Things Are Humming Along…For Now
January was a little scary…ok…a lot scary. We watched, more than slightly terrified, as sales dropped and dropped and, well, you get the picture. February, normally a slow month for sales of books, subscriptions and job postings, was a record month in terms of sales. So, here we sit in March, typically not a big sales month, waiting to see what our marketing efforts will bring in. I’m actually confident that monthly sales with at least match those of the previous year. Though there are part-time faculty who are being let go, there are just as many schools that are choosing to plug holes in their budgets by freezing tenure-line hires and increasing the number of part-time faculty.
Last month, we published a revised edition of Teaching Strategies & Teaching for Adjunct Faculty, and published a brand new book, as well. It is the publication of this book about which I am particularly excited. It is a Canadian edition of our best-selling Handbook for Adjunct & Part-Time Faculty. We titled it Teaching Faculty & Excellence. In Canada, the percentage of faculty off the tenure-track is the same as it is in the United States. There are fewer faculty overall, but it’s an opportunity for us to branch out internationally, and still stay close to home. The Canadian border is only 50 minutes away from us, and we have customers in Canada who already buy copies of the A Handbook for Adjunct Faculty. The Canadian edition of the book is, of course, tailored to the needs (and spelling preferences) of sessional and term faculty.
Teaching Faculty & Excellence will be printed and distributed in Canada. I’m hoping that this book will lead to a jump into the Commonwealth of Nations, to which Canada belongs. There are over 1 billion people who live in the Commonwealth, and perhaps half of them speak English. Malaysia, the UK, Australia, and a host of other countries all have higher education systems that employ large numbers of casual and/or fixed-term faculty.
The other part of the business that’s doing well is our AdjunctNation JOB-LIST. It’s one of the most popular sections of the site, and we’ve been averaging 600-700 jobs each month. Please remember to let employers know where you saw their jobs. We’re working on a project to let users opt-in to receive job alerts. This, along with the AdjunctNation Family Newsletter, will help our web site visitors keep on top of new jobs, forum posts, blog entries and magazine updates.
Speaking of blog entries, check out Matt Hall’s new Super Adjunct post. It’s love on a budget!
I do hope that those of you who want to work have found teaching positions this term. If not, email me. We’ll give you a free one-year subscription to the magazine.
Lastly, we’re looking for submissions for our “ivory tower,” “analysis” and “first person” essay columns. We pay $125 per 800-1,000 word essay. Read the columns before you submit. We’re also looking for an adjunct who’s teaching online to blog on our site. Finally, we’re trying to get more college libraries to subscribe. Help us out by suggesting Adjunct Advocate to the serials librarian at the college(s) where you teach.