Astonishing Adjuncts

While they don’t get paid as much as full-time professors, adjunct professors are just as effective in their teaching abilities and they are as well-liked by students as full-time professors.

During the 2008-2009 school year, Missouri Western employed 187 full-time faculty and a lesser 149 part-time faculty.

One adjunct professor in particular is Professor Shane Heard. He is best known as theatre teacher and play director Coach Heard at Lafayette High School. He teaches theatre I, theatre II, stagecraft and applied communications. At Missouri Western, he is Doc. H, a professor of English 104 and English 108.

In addition to being an adjunct teacher, Heard is a dedicated father and husband, with a bachelor’s degree in education from Missouri Western. He is also an alumnus of Baker University, where he received an educational doctorate in educational leadership and the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he received his masters of education degree in curriculum and instruction.

Lafayette High School graduate, Taylia Guyer always enjoyed her classes with Heard. “He made me really love theatre class more than I already did! Having his class first thing in the morning always brightened my days,” Guyer said.

Heard spends his days at Lafayette and teaches night classes at Western. “I like teaching college for the fact that students have paid to be there and therefore they tend to work harder,” Heard said, “It is interesting to see the mix of students in both the high school setting and the college setting. In high school, you have many levels of learners. The same is true for college.”
However, Heard says that his job with Lafayette pays more and he thinks that the students there need him more than the ones at Missouri Western.

Even after the bell rings, sometimes, he still cannot get rid of his students. He has had several students from both Cameron High School, where he used to also teach and Lafayette High School, who have attended his classes at Missouri Western. “As a teacher of both, I get to see the progression of learning from grade 9 all the way through to senior in college,” Heard said.

Although he would love to be a principal one day, Heard still enjoys teaching students at the college level that he has also taught in high school. “The older students get, the more they work for their grade,” Heard said.

Lafayette graduate and Missouri Western sophomore Courtney Boner had only wonderful things to say about Heard, regardless of the homework she has to do for his class. “He makes class interesting by making us laugh with jokes and humor when class begins,” Boner said.

Boner is not the only one who thinks he does his job well. On ratemyprofessors.com, Heard received an overall 4.5 out of a ranking of 5 points and scored high in every category. Although the comments are anonymous, the site reports him as being very nice, helpful and highly recommendable.