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Job outlook for visiting professors in the United States
Visiting professor job growth summary. After extensive research, interviews, and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
The projected visiting professor job growth rate is 12% from 2018-2028.
About 159,400 new jobs for visiting professors are projected over the next decade.
Visiting professor salaries have increased 2% for visiting professors in the last 5 years.
There are over 183,850 visiting professors currently employed in the United States.
There are 27,139 active visiting professor job openings in the US.
The average visiting professor salary is $116,217.
Are visiting professor jobs in demand?
Visiting professor job and salary trends over time
Visiting professor jobs over time
Visiting professor job growth rate over time
| Year | # of jobs | % of population |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 183,850 | 0.05% |
| 2020 | 188,655 | 0.06% |
| 2019 | 191,247 | 0.06% |
| 2018 | 189,495 | 0.06% |
| 2017 | 186,119 | 0.06% |
Average visiting professor salary over time
Visiting professor salary by year
| Year | Avg. salary | Hourly rate | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $116,217 | $55.87 | +0.2% |
| 2024 | $115,950 | $55.75 | --0.6% |
| 2023 | $116,667 | $56.09 | +4.5% |
| 2022 | $111,614 | $53.66 | --2.5% |
| 2021 | $114,483 | $55.04 | +5.1% |
Visiting professor jobs by state
Most common states for visiting professors
| Rank | State | Population | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 693,972 | 172 | 25% |
| 2 | Alaska | 739,795 | 134 | 18% |
| 3 | Virginia | 8,470,020 | 893 | 11% |
| 4 | Colorado | 5,607,154 | 569 | 10% |
| 5 | Vermont | 623,657 | 55 | 9% |
| 6 | Oregon | 4,142,776 | 335 | 8% |
| 7 | West Virginia | 1,815,857 | 142 | 8% |
| 8 | Indiana | 6,666,818 | 453 | 7% |
| 9 | Montana | 1,050,493 | 75 | 7% |
| 10 | South Dakota | 869,666 | 62 | 7% |
| 11 | New York | 19,849,399 | 1,289 | 6% |
| 12 | Maryland | 6,052,177 | 360 | 6% |
| 13 | South Carolina | 5,024,369 | 283 | 6% |
| 14 | Iowa | 3,145,711 | 196 | 6% |
| 15 | Nebraska | 1,920,076 | 114 | 6% |
| 16 | New Jersey | 9,005,644 | 463 | 5% |
| 17 | Massachusetts | 6,859,819 | 348 | 5% |
| 18 | Alabama | 4,874,747 | 240 | 5% |
| 19 | Connecticut | 3,588,184 | 166 | 5% |
| 20 | Utah | 3,101,833 | 148 | 5% |
Most common cities for visiting professors
| Rank | City | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cambridge | 2 | 2% | $148,021 |
| 2 | Charlottesville | 1 | 2% | $98,687 |
| 3 | Gainesville | 1 | 1% | $136,750 |
| 4 | Los Angeles | 3 | 0% | $169,371 |
| 5 | Boston | 2 | 0% | $148,088 |
| 6 | Des Moines | 1 | 0% | $73,097 |
Visiting Professor job outlook: Expert opinions
Our panel of visiting professor experts
Tiffin University
Christopher Newport University
Kean University
University of Oregon
North Carolina State University
Lehman College of the City University of New York
Northern Michigan University
University of Maine
Furman University
Skidmore College
Lehigh University
Ashford University
University of South Florida
Hanover College
Quinnipiac University
Curry College
Grambling State University
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Alex Holte PhD: My advice for someone new to the field of academia is to learn time management skills early and learn what type of service work you find interesting and would like to contribute to. From there, learn how to say “no” to opportunities that may not align with your goals as well. I feel a lot of new professors tend to find the need to be involved in everything, which can result in burning out later in their career.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Alex Holte PhD: I would say being able to work with AI may be something that is more important in the next 3-5 years. Right now it’s a new technology and people are just now learning how to integrate it in the workplace, but I feel it is possible the future workforce of tomorrow will necessitate some form of being able to use AI technology.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Alex Holte PhD: When you are starting out at any career, it is important to negotiate your salary. Many candidates feel that they have to accept their first offer, but in reality, at many jobs, there is some room for negotiation. Be mindful however, to not request a salary that is much higher than what is being offered as they may feel like a compromise would not be possible and move on to the next candidate.
