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The Pomodoro Technique: An Overview

March 9, 2011, 3:00 pm

By Cory Bohon

Pomodoro Technique timerProfHacker has covered many different time management techniques, and today I’m going to introduce you to another one. The Pomodoro technique was created by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s and is a time management solution similar to other timeboxing techniques that many programming and collaboration teams have adopted. “Pomodoro” is Italian for tomato, and the technique is named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that can be used to track your work sessions.

What sets the Pomodoro technique apart from other time management techniques is the 5 simple steps and the use of a timer (either a physical timer, like a kitchen timer, or a software timer on your computer or smartphone).

This technique uses 5 basic steps:

  1. Identify your tasks to be completed
  2. Set your timer to 25-minutes (or 1 Pomodoro) and begin working
  3. When the timer ends, put a checkmark beside the completed tasks
  4. Take a 5-minute break to rejuvenate yourself before the next work session
  5. Wash, rinse, and repeat (minus the wash and the rinse)

After 4 consecutive Pomodoros (4 25-minute sessions, or almost 2 hours), you will take a longer break, say 15-30 minutes. After this break, you will repeat the normal process until your tasks have been completed.

Not only is the simple 5-step process easy to follow, but it’s also easy to remember. Because you’re not relying on a complex time management or productivity systems, you could theoretically apply the Pomodoro technique to any task throughout your day, even if you’re not at your desk.

To get started with the Pomodoro technique, I recommend that you read the free Pomodoro Technique Book that shows you all of the ins and outs of this useful time management strategy. The book talks about how to manage your schedule, cut down on interruptions, and even what to do when the phone rings and interrupts your Pomodoro session. The book reading takes around 1 Pomodoro session to complete.

We decided to put the Pomodoro technique to the test, to see if it would change the way we work, or increase our productivity. That’s why over the next few weeks, we’ll test and report back the results of our Pomodoro technique experiment. George will be reporting the results of the experiment from a professorial point of view, and I will be reporting back results from a student’s point of view.

When we report back, we will also let you know any tips or tricks that we’ve run across while using the Pomodoro technique (such as the timers we used on our computers, what we used for our task lists, etc.).

How about you? Have you ever tried the Pomodoro technique? Let’s hear from you in the comments!

[Creative-Commons Licensed Image via WikiMedia Commons]

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  • kevingannon

    I’ll be interested in seeing what results you get. I read the booklet and have decided to try using this technique myself–I have fallen into an unusually deep slough of procrastination and non-productivity lately. Perhaps this will help!

  • http://twitter.com/K_Fortino K Fortino

    I find the pomodoro technique very useful! I use it to help balance my class prep. and scholarly writing time so I don’t let one get away from me to the exclusion of the other. A side benefit of the technique is that it forces you to be honest about how long tasks really take. After you have used it for a while you get very good a assessing how much you can reasonably get done in a day. This last bit helps prevent beating yourself up over imagined non-productivity. Good luck!

  • ianthomas

    I’ve found great success with the pomodoro technique when I can remember to do it. Pomodairo is a nice little program that will track your tasks during your pomodoro sessions and keep up with how many pomodoros each task takes.

  • nsmith1017

    I’ve been using this in various areas of my life for over 20 years. I used it when I was writing my dissertation to chunk the tasks and keep from becoming overwhelmed. I even used it when my kids were toddlers to manage household chores. I would apply 25 minutes to each room of the house. It became so in grained in my kids that they used it to study and manage their time, especially in college. My daughter is now an engineer at Nike and just yesterday morning we were discussing the overload of projects she needed to complete by the end of the day. We fell naturally into figuring out how to chunk them into 25 minute pieces to get the checkmark rewards. I’ve found that 25 minutes is the upper time limit. You don’t want to go any longer than that and you can also use smaller chunks depending on the tasks or the person.

  • ajgulyas

    The Pomodoro app for mac is really good. I started using it last week and like how it interfaces with my task list in Things. I may not be able to stay focused for a whole afternoon, but even I can handle 25 minute chunks.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jimgibbon Jim Gibbon

    I’ve used various timeboxing techniques, but this is the one that really stuck. I’ve found mytomatoes, a web-based tracker, to be a great, simple way to keep track of tomatoes.

  • recalcitrant

    Time boxing works wonders for those of us who are easily………………..

  • coachhillary

    I have a client using the Pomodoro technique and swears by it. Any big task is easier if broken down into manageable chunks!

  • mhick255

    I’ve been using a Pomodoro iPhone app, but didn’t realize there was an app for the Mac that integrates with Things. Thanks for the tip!

  • beentherealready

    Vitamin-R is a Mac software package that supports time boxing and helps reduce procrastination.

  • jackieking

    In 1985 I discovered I was spending more than 12 hours per week grading 12 individual weekly care plans for nursing students. I finally told myself that I was expert enough at grading the FOCUSED areas and to avoid going off on tangents that were nice but not necessary I started using one of my old gray laboratory timers. The loud bell that rang at the end of every 30 minute grading session set me on a course to focus on the papers and not the world of possibilities that could have been addressed. This discipline has held me through the subsequent years and particularly when grading graduate research papers. I could edit/comment online and get them back to students in 2-4 days and then expected the student to have similar turnarounds. Very productive for me and the students. I would recommend this type of time management for many of the papers and reports that we need to consume.

  • jjshapiro

    Your article has revolutionized my life. After having tried various time and work management methods for a couple of decades, three days ago I started the Pomodoro technique based on your article and downloading the manual from the Pomodoro Web site, and it seems to have created an almost magical transformation of my work life. Things that felt difficult, overwhelming, or impossible now seem doable. It is hard to grasp that something so simple could be so powerful. As one of the other commenters mentioned, the 25-minute unit seems ideal. It is enough time to get something substantial done, but not too long to make whatever it is seem overbearing. Not only that, I see that if I don’t use the method, thinking that I’ll just deal with interruptions and trivia BEFORE starting Pomodoros, I get sunk, plus harried, whereas if I start Pomodoros, things seem to take care of themselves. And one can devote a Pomodoro to those same interruptions and trivia, only then they don’t seem harrying. Also, the 30-minute break after four Pomodoros, if one takes the maximum break, is also perfect for doing a chunk of aerobic exercise. Anyway, thank you so much for publicizing this method and making it accessible. By the way, I know that he says that the timer’s ticking sound is essential, but I’ve tried it both with and without ticking, and I don’t notice a real difference. However, since this is only my third day on the Pomodoro method, perhaps I haven’t enough experience to judge, since the manual says it takes 7-20 days to master it.

  • lizgloyn

    My problem with this sort of thing is the thoughts and ideas and things I absolutely *must* do now that bubble up when I set a timer to get a task done – so I thoroughly recommend keeping a notecard handy to write down all those pesky thoughts, and dealing with them once you reach a break!

  • laxmi66

    Maybe the governors should read about land grant institutions and what their mission is (was?)
    Kerr, W. J. , Davenport, E., Bryan, E. A., & Thompson, W. O. (1931, 1961). Spirit of the land-grant institutions.
    http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=2395

  • cdwickstrom

    Or, more simply, have had a real, four-year college education, period. Read the bios of some of our more recently elected governors. Enough said.

  • cdwickstrom

    Or, better still, read the Morrill Act, and its amendments; then, get the appropriate staff to research the amount of formerly federal land in their states which was placed in perpetual trust to help support the funding of the institutions. But that would require a real sense of history, and a companion sense of future.

  • knowledgenotebook

    #1 = Reliability
    …

  • kconrad

    It seems so much more effective to just send these governors to college.

