Onboarding adjuncts handbook 3

The Onboarding Adjuncts Handbook

of 22 OnboardingAdjuncts and Developing Translational Entrepreneurship sgb rev 4
The Onboarding Adjuncts Handbook
How to Make Better Instructors Faster
Colleges and universities that offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to teach innovation and
entrepreneurship classes may benefit from a more formal adjunct onboarding process.
Most entrepreneurship centers have extensive materials for aspiring entrepreneurs, but too
often they have minimal documentation of the role and expectations of adjuncts and the
logistics needed to support them.
Based on my experience as an adjunct at multiple universities, here is my proposed Onboarding
Adjuncts Handbook, which entrepreneurship centers can use to improve their adjunct faculty
recruiting, and to help their adjuncts become more effective contributors to their students, to
their centers, their departments and schools.
I’ve segmented this document into three sections. The first, Adjuncts As Partners describes a
suggested approach to developing a richer relationship between an Entrepreneurship Center
and its Adjuncts. The second section, Onboarding Guest Speakers and Adjuncts, describes how
to best prepare guest speakers and how to optimize adjuncts for their role. The third section,
Developing Translational Entrepreneurship, offers a new idea for how adjuncts can contribute in
making faculty research relevant for practitioners.
Part 1: AdjunctsAsPartners
Adjuncts are motivated to teach for a variety of reasons; their reputational gain, to find new
clients/customers, love of teaching, or they have something unique to say. Some of them will
just fill a teaching slot. But others are potential untapped resources to; raise your department
and schools reputation and ranking, create classes that are a magnet for the best and brightest
students, help raise money and build awareness and brand for the center and to connect to
potential corporate and other sponsors.
The first step in getting adjuncts aligned with your department needs is explaining to them how
your center works.
1. Start by Explaining the Role of Your Department/Center
Most entrepreneurial centers walk a tightrope between the academic faculty, the practitioners
and the pull and tug of a variety of constituencies inside a department and school. For you, this
is all second nature. For adjuncts none of this is clear.
The entrepreneurial center director should in writing:

● Describe to adjuncts the role of the staff in your department/center. (While the
departments I teach in have great photos of their staff on their websites, after a decade
I still have no clue what half of them do. This a huge lost opportunity.)
○ Extra credit for an org chart/diagram of the relationships.
○ Which of these staff functions will your adjuncts interact with? How?
● Describe to adjuncts the role, context and relationships of the center to the rest of their
department, school and external community.. (In most schools I’ve taught, the
philosophy seems to be “no need to tell them anything.” I’ve had to play detective to
reverse engineer the politics and org chart of the center to understand the bounding
box of unspoken constraints on what can and cannot be done. It shouldn’t be this
opaque. The adjuncts are part of the play and keeping them in the dark is
counterproductive.)
○ What are the entrepreneurship course offerings from your center?
○ Is entrepreneurship taught in other places on campus? What are their offerings?
○ Can the adjunct talk to the press about their class?
● Explain the metrics and measures by which your center and its host department
measures its success.
○ Are there are evergreen aspirational metrics like academic reputation of faculty,
number of enrolled students, success in placement of students into graduate
programs or jobs, financial support of the department from the rest of the
college/university, corporate and government sponsored research, number of
startups launched, philanthropy, etc.?
○ Are there are administrative metrics, such as overall teaching and research
headcount, the number of ratios of adjuncts to faculty, number of department
supported grad students, etc.?
￭ Think together about how the adjunct and their class can impact these
metrics.
○ Are there a set of focus areas that are now receiving heightened scrutiny from
the administration?
￭ Increasing faculty and student diversity, societal and ethical impacts?
￭ New pedagogy that leverages the unique opportunities at a university
versus a lecture style that could be delivered equally well via an online
course?
● Explain in detail the relationships between the tenured faculty and adjuncts/staff in
your school. Extra credit for a diagram of the relationships. Include:
○ What are the sensitivities of the tenured faculty?
￭ Adjunct titles? Number of adjuncts? Something else?
￭ Can the adjuncts use the faculty lounge?
￭ What are the research specialties of the tenured faculty?
○ Who creates and approves new classes? How?

