Me: It’s beginning to look a lot like...— Shit Academics Say (@AcademicsSay) November 25, 2018
My brain:
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Don't say it
Me: ... I will fail to meet overly ambitious fall writing goals
Of course these tweets are usually about producing more scholarship. Traditional scholarship. Disciplinary scholarship. Feeling bad/guilty/like an imposter because you didn't hit some (perhaps) self-imposed goal of x manuscripts submitted/accepted/reviewed? Allow me to suggest another metric that might allay your fears and self-doubts, and better capture your productivity: how much have you done for your students?
As I have occasionally chronicled in this blog, I used a different text for one of my classes this term, necessitating writing new jigsaw prompts for every day of class. That's 29 class days I had to address. In the end I wrote more than 120 prompts. That took countless hours (wish I had counted). I also read 33 student papers, including two that I really love, one among the best I've ever gotten. How many student emails? For my class of 170 I got 1,614 emails. I walked a student to the counseling center. I went to 3 graduation ceremonies. I'm improving on my course for the spring that already is a good course. Work, a lot of work. And I feel really good about it and I'm not ashamed to say so.
This is the job (at least for me): teach well. That's how we should be evaluating ourselves, that's the most important dimension.
Of course, you should do the other things well as well. I'm sort of on record for saying that faculty should do more than just their job. And many faculty do.
Should you get paid more if you do more than your job? That's a topic for another blog.
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