Reporter teaches college class
ALBANY, N.Y. — I learned the difference between being a reporter and teaching reporting after my first college lecture.
It was an 80-minute lesson on the basics of writing a news story. I made my points, concluded and checked my watch. Ten minutes had gone by.
Worse, the students I expected to pepper me with probing questions looked like, well, they looked like they were stuck in a stifling lecture room at 8 o'clock on a Thursday night. I could hear fluorescent lights buzzing above me.
I got better, fast. But not before learning a lesson about what it's like to take on part-time, or "adjunct," faculty work.
For five semesters, I've headed to the University of Albany on Tuesday and Thursday nights to teach an introduction to journalism course after finishing my day job with The Associated Press.
I have graded more than 1,100 papers, explained comma rules at least six times a semester, been impressed a few times by professional-level work from undergraduates, had one student address me as "Dude" and had to lecture twice over the sound of students pretending to be knights fighting with wooden swords outside my classroom window.
I am one of roughly 530,000 part-time faculty members teaching at colleges and universities in the United States. Some of us cobble together a living as "road scholars," zipping from college to college. Others, like me, teach a class in addition to a full-time job in another field. Reporters do it, as do lawyers, artists, accountants and engineers.
The chances of college students being taught by an adjunct have grown in recent years. Adjuncts can be attractive to colleges for reasons beyond their resumes: Since they're often paid per course and receive no benefits, they are less expensive than full-time faculty.
Some critics question whether the swelling ranks of adjuncts serve students as well as full-time faculty would. I cringe when I hear that. I work hard and like to think my students are getting maximum value for their tuition dollar. Still, I know there are some drawbacks.
On the plus side, I know my subject matter cold by virtue of writing and reporting daily on everything from politics to celebrities to crime. Like a TV cop show writer, I can give my classes a ripped-from-the-headlines feel.
When a tour boat capsized into Lake George last year, killing 20, I covered the story all day and talked to students at night about how reporters and editors create stories out of the chaos of a tragedy — how we deal with police and prosecutors and how we carefully reach out to survivors.Of course, there's a difference between knowing and teaching. Reporters sometimes meet people who are convinced they could be reporters because they can write. Why should a reporter think he could teach because he can talk?Any delusions I might have had were dashed after my maiden mini-lecture. I began preparing detailed lesson plans, practicing my lectures, leaving time for questions — and keeping material in reserve in case there were none.Looking to improve my speedy speaking style, I channel-hopped one night in search of speakers who held my attention. Really good talkers like former vice presidential candidate John Edwards and self-help motivator Wayne Dyer, I noticed, move around the stage, use hand gestures and speak in easy rhythms. So I began moving around the classroom, using hand gestures and speaking in easy rhythms. (I sometimes wonder what kind of lecturer I'd have become if I had done my channel-hopping in the daytime and saw Oprah and Mr. Rogers).I became more at ease in a couple of weeks. Students began asking me questions.My nagging irritation — and probably the No. 1 worry of any adjunct — is being away from campus so much. I can't be there too much because I work a full-time job. My office hours are necessarily in the evening.To try to compensate, I promised students to promptly answer e-mails. I became amazed at the high proportion of student e-mails sent between 2 a.m. and dawn. I answer them over my morning coffee at home.I have never experienced my big fear of my two jobs colliding — a five-alarm story that I'd have to cover on a class night. But I have spent days in a full-court press chasing a story, ending up jangled and frazzled — then having to teach class.These are "espresso nights," when I have to stop at Starbucks for a double shot before class.Which raises the subject of burnout, a condition that can especially afflict someone with more than one job. Teaching even one class can easily take 10 hours a week when lecture prep and paper grading are included.But I think burnout comes only after the fun stops. Teaching is energizing as long as one student comes up with a well-written feature on, of all things, zombie hunters, or another lands a journalism internship or decides to take Albany's journalism major.After five semesters, I've concluded that it matters way more what a teacher does during class than what they do outside it.I recall my own days as a student years ago. Some full-time professors were excellent. Others droned away on autopilot, sucking so much life out of the room I would stare out the window. A sword fight on the grass would have been a welcome diversion.