  • sand6432

    Maybe if we had had a little more “critical thinking” at work, we would not have gotten into this mess in the first place. The governors have taken a very narrow view here of what the value of education is, and if followed, their recommendation will lead to long-term economic stagnation, not growth.

  • felixaquino

    I see a lot of denial in most of these postings. The fact is is that if colleges and universities weren’t engines of economic growth, we couldn’t afford to have them and it is certainly not unreasonable for taxpayers to want to get the most bang for their buck. Lest we get too squeemish about our colleges and universities becoming trade schools, aren’t graduate schools already trade schools for the professorate?

  • meinholdt

    O.K. Mr. Governors, for your econ 101 exam please answer the following:

    Identify and describe the rigourous labor-market data that predicted the creation of google, facebook, and other information technology management tools. Explain how this data revealed those job-market changes.

    Examine the graph showing the income tax rate by SES group and employment rate for each group over the past 30 years (I’ll provide the Bureua of Labor statistics data) and predict what new industries will emerge in the next 10 years. What industries will significantly decline from either off-shoring or obsolescene?

  • bigtwin

    It’s about time.

  • 7738373863

    This is more covert anti-federal government crap. Everyone knows that the state schools best equipped to serve the job market are two-year and technical colleges, and the federal government has said as much. By the way, I work at a university that used to mount programs to try to capture labor market trends. By the time the programs were running, the market had gone elsewhere: sheer foolishness.

  • unlvlaw

    Which job market are we supposed to serve: today’s, next year’s, a decade’s from now? Higher education should equip students to deal with an ever-changing world — including an ever-changing job market — by teaching them how to learn. If the governors want more caterers and mechanics, they should encourage prospective students to attend vo-tech schools (just as the governors no doubt did).

  • educationnet2007

    What happened to education for good citizenship? While almost 1/3 of the adult population cannot even name the Vice President of the United States, the NGA spews forth this crap!

  • akprof

    What a predictable and short sighted viewpoint. Actually I think that the truth is somewhere in between what we academics hold dear and what the Governor’s imply. I do think that colleges have a responsibility to consider the economic and professional needs of their states in establishing programs – particularly professional programs. Had my institution not considered that we would not have established our global logistic masters program or expanded our nursing education programs statewide. But there is no real way to tie the needs for post-secondary education in the arts and humanities to the economic needs of the state – if we tried, we’d be stuck with frothy statements about creating a quality of life and an environment that would be sufficiently satisfying to attract new business to our communities – and we all know that, though we have used that verbiage to justify program expansions, we’re really making up the economic benefit verbiage – just as we know that the environments to which we are trying to attract new business have important quality of life issues/indicators. Still I don’t think there is any harm is using “rigorous labor market data” and getting “more input from local businesses on skills sets students need” in setting up programs – but governors need to realize that those “skill sets” may be more effectively developed in courses in history or theatre or English than in a special course within a program major. Gee, what we all need to do is talk to each other more better!!

  • 11122741

    here we go; the 1970′s all over again and the state occupation information commission and various business council telling institutions what programs to start,grow, keep or dump. How did that work the first time around. Higher ed institutions are suppose to be creating the job of the future and educating people for them as much as those of today: this excessive vocational education focus and community college for everyone is going to strangle this economy. But don’t get me wrong, I would really love to get back those ‘dirty jobs’ that were so profitable and most people could do that
    the environmentalist, eastern elites and various corporate wizards exported to other countries. Now we have air and other things cleaner than we need and near starving jobless people who cannot support their families or maintain their communities. Yeah that’s the ticket, I am so glad I live 2 miles from Harvard Yard. I love sitting on a bench watching the smart folks walking by all of the “bums’ looking for a “handout” while ‘taking of Michaelangelo.’ I’m am 70 years old and went to another ivy school and can only say I am still amazed at how people in this country continuously keep falling for the BS and stupid views of our elites and business leader. Maybe the Muslim brotherhood will get a thing for bombing business schools. one can but hope.

  • 22089391

    Says a physics prof. Interesting. You are aware that physics is part of the liberal arts curriculum right? Further, that whole ‘critical reasoning’ part is pretty much a direct reference to scientific reasoning that most Liberal Arts students get from fields in the hard sciences. So, if you find the scientific method (critical reasoning) to be a ‘soft concept’ may I please request that you don’t do anything in your field that deals with high energies or really any other dangerous properties. I like my physicists to think of critical thinking in a very firm and systematic way. I truly believe that scientific literacy is something that even students that want to be accountants should probably have. I find it difficult to imagine that you disagree.

    Furthermore, there is very little push for the liberal arts in universities from students (since those who pay for their education overwhelmingly want majors with direct and short-run applicability to the job market), and from parents (who mostly are concerned about ‘return’ on their investment with similar short-run bias). I see little other than tradition, people with a far-sighted view for the importance of flexibility and the dangers of broad overspecialization in the workforce(and an ear to the skills that employers ACTUALLY say they want – reading, writing, critical thinking, problem solving, and digital literacy), and just a belief in the freedom of students to choose their fields of study in a university serving as a bulwark for broad liberal arts education. The evidence for this lack of systematic support is seen all around us as more and more liberal arts colleges slide into offering increasing numbers of applied credentialing programs.

  • nnnwww

    The linked article – http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/upstate_medical_students_may_b.html – says: “The course is designed to train students to analyze medical literature.”

    I can’t find a description for a fourth-year course on the web site, but the second-year description is:
    “Medical Literature Curriculum (MLC-II)

    This required course runs throughout the second year (along with basic science courses concerned primarily with mechanisms of disease and therapeutics). The Medical Literature Curriculum course consists of a mixture of readings including case reports, supplemental commentaries (editorials and topic reviews) and some primary research reports. The case readings represent a continuation of the modeling of clinical problem solving done in the first year course but are selected to represent increasingly complex derangements of organ system function and a major focus is on the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms. The supplemental readings are intermixed to promote the idea that students look to the current literature for new insights into difficult areas in medicine. The articles selected represent current hypotheses and recent findings related to important and unresolved areas of disease mechanisms and management.” http://www.upstate.edu/com/curriculum/courses/ms2.php

    http://www.upstate.edu/courseware/casestudy/overview/ seems to be an overview. It appears that fourth-year students take MLC III.

  • jffoster

    I too thank you for the explanation. I thought maybe Medical Literature analysis was a course in which they learned to examine a book’s appendix.

  • msimms41

    Last year I did some volunteering for a place called a “talking book library” which is a government-sanctioned institution that converts audio books into digital cassettes that can be navigated to and fro with special players (with Braille buttons).  This is the closest thing I can think of to what the above article describes as being desired by the blind community or it’s advocates.  These devices are a far cry from today’s tablets and e-readers, in my opinion because the appeal of such devices is in the displays themselves.  I don’t think it is reasonable to require a school to provide any more than the above mentioned digital cassettes and their players that I’ve mentioned.  The issue is that the amount of labor it takes to convert audio books to these navigable cassettes is not insignificant and factors into the overall expense.  Not being blind, I cannot say whether navigating an audio book without vision is impossible but I would be curious to see what the human imagination will come up with in this case.  

  • fcslchron

    “See” it in action…really?

    Disclaimer – This is an institutional account. The views expressed in this opinion are the views of RS only and not the opinion of the institution.

  • http://www.wikispaces.umb.edu Christian

    Given that schools already require the use of paper books, which are even less accessible to the blind, forbidding the use of half-accessible e-readers makes very little sense. In fact, e-books are far more accessible than paper books, especially when “read” on a desktop or laptop computer. These regulations are, in my opinion, foolish.

