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[teatime]

Regarding today's Chronicle essay,

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/07/2008070301c.htm

I agree with the author that there is a tipping point between a moderately heavy teaching load that still allows time for research and a burdensome teaching load that doesn't. Based on my experience, I also agree with the author that the tipping point is between 6 and 7 classes per year.

I also agreed with the author's point that having grad students at RI universities is one time-consuming demand that those at universities with heavier teaching loads lack. However, I'm not sure it evens out when you consider the higher service demands those at non RI universities seem to have especially in their first three years. For those at RI schools, how time-consuming is it to have grad students? And how much service is required?

[mirandaf]

Reading this article made me happy. I work at a historically teaching-focused State university that is trying to move more into research. The more newly hired faculty, including me, typically have some pubs in the works or under their belt, as well as a research plan. They also give small research awards for untenured folks. I've heard grumblings from other profs, 'How do they expect us to do all this AND teach the 4 courses per semester AND do advising AND service AND blah blah blah.' I just want to put my hands over my ears and sing loudly, 'La-la-la-la-la-la-.'  I want to do all that and get 1 to 2 articles out per year, and maybe do an annual conference presentation. Maybe I'll be burnt out in 3 years, but for now I want to assume it's possible.

[larryc]

Good for you Mirandaf, and don't let the naysayers bring you down. I taught a 4/4 load for a dozen years, published moderately, wrote grants, and prospered. The person in the next office wrote four books in her career at the institution. It is very doable.

[mirandaf]

Good for you Mirandaf, and don't let the naysayers bring you down. I taught a 4/4 load for a dozen years, published moderately, wrote grants, and prospered. The person in the next office wrote four books in her career at the institution. It is very doable.

Thanks, LarryC. Good to know. Sounds like you both were really productive.

[polly_mer]

I think the question is not how many classes, but what types of classes.  Teaching a couple sections of the same class or teaching the same four classes repeatedly will be a much lower burden than starting from scratch to prepare for two different new classes every semester.

[teatime]

I think the question is not how many classes, but what types of classes.  Teaching a couple sections of the same class or teaching the same four classes repeatedly will be a much lower burden than starting from scratch to prepare for two different new classes every semester.

Also, I would add that it's the number of DIFFERENT preps in a semester more so than the number of courses. In the Fall, I teach two sections of one course and one other course, so it is not difficult to get papers written and other research accomplished with that 3-course teaching load. But when it goes up to 4 different classes, then it's another story! I have to decide whether to sacrifice the quality of my teaching somewhat or forget about research. (I choose the former option.) I'm a newbie, though, so it will probably get easier after the first few times I've taught a given course at a given school.

[larryc]

Agree with the above--but let's throw class size into the mix as well. My 4/4 load consisted (most semesters) of 3 of the same History 110 survey with 35-40 students in each, and one upper level course with 8-16 students. The prep time was low and I could assign a lot of papers without the grading getting out of hand. A few years ago I sat at a lunch table at a conference with some profs from a school with a 2/2 load--but one of those classes was a huge lecture with 200-300 students and another was an upper level course with 50-60 students. They had TA help (though not enough) and I did not, but it still seemed that our loads were not as different as you might think.

[mmay89]

The issue of teaching and research is not as simple as some in this discussion suggest -- no offense intended to anyone.  At my university, we teach a 4-4 load, and publish, get grants, and do conferences.  But our salaries aren't enough to sustain a single breadwinner family, which means that some of us have to teach additional summer-intersession-intensive session courses.  When we hire a new faculty member, our department has been honest about the challenges of remaining active as a scholar, and try to help when we can.  But what we all ignore in this "I can do more than you!" mode is the importance of family, personal commitments, and the issues outside of academia.  What of the colleague with a family member with medical problems or special needs?  Or the colleague who has devoted much of his energy to service on the local school board and state politics?  Or the one who works for animal rights?  I'm not comfortable with the implicit notion that we can or should "do it all" in academia, or that folks are any less valuable for other choices while working within academe.  It does continue to seem ironic to me that as we teach our students to question hierarchies, we embrace our own.

[dr_crankypants]

However, I'm not sure it evens out when you consider the higher service demands those at non RI universities seem to have especially in their first three years. For those at RI schools, how time-consuming is it to have grad students? And how much service is required?