○ Who teaches the classes the center offers? Which ones do tenured faculty
teach?
● Does your center run an incubator or run the campus-wide business plan and/or
business model competitions?
○ If so, explain the role if any, adjuncts and/or their students can play
○ If not, is there one somewhere else on campus? How can adjuncts get their
students engaged?
● Center directors may want to consider that some of their adjuncts have run companies
with budgets of ten or hundreds of millions of dollars and may be able to add value in
thinking about the entrepreneurship center finances. At a minimum sharing some basic
financial metrics with your adjuncts will provide them with the context of the
constraints the center operates under:
○ What is the budget?
○ How is the entrepreneurial center funded?
▪ From a department budget? By fundraising? Government/other grants?
o Who’s paying for the addition of each class?
o Who’s paying the adjunct/TA salaries?
o Are you looking to the adjuncts to be donors to your center?
▪ If so, bring up the subject in the context of the center budget. Explain
how donations can help (more classes? more staff? etc.)
▪ Consider acknowledging adjunct donors publicly – a plaque, email, etc.
Peer pressure works!
● Consider concatenating the key parts of this information into a 15 minute canned
webinar "Welcome to the entrepreneurship center and the role of adjuncts.”
While sharing all of this may feel intrusive and a lot of work, none of it has to be done all at
once. And once created, it just needs updating when circumstances change. Documenting
these items is the beginning of the center thinking of adjuncts as potential value-added
partners, rather than just drop in visitors. Once you have adjuncts start thinking like they’re
collaborators as part of your team, you’ll be surprised by the additional value they can add.
2. Explain the Administrative Paperworkand Put the Repeatable Tasks Online
While for you and your staff it’s second nature, keep in mind, that for a first-time adjunct
navigating a school’s administrative paperwork can be a burden. It would be extremely helpful
if the staff documented the processes. Further, the creation of basic course materials, syllabi
and class logistics ought to be in a shared repository.
a) List all the HR, finance and administrative paperwork that an adjunct will have to go
through to teach at your school.
● Summarize the terms of their employment.

o Is the appointment for the semester/quarter? The year?
o What is the adjunct salary? Does it include health care?
o Is there training required? i.e. Sexual harassment? Security? How often?
o Background check needed?
● List who is the (hopefully) single point of contact for the adjunct in navigating this
maze.
● Put this in a single on-line accessible document. Keep it updated.
b) Create a Conflict of Interest/Ethics policy in your Entrepreneurship Center
● What are the rules on hiring, dealmaking, investing in students/teams, selling
services to students, etc. When they’re in class? Before they graduate?
○ Shopping for startup investments is a typical problem. It should be taboo for
adjuncts, and governed by strict written policy
● In addition to the schools standard sexual harassment policies, what are the written
rules about dating students - in class? in school?
c) Create a Template and a Repository for Class Syllabi
I was surprised when I created my own class that the only direction I received was,
“Create a syllabus.” Hmm.. how? It would have been incredibly helpful to have an
online repository of the current and past syllabi of the department.
Extra credit for any commentary that pointed out examples of both required features
and desirable features that made some syllabi better than others.
(See here and here for a sample versions of syllabi you can edit and copy.)
d) Create a Template and a Repository for a Class Logistics/Teaching Assistant Guide
Adjunct productivity goes up if there is a document detailing all the logistics of running a
class, “Who does what, by when,” as a companion document to the syllabus. Simple
things such as, “What’s the timeline of events that need to happen before the class?”
and “Who’s responsible for what?” can save lots of grief. Having this guide for each class
will reduce the number of questions, missed deadlines, scheduling snafus, etc.
Extra credit for any commentary that points out examples of desirable features that
made some better than others.
Offer the adjuncts a template so they can create this guide for their class. (See samples
here and here you can edit and copy.)
Then put them all of them in an online repository so other instructors can share.
3. Help Adjuncts Understand How Schools Work
After two decades building startups, I quickly learned I was a babe in the woods when it came
to understanding how the business and politics of colleges and universities worked. Over time,

I’ve found that having adjuncts read “How Universities Work” before they start teaching is a
good and quick tutorial. It’s an entertaining explanation by the provost of John Hopkins about
why most university departments feel like medieval guilds.
4. Connecting Your Adjuncts
At UC Berkeley, the entrepreneurship center held an annual dinner for all the adjuncts. It was a
pretty impressive group. (The first time I attended, everyone went around the room introducing
themselves and by the time it came around to me, it dawned on me that I had the least
impressive resume in the room.) But the point of the dinner was the bonding of the adjuncts
with each other, the entrepreneurship staff and with the tenured faculty. It worked and was
effective. After that dinner I could put a face to a name and felt comfortable asking staff and
other adjuncts and faculty for advice and help. Consider holding one with your department.
● Provide an agenda, topics of discussion
5. Provide Adjuncts With a Home Base
As adjuncts are coming from off campus, having a place to prepare for class, (with access to a
printer and copier,) and to debrief after class, off-loads a ton of logistical shuffling. (I can’t tell
you how much I appreciated this at Berkeley after a long drive.) A single office that can be
shared by all lecturers/adjuncts inside the entrepreneurship center solves the problem and as a
side effect connects faces to names between staff and adjuncts.
6. Upskilling Your Adjuncts
Investing in upskilling your adjuncts pays off. Encourage them to attend practitioner educator
conferences (VentureWell OPEN, USASBE, Lean Startup, etc.) where they can learn new skills
and techniques and feel that they’re part of an extended community. Educate them on the
differences of each and which you recommend. (Share whether the department can pay or
subsidize travel and fees.)
Part 2: Onboarding Guest Speakers and Adjuncts
1. Standardize Onboarding Guest Speakers
Having guest speakers serves two purposes – they add unique knowledge and insights to your
classes, and they are tryouts for potential adjuncts.
For the guest speakers, it’s a way to give back by sharing their perspective on what the world of
innovation and entrepreneurship is really like. For those leading a class, guest speakers can
have a tremendous impact on your students. For the students, they can be role models,
allowing students to aspire and envision themselves in that role. Alternatively, guest speakers
can serve as obvious time-fillers. How instructors prep their guests can make a world of
difference.