    While these policies *could* be the product of navel-gazing blind lobbyist groups, I’d like to think it may actually be clever seizing of opportunity. By using this leverage to make mass-market e-readers fully accessible, they’ll have accomplished something wonderful: affordable, portable, universal-access e-readers for everyone. That’s pretty exciting. Sighted users often forget the current state of many adaptive technologies: high cost, ugly design, and fragmented market with a relatively small user base, traditionally side-lined by mainstream OEMs. It is a reasonable fear is that if a separate class of audio readers were made (cutting out the expensive e-ink screen) these products would stagnate while innovation continued elsewhere.

    That said, I’m against mandating these accessibility rules. Nobody is assigning any e-reader content that isn’t also available in print, or printable, which is ostensibly “accessible”. It is irresponsible to impede adoption of a new technology that has both high demand and high potential to change the classroom environment for the vast majority of students. Should everyone’s progress be held back for the sake of a few? Though I am a strong accessibility advocate, I don’t believe it is the best path in this situation.

  • http://twitter.com/prof_joeclark Joseph Clark

    Having accommodated students’ disabilities in the past with surprisingly (try it!) little effort, I’m always surprised at some of the reactions these requirements elicit, but I suppose such attitudes are why accommodation has to be mandated. If the desire to reach all students were a component of the instructional design process from the start, cost concerns (and even callow, anarcho-libertarian rants – assuming that wasn’t parody) would be less commonly heard. Oh, and there are already adaptations available for paper texts, so that analogy is not very useful, IMO.

  • rogerwilco

    Equal opportunity and equal ability to do things are two different things. 
    Would you rather have these people sit at home unemployed rather than contribute to our society? I work with blind people on a daily basis and sighted people cannot image the barriers these individuals face on a daily basis. Making a course catalog accessible to a screenreader user so s/he can figure out what classes to take is not a significant investment yet many web developers simply don’t understand the needs of users with visual impairments. 

    With the increasing levels of obesity and diabetes we will observe more and more people with visual impairments. Obese individuals are also twice as likely to lose their sight due to an increased chance of developing cataracts, the main cause for blindness. Some experts estimate that by 2050 almost 30 to 40% of our population will have some form of visual impairment. Putting in legislation now will ensure these people can be part of our information society and have access to technologies like email or mobile phones. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gabe-Gossett/100000400870891 Gabe Gossett

    “The way DoE and the special interest lobbies for the disabled are pushing things, rather than accept the fact that there will be limitations on those who are disabled and work to provide reasonable accommodation, they seem to prefer the idea of limiting EVERYONE!”

    Actually they are working for reasonable accommodation.  That is precisely what this is all about.  There is absolutely no reason why digital information technologies shouldn’t be accessible.  Companies actually make them less accessible on purpose, such as with the Kindle.  It is somewhat like building a handicap accessible building then constructing a wall in front of the wheelchair ramp.  So if there is no reason for these devices to be inaccessible who is really being unreasonable? Furthermore, accessible technologies lead to good design for everyone.

    I for one would prefer to live in a society that invests in technologies and designs that allow all citizens to be productive.  It does not make sense to expect blind folks to go silently live in a cave somewhere because a few of us think that their needs are inconvenient.

    And finally, let’s keep in mind that we will all be disabled one day if we live to old age and benefit from accessible technologies. 

  • electronicmuse

    I fought a lengthy battle where I work to get some readily available “accomodations” for a blind student, and lost. And, I’m not talking about extraordinary things here.

    Much as I doubt we can ever “legislate” or “regulate” truly equitable accomodations for the handicapped, I welcome DOE’s “new guide.” Maybe there is a sufficiently large sabre to rattle now to get some simple things done.

    Regulations that seem dubious on the surface, are perhaps most useful for alleviating egregious situations.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gabe-Gossett/100000400870891 Gabe Gossett

    The problem that is being encountered is that text to speech is being disabled or that accessible alternatives exist and should be the preferred investment.  You are right that ebooks are much more accessible than print already for a variety of reasons, but why should schools be investing in a technology that is inaccessible for no good reason?

  • rhancuff

    Precisely. The reason above is precisely why I don’t ask surgeons to perform my surgeries or masons to do my masonry. 

  • landrumkelly

    Finally!

  • http://twitter.com/rhollingsworth R Hollingsworth

    Terrific news! #KYwomen entries need attention too

  • jefftylerpmp

    There is potential here, much potential. But, for the near-term, how do we identify the accurate articles from the inaccurate?

  • camgray

    Perhaps this move will get people outside of academia to actually read scholarly articles.

  • _perplexed_

    It won’t take so very long to learn.

  • neurojoe

    Most of your comments (the ones that are understandable to me, a lowly American faculty member in the sciences) have little validity. There are many stubs on Wikipedia that are so short or in such poor shape that any editing by a professional will be a vast improvement over what currently exists. Even for the articles that have significant content, if an academic adds material that uses overly technical terminology, circular arguments, and edit wars as you describe above, they will have those changes undone. There are strict style and formatting guidelines on Wikipedia and tens of thousands of regular editors that enforce them (if a bit slowly at times).

    I have been running a Wikipedia stub editing exercise in my introductory neuroscience course for two semesters now, and can say with a bit of authority that the process does work, but it takes time for errors and misconceptions to be sussed out. Undergrads make great editors in general because they are even less likely to get bogged down in “obtuse terminology” and the scientific writing style that many science faculty have ingrained in them. But there are also plenty of professional scientist editors that do a very good job on Wikipedia.

    If anyone is interested in running a similar exercise in their classroom, my assignment page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:NeuroJoe/BI481_Spring_2011 . Feel free to take whatever you’d like from it.

  • neurojoe

    A good place to start is anything with a “stub” tag. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Stub_categories lists many of them.

  • http://twitter.com/wspoonr William Spooner

    Wikipedia is becoming vital for science, even for professionals (OK I admit – even for me). Professional scientists will contribute, the same as professional developers contribute to open source software; with the motivation of such individuals the subject of academic study. What is emerging is the formal collaboration between curated databases and Wikipedia, with the latter providing a mechanism for community annotation, see, for example, the recent Rfam paper: http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/suppl_1/D141.long. So – expect much more scientific acceptance of Wikipedia as the open science movement grows.

  • Lezan

    when will they start charging for their information?

  • richardtaborgreene

    but….pardon the but…….theory is not practice……model is not reality—-do we need lose another $13 trillion collectively at Wall Street’s Fama-based illusions of market clearing?????

  • richardtaborgreene

    yes those who entered the realm as a minority have been essential fixers of folk myths and illusions and pioneer elaborators of topics hardly developed—–that said—–when academics lug their rather gigantic egos onto the medium, and lord it over “non-professional amateur posers” contributors, the medium will be dead—-I predict the rise of academic contributors will correspond strictly with death of the medium—it is unfortunate but it is what already happens to most academic journals publishing, after all, what academics think wikis should include ONLY.   Let’s all watch and see who is right on this prediction.    

  • missoularedhead

    exactly. I tell my students the exact same thing…and I add that looking for footnotes and external links can lead them to fruitful things.

  • Gregory_Sadler

    Stephen Downes is righ, at least in the first part: “academics have been
    contributing to Wikipedia
    for years. Not the ones who read the Chronicle, to be sure, but
    academics all the same”  The CHE  seems
    almost quaint in excitedly noting what has been going on for some time — just not under the auspices of a prestigious professional society.

    When Wikipedia first emerged, it was admittedly quite awful.  But, it didn’t stay that way, in all of its regions, for long. 

    For several years, I have actively encouraged my students to use Wikipedia as a starting point — never a final source — for research, and to click on the links in an article, follow them out. This generation of students — at least in the lower-tier schools where I have been teaching — need so badly to have some sort of cultural “lay of the land” map to adequately grasp many matters and to have any idea where to start with research. 

