For those of you who had the misfortune of reading my post titled "It's time for time," I appreciate you. That post was kind of mis-titled, as if I was a were a headline writer for a tabloid, where the title had little to do with the blog. The post was largely about the joy of the academic rhythm, with a three paragraph digression about time as quoted below. "I have a new passion this semester: I am starting an imaginary activist group aimed at ending the practice of unnecessary meetings, and another one focused on fighting society's oppression of the value of time- I think that time is really sick of not being valued--and I worry what will what will happen if time goes on strike. I am hoping at one point the university will sign a new infinitely long contract with time, providing equity in its compensation with space and money. My imaginary group has a catchy slogan. "It's time for Time". Besides fighting for equity for time relative to space and money, we will fight to stamp out hurtful phrases such as "killing time", "wasting time" ,"crunch time", "do hard time", "got no time", "in less than no time", "it's payback time", "living on borrowed time:, "lose track of time", "the last time" "the race against time", "out of time", etc." This post is a follow up. To say it mildly and sadly, my revolution to protect time is failing. The first question you should be asking is that if I find time to be so scarce and valuable, then why in the hell am I writing a blog? Good question! I can only respond that writing on a blog, and maybe, if I am lucky, having 2 other people read it, is cathartic in its own way and makes me more productive. It's kind of like taking a laxative when you are constipated and feeling cleansed afterwards. I wrote this new blog because protecting time has made me feel guilty. From the time I was a undergraduate student in 1982 until now, I was willing to work 18 hours or more a day and worked both weekend days. As an Assistant and Associate Professor, I volunteered for everything- from making phone calls to prospective students (Syracuse University was in an enrollment crisis when I started), to playing a lead role in Syracuse's MLK celebration (which at that time was perhaps the biggest of any campus. filling the floor of the Carrier dome). As an administrator, the weekends were often the only time to get work done. During my phase as a Ph.D. student, I regularly blocked off time for exercise, but other than that it was all work and little play.. But, once I became a postdoc, especially with an advisor who would drive around at night just to see if the lights were on in the lab, I gave up protecting time. It has been that way ever since. Weekends were to get things done or to do weekend work-related activities,. Evenings were for doing work. Downtime was only available when I just got too exhausted, if there were house chores, or if the Steelers or Penguins were in the playoff hunt.. It has taken me 40 years to figure out that my time is not infinite and free. This is paradoxical because in my first administrative position back in 1997, I worked in a soft-money research institute where time, indeed, was equal to money. For example, if I wanted faculty members to come to a meeting, or do anything that was not related to their grants and contracts, I had to find a fund to charge their time. Most of my colleagues in universities gave me a funny look on their face and would say "WTF?". But, it was true. As an administrator, the State of Nevada covered my salary to run my the unit (though I covered half of it from grants), so I did not have the conundrum of violating the terms of grants and contracts to work all of the time on the "hard" part of my salary in addition to my grant funded work. This year, for the first time in 40 years, I have put a wall around Saturday. I spend most of the day with my wife, though I let myself work for a few hours in the morning. I put a wall around Saturday because: 1) Although not a practicing Jew, Saturday is our Sabbath and I am trying to find more spiritual meaning now; and 2) The real reason: My wife has much of Sunday booked. Having Saturday walled off for us has made me more productive at work and has helped strengthen my marriage. dah. Sunday-Friday UNCG owns me for usually around 75-80 hours during this semester. Sunday, Mon, Tues, and Wed are usually 14-18 hours on campus either in classes, prepping for classes, grading for classes, working my lab, or in my office engaging with students in person or digitally. and performing my duties as Graduate Program Director, member of the Gen Ed Council and a member of the Sustainability program's advising council. Thursday and Friday are usually 8-10 hours each. These are the longest hours I have worked in my career even as an assistant professor with 5 active grants (and who viewed by job as 100% teaching; 100% research; and 100% service) as well as VP,R, Dean and Provost. When I was a senior administrator, I was usually one of the first people in the office in the morning and the last to leave. To digress for a moment, an old family friend, and former dean and university president, told me recently in response to my saying I was tired because of working 80 hours a week, "you still have 88 more hours to work each week." Believe it, or not, that was a pep talk. This is probably the response I will get to this post from campus leaders. I don't mind my hours now, because they are spent mostly on things that reward me with energy, i.e., engaging with the 230 students I teach this semester. I don't want to ease up on that engagement, because that is the most rewarding activity that gets me up in the morning. But, getting home at between midnight and 2:00 AM four days a week does gets old. Here's my problem. Despite this level of effort, I am feeling extraordinarily guilty and frustrated about not having more time to give. In the last week or two, I have been encouraged to spend 8 hours in an "open space" meeting during the busiest time of the semester (the week before and during finals) and just before a major IT switch will occur that will require a lot of time on my end) so that Arts and Sciences and Biology faculty are represented, not because of being passionate about the theme of the meeting. Open Space Technology meetings are meant to only include people that are passionate about the theme. The Open Space "rule" is whoever chooses to attend are the right people- I am not in that group. Additionally, I have been encouraged to give up a big chunk of time on two Saturdays