Both the entrepreneurship center and the lead instructor should keep lists of potential and past
guest speakers. The center’s list ought to be shared with all instructors with notes on their area
of expertise, style, etc. I’ve always been surprised how few centers and instructors will reach
past their local community for guests. While not the same impact as having someone live, video
conferencing a guest in allows you to expand your list of potential invitees 100x.
a) Provide Class Instructors with a Checklist for Inviting Guest Speakers
Most often than not, when I’ve been invited to guest speak it’s often with a vague
invitation to “come in and talk to our students.” I’ve found that really isn’t the way to
optimize the time of your guest or students. I really would have appreciated more
context and a suggested structure. For example:
● Send the guest a formal email invite. Attach a copy of your syllabus.
o If this is the first time a guest is speaking, see if you can grab a coffee with them
prior to the class.
o If they don’t have time, brief them via video conference on the items below.
● Provide the guest speakers with the context of their talk.
o In the week they are speaking, where in the syllabus will the class be?
o Tell the guests why you invited them to speak. What relevant points to the
course and week would you like them to emphasize? What do they want
students to take away from the speaker’s session?
o Give the guests some background on the students. Undergrad/Grad? Majors?
What do the students already know? How basic or advanced should the talk be?
o Share with the guests the class logistics: How much time will they have. Should
they use slides? If so, send them some examples. Will they get questions?
● If this is the first time you’re going to have the guest speak, provide them with a
template of “what great speakers do.” For example:
o “While the students will hear you for the short time you’re in front of them,
they’ll remember you for the rest of their career - if you can share with them
something memorable.”
▪ A good story, summarized with: a) what you learned, b) what you would
have done differently
▪ How is it relevant to the class? To their careers?
▪ What do you wish you knew when you were in school? Why? What did
you hear in school, ignore/not understand and discover later was
important?
▪ What were painfully earned lessons? About business? Team building?
Culture? Why?
o Coach speakers to make the "war stories" relevant to the subject at hand. How
you built your grandpa's cement plant is just so rarely relevant to millenials,
dotcommers, etc.

● Provide both the students and speaker with the ground rules.
o Are student questions ok in the middle of the talk? At the end? Will the guest be
asking questions of the students? Chatham House rule?
● Agree on the format of the talk and understand the Audio/Video requirements
o Is your guest speaking extemporaneously? Presenting with slides? A fireside chat
with you?
▪ Suggest one slide per two minutes talking or a clear agenda for the class
that keeps them moving subject to subject.
o What are their Audio/Video requirements?
▪ Are they bringing their own computer? If so, what adapter do they/or
you need? (I can’t tell you how many times being unprepared results in a
fire-drill.)
▪ If they are running a presentation on your computer get the presentation
before hand. (Most often fonts/formatting breaks between machines and
OS’s)
▪ If they have video’s - test, test, test before hand. (50% failure rate, most
often that audio can’t be heard.)
● Consider having the entrepreneurship center video record all the guest speakers.
o Create an online video library indexed by subject.
● Make the travel logistics painless for your guests.
I’ve been invited to speak in places where I circled the campus looking for the right
place to go. Then stood in the building lobby lost, trying to find the classroom. By the
time I arrived I wasn’t a happy camper. These are your guests, sharing their stories
for free, treat them like they are.
o Provide a map to the nearest parking lot. Include driving directions and parking
passes. Universities are chronically difficult places to park. Make it easy for them.
▪ Extra credit and perpetual good thoughts for offering to pay for an
Uber/Lyft ride.
o Once they’re parked, provide a map and instructions as to how to find the
classroom. Assign a TA or student to guide the guest speaker from parking area
to the classroom.
● For guests via remote Video Conferencing - make sure you’ve tested the logistics.
Remote guests are magic. You can bring world-class talent into your classroomwho
would never visit your city. However,...there’s nothing worse for your students and
the guest than a remote link that doesn’t work or is poor quality. From my own
experience that’s at least 50% of the time. Often it’s because instructors hand the
prep off to a TA and don’t get involved in the details. When it fails, it makes the
instructors look unprepared and the students feel that their time has been wasted.
Prepare, prepare, prepare.
○ Test the remote video and audio link with your guest prior to the lecture