    Wikipedia may not be accurate at many points in articles — I caution students to be especially wary of articles dealing with contemporary politics, or with religion more generally, for instance — but it does provide a decent beginning place.  And, there’s nothing better than a student discovering that their preferred means of research is flawed through exploring it themselves — then it comes home to them that they need to be more active and critical in their own research.

  • http://billso.com/ Bill Sodeman

    Any Wikipedia user can create a user account and make edits using those credentials. 
    Their edits will appear on the article’s log and on their user log. 

    My Wikipedia account log is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Billso and my Wikipedia account profile is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Billso 

    Some Wikipedia users do make anonymous edits without logging in. This is one factor that is taken into account when undoing vandalism and correcting content in articles.

  • http://billso.com/ Bill Sodeman

    Posting the theses to a wiki would work if the author uses a Creative Commons license or puts their work in the public domain – but Wikipedia is not intended to store research articles,  theses and dissertations. Wikipedia is a tertiary reference, not a library. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/piokon Piotr Konieczny

    Perhaps contributing to Wikipedia can count for an academic CV, see http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/04/06/tenure-awarded-based-in-part-on-wikipedia-contributions/

    I applaud APS for being in the forefront of the academia with this initiative.

  • http://twitter.com/CathyOliva Cathy Oliva

    I love these discussions. I’m for whatever’s best for the student. But is it just me whose skin crawls when I read ‘workers in India’?

  • sand6432

    Since this project is based in Chicago and is not covered by any legal precedents from the Ninth Circuit, and since the Ninth Circuit’s decisions are notoriously on the fringe of judicial rulings (having been overturned by the Supreme Court ten times in a row, mostly by unanimous decisions), Messrs. Abraham and Kopko may not be well advised to rest too great weight on the Google v. Perfect 10 ruling, which is flawed in a number of ways, including the majority opinion’s disregarding the fact that Perfect 10 had already licensed the use of their images to another company, thus invoking the forth factor of fair use, which the Ninth Circuit judges blithely ignored.That said, just providing links to articles in a database to which students have authorized access already would seem legally unproblematic.—Sandy Thatcher

  • nnnwww

    Harvard Business Review (HBR) doesn’t allow persistent links to HBR content in databases. This is by license. I’m not aware if other publishers have adopted the same policy.

  • Trevor_Marshall

    Academics are crucified on Wikipedia. Several years ago I made some edits to the Wikipedia article on Vitamin D, and within days my own WP Bio was altered by adding a photograph of Hitler_ and some text about sexual perversions. Over the last week WP ‘editors’ have been arguing over whether it is accurate to describe me as “somewhere between plain wrong and awfully loony” and my bio has been repeatedly vandalized. Oh – peer-reviewed PubMed publications don’t count – WP will not even list them, let alone try to read them… Please be aware that if you really know something important, WP editors will chase you and victimize you, just for the fun of it. There is no recourse, nobody pays attention to complaints, and the Wikimedia Foundation does not return emails. — Wikipedia is designed for for editors who are not real — If you are real, then it is best to stay away –

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Furmant/100002713613552 Alex Furmant
  • dragor99999

    I’v tried it, and discovered it’s a very good technique! I’v used it to balance my interest in IT, my homework, and my revision together with all my other tests! Love it.

  • http://www.ryanmalone.com Ryan Malone

    I’m getting ready to give it a try.  GTD is getting me stagnant.

  • spinnaker

    Why didn’t he mention this? They lie to the public about how many adjuncts they use. This is two sins: one, lying, the other, acting ashamed of you.

  • spinnaker

    College presidents seem to talk more and more as though they should be motivated by material gain. That this is not only a necessary thing, but a wonderful thing.

  • salchaktoka

    Pretty worthless summary based more on feel-good statements than actual behavior.  In effect the Oblahblah Administration’s approach has been: promote community colleges, and condemn colleges and universities as too expensive because — as Joe Biden has been telling us — faculty are overpaid.

  • betterschool

    cragie,

    If you have not already done so, I would suggest rereading Peter Wood’s response. There are for-profit institutions in medicine, health care, psychology, etc. and many hundreds of them offer undergraduate degrees in liberal arts. Some of these institutions offer only doctorates while other, very different kinds of institutions, offer only certificates and diplomas in transportation logistics, cosmetology, etc. I do not know the exact numbers but I commonly see references to a count of roughly 1,200 degree-granting regionally accredited for-profits and at least that many more that offer only the vocational certificates that you assume represents the industry. In my community, one for-profit is more than 80 years old and has been well-received in the community for that entire span of time. While you didn’t go there, it also seems relevant to mention that only a handful of these thousands of institutions is publicly traded.

    Moving to the other side of your distinction, if you look at the raw top-level SOC classification of the 4.5 million graduates (all accredited Title-IV eligible institutions) in the most recent IPEDS database, you see 890K degrees in health, 754K in business, 359K in teaching, 122K in law enforcement, 142K in personal and culinary services, and 120K in computers/IT. Together, these largely applied disciplines (the categories are not pure but the generalities are accurate) comprise 53% of graduates and still do not represent all of the smaller categories of degrees designed to prepare one for a specific job or career. On the other hand, 354K (8%) of graduates earned degrees in the liberal arts. None of the graduates of non-profit institutions will have a test of gainful employment applied to judge “quality.” Your mention of community colleges could be interpreted as disingenuous in that only a very small number of community college *certificate* programs (5-10 for the typical CC) were included in the 2011 Gainful Employment rules — new rules designed solely to slow growth in the for-profit sector. The token inclusion of a few community college programs was a minor face-saving move to counter the outrage caused by the unprincipled Rules. As it stands today, it would be all but impossible for a teacher to graduate from the typical church-affiliated independent college and secure a job that would pass the for-profit Gainful Employment formulas. Failure would also occur under the costs of an increasing number of public institutions, by my estimate, perhaps 25% today and 50% in two more years. The same failure would apply to dozens of the most common degrees produced by publics and independents. Elite schools, of course could not come close to meeting Gainful Employment requirements in such common degrees as psychology, education, criminal justice and law enforcement, public administration, and so on to a very long list.

  • betterschool

    Peter,

    With the exception of too little said about the President’s focus on community colleges*, this seems like a good summary of the various initiatives, desires, and occasional presidential quips. 

    In a future installment, I would love to see you address how these kinds of incentives have played out in the past. While we have seen some unqualified successes (I would count the GI Bill as one such success), the effects of many federal incentives have been perverse. 

    It might also be worth exploring what seems like a presidential contradiction in praising the diversity in American higher education and recognizing the role of that diversity in adapting to future needs while, at the same time, pressing so hard for the federalization of curriculum and of operational structures and rules as if ED has an inside track on the future. Last year, ED was rated by employees as one of the worst places for federal employees to work. More importantly, ED has solid track record of making substantial errors in developing formulas and creating databases that runs from inception to 2011. (In a former life I provided several corrections per year which they made without acknowledging their errors.) Now, the Department has decided that it will keep its Gainful Employment calculations secret from the regulated institutions, a bad idea in any democratic setting but a disaster for a department that can’t crunch numbers and index simple databases with the kinds of precision and reliability appropriate to high-stakes metrics. 

    —————–
    E.g., roughly 70% of the bachelor’s degrees in culinary arts and sciences are awarded by for-profits. Somehow, the President proposed that community colleges could take over this market. Setting aside charter issues, this would be a virtually impossible task. Most community colleges are turning away qualified applicants in these disciplines.

