Faculty Success: Adjunct Resources

Adjunct Resources

Welcome to UCF! The Faculty Center provides you with much of the important general information you need as an adjunct. We hope you will find it useful. Your individual departments will also have specific information and processes necessary to your work. Be sure to contact your Chair or adjunct coordinator to learn other essentials as soon as possible.

Saturday Adjunct Retreats

The UCF Faculty Center holds Saturday training sessions for adjunct faculty once per semester, covering both nuts-and-bolts (rosters, legal matters, syllabi) and more general pedagogy (how to hold effective and interesting lectures, increase student engagement, and build courses that are balanced and aligned between goals, objectives, assignments, and teaching practice). The retreat is a single-day event that lasts three hours. First-time participants will earn a $50 stipend for participating in the retreat. Register online.

Hiring Process

Adjuncts at UCF are hired by individual departments. As with all hiring processes, the Adjunct hiring process at UCF requires that several forms be completed and advanced through a system that includes your home department and the Human Resources Department. Your driver's license and Social Security card will be photocopied at your department.

Forms you will need to complete include:

  • Adjunct Application Affirmation: On the provost's website under "forms" (http://www.provost.ucf.edu )
  • Direct Deposit Form: (http://hr.ucf.edu/web/forms/payroll/Direct_Deposit_Devolution.pdf) - completed after all other paperwork has been processed).
  • W-4 form (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf) - completed after all other paperwork has been processed).
  • Your department might require other documents such as a curriculum vitae and written letters of recommendation.
  • Background Checks: A national criminal background check is required for all faculty new hires for all regular line and adjunct (OPS) faculty positions. A background check is required for returning adjunct faculty members who have been off the UCF payroll for more than one year. The signed Faculty Disclosure and Release of Information Form along with a signed copy of the Faculty Applicant Affirmation should be sent by the college/department to Recruitment for completion of the background check prior to extending a job offer. For further information, contact Recruitment at employment@mail.ucf.edu. More information can also be found on HR's Frequently Asked Questions.

Other forms that must be generated by your department:

  • Adjunct Agreement Form (http://www.provost.ucf.edu)
  • Personnel Action Form (PAF). This is the major form for your hiring process, and must be processed through the system before all other forms.

Questions about your hiring should be directed to the adjunct coordinator in your department.

Employee Numbers: Empl-ID, PID, and NID

As part of your hiring process, you will be assigned three identifiers:

Empl-ID (employee ID): a 7-digit number
PID (personal ID): your first initial followed by the 7-digit EMPL-ID
NID (network ID): an identifier used mostly for network access, often part of your first and last name

To find out your PID (which includes your EMPL-ID per above) and your NID, you can go to my.ucf.edu and click on What are my PID and NID? in the upper top-left of the page. You will be prompted to enter your Social Security number and birth date.

If the system cannot find a record for you, then either your PAF has not been fully processed or it was processed that same day (it takes an overnight process to generate the NID and neither is available online until both have been generated.) You may wish to check with your department to verify all necessary materials have been submitted.

PIDs and NIDs have their own passwords associated with them. To reset your PID password, visit https://www.secure.net.ucf.edu/extranet/reset/validation.aspx?type=myucf. To reset your NID password, visit https://www.secure.net.ucf.edu/extranet/reset/validation.aspx?type=webcourses. In both cases, you will need a number listed on your UCF ID card.

Parking

  • If you are teaching at a regional campus, check with the administration office at your regional campus to inquire whether parking permits are required. At some, such as the Cocoa campus, the permit is free but you must obtain it from the office.
  • If you are teaching on the Orlando campus, you will need to buy a parking permit. You will need a PID to purchase your parking permit online. If you do not yet have a PID, complete as much of the online registration form (see below) as you can and then bring your hire letter or contract, plus your driver's license, to the Parking Office at the South Garage ("Garage B") to purchase the permit in person.
  • Visit https://secure.parking.ucf.edu/ to apply for a parking permit. All vehicles must be registered online before you can click to purchase a permit for the semester (or the year).
  • Note that adjuncts are encouraged to purchase the "C" permits, which allows for parking in faculty lots but costs significantly less than normal faculty permits.

