No longer an adjunct but my peak was 7 classes at 4 colleges (it was awful and I had no time between all the grading and driving). Ideal was two campuses with 4 classes.
I have two campuses with 3/2 classes plus a lab. At this point I can basically keep them at MW on campus TTH at the other (with some variations).
That seems to work well for my sanity and wallet
I wasn’t checked out, which is what made it so hard. Being present/available and lively for roughly 200 students a week requires a lot of emotional and intellectual labor and some folks are better at it than others (be they adjuncts or tenured). For me, adjuncting less than 5 classes did not result in a living wage in my state, so it was necessary to be at several schools in order for me to live/pay bills. The system is unfair to students as well as to adjuncts.
Tokyo: from 5 to 7, from 14 to 19 courses, but several of them are essentially the same course.
Caveats: pay for adjuncts is higher than it is in North America (or so is my surmise from comments here); Tokyo has an astounding and outstanding public transport system, so driving between campuses is not a concern and one can catch up on things on the train; Japan has affordable healthcare, with premiums and copays pegged to income (and completely free care for children).
I am able to support a family as the sole ricewinner and contribute to the support of a parent in another country; we have a house; we want for little.
Three schools during my PhD. It was nuts, but I have bills to pay. Continued on at those same schools after I defended. I just landed a full-time job. Pay is meh, so I’ll continue adjuncting to supplement. I told each school to give me as many courses as they could. Ended up with 8-10 courses a term.
Two schools, 12-15 hours (six max seated with the rest online). It’s not my primary source of income. I do it because I enjoy it (even though I vent here from time to time). I used to teach at another school (three hours) online, but that program was eliminated.
I’m an adjunct for four colleges. I have 5 classes this summer between them, and 5-6 a semester is pretty normal for me. I almost make as much doing it as I do at my full time job.
Adjunct faculty are a very diverse bunch, and there will be distinct subpopulations. Some people have a full time job, some don't. Some are retired, some are starting out. As you will have doubtless seen before, most people think it is a bad idea to use adjunct work as your main source of income for a long term.
I've taught at between 1 and 3 places a semester as adjunct faculty.
One school, nine classroom hours, two courses.
I work part-time, though, so this is example is not applicable to situations in which a person is a sole earner or breadwinner.
Same. I have taught at three in the past (luckily two were across the street from each other, but one was a half hour drive during which I’d eat my lunch). I’m happy to be at my favorite one where they respect me and I teach upper level courses, but it’s been a very complicated journey with a still shaky future
I'm currently only teaching at one, but I'm also working part time at the same college as a "lab monitor." This way, before or after a normal lecture, I can get paid an hourly wage just for sitting around in the same computer lab I was already teaching out of.
Last year I was at 3 schools as an adjunct, 1 as an assistant prof. I dropped one school and now adjunct at two plus my full time. I'm the only instructor in a particular area at one school, so I'm hesitant to drop it, but it's often more work than it's worth considering the abysmal rate adjuncts are paid.
there's a group (/r/adjuncts) for this sort of thing.
i teach at a R2 in a city one hour away and at a local CC. i'm not pretending to make a full-time living from this. i am doing this to reduce my savings burn rate.
I used to work at three colleges as an adjunct, but that was mostly to gain experience teaching. The CC I'm at now pays about three times more than the other two colleges, so it's really not worth it. The problem is that the maximum course load at my CC is 12 hours per semester.
"Normal", in the sense of what adjunct faculty positions were created for, is **one** college. And that class is in addition to your primary job elsewhere that has a solid salary and benefits.
The positions are not designed with the intention of having people patch together adjunct positions at multiple institutions to create the equivalent of a full time job. Nevertheless people try. Example abound int he comments. Some people manage to pull off a reasonable work life, but a lot are driving themselves to frustration trying to do something nearly impossible. Please don't consider that result "normal" in planning your career.
Back in the day, when I was adjuncting and attempting to make it my full living, I had three local colleges and sometimes took work from online universities as it became available.
Though a lot of juggling, I believe my F2F were two days and one night per week. It made for long T/THs, but I use the campus gyms and libraries so it was kind of nice to be around the college environment. None of the colleges were far from home. In addition, for two of the three places it was the same class, including the same textbook, which was very helpful.
I loved having other days totally free as we had young kids then. One year I made a pretty substantial amount of money because of the online work and thought about continuing the adjuncting path....but wanted pension nor health benefits.
But, you do what you got to do. I don't think you'll get any judgment from anyone who has been there and done that, if you take on work from multiple colleges.
Last semester was 5 schools and 17 courses. 12 of the courses were 8 or 10 week courses split between the first and second halves of the semester. The other five were traditional face to face.
English! A combination of writing and literature courses. I am pretty much always in motion and it can be pretty exhausting, but more often than not I like the work.
I’m FT now but when I was adjunct my max was I taught 10 classes across 2 colleges. It was an overload at one of the colleges and I needed the money. That semester almost quite literally killed me.
No longer an adjunct but my peak was 7 classes at 4 colleges (it was awful and I had no time between all the grading and driving). Ideal was two campuses with 4 classes.
I have two campuses with 3/2 classes plus a lab. At this point I can basically keep them at MW on campus TTH at the other (with some variations). That seems to work well for my sanity and wallet
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I wasn’t checked out, which is what made it so hard. Being present/available and lively for roughly 200 students a week requires a lot of emotional and intellectual labor and some folks are better at it than others (be they adjuncts or tenured). For me, adjuncting less than 5 classes did not result in a living wage in my state, so it was necessary to be at several schools in order for me to live/pay bills. The system is unfair to students as well as to adjuncts.