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Dr. Stuart Inglis: During fall and spring terms when the majority of classes take place, these instructors will be occupied with lesson preparation, teaching lectures, and supervising laboratory sessions. There is also likely to be office hours and review sessions that would need to be overseen. The summer term might also offer the ability to teach additional courses. The instructor may also use the more open time to pay attention to other aspects of their position. They may be involved in certain administrative functions, such as sitting on university committees or directing the laboratory facilities they teach in. They may also use the time to perform research studies that they do not necessarily have time for during the regular school year.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Dr. Stuart Inglis: Anatomy and Physiology is a unique field of study. While many feel apprehensive towards it, in particular when it involves dissection or physiology studies on animals, those who pursue it tend to be very passionate about the subject matter. As is the case for anyone who answers the call to teach, the satisfaction in educating the future generation is fulfilling. This is particularly so when working with kindred spirits who feel the same passion for the subject material. The dislikes would be the same as seen in teaching in any discipline; Interactions with apathetic and unappreciative students and pressures from administration to maintain a certain class average And received positive course evaluations.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Dr. Stuart Inglis: The field of anatomy and physiology is always in demand, as it is a critical component in the education of anyone pursuing a career in the medical field. Essentially every institution of higher learning has some sort of anatomy and physiology course that needs to be taught. There has also been a general trend over the past several years of insufficient numbers of qualified candidates to replace the large number of faculty that have been retiring. Students graduating with a masters or doctoral degree in the anatomical or physiological sciences have a very good chance of being hired into vacant faculty positions. For doctoral graduates that have a successful research program, having an additional background in teaching in anatomy and physiology makes them more marketable and desirable for faculty positions focused on research but still requiring a certain amount of teaching.
Dr. Stephanie Opfer
Associate Professor of English, Assistant Dean of the School of Creative and Media ArtsTiffin University
Visual And Performing Arts
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Dr. Stephanie Opfer: Because of the state of higher education in our country today, teaching in higher education can be a difficult field to break into. However, most colleges and universities still hire adjunct instructors (part-time instructors). Students shouldn't be afraid to teach as an adjunct for a while to get some experience and decide if teaching is for them.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Dr. Stephanie Opfer: Flexibility and adaptability will be the biggest skills instructors will need. The state of higher education is changing, and the 'ivory tower' is going away. Colleges and universities are starting to focus more on career-oriented programs, which include practical and application skill sets. In order to stay relevant, the focus of humanities classes like art and film should be on teaching students analysis, synthesis, and other critical-thinking skills. The content becomes less important and becomes only the vehicle for teaching these skills.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Dr. Stephanie Opfer: Unfortunately, teaching as an adjunct does not pay well. Students should keep their full-time jobs and teach part-time until they find a full-time job at a college or university. That part-time teaching provides them valuable experience and connections that make them more competitive candidates for full-time positions because they'd also be competing with candidates who have PhDs. So adjunct work is more of a long-term investment rather than an immediate return. Also, even full-time teaching jobs don't pay particularly well, so they'll really need to love teaching if they want to do it full-time. If they don't like teaching as an adjunct, they won't like doing it full-time.