  • Socratease2

    I don’t get it, sure, formal education in the US is not a “creativity factory” by design and no doubt, K-12 and post-secondary education can work to block a lot of innovative ideas. But seems to me Ellsberg’s thesis goes way beyond merely the anecdotally-inspired idea that dropping out of college will make you more creative and push you to pursue an entrepreneurial dream. If you want to argue that is true for the .000001% of the population to which that strategy will realize Ellsberg’s hopes, then guess that’s fine. Plus, seems like he is talking about one industry and one industry only. The point about success may be a “primitive” (?) one but, whatever, I find Ellsberg’s assertions to be merely provocative, timely to the current angst over economic decline in this country but ultimately a piece of journalistic puffery. Are we to believe that  the 7% of HS grads working in high tech are actually all company owners and CEOs riding around on unicycles in their awesome cool corporate digs while the MA/PhD programmers are hired and fired at their pleasure. Sounds like an urban myth. And when the economy rebounds, the people calling for college drop-outs to save the future will switch to a new hobby horse.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1506901255 Neal Klomp

    Shoot, what about Wikipedia? An amazing, culture changing non-profit that has rather radically shifted the way we think about knowledge, governance, etc. Wiki, a pretty darn out of the box concept, has effected the world at least as much as social network sites have, and it was created by Jimmy Wales masters in finance and Larry Sanger PhD in philosophy.

  • tippens

    Two simple rules, if followed, would greatly improve our lives. If the subject is very complicated or  emotion laden, generally avoid email. Email works well for so many things, but it often proves to be a wretched medium for highly complex or emotional subjects. In these cases, try a phone call or, better yet, meet someone face to face over coffee or lunch. It’s amazing how much better things go when the human dimension is restored.

  • dpn33

    As someone who was also in that same migration mode, I shamefacedly admit that I checked my email anyway. And, in fact, even though we were warned that we wouldn’t be able to access our email until Monday, it was actually up and functioning on Saturday. 

    On the other hand, since most of the people with whom I exchange email were waiting out the weekend, it was rather nice to have so little email coming in. I think I kept checking email once I discovered it was working just because it was so nice to feel like I was actually on top of it. Well, that didn’t last long.

    My least favorite thing about email is your #3 above. I also hate it when you’ve sent an email that is quite clear, and a respondent clearly hasn’t read it. I find myself wanting to reply, “Just read the blinking email and you’ll see the answer to your question!” I don’t, though, cuz I’m guilty of that, too, from time to time.

    Email is a wonderful, awful tool.

  • a_vaillancourt

    It was working Saturday? Seriously? I have to admit that I tried it several times and got nada –I was relieved every time.  

  • tucson09

    …and the second one is …

  • cal_grad

    Wow, email really runs your life, doesn’t it?  Even when you had a weekend ‘off’ (which, by the way, most normal people take off anyway) from email, you spent your time thinking about it?  How very sad!  You would be well served by reading Tim Ferriss’ “The Four Hour Work Week” where it is revealed that he only reads & responds to email once per week.

    Unless, of course, you like the way things are right now….?

  • Socratease2

    Her pet peeves are all valid ones for sure but I thought the essay was going in a different direction entirely based on the title. So Ms Vaillancourt, I give you today’s irony award for breaking your own “pet peeve #2.” You wondered what a weekend without email would mean and then mostly wrote about pet peeves involving the actual use of email. Busted. But perhaps I am indulging in pet peeve #5.

    In any case, I will return to the actual “subject line” and discuss “weekends without email.”  Unless I have previously (and rarely) agreed to post/reply a work-related email over weekend, I simply don’t. From Friday at 5 PM until Monday morning, I do not get on my work email.  I have colleagues I could send (but I don’t) an email at 11:30 PM on Saturday night or 8 AM Sunday morning and they will reply within minutes. I am simultaneously amazed at their ability and willingness to do so but also horrified that they aren’t doing something else. Why do they feel compelled to do so?  I know I grew up in an era when there was a phone with a cord attached to the wall and…well, that was it. No one considered working over the weekend by phone. Now it is so much worse, people actually feel entitled to an answer to their emails or texts within 30 seconds of their puffy little fingers pecking out some less than urgent message. I refuse to participate so I turn my smartphone off, don’t access email on computer and my weekends are great. 

  • a_vaillancourt

     Busted, indeed. “Why Email Annoys Me” seemed too boring.

    It’s funny. I don’t like weekend email, but I do not tolerate weekend phone calls (unless there is a true emergency).

  • a_vaillancourt

     I’m not sure it runs my life, but it often threatens to ruin it. If only it were true that “normal people” take weekends off from email. Alas, that is not my world. I feel like we need to have a big email summit and have everyone double and triple swear to abide by a “No weekend emails” pledge.

  • Socratease2

    I thought maybe the editors picked their own  titles regardless of what author wrote, but I would have read ‘Why email annoys me” as well.  I think everyone needs a timeout from technology here and there. And your point is also a key problem…we would consider a weekend phone call intrusive but just accept text and email as fine. I guess you don’t have to immediately respond to text and email but you know the sender is thinking, “Gee, it has been at least 10 minutes….” and that is stressful as well.  The saddest thing is that I am starting to sound like my parents when they bitched about some social change that I found completely awesome.

  • 11147066

     I don’t know if other faith traditions have an option similar to this that you can invoke, but we observant Jews turn off all of our electronic devices for 25 hours each week.  Because of the context, there is no temptation to peek, etc….I, for one, find it extremely relaxing and restorative.   Believe me, the student wanting an extension because his dog ate his grandmother’s printer can wait!

  • yellow1

    Sadly, I supervise people and parts of a campus that is open on Saturday. My smartphone is live and humming on until the campus closes for the week (about 4:00pm Saturday afternoon until 7:00ish Monday morning). There are rarely emergencies on Saturdays, but there are people working, sometimes who work only on Saturdays, so the email and phone line is open if they need it. Holiday weekends, like the one starting this afternoon, are a wonderful respite.

    When I was an instructor, especially when I taught online classes, I had to check email at least one day over the weekend (I mean Saturday or Sunday). I didn’t promise to resolve a student issue over the weekend, but most of the students in my online classes did indeed complete most of their work Friday-Monday.

  • copesan

    I’ve always hated the telephone, and like email a lot, and it also gives me a lot of job flexibility, but it does take some thoughtful time management.  I try to remember to set a timer, and then shut down my email so I don’t check it continually.  When faced with complaints, re #3, I say I only check email three times a day.
    Re #2, yup.

  • referee101

    If I read tippens comment correctly ;-)  the two rules are: Avoid complicated or exceptionally detailed subjects and avoid subjects that are volatile or emotional.  Sadly, it is #2 for which we use email because we do not want to meet with or discuss same with another person.  Email allows us to vent, complain, confront and condemn in a virtual manner.  “Wretched” indeed, but very human.

  • mjaneb

    I am a heavy email user (even with colleagues one desk away) because it helps me keep track of work assignments, requests for info (and follow up), etc. It also serves to document conversations and agreed-upon actions like the now seldom-used hardcopy office memo. Yes, it can be annoying, misused, etc. but that’s probably true of all communications. Basic etiquette goes a long way.

  • learningnewthings

    I have been a writer all my adult life. When I send emails I carefully craft them and now I realize they are too detailed and long. I typically get the “let’s do it reply.” I think now I’ll try harder to be succinct. Just never thought of it before. Was I in a fog????? 

  • nadienne1

    I’ve known people who make it no secret that their inbox is a disaster, that they lose emails. Conveniently, they “lose” emails they’d rather not deal with. On one hand, it’s difficult to communicate with them about anything: these people know how to disappear! On the other hand, I can understand that their messy inbox is a form of self-defense–a non-confrontational way to deflect fruitless projects or questions that the askers can answer themselves.

