Welcome...!

It appears that Rob is realizing that the world is changing (again). In 1998 when the Online programs began to take off, we also began to recognize that the emerging millienial generation were beginning to follow the lead of the 60’s professors now in charge and shucking the industrial revolution’s trade unionist concept of the 40 hour week. This dastardly millenial generation is now seeking the structure and value systems that the 60’s generation abandoned and are finding new and exciting ideas and combining them with the values of “thinking” on a 24/7 basis. Recognizing this, the “Rob’s” of this current world are amazed that the millenials are demanding that they to learn the new language (text and other languages not yet devised) and be available on a 24/7 basis.

My suggestion to the “Robs” would be to think beyond the millenials and challenge them to new ideas, values, and structures not yet devised and “lead” rather than “gripe and follow” this dynamic generation they have spawned!

Churchill (remember him?) had it right:"the further back you look...the further ahead you can see!

Edward Winslow, A retired Business Professor, at 8:40 am EDT on May 2, 2006

Steve...

Yep!! The only delays in response would be the continued icthyological research that beckons in my old age. Then you would need a cell phone and text msgs. {;>)

Edward Winslow, A retired Business Professor, at 10:15 am EDT on May 2, 2006

I don’t answer around 75 percent of the student e-mails I get. Examples: “What grade did I get?” “What did we go over in lecture?” I certainly don’t check e-mail at night anyway— my work day is over then. Why should I?

I also never accept student papers by e-mail. Grading on line is too slow and I don’t want my department to bear the cost of printing the paper up.

The principle here, if I remember my psychology courses right, is called “extinction.” Enough benign neglect, and the annoying behavior drops away.

I still manage to get good student evaluations.

TBD, at 10:25 am EDT on May 2, 2006

I do all this stuff—answer student email 24/7 (I check email about 20 times a day anyhow), maintain a website and message boards for my classes, etc. It isn’t a burden—its part of the structure of academic work: we don’t punch the clock, except for classes, but the trade-off is that we work all the time, whether at our own research or dealing with students. It’s like housewifing in that respect, or farming.

What’s important is to get the general public, including students, to recognize that. We’re now getting lots of pressure on “accountability” and “assessment.” The subtext is that They—the trustees, the regents, the taxpayers, the government, the accrediting agencies—see us as bums who only work for the 9 or so hours a week we teach and get 4 months of vacation every year. So, we’re urged to do all sorts of busywork of the sort K-12 teachers do to prove that we’re really working.

The thing to get across, though I wish I knew how, is that the sort of diffuse work we do 24/7, while we’re teaching and when we’re on “vacation” is real work. Most people don’t get it because they have to punch the clock, work under close supervision in restricted areas. They resent us for not having to put up with that. It’s important though to get across that we’ve made a trade-off that they might not want to make—we work all the time and are always on call.

H. E. Baber, Working 24/7 is fine at University of San Diego, at 11:25 am EDT on May 2, 2006

Time to set some boundries

When did it dawn on you that choosing this vocation (and it is clearly a vocation, not just a job) wasn’t 9 to 5? Was it the first time you had to abandon your family immediately after Christmas to attend an MLA Convention across the country, or was it turning down your wife’s request to walk on the beach so you could finish grading term papers?

If I end up with students face to face in my office hours, which I do keep, there’s something wrong with the course. I run almost all my courses through web-ct where I post the syllabus, course materials, articles of interest, and any “news” I need to communicate. I can even send a blanket message to them. The students can chat among themselves through web-ct. My students in Spanish civ review 400 slides with commentary and my filmmaking students can coordinate their shoots with their partners. My burden has been reduced substantially. Now I spend my office hours reading e-mail and responding!

E-mail is a godsend. You just haven’t handled it right. You need to set boundries for the students to e-mail you. Put it in your syllabus and mean it. The 24 hour rule is a good one. If an administrator asks you about student criticism, you show him/her your syllabus.

I answer dumb student questions with a curt: Read the syllabus on web-ct.

I love for students to e-mail their papers and scripts. That way they have no excuse for not meeting deadlines. It’s a two way street.

I recommend you use the 200% image feature in Word. That way you don’t have to print their papers at all. And since you’re an English prof, use red highlighting to comment on papers and then send it back to them via e-mail.