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Dr. Mike Levine: In the next 3–5 years, I anticipate that research will be expected that explores more interdisciplinarity; owing both to intellectual trends in the academy, and to an ever-shrinking job market, which means that more will be demanded by less people. As well, you will be expected to be an expert in the exciting, interesting research niche that you have found and written about in your dissertation; but also quite knowledgeable about a broad range of information applicable towards teaching large general education (GE) classes filled with non-major students. Expertise in both of these areas will make you more competitive and give you a broader network to work with.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Dr. Mike Levine: Academia is most definitely not a career for those that want to get rich quick. It can take 5–6 years before your salary really starts to pick up steam (getting tenured, in other words). To get tenure: publish, publish, publish, while teaching and mentoring. Do some service to your department or college as well, but not so much that you get burnt out. As in any career, being seen and working with other people in your discipline, school, and area is key. So go to as many conferences as you can find funding for, and meet and work with as many people as you can. The 'cultural currency' you'll get from these interactions will come a lot sooner than actual currency will, but in academia, these two areas are often one and the same.
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Mia Fiore Ph.D.: First, I would tell all students that it is VERY different from teaching k-12. Unlike K-12, you are not placed in a school with a teaching job upon graduation; teaching in higher education is one of the most competitive fields, period. The next difference is that you are expected to be an expert/ master of your field. If you're also willing to accept that you will likely have to work as an adjunct professor (for low pay) first, then go for it! Teaching in higher education is the most rewarding job, especially for people who love learning.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Mia Fiore Ph.D.: Awareness and familiarity with technology has become more important, and it will continue to be more important in the next 3-5 years. With everything from peer-reviewed journals available online, to AI, technology is an important part of higher education.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Mia Fiore Ph.D.: Maximize your salary potential by teaching at a state school- if you do you can join the PSLF program and after ten years, your student loans will be forgiven.
Mary Wood
Professor of EnglishUniversity of Oregon
English Language And Literature
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Mary Wood: It depends on what level the teacher is at (college level or K-12 and if K-12 do you mean elementary, middle, or high school), whether they're in public or private education, etc. Those who wish to become K-12 English teachers would take some literature classes in our department but would do most of their teacher training in the School of Education.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Mary Wood: It's a great time to become an English teacher because it's more important than ever for students to be savvy about how language works, given the ways that language is being manipulated in media (including social media) as well as in the explosion of AI applications. It's also a good time to remind students of the human values and age-old questions about life that are found in novels, plays, poetry, and short stories.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Mary Wood: Dislike: Administrative meetings, Grading papers, Bureaucratic paperwork, Lack of robust funding for research and teaching. Like: Working with students, Talking, writing, and reading about literature and getting paid for it, My co-workers and their commitment to their students, Having flexibility in my workday (available to college teachers, not K-12)
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Justin Whitehill Ph.D.: Perseverance pays off. Its worth it to pursue the career you want and not settle and be unhappy.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Justin Whitehill Ph.D.: In the area of genetics and genomics, the identification of areas of the genome that can be CRISPR’d and used to add an immediate benefit is going to be very important as every cropping system races to make genome editing a reality. AI will likely play a huge role in predicting genes/regions of the genome that will provide the biggest benefits.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Justin Whitehill Ph.D.: I wouldn’t know, I’m a professor.
Julie Maybee
Professor of PhilosophyLehman College of the City University of New York
Philosophy
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Julie Maybee: It is a myth that a degree with a major in philosophy cannot help graduates get jobs or do well in the job market over the course of their careers. My advice to graduates would be to be prepared to have to learn some job-specific skills as they move forward in their careers, but to feel confident that their study of philosophy has prepared them with important skills they'll need: critical and analytical thinking, being able to think creatively and be resilient and agile in response to problems, curiosity, communication skills, and skills for reading complex texts.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Juan de la Puente Herrero: - This may not be a secret to anyone, but you need to reach out and talk to as many people as you have the energy for. I feel like people underestimate how competitive languages and linguistics can be in the professional world, so the more you know about how others 'went through it', the easier it will be for you to take the punches when they come. And they will come!