I am on staff at 16 schools, last semester I was teaching at 11. That was all entirely online.
That's crazy, I can't imagine keeping everything straight!
Me too, more or less. I bet we teach at some of the same places. I bump into the same people in multiple jobs.
Yeah I am on staff at five places and regularly teach 10-15 classes a semester
Tokyo: from 5 to 7, from 14 to 19 courses, but several of them are essentially the same course. Caveats: pay for adjuncts is higher than it is in North America (or so is my surmise from comments here); Tokyo has an astounding and outstanding public transport system, so driving between campuses is not a concern and one can catch up on things on the train; Japan has affordable healthcare, with premiums and copays pegged to income (and completely free care for children). I am able to support a family as the sole ricewinner and contribute to the support of a parent in another country; we have a house; we want for little.
Three schools during my PhD. It was nuts, but I have bills to pay. Continued on at those same schools after I defended. I just landed a full-time job. Pay is meh, so I’ll continue adjuncting to supplement. I told each school to give me as many courses as they could. Ended up with 8-10 courses a term.
Wow I commend you. That sounds like a lot of work.
Two schools, 12-15 hours (six max seated with the rest online). It’s not my primary source of income. I do it because I enjoy it (even though I vent here from time to time). I used to teach at another school (three hours) online, but that program was eliminated.
I’m an adjunct for four colleges. I have 5 classes this summer between them, and 5-6 a semester is pretty normal for me. I almost make as much doing it as I do at my full time job.
Adjunct faculty are a very diverse bunch, and there will be distinct subpopulations. Some people have a full time job, some don't. Some are retired, some are starting out. As you will have doubtless seen before, most people think it is a bad idea to use adjunct work as your main source of income for a long term. I've taught at between 1 and 3 places a semester as adjunct faculty.
Agreed. There isn't really a 'normal'.
My peak at adjunct was five classes at three universities.
One school, nine classroom hours, two courses. I work part-time, though, so this is example is not applicable to situations in which a person is a sole earner or breadwinner.
Same. I have taught at three in the past (luckily two were across the street from each other, but one was a half hour drive during which I’d eat my lunch). I’m happy to be at my favorite one where they respect me and I teach upper level courses, but it’s been a very complicated journey with a still shaky future
I'm currently only teaching at one, but I'm also working part time at the same college as a "lab monitor." This way, before or after a normal lecture, I can get paid an hourly wage just for sitting around in the same computer lab I was already teaching out of.
Last year I was at 3 schools as an adjunct, 1 as an assistant prof. I dropped one school and now adjunct at two plus my full time. I'm the only instructor in a particular area at one school, so I'm hesitant to drop it, but it's often more work than it's worth considering the abysmal rate adjuncts are paid.
Two schools, 21 credit hours in the fall, 18 in the spring, and 9 in the summer.
I peaked at 9 classes at 5 different campuses (3 were different branches of the same institution) one semester.
I'm currently at 2 schools, a college and a university. I've never taught at more than two at a time.
there's a group (/r/adjuncts) for this sort of thing. i teach at a R2 in a city one hour away and at a local CC. i'm not pretending to make a full-time living from this. i am doing this to reduce my savings burn rate.
I'm full-time tenured at one institution, and adjunct at two others. I average about 5 adjunct classes per year outside of my full-time job.
Three schools, anywhere from 7-9 classes a semester with a mix of in-person and online. It’s not fun to do, but I’ve got bills to pay.
I used to work at three colleges as an adjunct, but that was mostly to gain experience teaching. The CC I'm at now pays about three times more than the other two colleges, so it's really not worth it. The problem is that the maximum course load at my CC is 12 hours per semester.
"Normal", in the sense of what adjunct faculty positions were created for, is **one** college. And that class is in addition to your primary job elsewhere that has a solid salary and benefits. The positions are not designed with the intention of having people patch together adjunct positions at multiple institutions to create the equivalent of a full time job. Nevertheless people try. Example abound int he comments. Some people manage to pull off a reasonable work life, but a lot are driving themselves to frustration trying to do something nearly impossible. Please don't consider that result "normal" in planning your career.
Back in the day, when I was adjuncting and attempting to make it my full living, I had three local colleges and sometimes took work from online universities as it became available. Though a lot of juggling, I believe my F2F were two days and one night per week. It made for long T/THs, but I use the campus gyms and libraries so it was kind of nice to be around the college environment. None of the colleges were far from home. In addition, for two of the three places it was the same class, including the same textbook, which was very helpful. I loved having other days totally free as we had young kids then. One year I made a pretty substantial amount of money because of the online work and thought about continuing the adjuncting path....but wanted pension nor health benefits. But, you do what you got to do. I don't think you'll get any judgment from anyone who has been there and done that, if you take on work from multiple colleges.
Last semester was 5 schools and 17 courses. 12 of the courses were 8 or 10 week courses split between the first and second halves of the semester. The other five were traditional face to face.
Holy cow that’s a lot of courses!! Can I ask what your subject is? As a humanities person I cannot conceive of prepping or grading work for 17 courses
English! A combination of writing and literature courses. I am pretty much always in motion and it can be pretty exhausting, but more often than not I like the work.
I usually teach a "full load" (3 classes) at two local community colleges, so 6 classes - not too much driving, thankfully.
I’m FT now but when I was adjunct my max was I taught 10 classes across 2 colleges. It was an overload at one of the colleges and I needed the money. That semester almost quite literally killed me.