Many, many people-- bloggers, readers, people that know me in the real world-- have asked about the pros and cons of a visiting position. I'm going to start a series of posts about the pros and cons. (Since I'm the eternal optimist, I'll give you some of the good first.)
Some background for the uninitiated: this past academic year, I took a Visiting Ass. Professor position at TempCollege far, far away from N.A., my significant other. N.A. was in a tenure track position several states (and time zones) away. At TempCollege, I was treated as an almost equal. The students were amazing, and I really enjoyed my classes and colleagues. I learned a lot, and my department was very supportive of my pseudo job search in the fall. All of this will certainly not be the case for many Visiting Asses, but all I have to go on is my situation.
The categories I'm going to address include: Teaching, Research, Service, Location, and Life. Probably some more will come up (can I post a Chocolate category...hmm... we'll see.)
I'm going to start with the most obvious advantage(s) to a visiting ass. position: teaching.
Teaching
You get lots of mentoring. Sure it may sometimes be unsolicited, but I learned a LOT from the little teaching gems my colleagues passed along to me. Would I have gotten the same amount of mentoring if I was tenure track instead? Probably? Maybe?
You get loads of experience. Most of us TA at some point in graduate school. Depending on the position and institution, this teaching experience can be as hard core as solo lecturing or as straightforward as simply grading. Some TA positions involve prelab lectures, but at least in the sciences, most TA positions will either be a lab assistant (supervising lab and grading) or a recitation leader (mostly Q&A sessions). Even the solo lecturers often don't have full control over a course. A visiting ass. position is usually the first time one has complete control over a class for better or worse. Which leads us to...
It is finally acceptable to focus on teaching. If your graduate experience was anything like mine, then you were surrounded by, well, R1 professors who wanted nothing more than to create/inspire/brainwash (heh heh) the next generation of R1 professors. At LargeU, I often met bewilderment when I expressed my love of teaching. "Why would you WANT to spend time prepping lectures?" queried my fellow grad students. "But-but you're so GOOD at this level of research! Why would you not go on to {brilliant professor}'s group for a post-doc!" My graduate mentors were, mostly, stumped. Imagine the relief of not having to defend your love of teaching all the time? Or try to squeeze teaching experience out of the watered down TA positions? Rather than spend 80 hours a week in lab, I (quite gladly) spent my 80 hours (sigh...) each week in the classroom, prepping, meeting with students, and grading.
You can be adventurous in the classroom. Now is the time to try out new teaching techniques. You aren't on the tenure clock, so there is no true pressure to have rock star teaching evaluations (not that you wouldn't, of course). Always wanted to use clickers? Want to try out POGIL? If your school is open to new methods, a visiting ass. position is the prime time to take a teaching risk. If you have something especially clever and/or productive, it could lead to an education paper.
You get a jump start on networking. I now have an easy "talk trade." That is, I can invite one of my TempCollege colleagues down to PermaU to give a talk and they will return the favor. Really comes in handy as tenure approaches. It pays to take advantage of nearby colleges and universities while at a visiting position. Meet the other profs in your field. Join the local branches of your discipline's national organization. Attend regional meetings.
You have little (if any) power outside the classroom. (Note: this is a point, as you might imagine, that will come up on several other advantages AND disadvantages lists.) In terms of teaching, the best thing about having no power is that you can invoke said absence of influence to shoo away especially persistent salespeople or book buyers.
