OTC recently held its first ever career fair seeking adjunct professors for all five of the school’s campuses. Why the need for instructors? There are certain areas we have a hard time getting qualified instructors. Science areas are always hard for us. There are not very many physics, chemistry or biology teachers. Most of our areas, such as communications and math, have openings. We like to have a nice pool so that if we have to add sections because of an increase in enrollment, we have the capability.
We need more general education teachers over technical teachers just because we have more of those sections. Math and English are the biggest sections, but, for example, this spring we had 60 sections of political science just on the main campus. We also have these classes at other locations and online, so it adds up quickly. We have about 800 teachers total, about 200 full [time] and 600 adjuncts.
We look for adjuncts who have real-life career experience because they add so much to the classroom. What we find is, for adjuncts, it’s almost like a hobby. Some of them do it because they need the money, and the money is nice, but a lot of the adjuncts do it because they like to be in the classroom and they like the energy of the students.
We are looking for people who have really good life or career experience. If we have a person teaching a business class, it’s so good to have somebody who owns a business. If we have somebody teaching an automotive class, it’s good to have somebody with current experience.
What’s the benefit for businesspeople teaching at OTC? For one thing, they get to see what our students are like. Some of them might want to hire our students, so if they have had them in class, they know how good our students are. The other thing is it really is fun to be in the classroom because the students are excited about learning. We have a different kind of student than might be at some of the other institutions. Particularly, if they are in one of our career fields they know what they are getting into, they are very excited and very dedicated. But even in our general education courses, we have a real wide variety of students. We have the traditional right out of high school, but we might also have a veteran who just returned from Afghanistan, a mother who is returning after years of being a stay-at-home mom or that person who has been in a career and just got laid off. In one classroom, we have such a variety of students.
What does it take to become a part-time instructor? It depends on the class. If it’s a general education class that transfers to another university, then the teacher has to have a master’s degree and at least 18 graduate level credits in the discipline they teach. It doesn’t have to be a master’s in psychology to teach psychology, but they have to have the 18 graduate hours in that area.
If we are talking about a technical class that doesn’t transfer, but prepares people to work in that field, those teachers need to have a credential in that discipline. There is no place you can get a master’s degree in welding, so they have to have whatever credential they need to work as a professional in that discipline. Very often, it’s one of our grads who has gone out and worked in the field and now teaches for us.
How much can instructors earn? Pay varies depending on how long they have been here. We have a three-tiered scale. For starters, its $714 per credit hour and the top of our scale would be $969 per credit hour. Typically, a three-hour course would meet three days a week, for an hour, for 16 weeks. There are around 45-48 hours for the whole semester.
OTC grew rapidly during the recession, but began to taper off last fall with enrollment down 2.1 percent. How did spring enrollment shake out? This spring, as of January, we were at 14,000 students, which is down about 3 percent. At our high point, we were over 15,000.
At community colleges, when the economy goes down and people lose jobs, they come back to school to get retrained. Our enrollment goes up when the economy is bad. For one thing, we are inexpensive and we can retrain them and get them back into a job.
If you look at somebody trained with a two-year degree, they can get out and make a salary. Sometimes that salary is higher than somebody with a four-year degree. If you have a four-year degree in philosophy or English, you probably won’t make as much money as someone with a two-year degree in welding. You come in, get trained quick and get a better job.[[In-content Ad]]
