In 1919, Adkins came to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He remained there each year until his death in 1949, except for two summers he spent working in industry at the Bakelite Corporation in 1924, and 1926 and for responsibilities from 1942 to 1945 as administrator and research director in the war program of the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Adkins was a lecturer to graduate students in a course entitled "Survey of Organic Chemistry," but he also kept contact with students in elementary and continued for most of the time to give lectures in the first course in organic chemistry.