￭ Ensure you and the guests both have the correct software, high bandwidth
connection, good mic and video
￭ If they will be presenting slides or videos, ensure that you have tested
displaying those beforehand
￭ Ensure the guests on their end can see and hear the classroomand the
instructor
If you or they are unwilling or unable to find the time to prepare and test before
hand - reschedule the talk until you can.
b) Standardize Using Guest Speakers as Tryouts for Adjuncts
If your department/center is on the lookout for future adjuncts, having a guest speaker
is the first screen test. If so, whoever is in charge of selecting new adjuncts should sit
through the guest’s talk.
● Have the instructor follow up with the guest via email no later than the next day.
o Thank them. Repeat one or two highlights of their talk back to them.
o Consider having a tradition of students sending a separate thank you. Get some
cards or stationary with the school logo and have each student sign, with a
comment. This may sound cheesy, but the impact is huge!
o Ask if they enjoyed doing it.
● If you weren’t in attendance, ask the instructor if the guest was an engaging
speaker? (Did students put their phones down/screens away?)
o Did they leave the students with relevant lessons learned?
If you want to engage the speaker as a potential adjunct and they seemeager, (likely
only one out of ten guest speakers) there’s a second test. This time invite them to teach
a case, or guest speak without ever reverting to a story about their career. The goal is to
see if they can teach a class or a case drawing lessons out of the students, without using
the crutch of, “When I…”
● Whoever is in charge of selecting new adjuncts should sit through the guest’s talk.
● Let them know what opportunities are available for them.
o Additional guest speaking? Co-teach? Create a class?
o If they’re interested, give them a critique of their performance, (while they’re all
business professionals, not all of them have taught.)
o Offer feedback, encouragement and suggestions. Share what would make them
better educators. This is also a test of how they’ll handle feedback and the
transition to the classroom.
o Finally, if they’re interested let them know if you pay them and if so how much.
▪ Suggest that they may want to donate it to your center!
2. Understand What Motivates Adjuncts

When recruiting new adjuncts, it’s important to understand and assess their motivation. (This
applies for guest speakers as well.)
Adjuncts are motivated to want to teach at your school for one of four reasons:
1. Their Reputational gain
a. They may be a "one and done" adjunct who wants to teach once to get the
university on their LinkedIn profile. This is the typical inbound request to become
an adjunct.
b. Or, they may want an ongoing relationship. The long-term relationship can be
useful if they can add value to the institution. Otherwise, the relationship can
become a burden.
2. Finding their next client/customer
a. Adjuncts using their class as a way to sell their services is typically a non-starter.
That said, there are fabulous people with great expertise who you can coach out
of selling. This requires a frank and direct conversation “no selling while they’re
your students” up front.
b. Looking for an audience is likely the most common inbound request to become
an adjunct. These relationships can work out well, or not. Many simply want to
sell their book, new method, recruit new employees, or get into funding deals
early.
i. However, when interests align between your institution and the potential
adjunct, it can be powerful. The most common aligned interest adjuncts
are angel and venture investors.
3. Love of teaching is the best motivation
a. Wants to "give back" to the community.
b. Has taught before and can easily slot into a class
c. Wants to build a career in education. This is the most challenging since your
institution may not want this to occur.
4. Has something unique to say
a. They can tell you directly what it is (customer discovery!), and it is genuinely
different.
b. They know what it might be, but are looking to figure it out. These motivations
can be very aligned with your institution if there is room to experiment. Of
course, if they can't figure it out quickly then they may need to be rejected.
i. Some will have valuable domain-specific information, on vital subjects as
"termsheet terms" or social media marketing. Some of their subject
matter will be very helpful to other adjuncts or faculty members even if
their expertise won't fill a full semester. Develop a plan for this and
discuss the pathway with new/er volunteers before plowing in.
A direct conversation between your new adjunct and the existing adjuncts/faculty/center staff
will surface their motivation and avoid mistakes.
Of course, you also need to take the motivation of your school into account. Is there:
1. a need to fill a slot?

