A Peek Under the Covers @AdjunctNation.com

By P.D. Lesko

First, I’d like to say thank you to all of the new individual and college library Site Pass holders who joined us in April. The purchase of Site Passes to view the E-Zine content here on AdjunctNation.com is up almost 40 percent over the past year. If you think AdjunctNation.com is a great resource for faculty off the tenure-track and would like to share it with your colleagues, a great way is through a library Site Pass. All of the faculty have access to our content, including almost 1,000 archived articles, interviews, profiles, opinion pieces and analysis devoted to the professional needs and concerns of the Adjunct Faculty Nation—the Faculty Majority. Ask the serials librarian at your college or university to check out the AdjunctNation.com E-Zine, and our Site Pass program.

Last month, these were the 20 most popular reads on the site:

1. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/615674 How to Find a Job Teaching On-Line
2. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/374940 Of Course There’s A Fissure. Actually, a Fjord
3. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/8684815 Colorado House Education Committee Kills Adjunct Faculty Protections
4. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/8624797 The Future of Online Education Parts I & II
5. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/8714245 Interview with Laura Palmer Noone
6. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/1673859 Campus Equity Week is Growing Bigger: But is Bigger Better?
7. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/3013419 Breaking Into Textbook Publishing: The Field is More Level Than You Think
8. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/4341863 “Oh, Canada”
9. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/6021635 Interview: Dr. William Scheuerman
10. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/621592 Visiting Faculty: Are Their Numbers on the Rise?
11. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/451580 Land A Job As A Visiting Faculty Member
12. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/461560 Adjunct Faculty Fulbright Winners
13. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/601512 A Year in the Life of a Visiting Faculty Member
14. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/481479 Look Who’s Coming to Lecture
15. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/471462 Double Bass Blues: A musician-adjunct tackles math
16. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/6011404 E-Books: Should You Use Them?
17. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/441341 Adjunct Activists in the Sciences: Missing in Action
18. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/201303 The Science of Silence
19. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/191298 Silent Night, Empty Night: American Universities Power Down
20. Link: https://www.adjunctnation.com/archive/magazine/article/8611263 How Student Motivation Influences Learning

We launched our Facebook page a few months ago, and now have almost 300 friends who’ve “liked” AdjunctNation. Our Facebook friends get notified when new content goes up on the site, including new Nation Blogs. Speaking of Nation Blogs, I want to welcome our two newest Nation Bloggers, Dr. Nancy Walker and Randy Eldridge. Nancy is contributing to our “Teaching in Pajamas” blog, a conversation about distance education. You can read her first entry here. Randy will be taking over our “Adjunct By Choice” blog. I want to say thank you to Melissa McDonald, who contributed to our “Adjunct By Choice” blog for several months. I also want to make sure to thank Erik Hanson and Helene Matheny for sharing their perspectives with the AdjunctNation.com Family. Erik contributed to “The New Adjunct” blog between October 2010 and March 2011. If I had to pick just one entry of Erik’s to read, it would be his December 8, 2010 entry titled, “My Life/Hate Relationship With Diversity.” Helene Matheny shared her perspectives on the harried life of an adjunct who teaches on multiple campuses with readers of the “Freeway Flyer” blog between September of 2010 and March of 2011. On December 14, 2010 Helene posted “Santa Baby: All I Want For Christmas Is A Little Time.” It was an entry that could be an anthem for adjuncts who dash from campus-to-campus.

If you would be interested in sharing your stories, perspectives, opinions, ideas, etc…by becoming a contributor to one of our Nation Blogs (or pitch your own blog) we welcome new voices. Simply read the blog you want to write for, then email me a 750 word sample entry that will knock my socks off! We pay per entry, and are open to hearing from faculty at both two- and four-year institutions. Here are the blogs where there are openings: The New Adjunct, Part-Time Thoughts, Reading & Writing and Adjunct By Choice.

Finally, I want to ask a favor. Thanks to you, our AdjunctNation.com audience is growing steadily. Each month this year has seen a larger number of visitors than the preceding month. However, I believe the Adjunct Faculty Nation can do better! So, I’m going to ask that you take a moment and email a friend or colleague whom you think would be interested in AdjunctNation.com. Talk about what you like about our site, the pages you visit, the resources you find useful, why you find yourself coming back.

As always, I welcome your thoughts, suggestions and comments. You may, of course, email me directly or simply leave a comment here.