  • bdavi52

    We have met the enemy and he is us.  It is not the email which irritates, it’s the fool who misuses it.  We find the Sender who cannot write, can barely think, and yet feels compelled to lecture and prance before the audience he dragoons with massive distribution lists and constant cc’s.  We find the Recipient who cannot breathe without the constant nudging buzz of the digital umbilical which links her 24/7 to the non-events and non-crises of a world which, indeed, can go on without her.

    Email is a tool, no better or worse than any other tool.  When used properly, with control and understanding and a true appreciation of it’s limitations and strengths — it’s great.  But how many of us can do that?  Possession of a hammer and bag of nails doesn’t make us carpenters, it just makes us dangerous.

  • kgodwin

    I prefer to use email for conversations in which emotions run high because I find the resulting documentation to be invaluable.  I recently had an exchange with someone over email that led me to recognize that she’s an “argument appropriator”…someone who starts with a thesis, and when that thesis is disproved, appropriates the argument of the person who disproved her.  She then goes on to posit that this was her argument all along.  It’s worked for her in vocal communication, in part because she argues so emotionally, but in email it’s painfully clear that she wasn’t starting from her ending point at all.  It also made it painfully clear that this particular person is afraid to admit that she might be wrong.

    The whole exchange made me feel much less crazy!

    Of course, there are emotional situations where using email would be crazy – when it comes time to lay someone off, for example – but sometimes email allows a useful distance, too.

  • engrbohn

    In my last job, I’d often advise my subordinates to imagine what an email will look like on a Blackberry; generally I shared this advice when they were preparing a too-long email to go to one of my bosses, whom I knew generally read their email on a BB.  A nice consequence was that by time I left the job, overly long emails (to anyone, Blackberry user or not) were the exception rather than the rule.

  • isenhour

    I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I generally can build up to about 300 emails in two days.  Hard to find the important stuff from the trash despite heavy filtering  and many aliases.

    I evaluate IT for our university so I know I’m a target.

    From 1982-1992 email was an interesting and sought after curiosity, early on each started with a big Arpanet warning, a university address or my .net account actually means something.

    From 1992-2002 it was useful and effective, but growing in volume.

    From 2002-2012, towards the end of this period, huge e-marketing systems have poisoned email.  I sometimes get 4 emails at once all to a different alias, sometimes I call and ask how they know me, and the reply is they bought my address from one of several email marketers.  Sometimes I reply to all of them asking what it is they are doing to me.

    I’ve recently had to abandon an email address as 90% of incoming was trash.  My “totally useless” account name which I put on a special business card, stays in the thousands, and my personal account has about 1500 unread (and never intend to read) emails.  And in ’89 we called it drinking from a fire hose.

    We are also getting highly customized targeted phishing emails, some of these are so good I’m amazed.  It has our university logo, address and a just close enough email.

    I used to really enjoy getting an email back in 1983, now it’s a burden that wastes valuable time, just because someone can blast my account for almost free does not mean that I need to see it.

    A break from email would be wonderful, but you sure pay for it when you get back!

  • yellow1

    I always debate which is worse: Leader talks to a highly educated bunch with empty buzzword rhetoric, or Leader talks to a highly educated bunch like s/he is a pandering politician (as in the audience is operating on a third grade level and has no concern for facts).

    Rob, I hope your situation makes some tough talk happen for a while. Obviously, folks are reading about what’s going on at GA Perimeter, and being in Georgia myself, I am really sympathetic to the plight facing your college. It looks and sounds awful from the outside, so I can only imagine what’s going on in folks’ heads and out in the open. I can tell you my institution went to 6 classes a term for full timers back in the Fall, mostly in anticipation of budget issues, so I imagine a restructuring of FT load at GA Perimeter in this crisis will have to occur. It has been tough at times, but we’ve been able to weather economics and budget cut storms so far. I know you all will get through it, and I think the choice of interim is an interesting one considering what you all are facing. Going to be interesting to watch from across the state at any rate.

  • Socratease2

    Anyone who uses “strategic plan” (doesn’t “plan” alone indicate a strategy is afoot?) or “strategic vision” is also a major turn-off. 
    Especially since their administrative predecessors also had strategic
    plans of action that never worked or improved anything.  If the speaker
    can work in the words “innovation” and “accountability” into the same
    sentence with “strategic vision” well, you know how the game works,
    everyone at faculty meeting takes a swig of Jameson from their
    faculty-assigned flask. The smart ones continue to drink through to
    conclusion of meeting.

  • mertondensher

    Can we also have a moratorium on the vapidly perky and/or meaninglessly self-congratulatory “going forward”?

  • cwinton

    It’s sad that it takes an interim president to be honest with a constituency.  I guess the “permanent” ones have learned to use self-serving and self-promoting terms towards preserving their highly paid, perk laden, positions.  That kind of vocabulary doesn’t work very well for bad news.

  • Brian Abel Ragen

    But if we avoid meaningless buzzwords, how will we write our mission statements?

  • alphab

    I thoroughly appreciated this. I get pretty annoyed at the way email is being used these days and worse yet when it is assumed that as soon as the click is made an answer is supposed to be forthcoming! Am I sitting there just waiting to respond to an email? We really must learn to use this medium more effectively. Thank you for your timely article.

  • girl37

    In a word, yes.
    Receiving long, detailed emails can be quite stressful for the recipient. I often feel obliged to respond with something equally long and detailed, which is too time-consuming, so I put off replying, further increasing stress levels…

  • jring61

    One of the huge problems in leadership in higher education is that most of professors are just as smart as, and know much more about their own fields, than any administrator.  Academics are trained to be precise, to get all the details just right.  Anyone who is loose with language or figures will find his/her research and teaching rejected.  But leaders, including those in academic institutions, must deal with imprecision.  Decisions must constantly be made when there it is impossible to get all the facts. 

    Nonetheless, the author is quite right about the added burden of trying to cover over lack of complete information, not to mention unpleasantness, with cliches.  I share the angst over the term “team.”  I take it as a given that things go better when all parties share a common goal and are able to set aside, even temporarily, personal ego to achieve that goal.   However, as the author says, the team metaphor raises real questions of authority.  I don’t readily call to mind anything more authoritarian that a team sport.  The coach has total authority to make decisions and to punish, without discussion or review, any player who has reservations.  The key difference is that athletic coaches are assumed to be more knowledgeable than the players.  Not so in the relationship between faculty and administration.

    My favorite cliche is “thinking outside the box”!  

  • jandam

    Dear Rob:

    Thanks for an interesting article. While I see your point in terms of the disingenuous nature of college leaders, I can also see that your view of organizations is not exactly where it should be, for whatever reasons. I am however disappointed by the depth of your view about certain terms, phrases, and sentences, which you have aptly whined about. As a fellow faculty ( not in leadership), your misunderstanding of these terms is very telling, as it raises for me the extent of your understanding and commitment to your organization’s mission an goals. For example,

    You said “Although the term may at first seem completely innocuous, on further
    consideration it raises a number of questions: If we are a team, does
    that mean the leader is our coach? And if so, are we, therefore, utterly
    accountable to him or her alone? What if one individual doesn’t go
    along with the team? Might he or she be cut?”

    Teams do not necessarily need coaches. Thus, your leader is not your coach. Teams in the sense in which you have conveyed the information, attempts to convey a sense of “unity of purpose”. This is by no means a strange perspective in organizations outside of academia or organizations that exist in the “real” world. The leader’s job is mostly to drive home the importance of “share meaning and purpose”. Team dynamics will always demand that the team forge a workable union by going through the team development process of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. And if an individual is incapable of working with the team, then they will need to find other teams to become a part of. If you have a mission statement, then all hands need to be on deck. Those hands should share a “unity of purpose” and thus function on a team based system. So, I am not sure why anyone should think that the department needs them more than they need the department, as though the institution owes them a duty to ensure they are always part of the team. However, all this assumes that the leadership is honest about its true intent for teamwork. So, your cynicism here is very questionable.