I also want to mention how I am younger compared to most of my colleagues (I'm 24), but I have noticed that there is a pattern among the professors who tend to be more popular inside and outside of the classroom: all of them have interests (not necessarily academic) that they pursue in their free time, and it does not matter what it is exactly; cooking, literature, acting, music... I think that it is extremely important to 'feel like a student' on a regular basis in order to let your students know that they are not the only ones making mistakes on a regular basis: you do, too. I don't think that this is an attitude that you can fake.
Jane Kuandre
Associate ProfessorWhat general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Jane Kuandre: My advice for someone looking to pursue a career in academia would be to focus on building a strong publication record, developing a network of collaborators, and continuously seeking opportunities for professional development.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Jane Kuandre: Some essential skills for success in academia include critical thinking, effective communication, time management, and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Jane Kuandre: Networking is crucial for career advancement in academia as it allows individuals to establish collaborations, gain access to resources, and stay updated on the latest research trends.
Dr. Elizabeth Neiman
Director of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies ProgramUniversity of Maine
Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, And Group Studies
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Dr. Elizabeth Neiman: Students interested in enhancing their program of study with a WGS minor just 3 additional courses to take in WGS so as to complete a minor. Nursing students who have taken advantage of this opportunity report to me that they are excited about the perspectives that WGS studies provides them and that they feel more prepared than ever to begin a career in Nursing.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Dr. Elizabeth Neiman: I can reflect better on how I'd guide students to think about the work they do at UMaine in Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies so as to prepare for potential careers.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Dr. Elizabeth Neiman: Rather than answer your questions, I'll give you some background information: Since becoming Director of the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies program at UMaine in fall 2022, I have been doing a great deal of outreach to faculty in other departments across the university.
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Darren Hudson: Hi Darren! It's Alex from over at Zippia, the career expert site.
We're researching an article for graduates entering the job market with a degree in Philosophy, and hope to quote a professor at Furman University.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Darren Hudson: In addition to providing students with new insights into the world, themselves, and those around them, a degree in Philosophy provides graduates with a set of universally transferrable skills in reasoning and problem solving that are highly valued by employers. Philosophy majors regularly outscore most other majors on tests to get into graduate school, business school, law school, and medical school. Philosophy majors also continue to have the highest rate of salary growth from entry to mid-career, at 103.5%.
Aurelie Matheron
Assistant Professor of FrenchSkidmore College
Romance Languages, Literatures, And Linguistics
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Aurelie Matheron: Present yourself as a professional in your cover letter and interviews. The people who interview you will look at you as a future colleague and not a student. Use the past “I” to show what the future “I” will do. Meaning: in your interviews, say “I have developed X courses/projects and I have acquired X skills useful for a collaborative project at your institution. For instance, one project I will develop is XYZ.” You show your experience/expertise and how you will be using your skills. Don’t dwell too much on the “past I” and, I’d say, don’t use the past “we” => “at my former institution, we would do X or Z.” => this shows that you still view yourself as part of that community and don’t project yourself at your new institution. Once you have the job: observe the dynamics of your new work place. Meet with colleagues who also recently got a job at your institution. They will help you navigate the first year.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Aurelie Matheron: Leadership: you will be in positions of leading a program/department. Learn from current chairs by observing their own skills during meetings and moments of decision. Collaboration: develop interpersonal and interprofessional relationships that will allow you to build collaborative projects (interdepartmental courses, for instance).
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Aurelie Matheron: Do some research online about how much someone earns at your stage of the career. If there is a significant gap, point out (diplomatically) that, because of your extensive experience in XYZ, you would like to get a X% increase in your salary. Be reasonable: if you want a 3% increase, ask for 5% (not 10% or more). Justify your negotiation: why should they pay me more? What experience can I show them to justify my request? If you have a higher offer from another place, you can say that “I have received another generous offer and would like to know about the possibility for matching that offer.” Salary is not the only thing you can negotiate: office space, computer/laptop, sabbaticals, course release, etc. Again, be reasonable: if you think you are entitled to XYZ requests, you also have to show why.
