My friends lament about how nice it must be, as a professor, to have the “summer off.” The idea that teachers sleep in late and spend their days floating around the pool on a raft, drinking cocktails in coconut shells is a common misnomer of the profession.
It’s true that I spent most of the summer at home with my children. I enjoyed a fair amount of flexibility in our schedule and, admittedly, spent time in various bodies of water — the lake and the pool.
Aside from being a full-time Mom — a challenging job that I wouldn’t want to have, well, full time — I spent the summer completing a variety of job-related tasks.
Inspired by Andy Bechtel’s post What I Did This Summer, I decided to attempt to chronicle my summer work, which is more difficult than it sounds when attempting to do it after the fact.
Here are a few of the work-related items I accomplished this summer:
- Researched and wrote posts on this blog, although I admittedly did not blog as much this summer as I do during the academic year. I tried to stick to a couple of posts a week.
- Completed syllabuses for my three fall courses – Editing for Publications, Principles of Public Relations and Media Relations and Events Management, the last two of which essentially are new preps
- Started generating lectures for my three fall courses
- Taught an eight-week, online summer News Writing and Reporting class
- Taught two public relations courses and two advertising courses in Singapore
- Designed a research poster for an academic conference
- Presented said research poster at the national AEJMC conference in Chicago
- Completed a four-day academic fellowship with the Dart Foundation in New York
- Transcribed interviews for a research study I’m completing
- Read at least four books that I can think of and I don’t know how many journal articles for my dissertation
- Completed my tenure on the board of directors for my state’s chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists
- Closed out the fiscal year for the Student Publications staff I advise
It was a busy summer. As always, I wish I’d been a bit more productive. However, from what I remember, my list is pretty impressive. Perhaps I should give myself a little downtime around, oh, I don’t know, Fall Break?
profkrg says
@MargieClayman don’t get me wrong, there’s some of that too… But, no.
MargieClayman says
@profkrg that was a good post – everyone has misconceptions about other peoples’ jobs I think.
profkrg says
@MargieClayman I think so. The best thing about summer is that I get to do most of my work in gym shorts.
MargieClayman says
@profkrg I feel like I could be really productive sitting by the ocean. I really do.
profkrg says
@MargieClayman as do I. Let’s try it!
MargieClayman says
@profkrg Totally up for that 🙂
AdvSTMom says
@profkrg I will never give my teacher friends a hard time about their “summer off” again. That’s quite an impressive list!
profkrg says
@AdvSTMom thanks 🙂
profkrg says
@douglaserice Thanks, Doug!
profkrg says
@dbvickery Thanks, Brian!
profkrg says
@BruceSallan Thanks, Daddy’O!
profkrg says
@SteveCassady Thanks, Steve!
profkrg says
@SocialMediaSean Thanks, Sean!
profkrg says
@PegFitzpatrick Thanks, Martini Peg!
PegFitzpatrick says
@profkrg Cheers and happy shoes to you! xoxo
profkrg says
@PegFitzpatrick lol. It’s my husband’s birthday. I don’t think I’ll get shoes. 🙁
PegFitzpatrick says
@profkrg It’s almost my hubby’s birthday too! Happy b-day Mr. Griffin! (clearly a man of good taste & the finer things)
profkrg says
@PegFitzpatrick clearly!
profkrg says
@leaderswest Thank you, Jim!
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