Now I can say, “Why didn’t you e-mail me if you weren’t coming to class? Why didn’t you e-mail me your paper on time?” Press your advantage.

I welcome intelligent, late night e-mail. When have I ever gone to bed before midnight as I write a paper for the next conference, prepare my lecture, or edit my first feature film? I just leave my e-box up. Better to dispatch steadily than to end up with a mountain of messages later. You don’t have to write an epistle.

Oh, and I DO give out my cel phone number and home phone. It’s not so naive as you might think. No calls before 9 a.m. or after 9 p.m. unless it’s an emergency. I have to be on call for technical problems with camera equipment and editing issues in the Digital Lab. Nobody has abused the privilege so far. And they can always leave a message on my cel phone.

There’s a quick fix for student overfamiliarity or rudeness via e-mail. When you reply nicely to the student, carbon copy the chair of your department and/or the associate dean of the college and/or student affairs with the student’s message below. It seems to have a magical effect on the student’s behavior.

In my experience, most people just want a little recognition. Be brief. Be direct. Be sincere. They will love you for it.

If you’d ever been a mother, you’d find multitasking doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

And don’t sweat the student evaluations. Relax and they will too. Your publications are probably of greater interest to your university any way.

With all good wishes

NJM

Nancy Membrez, Assoc Prof of Spanish Lit, Culture, Film, & Digital Filmmaking at University of Texas at San Antonio, at 1:30 pm EDT on May 2, 2006

It’s a lifestyle thang, you wouldn’t unnastand....

One interesting characteristic of the Millenials is their immersion into the online world and their lack of distinction between online and F2F relationships. It’s not that they can’t see the difference, but that online interaction has become just one more medium (like letters and telephones) through which they develop and maintain their relationships with others. The Internet is losing its capital letter.

Now, certainly many are clueless and/or entitled, but many of them expect that you will answer a 3am email within the hour just based on past experience with many other online and hybrid relationships. Rather than whinge about them, educate them about your own communication patterns & preferences. Help them understand why, for a person of your age and/or communication habits, not responding to email immediately isn’t like giving them the cold shoulder in the hallway.

Joe Clark, at 3:20 pm EDT on May 2, 2006

Working 24/7

Personally, it never “dawned” on me that an academic career meant working, if diffusely, 24/7—I always knew it would and wanted it that way. My idea was that if I didn’t like a job enough to do it all the time, I didn’t want it at all. If a job is such that you can work at it you can knock off at 5pm and then not think about it it isn’t good enough—at least for me.

But back to my original point: how do we get it across to the Powers and to the general public that we do real, fulltime work?

Academic work is one of the few remaining jobs that haven’t been subjected to industrial discipline—to the paradigm of work for a restricted number of hours under supervision with a sharp division between work time and non-market time, and between the workplace and the home (coffee shop, park, library, convention hotel lobby bar, or other places where academics do work). Right now an increasing number of professional jobs are being forced into that paradigm and there’s evidence that this not only makes work less satisfying to workers but also that it isn’t even efficient.

H. E. Baber, University of San Diego, at 10:50 am EDT on May 3, 2006

There is nothing to be afraid of

24/7 availably is not required nor is it expected of professors. An easy way to emphasize this to students would be to write in your syllabus that student emails after 5pm will not be responded to until the following day and emails received on the weekend will not be responded to until Sunday evening or Monday morning...it’s all about boundaries.

This brings me to my next point DO NOT BE AFRAID technology can be scary, but when the proper parameters are set it works for you not against you. I use AOL to do online reviews for exams. Because of this I have had far more students seeking assistance and I have seen a steady increase in test scores. This also works well for me because I can do it at home...in front of the TV or while writing a paper myself.

Set parameters and then use the technology to make your life easier not harder.

Reebecca, at 10:15 pm EDT on May 8, 2006

dizzyingly true

rob, this year, i was one of those new young (adjunct) teachers at the small colleges that you write about. I gave out my address and e-mail and said ‘drop by’. and, just as you predicted, i regretted it. but at least, i consoled myself as i counseled students who dropped by, my student evaluations would glow about my incredible accessibility. and they did — up to a point. ’she took too long to reply to e-mail’ three read. ’sometimes as long as a week!’ so, will the dean who told me, when discussing salary, ‘you really work only one day a week’ mind telling the students that I had the other six days off?

a.c., at 4:45 am EDT on May 26, 2006