2. an opportunity to improve the reputation of the program by bringing in a big name?
3. an opportunity to create and trial a new class. It is quite clear that innovation in
teaching happens almost entirely at the adjunct level?
Your school may have many countervailing pressures
1. Balancing the number of classes taught by adjuncts
a. For accreditation
b. Desire to have tenured faculty teach more or less
c. Faculty sensitivity to adjuncts receiving more press/attention than they do
2. Overextending the schedule and offerings
a. Great institutions have fabulous core offerings to produce great graduates in
engineering, business, or otherwise. There is the potential to dilute those
offerings by adding new courses.
b. Most institutions operate with a fixed number of seats and class slots. Adding
more classes and sections can create chaos - this is not only a problem for the
institution but can create confusion for students.
Finally, when recruiting adjuncts it’s important to keep in mind their experience, reputation and
integrity. Experience - have they had skin-in-the-game startup experience as a practitioner -
either as an entrepreneur or investor? Reputation - are they are respected by their peers in the
startup community? Integrity - will they put the students’ well-being first on their list of
priorities as opposed to their own agendas?
3. Standardize Onboarding for Adjuncts Who Will Be Co-Teaching With a Lead Instructor
The biggest surprise for most adjuncts (particularly those who have previously guest taught) is
the leap in workload between just breezing in and out of class versus being responsible for one.
Often new adjuncts are thrown in cold to a class as a co-instructor. A better approach is to offer
the lead instructors a standard checklist for bringing on new teaching staff. For example:
● Send the new co-instructor the syllabus, ask them to read it
o Invite them to coffee to discuss it.
o Explain the expectations of workload and time commitment
▪ Your role, their role, and TA’s (if any) role
▪ Do the adjuncts get paid?
o Explain the overall learning objectives of the class. Explain:
▪ How are the students measured/graded?
▪ How is the class ranked?
o What do they want the new co-teacher to do? Just teach? Improve the class?
o Have the lead instructor share their lectures, slides, any other class material
o Is there a budget for:
▪ Students’ activities (travel, hardware/software, etc.) in the class?
▪ Food/refreshments?

o What are the rules for adjuncts funding students ideas or recruiting students?
● Invite the new co-instructor to observe a few sessions of a class
o At a minimum, have them sit in on at least the first session, the last one and one
in-between
o Have them guest teach one or more lectures.
o Have a de-brief immediately after each class session.
▪ Offer feedback, encouragement and suggestions
● Begin to off-load some of the class administrative and logistical issues to the new co-
instructor. (See if they still want to teach after that!)
● At the end of the course, gather all the instructors and TA’s, if any, and hold a class
postmortem lessons learned session
o Actively solicit their suggestions on how to improve the class, in terms of
logistics, teaching methods and contents
▪ Write it all down, and preserve the notes for next year
o If the new co-instructor is going to continue teaching, what do they think they
need to improve? Why? How?
4. Standardize Onboarding for Adjuncts Who Will Lead an Existing Class
One of the surprises about leading a class is how many moving parts there are -- and that at the
end of the day, the buck stops with the lead instructor. Offer new lead instructors a standard
checklist for leading an existing class. For example:
● Point the instructor to your on-line syllabi and class logistics examples
o Explain whether the class syllabus is a “teach it as is” or does the instructor get
to experiment/change or improve it?
o Who does the grading?
o Who handles student complaints/issues, etc.?
● Explain the history of course
o Who was the prior instructor? Consider whether you should introduce them.
This of course will not be appropriate in all circumstances
o How is the course is perceived by the students? Is it in high demand, etc. Is it
required or elective?
o Are there other sections of the course being taught? If so, introduce all the
instructors to each other and arrange for coordination and cross learning among
the instructors during the semester.
● Define who can recruit co-instructors/teaching assistants
o Faculty director? Entrepreneurship center director? The lead instructor?
o If there are teaching assistants, are they assigned? If so, are they paid?
o Does the instructor have to recruit them?

o If there aren’t any TAs, can you recruit interns off-campus to help? How are they
managed?
● Define who owns recruiting students
o The department, the instructors or the TAs?
o What demand creation activities are available? (I’ve gone from “if students are
interested they’ll attend to - we market the heck out of our classes. So the
classes I teach are massively oversubscribed. Hard work, but worth it.) We use:
▪ Mailing lists, Web sites, Posters, Brown bag lunches and Mixers.
o Can the adjunct create their own creation activities?
o Can the instructor change class admission standards?
● If there are Coaches/Mentors needed, are there department rules for their employ?
o See an example mentor guide template here if needed.
5. Standardize Onboarding for Adjuncts Who Will Create a New Class
Creating a new class is a real honor in a school. It’s a lot of hard work, but the payoff is just like
starting a company. You’ve created something that never existed before.
In every school I’ve taught, the center directors ran the approval process for my new classes,
and they were approved seemingly overnight. It was years before I understood how
extraordinarily supportive the center directors had been. In other circumstances, new course
creation process might take years. Offer lead instructors a standard checklist for creating and
leading a new class. For example:
a) Creating a New Class
● Define and document the process for getting a new class approved and adopted at
your university/department/center. Extra credit for a diagram of the process.
o What does the instructor have to submit? To whom?
o How long does approval take?
● What are the permissible bounds of the new class?
o Number of credits? Hours per week? Sessions per week?
● Who can take the class?
One of my biggest surprises in creating a new class was discovering the turf battles
between departments inside universities of who could attend. I naively thought that an
entrepreneurship class should be open to everyone in the school. Hah. Little did I
know. Luckily my center directors always went to bat to make the class available to
everyone. But it wasn’t easy.
o If the sponsoring center is in the business school, does that mean enrollment
priority has to be given to MBAs (or undergrad biz majors)? Same goes for
engineering schools and their dept majors.
o How much control does the adjunct really have in building a course with a
diversity of majors or levels (i.e., undergrad and grad)?