    You also said, “Even worse is the word “family.” It always makes me slightly
    uncomfortable when someone to whom I am not even particularly close, and
    to whom I am certainly not related, refers to me as family. And once
    again, use of the word in a professional setting raises obvious
    questions: If we’re a family, then who is the parent? And what happens
    to us if we’re bad?”

    Again, your comment here about family, harkens back to either your resistance or lack of understanding of the idea of “unity of purpose”, as I had described earlier, which is fundamental in organizations reaching their goals and objective. If you feel so disconnected when you are called upon to serve as a team, which you already are because of the existence of a mission statement in your department, then I raise the comment once more, “it raises for me the extent of your understanding and commitment to your organization’s mission an goals.” Whether you like it or not, you are part of a team or family. Of course, you are always free to cut loose your association with the family or team. And, contrary to your emotional feelings about what is professional or not, in the “real world” the terms, “family” and “team” are used fairly frequently in settings where high goals and expectations are required. Unfortunately, beyond the questionable and fickle tenure system in most school systems, demands for professionalism and high expectations are almost non-evident in academia. If you have ever served in the military, as I have, you will come to appreciate what I mean here.

    So Rob, I would advice you think differently about these emotional responses. Whether you like it or not, or however it is used or conveyed, those are terms used in the real or professional world. I am not sure why anyone would buy into the emotional response, if not to assure us of how fickle the academic environment really is. If you have disdain for the idea of teams then you probably do have disdain for some aspects or all aspects of your departments goals, mission, and mission statement. If you think otherwise, I would very much love to hear your perspective on all of this.

  • a_vaillancourt

    Responding to emotionally volatile issues via email is a tricky thing. My general practice is to attempt to deescalate the conflict via email (thus documenting my attempt to be reasonable) and then request an opportunity to discuss the issues by phone or in person. Some people seem to delight in nasty email debates. When this happens, I try to break the cycle. “As I mentioned in my last message, I really think a conversation would help us move forward.” “As I mentioned in my last email, I want to understand your concerns and would appreciate an opportunity to discuss them in person.” “I know you are incredibly busy, but an email exchange doesn’t seem to be the right medium for resolving our differences. When can we get together to iron things out?” 

  • 3rdtyrant

    Lao Tzu:

    “With the greatest leader above them, people barely know one exists.
     Next comes one whom they love and praise.
     Next comes one whom they fear.
     Next comes one whom they despise and defy.”

    We have all been varyingly close to despite and defiance, and have found that one way to alleviate the horror is buzz-word bingo.  We have a match every time there is a faculty meeting where we believe that out of the miasma of platitudes and meaningless cliches we will get some smattering of useful or interesting information.  It helps.

  • theart

     Just once, I want to hear someone tell me what they’re going to do “going backward”.

  • oh_richard

     A “plan” is something we’re going to do.  A “strategic plan” include a sub-plan for escaping blame when it goes bad..

  • 5768

    Considering that we speak of surfaces that “team with bacteria,” of “secret agents,” “chump change,” and the fact that the vast majority of families in the US are “broken” or simply dysfunctional, administrative argot reveals a great deal more than it attempts to say.

  • Socratease2

    “…his tireless, multidimensional campaign to reach students….”

    Multidimensional campaign was my favorite out of that link, sounds so active. i am going to work that into my speech more often, as in “I am really making a multidimensional effort to understand what your point is.” 

  • ffidura

    This sounds like the junk I heard in my last leadership seminar.

  • yellow1

    Now that GA Perimeter’s (Rob’s school) plan to make up that budget issue/error/whatever has been announced, I can assure you that they are living in the real world.

  • 3rdtyrant

    Are you willing to admit that your assumptions about team-playing-as-the-highest-ideal could be erroneous?  One could mention a number of historical anecdotes where people were great team players, but still essentially immoral.

    Furthermore, your assumption that the stated goal of any given university is the best or the most virtuous goal for the university  is plainly wrong.  While we can assume safely that there are intelligent administrators out there, we also must accept that their opposites exist as well, and that merely appending a mission statement to something is hardly an indication of its reasonableness, virtue, or utility.

    Finally, since when is the university not the real world?  Are the ideals of public and private virtue somehow unreal?  Is the idea that the will of an administration ought not go unchallenged somehow inapplicable in, say, constitutional governments or democracies?

    Despite your protestations to the contrary, it is obvious that you either are an administrator or aspire to be one, because, of all the colleagues I have or have had, I have never known anyone to be so blatant in their unwillingness to challenge their own assumptions or to rely so blindly on the benevolence or intellect of an administration or mission statement.

    So, I think Rob is probably on the right track, despite your efforts to “advice” him and despite your failure to see his point.  If you fail to see the value in multiple perspectives, in academic freedom, in willing self-assessment, or in entertaining an idea even if you don’t adopt it, then perhaps the flaw isn’t in Rob’s reasoning, despite your condescending tone.

  • jandam

    Socratease2:

    Fortunately, I addressed your concerns about dysfunction in the family, in my comments, by suggesting, “Team dynamics will always demand that the team forge a workable union by
    going through the team development process of forming, storming,
    norming, performing, and adjourning” Thus, dysfunctions are expected as my comments suggest, but they can also be worked on by focusing the group on the mission and goals of the organization, unlike a typical home family. Find out more about the team development process.

    Secondly, my job as faculty, where thinking and intellectual work is required, is the easiest job I have ever done in my life, and I have done lots of pretty interesting things in my life time. Nothing is this easy in the “real” world. The “real world” is tougher. I engage in doctoral dissertations which can be a tedious task, given lots of reading, and yet, it does not come close to the challenges of the “real world” Perhaps, all these academic stuff is easy for me because I enjoy intellectual engagement.

    Finally, after service in the military, I quickly learned the true meaning of teamwork, conscientiousness, and ethics. If you have ever served in the military, you will come to appreciate what professionalism and ethics really means. And I am not sure how your length of teaching service prepares one to be professional and ethical at all times. I do not see the link.

     

  • jandam

    3rdtyrant:

    Somewhere along the line, you, and many more confused faculty out there, will have to first accept that you have an employee-employer relationship. This means you are first and foremost, an “EMPLOYEE.” In that relationship, especially in these tough economic times, the exchange of your labor as an employee for a fee from your employer, is all that matters. Your labor involves shaping minds. The term “faculty” is just a way to stroke egos or make many feel happy about the color of the flowers in their gardens or how bright the sun is on that particular day.

    This means, part of your contract does not require you to play politics or decide what form of political movement you will like to engage in the workplace. If there is any part of our contract that states you can do this, please show it to us so that we can all see. Your political goals are yours, once you are done teaching your classes or performing tasks clearly stated in your job description and contract. Your classroom is your workplace and your association with the university is on a contract basis which can be terminated once you fail to work with the institution as a team.

    If you have disdain for college authority, then you are free to take your intellectual assets elsewhere, where you may engage in acts that suit your purposes. With the university, you essentially have a deal—do your job and you get paid. Period. Now, how is that for the “real world”?

  • mzmaccalarian

    Are you saying that only serving in the military can teach people “the true meaning of teamwork, conscientiousness, and ethics”?

  • jandam

    Mzmaccalarian:

    No. Not at all. I was simply responding to Socratease2.