Dr. Floyd Beachum
Bennett Professor of Urban School LeadershipLehigh University
Educational Administration And Supervision
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Dr. Floyd Beachum: This advice would be for a recent graduate of a doctoral program who is interested in pursuing
a career as a faculty member at a college or university. Three quick pieces of advice I would give
include: get organized, get focused, and get moving. Get organized in terms of getting all of
their materials together as they embark upon a new position or as they look for a position. They
will need to have easy access to relevant documents, official paperwork, files, and/or work
products. Organization is the key to a better work flow. Get focused in terms of having the right
mindset to be successful as an academic. This requires that the person work diligently to
develop a research agenda in which they will have to publish articles, books, book chapters, and
present their research at academic conferences. Two major conferences in educational
leadership are the annual meeting of the University Council of Educational Administration
(UCEA) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Focus also includes
teaching various courses in educational leadership. It will take a considerable amount of time to
plan, read, coordinate, teach the course, and continuously learn while teaching. Focus also
means getting used to serving on various department, college, and/or university committees.
Service work helps evenly distribute work loads to help accomplish the goals of that college or
university. The last step, is get moving. This means that once the preliminary steps are taken,
then the person should be very purposeful as they go about doing all of the things mentioned
here. There is no time to waste because a person in the role of a new faculty member usually
has about three years before their first big review and six years before they must go up for
tenure and promotion. These decision points are high stakes because if they are productive,
then employment continues, if they are not productive, specific improvement advice can be
given and/or employment can be terminated.
Fabio Lanza
ProfessorAshford University
History
What general advice would you give to a Visiting Professor?
Fabio Lanza: I tell them not to expect that they can achieve the same, old-style academic career (like mine, for example). A tenure-track job in a research university to be clear. Those jobs exist but they are becoming rarer and rarer. I also tell them that if they forecast incurring in serious (or even non-serious) debt in order to get a PhD, they should not do it. They should not pursue that path at all. In the program, they should take all the chances they have to learn new skills, including skills that don't seem directly related to an academic career.
What Visiting Professor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Fabio Lanza: To put it bluntly, if you want to make money, this is really not the career for you.
What will help Visiting Professors increase their earning potential?
Fabio Lanza: Difficult to say, given how quickly things change. Digital humanities was and still is fashionable and important. Public history (museum, exhibitions, outreach). And teaching.
What skills stand out on Visiting Professor resumes?
Lee Braver: Colleges and universities fall into different categories which value different skills and accomplishments. The most obvious division is between schools that emphasize research and those that pride themselves on their teaching. Research institutions are looking for scholars who can publish a lot in exclusive journals and presses, thereby enhancing their reputation. They are looking for evidence of research skills: publications, awards, letters of recommendation that praise the candidate's writing and thinking. Teaching schools, on the other hand, are looking for excellent teachers. In the buyer's market we now have, they can require high research ability as well, but some will actually be scared off by too much research. They will worry that the candidate will focus on their research instead of their teaching and that they will seek to leave as soon as they can. These schools are typically looking for teaching experience, high student evaluations, and letters that single out these qualities for praise, whereas research schools typically don't care a lot about these sorts of things. Thus, the qualities one type of institution values, the other can be apathetic towards or even avoid. Teaching schools far outnumber research schools, so there are far more jobs in the former than in the latter.
What hard/technical skills are most important for Visiting Professors?
Lee Braver: Well, a Ph.D. is necessary, although one can sometimes be hired within striking distance of it. The ability to teach so as to bring students to the major and get high student evaluations are often requirements at teaching schools while writing well enough to publish, often in journals with single-digit acceptance rates, is crucial to research schools. Comfort with technology is becoming more and more important.
What skills will help Visiting Professors earn the most?