Textbooks and Desk Copies

In many departments, a central coordinator orders all the textbooks for everyone; inquire whether this is true in your department. If you are joining UCF with little time before the start of the semester, you will want to check first that the books have been ordered, and physically check that they are available for students for purchase in the bookstore.

Desk copies are typically arranged through a campus representative from the book publisher. One common method to be put in touch with this person is to ask a colleague or your department chair to email that representative with your name and contact information. If time is critical before the semester, you can arrange to acquire a desk copy of the textbook from the UCF bookstore. Your department chair or department administrative assistant can give you a letter that will enable you to pick up a copy of the text at the bookstore. When the desk copy you have ordered arrives, take it to your administrative assistant who will then deliver it to the bookstore to replace the one you were given.

Faculty ID Card

Your hire letter or contract is also sufficient for you to be issued a Faculty ID card at UCF Card Services. You will need a faculty ID card if you wish to use the Library (note: although adjuncts do not officially get access until contracts are in force, if you come by the library 3-4 weeks before classes start with your signed contract, your library access can be activated so you can prepare for your classes).

Another important reason to obtain a faculty ID card is that you will need a number printed on the card to manually re-set your online passwords.

Semester Essentials

This section provides information about:

Syllabus Information

Your course is part of a program of courses and its content includes program student learning objectives (even if this is a General Education Program course!) If you "inherit" a syllabus from a previous instructor, it is doubly important that you understand the course objectives and student learning outcomes, and how all the pieces of the course (readings, activities, assignments, assessments) fit together toward the course objectives. Be sure you discuss these and other course requirements determined by the program faculty with your Chair or adjunct coordinator before developing your syllabus.

Evaluation of Adjunct Faculty Members

Department chairs provide evaluations of adjunct faculty members every term. They submit this form to the Office of Faculty Relations (click the thumbnail for a larger view):

Adjunct evaluation form

Technology Tools at UCF

This section provides information about:

Pedagogy Ideas/Assistance

This section provides information about:

Books on How to Teach in Your Discipline

There are some worthwhile generic books on how to teach in higher education (McKeachie's Teaching Tips, Tools for Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis) available at the UCF Library and the Faculty Center's library, available for checkout. You may also wish to peruse this listing of books that discuss discipline-specific teaching methods.

Professional Development: Faculty Center Consultations

The Faculty Center's primary mission is to support and promote faculty in their roles as teachers, researchers, scholars, and as members of UCF and the Central Florida community. Essential to such support is the enhancement of faculty success at any career stage and the promotion of collegiality. Our services, resources, and events are available to all university instructors, including full- and part-time faculty and graduate teaching assistants. We seek to promote 1) excellence in teaching and learning, 2) successful research and creative endeavors, 3) professional fulfillment, and 4) partnerships with other academic institutions and the regional, national and international community. In terms of services, the Faculty Center:

  • Provides a place to share with other faculty in a quiet and confidential environment;
  • Provides peer observations and videotaping of faculty that are confidential and informative;
  • Assists faculty in developing professional portfolios.
  • Offers a lounge-like space for faculty to work quietly or hold small discussions (note: to maintain an atmosphere of collegiality in a student-free area, we ask that faculty members not hold office hours at the Faculty Center)

We encourage all faculty members to consider the Faculty Center as a haven and safe place at the university, where discussions are held in confidence. We welcome drop-ins, appointments, phone calls, and emails.

Professional Development: Events at the Faculty Center

Adjuncts are encouraged to come to our monthly workshops on a bevy of subjects, ranging from new technologies to eternal issues in classroom instruction. All events with the Faculty Center are free to participants. All adjuncts are also welcome to attend the public sessions of our major events (like Summer Conference and Winter Conference), but stipend-bearing participation is reserved for full-time faculty.

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