As an Adjunct Professor, You Learn More Than You Teach

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This is the last week of the summer course I've been teaching at Trinity University, Nonprofit Marketing & Public Relations. We've spent the last 10 weeks learning about marketing plans and how marketing plays a key role in fundraising. We've done exercises on messaging, using social media, and turning your messages into an elevator speech. We used DC Vote as a case study, and invited Kevin Kiger, their communications director as a guest speaker. I also taught the students how to research funders and write a grant proposal from scratch. This week, for their final assignment, they being graded on their final presentations where they have to make a pitch to a pretend program officer. Some of the resources I've used to teach the course:

• The Spin Project
• The Foundation Center
• Robin Hood Marketing by Katya Andresen
  

It's really been a crash course in teaching academically. I've been facilitating community-based workshops for years, but this kind of instruction is very different. But part of the reason I'm on the faculty is so I can bring a more practitioner-focused perspective to the classroom. One of the criticisms of higher education is that many Master's level programs teach too much theory and not enough application. Some of the techniques I tried to bring into the classroom were facilitated discussion, role play, and guest speakers from the field.

One thing I noticed as an adjunct faculty is that we have an enormous amount of control over our curriculum and teaching methods. You can be as creative as you want, as long as you meet the course objectives. And it's a great way to pursue my own professional development: teaching has helped me a lot with public speaking as well as understanding and assessing the needs of young nonprofit professionals.

I confirmed to myself as I continue to explore my career path is that I LOVE teaching and helping people to understand nonprofit management. It led me to the decision to go back to school to get a Ph.D. so that I can pursue a full-time teaching position at a university one day. But more on that later...I'm already excited about the fall semester, where I'll be teaching two courses: Women & Leadership and Government Relations & Grantwriting. If you're enrolled at a DC Consortium college, I believe you can register for classes at Trinity, but check the website if you're interested.

This fall I will also be teaching a 2-part interactive learning series called "From Entry Level to Leadership" at the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists in September. I taught the course for the first time last week, and the students got so much out of it, they are bringing it back for a longer class over two weeks! Check the SALSA website for the full schedule and registration info.