The best parts of my job are usually the students and I am delighted this semester to be running another writing studio for graduates here in the iSchool. This is a hands-on, write-review-write and repeat meet up/support group for those grappling with their own challenges in getting ideas down on paper. So far so good.
The worst parts of my job are the continual demands for administrivia that the system seems to endlessly foist on faculty here. From the outside you might think faculty spend lots of unstructured time doing what they like, you know, such as research. The reality is we spend immense amounts of time reviewing each other. Every faculty member here has to have their productivity reviewed annually by their colleagues. Their teaching has to be formally evaluated by other faculty every two years (though they get continual reviews every semester by the students in their courses). On top of this, every junior faculty member has to be formally reviewed at year three, as well, and this must be handled by senior colleagues. The latter, in turn, must have their continual productivity evaluated again every six years on top of the annual reviews that they already undergo. Throw in the continual requests to write letters for each other for even the smallest internal grants, review requests for papers, external requests for other university promotion and tenure reviews and you can imagine that reviewing is a full-time job. And yes, this is just one part of the reviewing cycle. We also have continual committee service work that reviews the curriculum, the doctoral program, the admissions, the awards etc. and, heaven help us, accreditation reviews.
Want to become a professor? Learn to review. How else can anyone know that we’re doing our job!