● What resources will be available to the course instructor?
o Can they use co-instructors? Teaching Assistants (TA’s)?
o Who can recruit co-instructors/teaching assistants? Faculty director?
Entrepreneurship center director? The instructor?
▪ If there are teaching assistants, are they assigned? If so, are they
paid?
▪ Does the instructor have to recruit them?
▪ Can the instructor remove them. If so, is there a process to do so?
(I’ve fired a TA in the past and should have removed others.)
▪ If there aren’t any, TA’s can the instructor recruit interns to help?
o Create a Teaching Assistant Handbook for your class (See samples here and
here you can edit and copy.)
If your school has teaching assistants, one of the painful lessons I learned is that having
the right Teaching Assistant can make or break a new class. Some center directors
randomly assign TA’s. Others know which ones are the most effective. As it’s in
everyone’s interest to make sure a new class succeeds, assign the best TA’s to new
classes.
b) Leading a New Class
● Define who owns recruiting students
o The department, the instructors or the TAs?
o What demand creation activities are available?
▪ Mailing lists? Web sites? Posters?
▪ Can the adjunct create their own?
o Can the instructor change class admission standards?
● If coaches/mentors are needed are there department rules for their employ?
o See an example mentor guide as a template here if needed.
c) Create an Educators Guide for a New Class
I’ve found having to write and describe the “what and why you’re teaching” is a great
way to become a better instructor and build a better class. Encourage instructors who
are creating a new class to write an educators guide.
The educators guide goes hand-in-hand with the development of the syllabus. As the
instructor writes what they want to cover each week in the syllabus, the educator guide
becomes their annotated notes of why they wanted to cover that material and the
outcomes they expect.
In the guide they’ll explain the teaching objectives for each week of the class, why they
picked those objectives and how they’ll achieve them in the classroom. They’ll annotate

each slide or lecture point with an explanation of what they are trying to convey and
how they know the students learned it.
The guide also allows them to think through the pedagogy (how to best teach the
material). Is it case studies, experiential hands-on, is it team-based, etc. Have them
explain why they are teaching the way they are. (See here for a sample educator guide).
Once an instructor has written a class educator guide, it’s easy to scale the class past
your school. Your department/center can hold an educator training session to teach
instructors at other schools how to offer the class.
(BTW, If there isn’t an educator guide for instructors to teach an existing class, consider
having the lead instructor write one. It should be revised and updated after every
semester)
6. Create a Research Reading List
It’s likely that the adjunct has spent their career “doing” entrepreneurship rather than
researching it.
I got a lot smarter when I discovered an entire universe of people and papers who had
researched and thought long and hard about innovation and entrepreneurship. While no one
had the exact insights about startups I was exploring, the breadth and depth of what I didn’t
know was staggering. More importantly, my book, customer development, and the Lean
methodology were greatly influenced by all the research that preceded me. In hindsight I
consider it a work of translational entrepreneurship. 18 years later I’m still reading new papers
and drawing new insights from them that allow me to further refine things in the classroomand
outside it.
Encourage adjuncts to meet with your faculty director and ask them for relevant research
papers/reading.
● See a sample research reading list below and add suggested papers from your tenured
faculty
Introduce adjuncts to the world of university research by pointing them to the research
reading list (see Appendix)
● Explain the difference between entrepreneurship research journals (Journal of
Management, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, etc.)
versus the practitioner literature (HBR, California Business Review, etc.)
● Explain the difference between entrepreneurship research conferences versus practitioner
conferences (VentureWell OPEN, USASBE, Lean Startup, etc.)
● Suggest to the adjunct readings of research papers that are relevant to the class subject
matter.

