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[fuzzer]

Hi All,

I'm ABD and currently hoping to enter the academic world soon. Please be patient with my newbie questions.

I have campus interviews set up this month for two TT assistant prof positions. One position has a 3:3 load, while the other is on the quarter system and has a 2:3:2 load. How do these teaching loads compare?

Some side information, at the 3:3 school, i would be teaching masters students only. This school also appears to have a greater research emphasis - therefore, I was surprised the load was 3:3.  The 2:3:2 school is a liberal arts undergraduate university with lots of emphasis on quality teaching and mentoring.

I love teaching, but yeah, having time to publish is nice too.

Thanks!

[snowbound]

Hard to give a helpful reply on this, unless one has worked both types of schedules and can compare these apples and oranges.  One important consideration is number of preps, which you don't mention (and probably don't know yet). 

[prof22]

I had experience in both systems as a student and instructor.  

You may want to consider class sizes and number of preps.  I'm assuming the 3-3 would have smaller class sizes (all grad classes).  When I think of undergraduate liberal arts college, I immediately think of a lot of preps.  If that's the case, 2-3-2 would be less desirable for me.  

Regardless of semester or quarter system, you will be teaching for 30 weeks:
Semester System:  15 weeks in fall / 15 weeks in spring
Quarter System: 10 weeks in fall / 10 weeks in winter / 10 weeks in spring

Technically, I think you would have less class time on the quarter system.

You may want to observe the difference between winter and summer breaks.  I'm on the semester system and currently getting some writing done over the winter break (my preference); however, if I was on the quarter system, I would be heading to the classroom this Monday.

Also, the quarter system can be so quick.  If you do final project of some sort, you must dive right into it before the course ends.  As you probably can  tell, I tend to favor the semester system.  

[ls410]

I did my undergrad at a quarter school and still miss it.  True the winter break was super short but the summer break was long (spring finished late May and fall didn't start until the end of September).  Some quarter schools flip-flop that: start at the normal time in August and then end at Thanksgiving.  But there is no time to spare with quarters - I would have exams in the second week of classes. 

[msparticularity]

I think the difference might be not so much about load, per se, but about the teaching/mentoring expectations at the two places. I teach all grad students, with a 2/2 reduced load at the moment, in a department where 3/3 is the norm. The thing is, though, all of us have a requirement for 6 office hours per week, and that's really it; there is no expectation that we will be in and available for the majority of weekday hours, aside from normal meetings and other service commitments. This means that I am able to set aside one full day per week for research, and that I can also do a lot of my work from home, since my home office is much quieter than my departmental office.

At an undergrad liberal arts institution, by contrast, there can be very significant expectations as to "face time." At my daughter's SLAC, for example, she can pretty much drop into her major department at any time and count upon finding faculty around to talk to--unless they are teaching at that moment. All of the students write a senior thesis, as well, so there is significant research mentoring involved for all faculty. And in the sciences, the undergrad research is generally expected to be at a level that will lead to conference presentations--again overseen by faculty. At the same time, her classes are much, much smaller than those I teach. It is not unusual for an upper-division class at my daughter's SLAC to have only 6-8 students, while my master's classes have a cap of 25, and often are up close to that--which is a lot for a graduate research course.

I suggest that when you interview, you talk to faculty members about what their typical weeks "look" like: how much time do they spend in class, prepping and grading, seeing students, in meetings, and so on. And how do they manage their research; do they involve students in everything they do, and/or can they set aside one day per week? I, too, interviewed at very different schools, and I got good and interesting information from faculty about these questions. (It's important to come across as genuinely interested in their lives, of course, rather than critical.)

[lyndonparker]

MsParticularity is spot on with her advice. I teach at a SLAC and a great deal of face time is expected. I certainly am at the high end of time spent in my office, but most weeks I am in six days for about eight hours each. I love that though--I love students dropping in and enjoy being able to bounce ideas off of my colleagues. If those interactions make you cringe, this wouldn't be the place for you. The expectation to be there is flexible, and certainly I have colleagues who work one day a week at home, but someone who wanted to spend very little time in the office probably would not be happy here. 

I might also consider the student profile at the two institutions--who would you be teaching? We work with a residential, traditional-aged undergraduate population with average ACT scores of 30. That group presents different rewards and challenges than working with adult learners who have been out of school for several years (or decades). One group is not better than the other, but many have a preference for which group they would prefer to teach. 

[fuzzer]

Thank you all for your excellent thoughts. I have a much better grasp on the positives and negatives, and where direct my questioning during the campus interviews.

[temporaryname]

I've taught both of these (though at the 2:3:2 place it was easy to get it changed to 2:3:1 with light service work--sometimes it was worth it, sometimes it wasn't). As others have said, it depends entirely on the number of preps, and how much student hand-holding interaction that's expected of you.

Both of them take up a lot of time, but neither is horrible unless the preps are high.