Although I hold 10 office hours a week, I advise students mostly through email, beginning at 5:30 a.m. with my first cup of coffee. I see and advise students in the hallways, at the coffee shop, and in town. I also hold meetings every other week with two graduate students whose master’s theses I am directing.

 

On Mondays and Wednesdays, there will be at least one and sometimes four committee meetings. Our department had four searches for new faculty this year – a time-consuming, but critical process. Though we are done with the searches, there are other personnel matters in need of our attention such as passing on graduate faculty applications and hiring adjuncts for next year. As chair of the curriculum committee, I take time on weekends to write reports or make plans for our current curriculum reform work. That position also requires that I attend meetings of other committees whose work is affected by curriculum matters. In addition, I am chair of a 20-member committee for the Southern Association for Women’s Historians, have various university and department reports to write, and also write letters of recommendation for students, usually at least one a week. This week I previewed an article for our undergraduate on-line journal, History Matters.  On Fridays, I grade papers and file work from the week. This coming weekend will be entirely taken up grading 110 freshman exams.

 

Since I am at the stage where I need to travel for the primary research of my current project, I find time on weekends to read secondary literature on the topic. The primary research will take up the second half of my summer. For the past three weeks, I have spent a few hours each week on a guest lecture I will present in April. I would calculate that my work takes 70 hours a week. That doesn’t include the time spent thinking about problems in pedagogy or interpretive dilemmas in my scholarship as I drive, wash dishes, fold clothes, or shower. Being a college professor is not a job or a profession; it is a way of life.