From The Faculty
Chair
Where Did the
Time Go?
Stephen
C. Graves
As
I write this, I see that the summer is now gone and once again, I
have accomplished only a fraction of what I had hoped. There
increasingly seems to be too much to do, and not enough time to do
it. I wish it were not the case.
Over the past year I have come to
appreciate that my dilemma is not atypical among the faculty. A
recent quality-of-life survey found that MIT faculty members were
working longer hours than a decade ago, and that their level of
stress and frustration has also increased. The demands of the job of
being a faculty member continue to grow; at the same time, for many
of us, the challenge of balancing work and family has become even
more difficult.
What might be done to help to
alleviate the workload problem? I for sure don't have the answer, and
there is no silver bullet. I have found that the administration is
sincerely interested in exploring various measures that might help
and has taken some positive steps. But it would be useful to them to
understand what levers would have the most impact on faculty workload
and quality of life. In the remainder of this column, I suggest some
possible actions as a way of soliciting your feedback and inputs. My
intent is to see if we have the time (?) and energy to engage in a
serious discussion about this topic.
There are three main ways that one
might affect the workload. We could somehow increase the time you can
devote to doing your job. We could increase the efficiency with which
you do your work. We could reduce the amount of work you feel
compelled to do. To stimulate your thoughts, I'll mention some
possible actions within each of these themes.
Increase the Time: Even MIT
cannot lengthen the day beyond 24 hours. But there are some possible
measures that might allow one to devote more time to the job at
MIT.
- Many faculty members spend an
inordinate amount of time commuting because they cannot afford
housing close to campus. Through a variety of means, MIT might
make it easier for faculty to live closer to campus, e.g.,
MIT-owned apartments with subsidized rents, more generous
housing-assistance programs for new faculty, etc.
- For faculty with young children,
substantial time is devoted to arranging for and managing their
care. MIT has recently expanded the amount of on-campus child-care
services. Should MIT do more?
- Some faculty members increasingly
work at home for various reasons, e.g., so as to use the odd hours
of the day, or to avoid the commute, or to be able to work while
managing family responsibilities. Other faculty might like to do
so, but would need some assistance from MIT in establishing a home
office as well as some infrastructure on campus to support them
while working at a distance.
- The Institute could raise faculty
salaries, which would permit individual faculty to make their own
choices. A faculty member might opt to pay a higher rent or
mortgage and live closer to campus, or use the income for a nanny
or other child-care services, or invest in a home office, or
reduce the number of days consulting.
Increase the Efficiency: We
spend a lot of time at our job, but I for one know that I don't
always use my time very well. Possibly MIT could help faculty get
more accomplished by working more efficiently or
effectively.
- We might have more administrative
and/or secretarial support, which would permit faculty to leverage
their time better by off-loading certain tasks and duties. For
instance, suppose you had an administrative assistant who would
manage your schedule, handle 80 percent of your e-mail and other
correspondence, set up and maintain your Web pages, manage your
research accounts, and assist with compiling research reports and
proposals?
- We might have more teaching
support, such as additional teaching assistants, which might allow
us to be more efficient and effective in our teaching. We might
use technology better in our teaching, for instance to automate
the standard components of our curriculum, allowing more time for
individualized instruction.
- MIT might help us acquire better
skills for time management and for people management. I am a good
example of someone who does not always do a good job of
prioritizing tasks and planning my time, or knowing how to say
"no." And I expect we could all get more accomplished if we could
improve the way we structure and delegate work to our students and
staff.
Reduce the Work: Instead of
trying to do more, there might be ways to eliminate or reduce some of
what we currently do.
- MIT might increase the number of
faculty so as to spread the workload over a larger base. This
presumes that we do not expand our educational and research
programs with the addition of new faculty.
- The number of graduate students
continues to grow, seemingly without much centralized control.
There is growth in both research-based graduate programs and
professional masters degrees, both of which result in an increased
load for faculty. We might collectively decide to cap the number
of students, as is done with the undergraduate enrollment, so as
to keep ourselves from continuing to pile on more work.
- We might ask for more
institutional control on new initiatives that increase the faculty
workload. As one example, MIT has launched two major international
initiatives (with Singapore and with Cambridge University) that
require substantial faculty commitment, often pulling faculty from
their responsibilities and teaching duties in their home
departments. It is not clear to me that we understood the full
impact of these initiatives when they were undertaken. In light of
this, we might insist that any proposed initiative be accompanied
by an impact statement that documents the faculty load and
commitment, and prescribes appropriate recourse or remedies for
the departments that are affected.
- We might take greater care in our
use and deployment of committees involving faculty. I suspect we
have too many standing and ad hoc committees, involving too many
faculty members.
- We might seek to develop a better
understanding of what is the job of a faculty member, and how this
job changes over the course of a career. Possibly there should be
a job description that elaborates on what is expected of each of
us. This might be quite helpful in individually guiding us in our
decisions about what is really important and how best to devote
out time.
- Related to the prior point, we
could develop metrics on faculty workload. How would you measure
what you do, or what you are supposed to do? Presumably, if we
could establish meaningful measures on research, on teaching, and
on service, we could better manage faculty workload and provide
some basis for reducing it.
- Some will say that the workload
issues are primarily self-induced, and that this is part of the
culture of MIT. If so, then I think the time has come to take a
serious look at why, and to start the process by which we change
the norms, values, and expectations that induce and reward this
behavior. This will not be easy.
I started this column with the
observation that the faculty has too much to do, and not enough time
to do it. I have tried to suggest some possible actions that could
help. I am sure there are other ideas. Of course there are cost and
resource implications of varying degrees associated with each of
these measures. But I believe it would be useful to get a better
understanding on which, if any, of these measure would make a
difference. I would welcome any input you have on these concerns, as
well as on how we might develop an overall sense of what the faculty
would want.