● When appropriate, try to build opportunities for adjunct faculty to sit in on relevant
departmental research seminars. Adjunct faculty can make a big contribution helping
research faculty and their PhD students frame their research questions. Their business
networks are also a great resource to PhD students and others.
● See if the faculty would consider inviting adjuncts to a mailing list that includes
announcements of phd thesis presentations, regular research talks, faculty job talks, etc
Part 3: Developing Translational Entrepreneurship
Developing TranslationalEntrepreneurship
Translational entrepreneurship is fancy term for linking entrepreneurial research with the work
of entrepreneurs. Today, other than helping with teaching, there is no relationship between
traditional research faculty and the adjunct faculty. That’s a missed opportunity for a
collaborative relationship, one that can enhance the stature and ranking of the department.
There is an untapped opportunity to create translational courses and materials in an organized
way.
When there is support from the faculty research director, the director of the entrepreneurship
center can build a stronger program that enhances the reputation of the faculty, program and
school. The entrepreneurship center can create an environment where adjuncts are
encouraged and helped to create translational materials.
● Some fraction of adjuncts are capable to create a stream of translational
entrepreneurship literature for practitioners (founders and VC’s.)
● If/when you find an adjunct interested, see if you can entice faculty to get engaged.
o On the part of the faculty this can be as simple as:
▪ pointing out interesting work of their own
▪ a broader suggested reading list
▪ or even a faculty/adjunct brown bag lunch with adjuncts to discuss of
current research topics.
● If an adjunct is going to lead teaching a class, consider if they can create translational
entrepreneurship material around their course.
o Ask faculty to point the adjunct to research relevant to the subject matter of the
class
o The adjunct will read the academic paper(s), and see if and how it can be
relevant to practitioners (founders, VC’s, corporate exec or employees)
▪ The goal is to see if they can connect the research with real-world
practice as being taught

o Then write a short article and share it with a wide audience
▪ Promoted by the entrepreneurship center in a blog, article, social media,
etc.
(As an example, I read a research paper Asymmetric Information and Entrepreneurship, that
explains a new theory of why some people choose to be entrepreneurs. It was a provocative
finding, and I thought it ought to have a wider audience so I blogged about it. Over 100,000
people read the blog and thousands downloaded the original paper – that’s translational.)
While only one out of ten adjuncts might be interested in a deeper dive into relevant research,
it’s collectively enough to have an impact.
Summary
A small investment in building repeatable and scalable processes for onboarding adjuncts
would allow entrepreneurship centers to integrate adjuncts as partners, expose adjuncts to the
breadth and depth of academic research in the field and potentially create a stream of
translational entrepreneurship literature for practitioners (founders and VC’s).
The result would be better adjunct-led classes, deeper connections between researchers and
practitioners, better and more relevant academic research, and an enhanced reputation of the
center and its program.

Appendix
Adjunct Reading List
(thanks to Cristobal Garcia Herrera of Imperial College and Chuck Eesley of Stanford)
Session 1: Introduction, Classics and State of the Field
1. Schumpeter, J. 1934. The Theory of Economic Development. Oxford: Oxford University
Press; pp. 65-74; 128-156.
2. Coase, R. 1937 The Nature of the Firm
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0335.1937.tb00002.x
3. Knight, F. 1965. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. New York: Augustus Kelley. Chapter IX,
pages 269-275.
4. Kirzner, I. 1997. Entrepreneurial discovery and the competitive market process: An
Austrian approach. Journal of Economic Literature, 35:60-85.
5. Shane S. & Venkatraman, S. (2000), “The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of
research,” Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 217-226.
6. Busenitz, L. W., West III, G. P., Shepherd, D., Nelson, T., Chandler, G. N., & Zacharakis, A.
(2003). Entrepreneurship Research In Emergence: Past Trends and Future Directions.
Journal of Management 2003 29 (3) 285-308.
Session 2: Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities: search vs. execution
1. Von Hippel, E. (1986), "Lead Users: A Source of Novel Product Concepts", Management
Science, 32 (7): 791–806, doi:10.1287/mnsc.32.7.791, JSTOR 2631761
2. McGrath, R. & McMillian, I 1995. Discovery Driven Planning
https://hbr.org/1995/07/discovery-driven-planning
3. Busenitz, L. & Barney, J. 1997. Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in
large organizations: Biases and heuristics in strategic decision making. Journal of
Business Venturing, 12: 9-30.
4. Shane, S. 2000. Prior knowledge, and the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities,
Organization Science, 11(4): 448-469, 2000.