Lee Braver: Let's see-an M.B.A., the ability to pick winning lottery numbers, being repelled by the humanities so that one goes into business-those would be pretty useful for making money. No one should go into academia for the money, not just not for wealth but even for a comfortable living, which is becoming more difficult to achieve in America in general. It is nearly impossible to make a living as an adjunct professor, which is where the profession is heading. There are many good-paying jobs, but those tend to congregate at the elite schools, the ones that emphasize research the most, and these are the fewest and hardest to get. Worse-paying jobs are also hard to come by, and the competition is just getting stiffer as more Ph.D.'s get dumped into the market each year which is itself accreting all those who did not land jobs in the previous years. At many institutions, raises are minimal since jobs are so hard to come by, and there's little else that rewards a humanities Ph.D. The only way to get a substantial raise is to get a credible offer from another institution and hope that yours wants to keep you enough to overbid them; otherwise, you're stuck, especially after getting tenure, and they know it. That's why tenure is called "golden handcuffs," though I think a better name might be something like velvet handcuffs, given gold's connotation of wealth.
What soft skills should all Visiting Professors possess?
Lee Braver: Soft skills are most important to working once one has gotten a job rather than important to getting a job since those are quite difficult to discern from applications and brief interviews. That is one of the reasons schools can be wary of hiring with tenure; a person could look great on paper but be a nightmare to work with, and you're stuck with them.
I believe that tenacity, organizational skills and time management, and the ability to work long hours are crucial to getting tenure and succeeding in academia more broadly, in some ways more important than raw intelligence (if such a notion is coherent). Failure and rejection are endemic to the job; anyone who gets discouraged easily will do so. One must persevere in the face of sometimes harsh criticism and hostile conditions (especially now that much of the country has turned against higher education and the humanities in particular), and one must be able to juggle multiple responsibilities that make considerable time demands. In this, the tenure track resembles other early-career positions, such as medical residency or working towards partnership in a law firm. The untenured often must do the scut work that no one else wants to do, made more difficult by the fact that they are frantically trying to learn on the job with little to no guidance. It is not at all unusual for early-career professors to teach 4 classes per semester, at least some of which are new and/or large, do all the grading for them, serve on multiple committees, and write for elusive publications, all at once.
Alejandra Rodriguez-Villar Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of SpanishHanover College
Department of Modern Languages
What skills stand out on Visiting Professor resumes?
Alejandra Rodriguez-Villar Ph.D.: Something that stands out in any resume is the ability to speak two or more languages. If we are thinking of medievalists and early modern professionals, having a good command of romance languages and other European languages will be a great asset without any type of doubt. In any case, for anybody interested in history, it is critical to know the languages spoken in the studied space and those in the surrounding areas as an excellent way to understand and monitor mutual influences. Likewise, grads with a major in medieval, early modern, or general history, will have more opportunities in the job market if they show imagination and creativity as skills in their resumes. Unfortunately, we can only travel in time with our minds; being able to supply with our imagination and creativity what we cannot see presently is extremely important for a good historian. We often count on scarce, disconnected pieces of information, and having the necessary imagination to sense the possible connections is essential to develop a meticulous methodology to support our research findings. Talking about methods, if it is true that we need to be very imaginative to set the first steps to reconstruct history, we also need to be very systematic to produce a rigorous vision that we can call history and not fiction!
What skills will help Visiting Professors earn the most?
Alejandra Rodriguez-Villar Ph.D.: If we focus on the future, we are observing a merging between the sciences and the humanities. We are experiencing the rise of what C.P. Snow called "the third culture." And it makes sense because, with our current ability to process extensive amounts of information, we are opening doors to study history and the past in many disciplines from a more holistic perspective. People in the humanities and the sciences are getting closer in methodologies, technologies, and languages. Anybody wanting to have a flourishing career will need to have an interdisciplinary education that will enable them to cross-disciplinary boundaries. While scientists are getting more acquainted with disciplines like philosophy or literature (for instance, narrative medicine), humanists need to become familiar with statistics, coding, or cognitive sciences. With the rise of automation, humans who can see the whole picture will be more necessary than ever.
