August 6, 2024
Today, I went into the office. It was pretty quiet. But I had a busy day. I zoomed with a colleague at another university, and we agreed to try to write a grant for an all-too-soon October deadline. I spoke with another colleague on the phone, who wants me to co-author a paper- basically revising a paper that we wrote together a decade ago (the idea would be to update the theory that we proposed, based on the decade of research that we have both done since the publication of that work). And, I got emails from two other collaborators, each asking to meet to discuss revisions to manuscripts that we have to submit to journals. So, I'm not lacking in work to do now or for the rest of the summer.
But there's a small manner that I have to talk about with one of my colleagues - it concerns a tweak we are making to the way students are assigned to concentration advisors this year. It's a really minor point, but I need my colleague to sign off on the change, so I can implement it. But I have not yet heard from my colleague, even though I've sent them a few emails.
So, I should be frustrated, right?
Well, I'm not.
And here's why:
Faculty are on 9-month contracts. That is, Brown only pays me for my effort from September-May. June, July, and August, I'm on my own. Now, I keep busy during those months. For about a decade, I've chosen to teach a summer class (I get paid extra for that). I have some grants, which pay me for my summer effort. I also genuinely like my research and am engaged by it, so I keep doing it over the summer. My graduate students are paid to work over the summer, so I also have to do some supervision to make sure that they're OK. But in truth, I don't *have* to do any of those things. From June 1 to August 31, I could just not be around.
And that's true for everyone - all the faculty in the department. So, although I'd like acknowledgement that my colleague received my emails (ok, I'm annoyed about that), it's OK that I don't have a response. I'm hoping that my colleague does respond, and I know that some of my colleagues are around and working (like I am), but not everyone does that. And it's OK.
Now, some of us (like me, as the DUS, or the department chair) are "on" - we're going to respond and answer emails over the summer, but that's part of the responsibility of taking on one of those positions. Faculty who aren't in those positions are not obligated to do so.
What that means for students is then when you send emails to faculty over the summer, there should not be the same expectation for expediency in response as during the academic year. During the academic year, it's perfectly reasonable to expect that an email to a professor is responded to in 48 hours (note, that's 2 days, not 2 minutes, and there is a difference). But during the summer...it's not the same. Maybe we will respond quickly, but maybe we won't. And that's OK too. It's your summer as well as ours. Enjoy it. We'll see you in the Fall.