for undergraduate recruitment days (I care about this-- UNCG needs students an faculty can help- if these were on Sunday I would most certainly volunteer); attending training sessions on mental health and anti-bias (I am already certified in mental health first aid, and I can' even count the number of times I have done anti-bias training;) to attend a plethora of various seminars, particularly ones about student success and DEI,. To nominate faculty, staff and students for like 10 competitions for awards and review internal proposals for small amounts of money. And, then there are many recommendation letters for students. In total these non-core activity requests would come close to adding up to somewhere between a half to a full extra 40 hour week during the last five weeks of the semester. Oh, and then there is the invite for the 3 hour university commencement. In 25 years in admin-- every university I was employed at worked hard to have graduation ceremonies never be more than 1.5-2hours maximum. That is another story. When I was a provost and dean, I enjoyed the time on stage shaking hands (as dean I would go to 7-9 ceremonies over two days of graduation)- it flew by. But, after several thousand shakes, my hand did hurt a bit. I felt so sorry, for the families, and friends who really just wanted some pomp and circumstance, maybe a funny or profound graduation speech (rare), then to get to watch their student walk across the stage (with lots of hooting and hollering and pictures) having to sit there for 1.5-2 hours. And, I felt worse for the students who were generally bored to tears with the speeches, the honorary degrees, and having to listen to the chancellor or president talk about the accomplishments of 5 of the several thousand graduates, all of whom felt their story was also compelling. I can imagine how they might feel after 3 hours. When I was at the University of Missouri, we did have a 3 hour ceremony for graduate students, and at Rice we had a 3 hour ceremony on the Rice lawn with temperatures in the 90s and the humidity near 90%. These were not fun. Fortunately, a new graduate dean came in and shortened the graduate ceremony at the University Missouri to 1.5 hours. I don't think anything significant was lost with the reduction of 90 minutes. It is amazing what fewer speeches and speedier hooding can do. I really look forward to our much shorter graduate recognition ceremony in biology in May, 2023 and hope our students and families will have the energy to come after the 3 hour campus gig. I really look forward to just after the Biology ceremony, where I get to say farewell, get a hug from as many of the students I know as possible, and honestly tell their parents, friends and families how special their graduate is to me. That just can't be done at the big ceremony. And, my 62 year old back can't handle sitting in a crowded uncomfortable seat for three hours. I suspect the grandparents of some of our graduates may feel similarly. Sorry, although that seemed like a digression, but I feel guilty for not going to the 3 hour ceremony, too. This is a good Segway back to the theme of the post... The guilt I have now comes from understanding how important the Saturday events are, particularly recruiting students, but feeling like protecting my one day a week is a mental health necessity. This makes me feel like I am letting my department head down (who I am grateful for every day) by not showing leadership as a full professor in volunteering my time for these events and other activities. The frustration comes from a few things. Mostly, I am frustrated by the philosophy of most universities that time is an infinite and free resource for faculty and professional staff (a philosophy I probably had as an administrator-- though I was much more aware of how hard faculty worked than my senior administrative colleagues). I am a little frustrated that all of these events, including the requirement for curricular advising, are not officially in my workload (though all faculty in my department do these things). I am most frustrated, because each of the numerous events, advising meetings, seminars, and nominating individuals for award competitions, etc. are either important and/or worthwhile. Each of these is, by itself is doable (accept for the 8 hour retreat)). But, in aggregate, just thinking about all of them gets me exhausted and makes my head hurt. I hate feeling guilty for doing something I should have been doing for 40 years: walling off one day a week to recharge and be with my family. I am a cultural Jew, so the guilt gene is almost always overexpressed, making me acclimated to its effects most of the time. Methinks, though, the current sense of guilt has passed the threshold of effectiveness of that acclimation and I hate feeling that way. So, I am back where I started. I wish it were "time for time" to be valued as I indicated in the previous blog: "I have a new passion this semester: I am starting an imaginary activist group aimed at ending the practice of unnecessary meetings, and another one focused on fighting society's oppression of the value of time- I think that time is really sick of not being valued--and I worry what will what will happen if time goes on strike. I am hoping at one point the university will sign a new infinitely long contract with time, providing equity in its compensation with space and money. My imaginary group has a catchy slogan. "It's time for Time". Besides fighting for equity for time relative to space and money, we will fight to stamp out hurtful phrases such as "killing time", "wasting time" ,"crunch time", "do hard time", "got no time", "in less than no time", "it's payback time", "living on borrowed time:, "lose track of time", "the last time" "the race against time", "out of time", etc." I am sad and feel defeated to write that I have failed my imaginary activist group. Time is being less valued now than it was even back in August when I wrote the first blog. Maybe time will never have its time to be in equity with money and space. I am scared it will remain the oppressed resource in modern human societies. I wish time was viewed as precious in our culture, but as the Stones sing, "you can't always get what you want" Let me end with an apology to time and a plea to time: Dear time, Please do not go strike. I mean, evolution gets me excited, but without you, it has no meaning. And, if evolution goes away, I don't know what we are left with except for timeless black holes.
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