Recent authors have questioned the time commitments involved in the typical tenure-stream faculty position.
In the spirit of collegial inquiry, I offer the following monthly time
budget based on my personal experiences in the Department of Hamster Husbandry
at the University of Tuktoyaktuk.
You’re
welcome.
Activity
|
Time
per month
|
Teaching a class I’ve taught
before
|
12
hrs
|
Prepping for a class I’ve
taught before
|
6
hrs
|
Teaching a new course I haven’t
taught before
|
12
hrs
|
Prepping for the new course I
haven’t taught before
|
24
hrs
|
Attempting to get my ‘team
teaching’ colleagues to deliver on their commitments to the course I (we)
haven’t taught before
|
10
hrs
|
Apologizing profusely to the
dean for
|
0.75
hrs
|
Doing the work my colleagues
committed to, but didn’t do.
|
16
hrs
|
6
hrs
|
|
Grading
|
8
hrs
|
Listening to complaints, about
grading
|
8
hrs
|
Conducting laboratory research
on hamster husbandry
|
24
hrs
|
Analyzing, writing presenting
research
|
20
hrs
|
Keeping up on the literature.
(or in other words, actually reading all those academic papers that everyone is so certain
that nobody ever reads.)
|
24
hrs
|
Figuring out correct format to
upload resulting paper to conference/journal website
|
2
hrs
|
3
min
|
|
Filling out federally mandated
paperwork to document that our hamster holding facility has better air
quality than my office
|
4
hrs
|
Pleading with maintenance to
fix the air supply to the hamster holding facility so it doesn’t get shut
down by the federal animal care committee (and not coincidentally, so the
hamsters don’t actually go tits up).
|
5
hrs
|
Going to the hardware store to
obtain the necessary parts and then installing them to fix the goddamn
hamster holding facility air supply myself.
|
5
hrs
|
Apologizing profusely to the
head of maintenance for
|
0.5
hrs
|
Listening to obnoxious lab
supply sales rep try to sell me on new and improved latex gloves
|
1
hr
|
Listening to the obnoxious
textbook publisher rep try to sell me on new and improved edition of the
textbook (now with cartoons!)
|
1
hr
|
Filling out requisitions for
textbooks/latex gloves etc and re-imbursement forms for parts for hamster
holding facility.
|
2
hrs
|
Tracking down requisitions that
someone in admin misplaced
|
1
hr
|
Sitting in committee meetings
to plan Happy Hamster Days High School outreach program
|
3
hrs
|
Redesigning poster advertising
Happy Hamster Daze, because it didn’t use the official Tuk U. colours
|
1
hr
|
Painstakingly brokering
consensus on new Hamster Husbandry curriculum to meet new accreditation
requirements (now with Bloom’s verbs!)
|
16
hrs
|
Filling out paperwork to submit
to registrar’s office to implement new Hamster Husbandry curriculum to meet
new accreditation requirements
|
8
hrs
|
Rewriting all syllabi in the
department to accommodate recent discovery of obscure formatting regulation
by new administrative assistant in Registrar’s office.
|
6
hrs
|
Posting all syllabi on
departmental website
|
1
hr
|
2
hrs
|
|
Apologizing profusely for
|
0.25
hrs
|
Watching carefully brokered new
Hamster Husbandry curriculum and syllabi wiped out by administrative fiat.
|
47.3
seconds.
|
Filling out annual reports
carefully accounting for all of the above because admin wants to know: “What
have you done for me LATELY?”
|
3
hrs
|
Grand Total:
|
232
hrs
33
min
47.3
sec.
|
Being called a lazy asshole by a jackoff with a think-tank sinecure… Just Mothra-fracking priceless!
There are some people who will just never get it.
Well said. Although I spend more like eight hours a week, rather than a month, grading.
ReplyDeleteMy general reaction to the sinecure-holding whiners is "yeah ya know what? There are some jobs that don't break down hourly. So, yeah, once in a while I get a day off in the middle of the week without much to do. Some months, on the other hand, I don't get weekends. And you know what I drive? I'll give you a hint: it's small and Japanese. So STFU about how much I work and polish your Lexus, Skeeter."
And next time something breaks in my office, I'm taking a page from your book and going to the hardware store. It's faster to apologize than request maintenance.
I'm waiting for the first administration to order retroactive syllabus format changes. Best guess is sometime next year, at an institution undergoing accreditation review....
ReplyDeleteI hadn't seen the Canadian whining. How many people with a degree in English literature think Moby-Dick was written by an English author?
ReplyDeleteSounds about right to me. My job involves much more teaching and much less service/administration, but that just means I spend proportionately more time grading, responding to complaints about grading, swearing at BlackHole Board, and, yes, creating syllabi and other curricular materials that seem to be aimed more at an audience of accreditors/assessors (and/or administrators nervous about accreditation/assessment) than at students.
ReplyDeleteCassandra wrote: "and, yes, creating syllabi and other curricular materials that seem to be aimed more at an audience of accreditors/assessors (and/or administrators nervous about accreditation/assessment) than at students."
ReplyDeleteAmen, sister!