Despite the instability associated with being a part-time faculty member, Ann Skinner-Jones loves teaching as adjunct professor at UNM.
She is the recipient of the first annual UNM Adjunct Teacher of the Year Award. Bryan Konefsky, the chairperson of the selection committee, said Skinner-Jones was selected from a pool of 75 nominees who demonstrated outstanding commitment to teaching, students and research.
Skinner-Jones is an adjunct instructor in both the Women Studies and the Communication and Journalism Departments. She has been teaching for 20 years and has two master’s degrees — one in photography and visual communication and the other in art education with an emphasis in art therapy.
She says that the students are wonderful, smart and motivated.
“Good teachers are somehow a result of working with good students,” she said.
Skinner-Jones said she strives to provide a safe environment for students to learn and ask questions, without fear of belittlement. She said she sees a mutual responsibility between a teacher and students to help them learn how to do their best.
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Skinner-Jones said she tries to engage people, have them relate their studies to the real world and encourages them to take responsibility for their own education.
As a professional speaker and consultant, Skinner-Jones has lectured internationally on the creative process and on the documentary form. While teaching in California, she received a California State University Meritorious Performance and Professional Promise Award and a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar Fellowship for College Teachers.
An active award-winning interdisciplinary media artist, she has lectured and exhibited her photography and videos widely and has worked as a visual anthropologist in Japan and Vanuatu.
Skinner-Jones came to New Mexico in 1994 to study art therapy. She began teaching at UNM in January of 1995.
She said her students are amazing and feels like a recipient of the great gift of their work. Skinner-Jones said she wanted to thank her students for challenging her to be a better teacher.
Adjunct instructors have been excluded from the annual Teacher of the Year awards, which are limited to tenured professors. A committee created the Adjunct Teacher of the Year award, which, Konefsky said, is likely the first of its kind in the United States. Konefsky, who also is an adjunct instructor at UNM, said it was very exciting to find a so much support for the establishment of the award.
Historically, adjunct instructors were working professionals who periodically taught specialty courses part time. Now many adjunct instructors teach full time. Skinner-Jones typically teaches four classes per semester.
Adjunct professors often work along side their tenured colleagues with similar full-time assignments and committee work. Skinner-Jones said that on the average, adjunct professors earn about one-third the salary of their tenured colleagues, with no sick-time, union representation or health and vacation benefits. She said departments would not be able to offer the diversity of courses students can now choose from without adjunct teachers.
Adjunct teachers sign a new contract each semester, with no guarantees. If enrollment in the classes they are to teach does not reach a minimum number of students, the class is canceled and the adjunct instructors are not compensated for the class preparations they have made.
Skinner-Jones said the flexible hours are one of the many reasons why people become adjunct instructors.
She said that she is not alone in choosing to serve as an adjunct professor. Skinner-Jones pointed out that the Women Studies Department only has adjunct instructors and the Communication and Journalism Department also has a high number of adjunct faculty.
