Week 4: Case studies

A week in the life of a humanities professor

In a typical academic quarter, a professor in the humanities teaches two courses, perhaps one Tuesday-Thursday 9-10:30, the other a seminar Tuesday 1-4. From a student's point of view, it might seem that this allows for a lot of free time, but take a look at this typical weekly schedule for a professor who is also department chair and decide for yourself:

Monday	9-noon	Prepare for classes
	Noon-2	Lunch with visiting speaker
	2-4	Visiting speaker
	4-6	Department meeting
Tuesday	6:30-8:30	Prepare for class
	9-10:30	Class
	10:30-noon	Meeting with department MSO
	1-4	Class
	4-5	Appointments with students
Wednesday	8:30-9:00	Faculty meeting with dean (for department chairs)
	9-noon	Office hours
	Noon-1:30	Continue faculty meeting with dean
	2-3	Readings with graduate student
	3-5	Meeting for planning Pacific Rim Research Center
Thursday	6:30-8:30	Prepare for class
	9-10:30	Class
	11-noon	Meeting with staff person, review budget
	Noon-1	Bag lunch for cross-cultural women's history group
	2-4	Meeting with graduate student
Friday	All day	Research and appointments, class preparation, grading papers
Friday	5:30 p.m.	Departmental potluck

This schedule covers standard campus activities, except for campus committee work, which would normally include service on search committees, academic senate and other committees, etc. Faculty also do the following, often not scheduled but sandwiched in, frequently taking up most or all of the weekend:

present papers at conferences and meetings off campus
review files for personnel actions, review books, manuscripts, and research proposals for other universities, foundations, journals and publishers
keep their own research up and running (this includes applying for grants and writing papers and books for publication)

For your faculty partner as for this professor, time is at a premium. Any new application of technology must either save time or replace, rather than adding to, existing duties.

previous | close window | next

page created by Mary Jacob (msjacob@ucdavis.edu), last revised September 30, 2001