I'm not convinced that non-R1s have significantly more service.  I suspect that it simply shakes out differently.  I have less university service than many of my friends at SLACs, for example, but I have far more departmental service.  (Larger departments often translate into more committees.)  I regularly serve on search committees (twice in my first two years, for example), which is enormously time consuming.        I suspect that we don't have as much student-oriented service; I don't have to advise any clubs, for example.  But we do have some, such as academic advising for our majors.

Grad students are actually pretty time consuming, in part because they actually care enough about their work to talk to faculty.  (Which, of course, can be rewarding!)  And it's also important to remember that a lot of graduate teaching takes place outside of the 2-2 framework, whether it's in directed readings, preparing them for comps, or working with them on their dissertations.  And, realistically, some graduate students need more help than others.  At my university, at least, this all goes on top of the 2-2.  With a 2-2, the classes are usually 4 different classes.  And, of course, class size matters; classes are larger than they might be at a SLAC, and only really large classes get TAs.   And, while we're on the topic of TAs....I love having TAs, but they require quite a bit of supervision and teaching too. 

All in all, does it add up to as much work as a 3-3?  I don't know, since I've never taught a 3-3.  Certainly it leaves more time for research than a 4-4.  But I also think that it's easy to romanticize the 2-2 and imagine that it would give you endless time to research and write.

[larryc]

Service! Another data point for determining the tipping point, and a particularly hard one to pin down. At my 4/4 service can include community service within your discipline. So as a historian my serving on the board of a local museum counted. But one of my colleagues ended up on the assessment committee--constant meetings, reports, and hateful bullsh*t.

The sad truth is that it is hard to determine where the tipping point lies--and impossible for a new person considering a job at a given institution.

That is not helpful, is it?

[dr_evil]

Let me throw one other item into consideration: facilities.  Some teaching-focused institutions just don't have the equipment certain fields require for research.  I'm not saying that research is impossible, but it can be severely limited by this.

[cyano]

The sum for this game is complex. I teach a 4/4 load, had 7 different preps this year, including teaching 2 courses for the first time, taught a class of 100 without a TA and served on several committees. I still managed to publish 2 articles this year and get a few grants for needed equipment. However, at this moment I don't have a significant other, I don't have children or pets, my health issues are ok, I'm not looking after my parents and I don't have community commitments. I'm early in the tenure track and I'm really enjoying work for now. However, should anything change in my personal situation (for better or worse),  I will hit the tipping point and research will have to give. The tipping point is highly individual.

[conjugate]

Lots of variables here; does a school provide grading support?  Is the grading support competent?  I'll throw that one into the mix.  With more or better graders, I would have been more productive.  But the student graders, who are scarce enough that we often can only get them for the larger classes, have often not had any class beyond College Algebra, which limits their ability to grade, for instance, Calculus.

[johnr]

The sum for this game is complex. I teach a 4/4 load, had 7 different preps this year, including teaching 2 courses for the first time, taught a class of 100 without a TA and served on several committees. I still managed to publish 2 articles this year and get a few grants for needed equipment. However, at this moment I don't have a significant other, I don't have children or pets, my health issues are ok, I'm not looking after my parents and I don't have community commitments. I'm early in the tenure track and I'm really enjoying work for now. However, should anything change in my personal situation (for better or worse),  I will hit the tipping point and research will have to give. The tipping point is highly individual.

An excellent point, plus you have the ability to both photosynthesize and fix nitrogen, so that probably helps too.  In my early years on the tenure track I too was able to work my butt off unencumbered by family.  I still work hard, but my overall productivity has decreased since getting married and having a child...something had to give and I refuse to feel guilty about only working 40 hours a week now. 

[teatime]

However, at this moment I don't have a significant other, I don't have children or pets, my health issues are ok, I'm not looking after my parents and I don't have community commitments. I'm early in the tenure track and I'm really enjoying work for now. However, should anything change in my personal situation (for better or worse),  I will hit the tipping point and research will have to give. The tipping point is highly individual.

You make a good point about one's personal situation as a factor in productivity. I'm in a similar personal situation and spend most of my weekends happily working on research. As a result, I was able to publish two papers, set up a lab, teach a summer course on top of my 3/4 academic year load, and start several new projects. However, that will eventually change, and I would be terribly unhappy if I had to give up or dramatically curtail my research productivity. So then at this point in time and maybe for the next year or at most two years, I can be just as productive as someone in my Fall 2007 cohort with a spouse or family at a 2/2 or 2/3 teaching-load university. However, that won't be the case when I, too, start working a more normal 40-50 hour week. So I gotta think 5 years ahead to my future happiness.