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Traditionally, educators at the post-secondary level, colleges, universities and community colleges, could assume that it was possible to earn at least a modest living even as an adjunct professor. Granted, there probably wouldn’t be any luxury available, but the opportunity to lead what is now quaintly referred to as the life of the mind would be reward enough for most academics. Now, however, all of that assumptive thinking is being turned on its head, so to speak, and teachers in general, not just college instructors, are the target of dramatic budgets cuts, which will make even the most liberal definition of the life of the mind unavailable to the vast majority of adjunct college instructors. The deployment of distance education technology is making possible a plethora of online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs that give college and university students the chance to use their personal computers to earn an online engineering degree, an online degree in business management or one of several online healthcare degrees. At the same time, these online college degree programs, which will only grow in number as time goes on, provide the alert academic, the individual with an earned graduate degree, a Ph.D. or master’s degree, the very real chance to develop an online teaching portfolio heavily populated with a variety of online adjunct positions.
For adjunct college instructors scrambling to earn a decent amount of money from continuing to provide college students with instruction in a physical college classroom the emerging availability of online adjunct faculty positions are on the mark because these online college courses within the many online degree programs can be taught in multiples from any location on the planet that offers access to the Internet. What is more, the online teaching schedule can be managed without once having to actually set foot on any single university campus. This means that the entire online teaching process, from locating the school on the Internet, to navigating to the faculty application section, to submitting the required academic credentials, to participating in the mandatory training from the individual software used by the college or university or community college to serve the post-secondary educational materials and allow interaction between the online instructor and the students enrolled in the online degree program, to being paid through direct deposit every two week to one month is accomplished on the Internet.
Of course, teaching online is not limited to adjunct college instructors already working on a physical college campus. Any individual with a graduate degree in practically any academic discipline can find at least a few online degree programs that offer courses in that area of study. In any event, the transition from the physical classroom to the online college course is definitely underway, and the teachers that learn how to use a computer to apply for online faculty positions will certainly reap the benefits of this transition. If nothing else, a college professor that chooses to remain on the physical campus can supplement what is apparently a diminishing salary by acquiring two or three online college classes to teach throughout the year.