Juggling Rhythms

I spent yesterday at the University of Wisconsin Colloquium/Engaging Students in the First Year Conference. It was odd, as it was the first time I was there without an ESFY title. In some respects, I felt a bit out of sorts, being in a familiar place with an unfamiliar role.

In the past year, as I've returned to full-time teaching, I've been reminded how much I really do love teaching and working with students. My presentation yesterday was about teaching and working with students. It was a pilot program that went well, and it was a real treat to get to talk about that. It felt like a nice capstone to my year.

In the afternoon, I found myself talking to some colleagues at UW-Marathon County who both hold split positions--part teaching and part administrative. As I listened to them talk about the projects and reports they have ahead of them in the coming weeks, I got a big smile on my face--and they knew exactly why.

One of my biggest challenges and frustrations at a split appointment was that I had to exist on two different sets of rhythms. As a teacher, there are times of the semester and year that are particularly intense and stressful (like the end of the semester, always). Fortunately, those times are usually followed by some down times that have a more relaxed pace. I can have several days in a row of really intense and draining reading and grading, and then I have some time when I can rest, reflect, and even step aside from my work for a bit. It kind of balances out.

Administrative work, however, is completely different. There are reports to be written, budgets to be wrapped up, meetings to hold (and in the UW Colleges, these are mostly teleconferences due to the geographic distribution of our 13 campuses and the central office), and work to continuously plan and implement. Full-time administrators rest and recover using very non-academic sounding leave called vacation days. Part-time administrators/part-time instructors don't exactly have these. Because of the demands of the end of the semester as an instructor, some administrative work is set aside for the days and weeks after grades are turned in.

What this all amounts to is that people in split appointments rarely have downtime. I never got to enjoy being done with the semester in a way that was truly recuperative. Instead, I would have to kick back into high administrator mode. Juggling two entirely different sets of rhythms is hard. While I certainly miss some aspects of the work I used to do and the ways I got to work with people I liked and respected, I am happy to simply be an instructor who does a little bit of advising on the side. It is much, much easier on my ability to take deep cleansing breaths.