All you faculty do is teach--right?

As I sit here getting ready to go to like 10 meetings today, I was struck with this question. Students have asked me this many times. I also think state legislatures and sometimes just normal random people off the street think that college professors have the best and cushiest job. All they have to do is show up and teach for 9-15 or so hours a week and go home. For that they get paid the big $$.

Yea, that is so far from the truth. College professors spend a lot of time in meetings and most of them spend a lot of time outside of class with students in their offices and their labs. More in another post about office hours and research…this blog is about MEETINGS!!

We meet about courses and curriculum, we meet about budgets, we meet about scholarships for students, we plan for the future, we meet to talk about colleagues and their progress toward tenure and promotion, we meet to talk about grants and research. There are times I wonder if we are even allowed to go to the bathroom with out having a meeting to discuss it ;-)

In all seriousness, meetings can be boring, but really they are important to the life of a college and a department. College professors really are there to do what they can to make sure that their students learn AND have great out of class experiences. Faculty want students to be successful and want them to be able to get jobs, get into medical school, get into graduate school, become teachers etc. These lofty goals and ideals can never be put into place and come to fruition on the backs and ideas of just one person. It takes a village..(OMG, I hate that saying!!).

So, dear students, there is a point to all of this. When you come by my office unannounced, I will probably have time to talk to you. But, sometimes I may not. It is not because I do not want to help you. It may be because I have a meeting in 5 minutes. It may be because I have to compose minutes for a meeting or make a presentation later in the day. So, if I say I am busy, don't feel rejected. You can make an appointment to come back at a time when I can give you my full attention.

Oh yea...and that part about getting paid the big bucks for a rather cushy job...we'll talk about that later. :-)