The Meta Meetings

I'm doing a 'leadership' program offered by my college this semester, mostly because it's something I would have REALLY benefited from about five years ago, but it wasn't a thing then.  I'm not getting a ton out of it so far, but I'm also not regretting it.  The assoc dean who leads it keeps meetings to an hour a month, plus the occasional optional workshop.

Yesterday, ironically enough, was a meeting about meeting culture.  I also received results of one of those personality assessment (the StrengthsFinder one).  What floated to my top 5 (the ones they ranked for us) clarified much for me.

My strengths are:  Intellection, Input, Discipline, Strategic, Relator [yes, it bugs the shit out of me that these are different parts of speech]

Here's a description of my first:  "People exceptionally talented in the intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions."  More words about roles:  thinker, philosopher, muser, longer, writer, blogger.  You think?

Perhaps not surprising for a group of academics, of the 26 of us who were tested, this one came up in the top 5 for 12 of us.  It was FIRST only for me and a dept chair in a closely related dept.  Interesting, huh? 

What occurred to me, as I was sitting in the meta meeting thinking about meetings and what pisses me off and also what feels so good about the occasional thing that goes right is that while I have spent much time thinking about my lack of knowledge in my DISCIPLINE, I haven't spent much time thinking about these 'soft skills.'  And I really should.  On sabbatical.

More later.

All the Email

I am on work email these days in the hour of 7:30-8:30 while I am also getting Tiny Boy ready for school.  He does math. I do email. He watches TV.  I do email.  Etc.  Several days this week I woke to a series of emails from my chair that he sent around 10 pm.  And then we began trading replies back and forth in these early morning hours.  He also has school-aged children.  I will say I was quite grateful that last night, as he sent the 5 pm Friday email, he also said he'd refrain from sending us email over the weekend, though we were free to reach out to him anytime (old colleague! new chair!).

I am not saying anything earth shattering. I am struck more and more by how much email=work. Organizing a visit for a guest writer? Email.  Reminding my students what they need to read for next week? Email. Revising the program website? Email. I could go on.  If email is not always itself the method of doing work, it is the method of communicating and disseminating the work. I can't think of an aspect of my job that does not entail some email.

So much of this email work is delegation or trading work back and forth.  I need a conference room reserved so I can check that off my list?  I ask our assistant (over email).  My chair needs us to read documents to contribute to our fall planning letter?  Yup, that's an email (with attachment!).

I'm even asked to do things over email that are not rightly mine to do.  (i.e. random high school kids emailing me for help with their book report)

I feel like for the most part I have reasonably good email habits.  (They could probably be better.  And I need to think seriously about how.)  But as I've been paying more attention to how I spend my time I am quite struck by how much of it is spent emailing.  Because most of my admin work involves email.  And this right here is why I absolutely refuse to accept student work over email (I've started using our course management system for some things but mostly still prefer paper)

How did faculty do work prior to 1994? (For  me, that was the beginning of email.  And graduate school.  For others it might have been slightly earlier or later.)

Anyway, if you have ANSWERS about how to deal with all the email, let's talk!

All the Meetings

In my brief foray into Twitter recently I found this piece on writing letters of recommendation in The Chronicle.  Suffice it to say:  yes.

But frankly most of the work that faculty do is unseen and/or undervalued at least in an immediate way (like, I answer a TON of email and no one gets promoted by doing email, but email translates, at least some of the time, into teaching and furthering research, which ARE valued). 

I want to whine for a moment about meetings.  (Apologies for the non-sequitur; I had my weekly night-of-bad-sleep last night, which I attribute to watching Madam Secretary immediately before bed and then spinning on all the meetings.)  Note:  it turns out I actually had a pre-existing label "all the meetings" which is suggestive of my thoughts about all the meetings.

Let's talk about the architecture of my week, shall we?  Monday and Wednesday are my 'teaching days.'  While theoretically I can work on my writing (briefly) those mornings, in practical terms, I am prepping, teaching, or meeting with students from 9:30-5.  This Tuesday, as many Tuesdays, should be devoted to writing (morning) and course prep and admin (afternoon) but in practice is ALL THE MEETINGS.  To wit:  I have  student appointment at 11:45, for a student whose schedule was tricky; followed by a conversation with a colleague whose class I observed yesterday in lieu of my own office hours/course prep time; followed by a program chair's meeting which I can't complain about really because it's the first of the year, but still; followed by a meeting with my three thesis advisees about their thesis work, including the student who has changed her topic--I kid you not--three times since September; followed by another (albeit short) midterm conference with a student who didn't schedule hers despite my passing around a physical sign up sheet in class multiple times.  So, that's 11:45 am-5:00 pm of meetings.  And when exactly am I supposed to get my WORK done?!

None of these meetings is alone a problem.  And I don't think I've scheduled any meeting that could be handled differently (email, say).  But man does it add up.  And so when a colleague asks me to observe her class a second time even though I'd like to, that's two hours I will never ever get back.  And when am I supposed to write that conference paper?

I am quite looking forward to Thurs  and Fri, which are NO CAMPUS DAYS, and the only two in a row I will have for the foreseeable future.  What I have realized is it is worth stacking my Tuesday in a horrific way in order to avoid campus entirely on Friday, because (a) travel time does add up and (b) my energy level is better.

In Which My Job Prevents Me from Doing My Work

This is the semester that will not end.  My last day teaching was 4/25; my students submitted work by 5/2.  I just turned in grades.  But mostly it is ALL MEETINGS ALL THE TIME.  None of these meetings are particularly onerous; I actually like getting together with people to talk about collaborations or to work on something that would otherwise involve a lot of back and forth over email.

But last week I spent approximately 10 hours in meetings.  And this week I will be in about 15 hours of meetings (a chunk of this includes interviewing folks for a one year position).  And there will be another day's worth of meetings next week.

I remember back in those lovely days when I was an assistant professor and could basically turn in grades and BE DONE for the semester, and have a full month before LG started summer vacation.  Hahahaha.