.

  Keep in mind that although I love teaching, I do this for a living. My living can vary substantially from semester-to-semester; sometimes I have a full semester, then there are semesters, like last summer, during which I ended up teaching one class and worring about starving. One class falling through can mean the difference between gourmet pasta and macaroni and cheese from a box. I, like a lot of other adjuncts, depend on teaching to support  myself and my family.

  A week later, I still hadn’t heard from the director. I did, however, receive a phone call from another school’s department chair who said they had a scheduling snafu and needed someone to teach a class that started the next day. It was a class I hadn’t had the opportunity to teach before and I was excited about it. I don’t think of myself as superstitious, but maybe it was meant to be! I took the class, whipped up a syllabus and course schedule and made plans to teach the class. I also immediately fired off an email to the director at the other college from whom I had been waiting to hear. I told him I had been offered another class and had accepted it, so he needn’t worry about giving me a class for the upcoming semester. I said perhaps it would work out for another semester and that I would still like to teach for him in the future.

  The phone rang at 8:30 the following morning. The director said he’d received my email and stated he was prepared to offer me the original class. I told him I would be unable to accept it because of the class for which I had just signed a contract. He then asked about my teaching a Wednesday morning class. I had to think for a moment: I was free Wednesday mornings, could I handle another class? I already had three new preps and a full schedule of four colleges in four counties.

  I told him no. I said again I would still like to teach for him, perhaps the next semester. He was noncommittal and, I think, none too pleased. I have this feeling I may not hear from him again and I felt bad all week about how things went. Even when we make concerted efforts to be flexible and acquiescent, things still don’t always work out. Not burning bridges is an excellent goal, but that doesn’t mean it will be simple.

  I will keep my fingers crossed and my guard up for next semester. The juggling game begins again and I must keep working on my communication skills and hoping for the best.

  Tags: Carol Weatherford, employment, teaching, workloads

• Is the Organized Instructor the Effective Instructor? It Helps!

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  13 Jan 2010 /  organization, time management
  Organization is important for all college instructors, and is especially important for the Freeway Flyer. There are tricks that you can use that may simplify your professional life and make your personal life more relaxed.

  Color is a wonderful thing – it keeps our world beautiful; it reminds us to watch the sunset and mark another day. It also helps us begin a semester confident that we know where to go and when to be there. For example, use a simple spread sheet which shows hours of the day from 8:00 in the morning till 10:00 at night. Block out the time on the sheet for a particular class, say from 1:00-2:30. In that block, put the college name abbreviation (MSU, GOCC), the name of the class (ENG 110), and the time (1:00-2:30pm). Fill the one and a half hour block with color, perhaps blue. If the class meets twice a week, make the other day’s block and color that one with the same blue. That way, anyone looking at it can tell it’s the same class on a different day.

  Now do the same thing for your other classes. If you have five classes, you will have at least five blocks with colors that are distinct from each other. If you have classes with multiple meetings, you will have even more blocks. When you are finished, print one and put it inside your planner, somewhere you can find it easily. Then, print another one and hang it on your refrigerator or home message center so that others can tell where you are on which day. Your family will thank you. I also, for example, give a copy to my mother and sister. That stops them from worrying about when it’s okay to call me and whether they’ll interrupt me during a class. It’s embarrassing when the instructor’s phone rings during class, especially when the syllabus spells out dire punishments to be handed out when a student’s phone goes off.

  Color can be your friend on a very simple scale, as well. This trick I began using the first time I was to teach at three or more colleges: make a calendar using Microsoft Word. There is a template which shows four months on one 8 ½ by 11 inch sheet. So, page one has January through April, which covers most school’s first semester, page two has May through August (spring and summer) and page three has September through December, the traditional fall semester. Just print out the page needed at the time. Then, find some highlighters: if you are teaching at three different colleges, use three colors you can easily tell apart, say blue, pink, and orange. Use these to mark the days you have classes for a college. If you have a day class at one school on January 19^th, a Tuesday, color in the top half with blue, for example. Then, say there is a night class that same day at another school, for which you have assigned pink: fill the other half of the day in with pink. At the bottom of the calendar, make a key showing the name of the schools with the assigned colors.

  We’re not stopping here with our use of color. Office supply stores (and instructor supply closets) have 8 ½ by 11 inch folders in vivid colors, ones which put the traditional manila folders to shame. If you teach two sections of the same class, say a day section and a night section, use green folders for the day class and blue folders for the night class. At a minimum, you will want one folder to hold class lists and extra syllabus copies, one folder to hold papers to be graded, one folder to hold papers to be returned to the students, one folder for papers that need to be copied, and one folder to hold copies of class assignments. Impress your students with how quickly you can lay your hands on a certain piece of paper.

  Color coding those files also makes it possible to carry materials for more than one class in the same bag. This can sometimes be helpful in terms of reducing the number of items that need to be transported. However, it can be ideal for each class to have its own bag. That way, you can immediately tell apart the English Composition bag from the Technical Writing bag. Also, if you are trying to spare your back, one light bag carried in each hand is better for you than one heavy bag carried on one side.

  One last idea where color and organization may go together: those lovely Post-it notes have multiple uses as well. If it’s not okay to talk to yourself, (and I’m not saying it’s not), it’s certainly okay to write notes to yourself. Keep small packs of Post-its in all of your school bags and use them to write quickie notes. You can also use them just for their different colors (orange means a file that needs to be copied, blue indicates the need to see if a grade was posted for an assignment, yellow means something can be checked off).

  Try incorporating one or more of these techniques and see if it simplifies your days. Any time saved using these methods is time that is available for lesson planning, your own research, or another fun activity.

  Tags: adjuncts, Carol Weatherford, organization, tips

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