How many part-time people teach "specialty" courses?

[marshwiggle]

There are different categories of part-time faculty, including grad students, retired faculty, and what Polly refers to as "professional fellows".  Another thread has highlighted the fact that many part time faculty don't have PhDs.

I have a question: How many part-time faculty without PhDs teach "specialty" courses; i.e. ones that full-time faculty don't want to teach?

This is my situation, and I see it frequently. For instance, courses with a heavy lab or project component requiring specialized equipment or software are often avoided by full-time faculty who don't want to have to stay up to speed on technical details which change frequently.

The people who teach these may not be "from industry" specifically, like the professional fellows listed above, but through their other work or side interests are up-to-date on the relevant  details and so are suited to teaching the course.

[mahagonny]

There are different categories of part-time faculty, including grad students, retired faculty, and what Polly refers to as "professional fellows".  Another thread has highlighted the fact that many part time faculty don't have PhDs.

I have a question: How many part-time faculty without PhDs teach "specialty" courses; i.e. ones that full-time faculty don't want to teach?

This is my situation, and I see it frequently. For instance, courses with a heavy lab or project component requiring specialized equipment or software are often avoided by full-time faculty who don't want to have to stay up to speed on technical details which change frequently.

That's what it is. They are full time academics. They went where the money is. They have their PhD, their good college gig, and everything they do in their field is centered around the academic life and the opportunities that tenure positions provide. They may be involved in the field outside of the academic environment as a pastime, but even there we tend to travel in different circles.

[mamselle]

Well, in the liturgical arts, I teach courses that are not necessarily shunned by faculty, but are hard to get accepted because, as a friendly theology department dean once told me, "Alumni only want to see us fund more Bible courses; anything else they see as "over-the-top." So they earmark their donations..." (Hence my development of Arts-and Scripture Study courses over the years, since many have the biblical theology background, but few combine it with a strongly developed arts study background).

The two schools I taught at folded recently, and others are retrenching, so I'm looking at ways to create online options now...affiliation will be an interesting question. I could also do regular art history survey classes, but there are a number of those both live and online; I'm starting a theory sequence for my music students now, and considering dance history, which is often underrepresented or cut in departments (like the one I did my U/G work in) when budgets get tight.

In French, I've taught French I, and prepped (by the chair's request) a French Culture class for seniors that was later scooped (by a predatory adjunctive colleague who'd been there longer and figured I was horning in on her turf; I bowed out of working for them further, if that was their M.O.) I've considered shopping it around to local private schools as well as colleges, but have enough on my plate with a "day job" (which will end in Dec), my music teaching, research and writing, and tours (which also sometimes morph into a course on local history).

Not about labs, per se--that's where my "day-job/EA" work often happens...

M.

[Aster]

In my field, this situation is mostly reversed.

The more difficult, more technical teaching positions are primarily assigned to the tenure track professors. And those professors train and supervise the younger and/or part-timer faculty.

The part-timers are assigned to the simpler, least technical courses (e.g. lower division courses, general education courses). Most of the part time faculty are not active practitioners in their discipline and/or are brand new educators.