  • mzmaccalarian

    “Do more with less” is my least favorite buzzword/cliche. You cannot do more with less; you can only do less with less. Having to do less means that priorities will have to be set, clearly communicated and adhered to, and that there will be losers in the priorities lottery.

  • mzmaccalarian

    jandam:

    Good, because my parents damn well taught me to be conscientious and ethical, and I learned about teamwork as a high school athlete. Unfortunately, my Vice-Provost doesn’t seem to have any real comprehension of what those things entail.

  • robjenkins

    I’m feeling awful now for suggesting that sometimes administrators condescend to faculty. Your posts, jandam, have shown me the error of my ways.

  • superdude

    This article is typical of faculty who wish to distance themselves from any responsibility beyond their own narrow self-interest.  Are we faculty not part of a department?  Part of a college or university?

    Do we not wish to have a say in how the department, college, or university operates?  Are we not interested in the well-being of our department, college, or university?  Of course we do; therefore we are a “team”.  Thus, appeals to coordination, teamwork, and cooperation are not misplaced or misguided.  They are simply calls to set aside personal rivalries, petty grudges, or narrow self-interest and work on a project that might make the larger whole a little better.

    But, perhaps the author is “that” faculty member who shows up at meetings, complains loudly, and then never does anything about the situation he’s complaining about (you know we all have “that” guy on campus).  They’re not respected by either their fellow faculty or the administration, so I submit that we perhaps shouldn’t listen to this author.

  • robjenkins

    “Perhaps the author is ‘that’ faculty member who shows up at meetings, complains loudly, and then never does anything about the situation he’s complaining about.”

    Or perhaps not.

  • jandam

    Graddirector:

    Very well said. Point taken. I agree with what you have said. While there are very few effective leaders out there (I speak from my personal experience), most of us are saddled with the sort of leadership that “belittles”, as described by the article. And in the event that under these circumstances, there are more faculty members who DO NOT CARE than those WHO CARE, then what happens to the mission and goals of the department? Do we stay and fulfill the goals of the department whether we care or not, or do we move to other greener pastures with our intellectual gifts? If we choose to stay, what good is it to worry about the leadership style, which for more reasons than one, will most likely be questionable?

    My view is that the goal of the department is much greater and larger than the leader itself, although the leader can modify and direct the fulfillment of those goals. So, does it really matter whether the department has a leader or not, or whether the leader is effective or not? To challenge the leader on whether they are effective or not, simply based on their leadership style, can appear insulting to an administrator charged with leading a department, in the same way that faculty might perceive certain terms that same leader may deploy, as “belittling” and insulting.

    Thus, challenging a leader based on the goals and mission of the department is a far better and more productive channel than worrying about the leadership style, or whether it is effective or not. Thus, focusing on issues of intellect such as strategy, could be a more productive route for faculty to voice their concerns. To this end, the leader can say or deploy all the crazy terms they are capable of creating in their minds, and yet will ultimately have to deal with a faculty that challenges the strategy in fulfilling the mission of the department. Unfortunately, many faculty are yet to see the power of challenging strategy. What say you?

  • jandam

    Yellow1:

    I agree. Remember that few of us ever get to live in the type of real world that Rob’s school may be experiencing.

  • superdude

     Your sarcastic “responses” to all the critiques of your post suggest that I’m right.  My guess is that you are a disaffected and non-participatory faculty member, one who is content to lob bombs, but not one to actually *do* anything about making your institution better.  Your responses have been utterly devoid of content (and your initial article wasn’t much more than whining).  What have you got?

    Cue trite response about me being a toady for administration in 3, 2, 1…

  • graddirector

     Unfortunately,  departmental and university goals can be completely derailed by ineffective leadership.  Even though I do care, it is very difficult to “stay motivated” to pursue goals when you realize that they  are only supported by lip service instead of in actuality (the laudable goal which is supported by no budget).  I just got burned in this way by spending a large amount of time on one of these goals which was stated by the upper level administration and enthusiastically (and genuinely) promulgated by a low level administrator.  However, after alot of effort, it turns out that no resources were committed to the goal so I wasted my time (even after asking said upper level administrators whether there was room in the budget, turns out that there never was).

     It is also difficult to stay motivated when you work on a stated goal of the upper level administration, but instead of receiving support (or even a pat on the back), you have to fight every step of the way to get budget and administrative models in place to actually get it to work (in one case this required a very very heated argument with a dean mediated by a institute director to get this done).  In that case, it is very easy to say “why bother”.  Since I am the type of person to usually finish what I start, this has not prevented my programs from happening, but when I think of how much time I have wasted dragging administrators from their weasel words into reality, I want to scream.  Oh for an administrator with both vision and a practical understanding of how to actually motivate creative people.  Many of my colleagues would be willing to work on these type of things, but they are unwilling to do so when their efforts are so often wasted.
     

  • graddirector

     As someone who does do stuff, I see your point about some of my colleagues current behavior. However, also as someone who does stuff, I can understand why they would not bother.  Most of my colleagues have taken the reins of some initiative, idea or task force at one time or the other.  In most of these cases, this effort died, not at the faculty level, but due to a dropped ball by an administrator or due to a “final task force report” which remained in a drawer instead of affecting policy at my institution.  Once enough of this has happened, it is not at all surprising that folks are dis-motivated to work on anything else. Why take on anything beyond your basic job duties if the result is completely wasted effort.  This is why I avoid large swathes of service “opportunities” at my institution that deal with issues that my “leadership” is particularly prone to just play lip service to.

  • robjenkins

    My responses have been sarcastic because a) it’s fun; and b) people who are stunningly condescending and tone-deaf (like jandam) and people who leap to ridiculous and unsupported conclusions about someone they don’t even know (like you) deserve sarcastic responses.

    In point of fact, I’ve been in this profession for 27 years. I’ve worked at six different schools in four states. I was a department chair for seven years, and I’ve also been an academic dean and director of two large programs. I’ve been a member of and was elected chair of a faculty senate, and I’ve served at least once on just about every committee there is, chairing probably half of them at one point or another.

    Through it all, what I’ve  learned is not only that I prefer leaders who avoid meaningless cliches but that those who embrace that sort of rhetoric are rarely effective. I’ve also observed that, when it comes to community college leaders, the latter make up the overwhelming majority, which is why I found it so refreshing to encounter one of the former. I may be somewhat disaffected at this point in my career, but that is certainly not without reason. And I haven’t stopped trying to “do something” about the problems I perceive: I’m writing about them, for a national publication, using my own name (although I’m thinking about changing it to “superrob”).

    Finally, the fact that so many of the comments here echo my sentiments suggests that I am not nearly as far off base as you and jandam suggest.

    Rob

  • jandam

    robjenkins:

    I am unsure if your comments are heartfelt or another attempt at sarcasm. I have no plans to be a college administrator. I am very content just being a faculty member. I really do get tired of faculty whinnings. It upsets me a great deal.

  • jandam

    robjenkins:

    Just got thinking about your comment again: 27 years in the same industry. This is amazing! How do you convincingly teach students with a vast set of experiences in just one narrow industry? Are your classes exciting at all? I say this because this may account for the reason why you are unaware that in many industries, or the “real world”, terms such as “family” and “team” are used very often, with the intent of actually helping the organization meets its goals and objectives. It should not be a source for discomfort for any experienced individual.

    Rob, in the last 20 years, I have worked in the aviation industry, food industry, oil industry, Auto industry, military, government services, financial industry, and education industry. So, you see, its pretty hard for my students to get bored in my class as I bring these experiences to the class each day. It has been exciting learning so much about other industries and how they do things. What we need these days is faculty with substantial experience in many other industries, to help shape our colleges and university. Those steeped in college traditions will become dinosaurs very soon. Just a thought!

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