Abstract:

Many universities and colleges rely on Industry Expert Adjuncts (IEAs) to bring current, real-world experiences into the classroom. While some IEAs teach for supplemental income, this study found that most rated other reasons to be their motivation to teach. With a change in the format of class delivery due to the pandemic, IEA’s desire to teach is changing as well. By comparing motivations for teaching with comfortability teaching online we reveal a potential issue with the future ability to hire and retain IEAs. We further our research through interviews with IEAs to investigate how the pandemic has impacted their desire to continue teaching.

This work was in response to our current pandemic-caused realities, trying to better understand what this experience will mean for the future of formal teaching and learning in general, but most immediately, what this means for IEAs and the benefits they provide academia. We begin this work by defining IEAs and articulating their contributions to the industry/education experience within the types of programs in which our study participants teach, that is, a focus on graphic and industrial design as well as communication and media studies. By virtue of their ongoing careers outside of academia, IEAs bring essential qualities to the higher education classroom including their timely, situated knowledge of current industry practices and current technologies.

Prior to the pandemic that forced many educators to change their instructional practices in a range of ways, research shows that IEAs positively impact the student experience (authors, 2020). An important theme that emerged from that work was how the IEAs filled a need in the classroom experience by integrating industry insight into instruction. Consideration of the impact that the COVID pandemic has had on this segment of instructor was an important aspect of this stage of our work. This led us to consider how any resulting constraints could negatively impact the student experience in particular and industry/university collaborations in general.

For example, we found that the IEAs in our study may not return to teaching given the current environment which might influence how IEAs are viewed and used and how these changes may impact coursework offerings in majors. In certain instances, IEAs felt that being forced to teach remotely through online tools took away the parts they enjoy about teaching. This was not consistent across all participants, however, as others felt that remote learning with online tools was showing certain affordances for the design and implementation of their course. Ultimately, disruption did not impact aspects of IEAs experiences with universal positives or negatives. In fact, for some IEAs, the experience teaching online for the first time may inspire them to continue to teach in this format.

One of our goals for presenting this work is to expand the community of researchers who are studying similar instructional models and interventions with a focus on the important institution-industry connections that are fostered through these approaches to college coursework.

Keywords:

Adjuncts, industry expert adjunct, industry, COVID, online, retention.