5. Sarasvathy, S. 2001. Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from
economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review,
26(2): 243-263.
6. Sarasvathy, D. K., Simon, H. A., & Lave, L. 1998. Perceiving and managing business risks:
Differences between entrepreneurs and bankers. Journal of Economic Behavior and
Organization, 33: 207-225.
7. Baker, T., & Nelson, R. E. (2005). Creating something from nothing: Resource
construction through entrepreneurial bricolage. Administrative science quarterly, 50(3),
329-366
Session 3: Environmental influences on firm formation: What is a start-up?
1. Katz, J., and Gartner, W. (1988), “Properties of emerging organizations”, Academy of
Management Review, 13(3): 429-441.
2. Baumol, W. (1990), “Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive”,
Journal of Political Economy, 98(5): 893-921.
3. Aldrich, H., and Fiol, M. (1994), “Fools rush in? The institutional context of industry
creation”, Academy of Management Review, 19(4): 645-670.
4. Delmar, F., and Shane, S. 2003. Does business planning facilitate the development of new
ventures? Strategic Management Journal, 24: 1165-1185.
Session 4: Resource Assembly: Financial Resources, Networks & Founding Team
1. Amit, R., Glosten, L., and Muller, E. (1990), “Entrepreneurial ability, venture investments,
and risk sharing”, Management Science, 36(10): 1232- 1245.
2. Gompers, P. 1995. Optimal investment, monitoring, and the staging of venture capital.
Journal of Finance, 50(5): 1461-1489.
3. Powell, WW., K. Koput and L. Smith-Doerr (1996). “Interorganizational Collaboration and
the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology,” Administrative Science
Quarterly, 41(1): 116-45.
4. Stuart, T., Hoang, H., and Hybels, R. (1999), “Interorganizational endorsements and the
performance of entrepreneurial ventures”, Administrative Science Quarterly, 44: 315-
349.

5. Shane, S., and Cable, D. 2002. Network ties, reputation, and the financing of new
ventures. Management Science, 48 (3): 364-381.
Session 5: Corporate Entrepreneurship
1. Burgelman, R. A. 1983a. Corporate Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management ‐
Insights from a Process Study. Management Science, 29(12): 1349‐1364.
2. Eisenhardt, K. and Martin, J. 2000 Dynamic capabilities: what are they?
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/1097-
0266(200010/11)21:10/11%3C1105::AID-SMJ133%3E3.0.CO;2-E
3. Ahuja, G. & Lampert, C. M. 2001. Entrepreneurship in the large corporation: A
longitudinal study of how established firms create breakthrough inventions. Strategic
Management Journal, 22(6‐7): 521‐543.
4. Dushnitsky, G. & Lenox, M. (2005) “When do firms undertake R&D by investing in new
ventures?” Strategic Management Journal, 26: 947 – 965.
5. Wadhwa, A., & Kotha, S. B. 2006. Knowledge Creation Through External Venturing:
Evidence from the Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturing Industry. Academy of
Management J., 49: 819-835.
6. Teece, D. 2007 Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of
(sustainable) enterprise performance
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smj.640
7. Katila, R., Rosenberger, J., and Eisenhardt, K. 2008. Swimming with sharks: Technology
ventures, defense mechanisms and corporate relationships. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 53: 295-332
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9c2c/f961c8e4148c47216bc04a6c45cd3ac7a850.pdf

Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jerry Engel, Founding Director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at the
University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business, for his comments, edits, suggestions
and offering up his secret sauce for onboarding adjuncts. And for giving me the first
opportunity to teach at a university at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
A big thanks to Tom Byers, Tina Seelig and Kathy Eisenhardt, Faculty Directors at the Stanford
Technology Ventures Program, for allowing me to teach while watching how a world-class
entrepreneurship center at the Stanford School of Engineering is run.
At Columbia University, Richard Witten, Senior Adviser to the President, Dave Lerner, Director
of Entrepreneurship, Nat Kelner, Senior Associate Director, and the Columbia team for allowing
me to be part of the program.
At NYU, Frank Rimalovski, Executive Director of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute, for letting
me have a great run at teaching with him.
And at UCSF, Stephanie Marrus, Director of the UCSF Entrepreneurship Center, and Erik Lium
the past Assistant Vice Chancellor of Research for allowing me to prototype the I-Corps@NIH
life sciences class.
Thanks to Cristobal Garcia Herrera of Imperial College and Chuck Eesley of Stanford for the
reference reading list.
And to those adjuncts and center directors whose comments made this draft better. From U.C.
Berkeley: David Charron and Jerry Engel. From Stanford: Tom Byers, Jeff Epstein, Tom
Bedecarré, Steve Weinstein and George John. From Columbia: Dave Lerner, Bob Dorf. From
NYU: Frank Rimalovski. From the National Science Foundation: Babu DasGupta and Todd
Morrill.
And of course, thanks to all my fellow past and present adjunct teaching partners: Steve
Weinstein, Pete Newell, Jeff Epstein, Joe Felter, Jeff Decker, Jim Hornthal, George John, Mar
Hershenson, Tom Bedecarré, Rob Majteles, Eric Ries, Oren Jacobs, Jon Feiber, Ann Miura-Ko,
Errol Arkilic, Bob Dorf, John Burke, Jeremy Weinstein, Zvika Krieger, Abhas Gupta, Karl
Handelsman, Stephanie Marrus, Allan May, Todd Morrill.

Steve Blank - Pescadero,California

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