Faculty at research universities often feel challenged to keep up with everything … They have to teach, learn, research, write, mentor, advise, administrate, serve on committees, not to mention keep some semblance of a personal life. With that in mind, UCITE collected resources that promote productive behaviors and time-saving habits.
- “Life is full of dead time: waiting in offices, waiting in airports, waiting before a lecture, waiting on the bus. Dead time adds up ...Carrying around a thin tablet holding all of the research papers you have read (and the ones you want to read) salvages otherwise wasted time.” - Learn more from Matthew Might at Productivity tips, tricks and hacks for academics.
- Determine whether labor-intensive grading leads to better student outcomes, suggests Kerry Ann Rockquemore, President at National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity. “Why not just ask your students if they want comments on their final papers? If they do, great! If they don’t, give them a grade and move on.” - See more at How to Thrive Amid Academic Chaos.
- David D. Perlmutter has three articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education that are especially valuable for junior faculty. He warns that spending time on things that look good and interesting may not help career goals. The three articles deal with teaching, service, and research.
- “Write what you know … Teaching a new course in Egyptology, based on your recent trip to Egypt? Write a paper about hieroglyphics for the Journal of Egyptology. Write an article for the alumnae magazine about your trip. Present a paper about your teaching experience at a conference. Write a teacher's guide to accompany your new textbook. Turn your inventive syllabus into a book outline.” - Time-Saving Tips by author Michael Arnzen.
- “Always schedule every bit of your time. Going to the office in the morning without having an accurate plan of how you will spend your day is a sure way to waste time … Scheduling time does not mean that you have to meet with somebody, but it could just be free thinking time that you can spend to read a paper or to think about your research,” is just one suggestion from Time Management for New Faculty by Anastassia Ailamaki and Johannes Gehrke, SIGMOD Record,, 32(2); 102-106, June 2003.