Carolyn Wilkes Kaas
Associate Professor of Law, Associate Dean of Experiential Education, Co-Director of the Center on Dispute ResolutionQuinnipiac University
School of Law
What skills will help Visiting Professors earn the most?
Carolyn Wilkes Kaas: -Competence and diligence
-The interpersonal side - caring about clients
What are the biggest trends we'll see in the Visiting Professor job market given the pandemic?
Stephanie Cappadona Ph.D.: The field of criminal justice has numerous job opportunities-especially those beyond what is generally considered in the field-law enforcement, courts, and corrections. Some of these are positions in social work, victim advocacy in courts and women's shelters, case specialists with non-profits for at-risk youth, private investigators, research analysts, postal inspectors, private and court investigators, and homeland security positions. Due to social changes and increasing pressure for social justice reforms in all areas of the criminal justice system, those who have been in the field for some time may be inclined to retire, rather than participate in new training (i.e. cultural sensitivity or diversity, equity, and inclusion).
The Covid-19 Pandemic has had numerous effects on the criminal justice system. Law enforcement agencies have attempted to limit in-person contact with members of the public during traffic stops and arrests. When possible, police decline to arrest, except in the case of violent felonies, opting to issue a summons for traffic stops and for juveniles to appear before a judge, instead of arresting them. It has yet to be seen if this is a policy that can be utilized on a more permanent basis.
Courts have become endlessly backlogged with cases due to the closure of the courts at the height of the Pandemic. Many of the lesser offenses have been able to be held in "Zoom Court". For nonviolent misdemeanor offenses, attending a court hearing from home has made compliance easier. Defendants often cannot take time off of work, or are burdened with finding child care to attend a court date. If court appearances could continue in this manner after the Pandemic, it could drastically reduce the courts' congested dockets moving forward. Another area that has been impacted by the Pandemic is the use of cash bail for pretrial release. Various courts have stopped requiring cash bail for individuals who are arrested for nonviolent felonies. This has helped to reduce the number of people in jail awaiting trial. Civil liberty groups such as the ACLU have advocated for pretrial release without cash bail for less serious crimes. It is well known in the criminal justice system that the bail process disproportionately affects those without the resources to post bail before their trials.
Concerning corrections, there have been vast impacts due to the Pandemic. Most notably has been the reduction of the prison inmate population. Advocacy groups have urged state parole boards to release nonviolent offenders who are nearing the end of their sentence and to offer compassionate release to elderly offenders or those with a terminal illness.
My view is that the cultural shift and rise in social justice and equity movements, combined with the effects of the Pandemic will likely result in a wave of retirements in the CJ system, most specifically in the area of law enforcement. Currently, police departments report difficulties with recruitment and retainment, and that trend will likely continue after the Pandemic. Another area that may be impacted is community supervision and advocacy. If empirical studies can determine that nonviolent offenders can be just as effectively supervised in the community without incarceration, jobs for probation officers and other types of community supervision would increase. Another area of growth is the caseworker/social worker and victim advocacy. If the economy continues to improve, money will be available to help victims and survivors of crime, such as intimate partner violence. Domestic violence drastically increased during the Pandemic, and this was an underserviced area before the shutdown, so it is likely to increase in the near future.
Tazinski Lee Ph.D.
Professor, and Interim Chair of the Department of Criminal JusticeGrambling State University
Criminal Justice Department
What experience really stands out on Visiting Professor resumes?
Tazinski Lee Ph.D.: The primary attribute which agencies most often inform that stands out on a student's resume is whether they have participated in an internship program. This component provides employees with a clear picture of the student's ability to effectively perform in a work environment. Moreover, if a student has held leadership positions in a campus organization, the potential employer is able to determine that the student possesses leadership skills. A student's membership in an organization, can also signal to a prospective employer that the student has the ability to work cooperatively with others.