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No, I’m not off this summer

June 29, 2011, 3:00 pm

By Natalie Houston

It happened again last week. It happens at least a couple times every summer. I know it’s going to happen, I’ve thought about it, and I’m still not that good at handling it.

It is a conversation that usually comes up with someone I don’t know very well: someone I’m chatting with at yoga or at the dog park, for instance. They know (or find out) that I teach at the university, and they say:

Are you enjoying your summer off?

There are, of course, lots of different inflections that such remarks can have. A sneering “it must be nice to have the summer off” is very different from the friendly curiosity or well-meaning enthusiasm that most people express — and, thankfully, much more rare. Most people are genuinely curious — and also ignorant of all the responsibilities of an academic position. Teaching is the visible part of the job, the part that everyone knows about. So if I’m not teaching, they reasonably assume I’m off.

But I’m not off. In fact, the summer allows me more time for writing and research, since my teaching and service duties are reduced. I’ve written elsewhere about thinking about this as time away from teaching, since it’s not like I just turn my brain off.

In fact, it’s probably partly due to the intensity with which I work during the summer that my response is to the question is so awkward. If I’m emerging into the world for an evening yoga class after being at my desk all day, I can’t help but say something like “No, I’m not really off, you see, I’m busy researching” or “it’s nice to have a break from teaching so I can spend more time writing.” But it still feels awkward, usually because I wind up answering more seriously and explaining more about academic life than the situation really warrants.

The most graceful response would probably be something like “Yes — I’m going out of town in a couple weeks. Are you going anywhere this summer?” thereby turning the conversation around. But that sidesteps the reality of what I’m doing this summer.

The truth is that I and many other academics work quite intensely, if invisibly, during the summer. Honoring that truth without seeming defensive is still a conversational challenge for me.

Luckily, I know I’ll undoubtedly get another chance to practice a better response.

[Creative Commons licensed image by flickr user kkimpel]

How do you handle such conversations? Let us know in the comments!

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  • http://twitter.com/vivalosburros Jesse Sadler

    I recently wrote a similar piece from the perspective of a graduate student working on my dissertation at a blog I have been working on about graduate student life with some fellow History graduate students. Check it out if you are interested. http://thetextpistols.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/explaining-the-life-of-a-graduate-student/

  • http://palimpsest.typepad.com/frogsandravens Rana

    Given that I’m an adjunct, my first thought is usually to retort “No, not really.  It’s hard going several months without a paycheck” but I will admit that this is perhaps more snappish than the situation usually warrants.

  • dr_dew

    I do something similar, explaining that it’s nice having the summer off from teaching so that I can focus on my research. I usually take such moments as an opportunity to explain the structure of academic work, too: the research/teaching/service split, the 9/10-month contract, the fact that we work through the summer without receiving pay for that work, etc. 

    I like the idea of talking about being “away” from teaching, rather than “off.” I’m going to use that in the future.

  • bawde

    If it’s not face time in a non-home office, many folks can’t grasp the concept. 

    The phenomenon also applies to  lecturers (both full time and part time, or adjunct) who aren’t required to perform research (although it may be recommended), and to secondary and elementary schoolteachers, where the lesson prep and some of the paper grading is invisible.  Until recently, schoolteachers had been doing better than their higher ed counterparts with regard to compensation and some of the public relations issues.   

  • gmichaelguy

    I have the same reaction about the “days off” during the week when I don’t teach. I usually say that I am working, but I am just working from my home office instead of on campus. I’ll usually throw in something about using the time to work on my “own projects” rather than the usual teaching stuff.

  • drnels

    Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said.  It might wake up some people to how things work in academia.

  • seenfromallsides

    The flip side is the arrogant faculty member who, after spending 3 weeks at his mountain cabin over Christmas break, asks a staff person what they did over break.  What break?  I have a job that requires me to be here 40 hours a week except for the one day for Christmas and the one day for New Years and if you had ever had a real job you’d know that.

  • flossyrabbit

    Two of my tenured colleagues – a math teacher and a language teacher – took summer jobs as
    a postal worker and an airport shuttle driver.  As high school teachers, they needed the money.
    The shuttle driving colleague implored me to tip generously when riding a shuttle.  You never know the story behind the driver.  

  • 4mobility

    Those of us in any proximity to academia know darn well you don’t have summers off: whether you do or you don’t, however, is hardly the point. After all, your summers, as overburdened with work as every Average Joe’s, are hardly the same as ours: how many academics do we all know that humbly self-deprecate their chosen lifestyle while quietly delighting in their status as members of a hypermobile elite? Read: while most of our summers unfold day after day in, say, Peoria or Norman, your summers regularly take you out of Peoria and Norman for six weeks or more to Berlin, to Seoul, or perhaps Istanbul. Indeed, to wherever your pleasures may take you — provided, of course, you can still get your work done in that overpriced sublet! In a nutshell: however inaccurately we haplessly ignorant citizens may ask about your summers “off,” you do well to count your blessings. Quit your whining and pony up, people.

