Where Does the Time Go?

On a recent drive into work, an unbidden thought crossed my mind. Is there a trend to how I spend my time as an academic over, say, a ten-year period? I should know the answer to this question because I have religiously logged my time every workday ever since my first year as a tenure track faculty member.

The responsibilities of a faculty member can be divided into three broad categories: Teaching, Scholarship and Service. The percentage of time devoted to these areas vary widely certainly across institutions. For example, along the Teaching-Scholarship continuum, more Scholarship would be expected at an R1 institution with commensurate low teaching loads. At a community college, there is usually no formal research requirement, and thus teaching would weigh heavily. At a selective liberal arts college, teaching would be very important but faculty members are also expected to engage in productive quality scholarship, although not as much quantity as an R1 institution. These also vary across disciplines and departments even within an institution. The area of Service is much more nebulous and may vary idiosyncratically by individual faculty members depending on their interests and administrative abilities.

Since I had all the data, I constructed a ten-year snapshot for my time usage across the three areas. The chart below shows how the percentage of time spent in each area varies across a ten-year period. A year is marked by the academic calendar (Sep through Aug), since at my institution classes begin in early September for the Fall semester and end in late May for the Spring semester. Year 10 represents last academic year, AY2015-2016, and Year 1 is therefore AY2006-2007. Note that Year 1 is not my first year as a faculty member. Otherwise you might have expected to see a very large percentage of time devoted to teaching. The very first time you teach a course that’s new to you, the preparatory work is substantial.

My time log is actually more fine-grained than these three broad categories so I had to make some “lumping” choices. As a faculty member in a liberal arts college setting, time spent with my undergraduate research students constitutes both teaching and scholarship. As I see it, having undergraduates work in my lab is part of their education and much of my time is spent training and teaching them. However, the time spent with them on their projects also advances my research agenda. I therefore chose to divide this equally among teaching and scholarship. Similarly, my “Reading” time is spent both on teaching/pedagogy and on science/research; I make a similar 50-50 division here. Scholarship includes subcategories such as writing and when I am directly doing research on my own projects .I lumped together all committee work, departmental service, administrative work, and other things that do not fall into Teaching and Scholarship into the broad area of Service.

I had a yearlong sabbatical in Year 5 of the chart corresponding to the upward spike in Scholarship and the downward spike in Teaching. Beginning halfway through Year 7 and running through Year 9, I took on substantial administrative responsibilities at my institution that resulted in lower formal teaching loads. This resulted in the prominence of Service with dips in both Teaching and Scholarship. When not on sabbatical or serving as an administrator, my time contribution to teaching is roughly 50% corresponding to a typical teaching load of five classes over two semesters. During these years, Scholarship and Service hover around 25%. Interestingly, even while on sabbatical, I somehow still spent a substantial 20% of my time in the Service area. I also thought a lot about my classes, and was working on a new special topics Origin of Life chemistry course that I was slated to teach in the Fall after my sabbatical.

Are the semesters different from the summer? Yes, and I have the chart to prove it! The summer (chart below) is typically where more research gets done. Undergraduates working in my lab are full-time since they are not taking classes in the summer. The Teaching percentage mainly hovers in the 20-30% window: some of it goes to “teaching” my research students and part of it has to do with preparing for classes in the upcoming Fall semester. In Year 7, the Teaching spikes because I was leading an interdisciplinary team of more than ten faculty members teaching a new Scientific Inquiry course across multiple sections. This took half my time, while Scholarship fell to 10%. Service was high during the years I took on significant administrative duties. Administration is year-round and never ends.

During the semesters, the trends in the nine-month chart (below) look similar to the twelve-month chart. Service remains roughly the same. Teaching increases by about 10% with a concomitant decrease in Scholarship by about 10%. During the school year, with the exception of my sabbatical year and the heavy administrative years, Teaching takes up closer to 60% of my time, with Scholarship dropping to 15% on average.

Across all ten years, the average percentages are Teaching 45%, Scholarship 25% and Service 30%. Am I happy with these overall numbers? I guess so. But if they were different, I think I would still be happy with them. I suppose it’s because for the most part, I have the freedom as a faculty member to choose how I spend my time – a luxury compared to many other professions. Yes, I have teaching obligations but I greatly look forward to spending my time in this area. Service is part of being a good citizen of the institution and the community. Scholarship is where I get to enjoy thinking broadly about education and science, with the breadth defined by Boyer. The three categories have substantial overlap, for example, I’ve served multiple years on the curriculum committee, something I’m very interested in even though it can be tedious at times.

How will I spend my time in future years? I don’t know. At some later point I might end up in a more administrative role, because I’m very organized and decently good at management activities. Teaching is still my favorite activity by far, and my enthusiasm has not flagged in the last ten years. In fact, if anything I might be more excited about it now then ten years ago, judging by the number of new ideas I get but have not the time and energy to implement. I’ve also noticed that I read more widely now compared to when I was a new assistant professor. Back then, I read very narrowly in my subfield. My interests have certainly broadened over the years. I can’t believe I’ve been blogging regularly for 2.5 years. Where does the time go, indeed?