  • http://twitter.com/chattyprof Ellen Bremen

    I have my first paid sabbatical coming up this fall and many people have said, “So, what are you going to do when you’re off?” I kindly explain that I’m being paid to work, but I’m just not in class. Likewise, I am not teaching this summer, but I’m still doing publishing work, contract work, Gates Foundation grant work. Friends still envy my time “off”. I envy their concrete vacation time! What they don’t realize, too, is that in order for me to take a summer out of the classroom, I either need to raise my summer salary the rest of the year by moonlighting or taking on contract work, or reduce my 10 month salary to get a balloon payment for summer. And some wonder about profs and productivity? Hmm… Ellen Bremen, M.A. @chattyprof http://chattyprof.blogspot.com

  • jsalmons

    No, I’m REALLY not off this summer. My university goes year-round, on a quarter system. We have “off” 2-3 weeks between quarters. It is more challenging to do research-writing-planning, but on the other hand the non-teaching time is spread throughout the year. People are always surprised since any sort of teacher has the summer “off” don’t they? I have been disappointed that even the Chronicle and my favorite ProfHacker seem to assume that everyone is on a traditional schedule.

  • http://twitter.com/DelaneyKirk DelaneyKirk

    Thanks for addressing this issue. I always stammer and throw out that I’m working on research, teaching workshops at other universities, doing a prep for a new class I’m teaching this fall…but all they hear is that I don’t have to go into the office :)

  • dr_dew

    I don’t know where you’re getting these ideas. I’ve got $100K in student loan debt and get paid well below the private sector given my educational level (heck, I make about 20% less than a similarly situated tenure-track assistant professor at either of the bigger universities in my general geographical area). If Any travel I do has to be grant-funded because there’s no way I can afford it out of my own pocket. For example, I did 2 weeks in NYC earlier this summer; and the only way I could afford it (even on a grant) was to stay in a 1-star hotel and eat pizza-by-the-slice when I got out of the dusty, poorly lit archives and libraries I was visiting daily. 

    The lives of most academics are a *lot* less glamourous than you’re imagining.

    That said, most of us *do* count our blessings and continue doing the work that we do because of our commitments to teaching/learning, scholarship, etc. You’ll do well to remember, though, that our increased flexibility in the summer (a) is related to the 60-hour weeks we work without overtime pay 9 months a year and (b) is *unpaid* for most of us. 

  • drnels

    This part of the comment thread does point at a real tension.  Some people do take the summer off.  And some can’t.  Many of us do some sort of combination.  I work, but it often doesn’t feel like work or is something I’m doing while I have a movie from Netflix running in the corner of the screen or I’m reading something, but I’m on the couch or by the condo’s pool.  Plus, I am post-tenure (not to say that all with tenure can take it easy or that those without tenure cannot; it depends, of course).

    I’m also lucky, I realize, because no one asks me how I like my summers off.  Most of my friends are university professors, adjuncts, or public school teachers who know not to ask.  Anyone who would ask is not someone whose opinion matters to me, at least that I can think of at the moment.

  • bawde

    The opinions of others do matter to those of us in public universities and community colleges, in the sense that those opinions have consequences by shaping public policy.  Those others who have opinions are politicians and voters who are making decisions about funding, which affects employment and working conditions.  Apparently, it is fashionable to bash teachers at all levels of education and public sector employees, and many of us are both simultaneously.  We need better PR! 

  • http://twitter.com/educatoral Alfonso Gonzalez

    As a K-12 classroom teacher I find myself in similar situations. Many of my colleagues do indeed do very little preparation, professional growth, or other similar “work” during their summers. That gives the rest of us either a bad name or at least leads to confusion. I don’t take my summers for granted but I do “work” because there is much I can do to reflect, prepare, research, learn, etc. that I can’t get to while I’m teaching. Then there are those of us who have to work a summer job to make ends meet. I’m close to that but luckily my family gets by with my salary because my 9 month pay gets stretched out into 12 payments so that I can pay bills in the summer. But I, unlike some, don’t take the time off. I can’t afford to because there is always room for improvement and room to grow. I also like to take classes, maintain my blog, keep up with the blogs I read, read books I’ve set aside for summer, and when I get to teach a virtual, online class.

  • bawde

    Sorry about the arrogance of some professors.  Aren’t most staff positions jobs rather than careers?  So once you put in your 40 hours for the week, you’re done?  I am curious.

  • drnels

    bawade, You’re right.  I’ll grant you that point.  I do think that is part of the problem, though.  It’s easy to find faculty who do take the summer off just as it is to find faculty who are working their butts off.  And then there are all of us in between.  The lack of consistency is part of what makes this so difficult in terms of PR.

  • midtownlabgeek

    It’s awkward enough handling the question from a non-academic friend or stranger.  It’s substantially worse handling it (not for the first time) from a non-academic romantic partner.  Mine is a K-12 teacher who DOES “have the summer off”, so it’s been an interesting challenge to explain that I work on research through the summer because I enjoy it.

  • http://brendabethman.com Brenda Bethman

    Actually, the variety of staff positions at universities is vast and many of the positions are indeed careers and not “just” jobs (although I don’t see how that makes a difference to the person asked how s/he enjoyed the break s/he didn’t have). I direct a women’s center, which is administratively located in a student affairs division. I and my colleagues routinely work far more than 40 hours a week, with lots of evening and weekend time for events. In the past few years, we’re working even harder thanks to budget cuts resulting in less staff, but not fewer students or less work. Many staff members also teach on top of our regular jobs. I generally teach 1-2 classes per semester in addition to my full-time job. That is definitely not 40-hours-per-week.

  • vandoesborgh

    I just changed universities after having been laid off where I was a lecturer. At my new university I have also changed roles from full-time (although contingent) faculty to a staff member. Although I have been a staff member at other colleges and universities this is the first time I have had several people ask me what I’m doing with my summer off. I tell them that I don’t get summer off, then they ask what I do all summer if the faculty aren’t around.

    So, even those of us who are on 12 month contracts still have to answer the question and try to explain that there is still something to do for 2-3 months out of the year at a university when not all of the faculty are on campus.

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