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Requiring faculty to be on campus five days per week?

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY–MANY INTERESTING COMMENTS, MORE WELCOME

A philosopher at a regional liberal arts college writes: 

Do you know whether it’s a trend these days at universities to insist on professors being on campus five days a week, and from morning through the afternoon?

This is now happening in my school. Even if we have all the necessary classes offered five days a week, and from 8 to 3 or 4:00 every day, plus some evening classes (so every day and hour is covered to accommodate student needs), no one faculty member is permitted to teach only MWF, say, or five days a week but only, for example, between 9 and 1:00.

This seems to me crazy. Anyway, I’m just wondering whether this is a trend across the nation or just the whim of our particular philistine administration.

I've heard about this happening in the U.K., where academia suffers under the reign of mindless bureaucrats, but I've not heard of that here in the U.S..  Readers?  Please include a valid e-mail address with your post even if you do not want to name the school implementing such requirements.

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30 responses to “Requiring faculty to be on campus five days per week?”

  1. Michael Weber

    There have been pushes in this direction for faculty administrators (e.g., chairs) at my institution, but not for "regular" faculty. I doubt there is good reason for it in the case of chairs; maybe there is in the case of deans. It seems to me it is motivated by a "retail" conception of higher education (students and parents are customers, and the "store" has to be open for business), and persistent doubts on the part of the public and academic administrators that faculty work hard.

    Reply
  2. Fellow Regional Philosopher

    I'm a professor at a small, regional liberal arts college as well. We also have a requirement to be in our offices "during operating hours," which usually means 8:30-4. Because we are a teaching-centric school that emphasizes student mentorship, this makes some sense: because classes are normally offered from 9-3, the time from 3-4 or on days where we teach less is about the only time students can come to office hours. It also gets used for our extensive committee duties.

    That being said, no one really checks on us and, unless it becomes a problem, we are allowed to be adults and use that time wisely.

    Reply
  3. V. Alan White

    This is a real trend particularly in public institutions and especially in red states. For example, here in Wisconsin all UW faculty will, beginning this semester, have their teaching loads tracked: "The “Teaching Workload Policy” calls on UW System administrators and chancellors of individual campuses to develop policies for monitoring the number of hours spent teaching, rewarding faculty and instructional staff who teach more than a “standard academic load,” and publishing aggregate data on teaching hours on the UW System’s Accountability Dashboard website."

    http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/university/regents-proposal-uw-will-track-professors-teaching-hours-starting-in/article_6113739b-6627-565b-a5f0-53b89e3147de.html

    These kinds of moves are in response to the "politics of resentment" strategies employed by legislators and governors that have been so effective in demonizing state workers in general as "haves" and forestalls resistance to unilateral political moves such as cutting benefits, repeatedly skipping raises while cutting take-home pay, and weakening tenure, all of which have occurred here. The goal of such responses is to get the public to view professors more as nine-to-fivers just like everyone else. I doubt such reactive strategies will strengthen institutions that employ them.

    Reply
  4. JDRox

    I think the natural interpretation of the above quote is that faculty aren't allowed to say "I'm only available MWF, from 8-2". I mean, it's physically impossible for one faculty member to teach all day long M-F, so that has to be the correct interpretation, right? And under that interpretation I think the rule is fine. If your chair or whoever does the course scheduling doesn't take people's preferences into account, that's bad. But sometimes our preferences can't be met–in principle I need to be available to teach M-5 from 9-5, I think.

    But maybe the claim is just that professors should be on campus, in general, from 9-5 M-F. That seems less defensible, although some sort of rules about being on campus might be ok: if having a "university community" is an important goal, then someone who is never in her office (except for office hours) is failing to promote that important goal. This sort of issue becomes even more pressing at institutions that do online instruction.

    Reply
  5. Statesman

    I worked at a state college where faculty really abused their privilege to manage their own time. One person was indignant whenever he was asked to come in a fourth day of the week – even when it rarely happened and it was for an important meeting. And people did all sorts of things to cram their schedules into as few days as possible (as few hours as possible). It was terrible to see, especially as there were adjuncts around who would be on campus more time than the full time people, even when their pay was a fraction of the full time slugs' pay.

    Reply
  6. Brian Leiter

    The faculty you describe are in dereliction of their duties, and should be sanctioned accordingly. The question is whether the solution for such dereliction is to impose mandatory "on campus" hours without regard for whether being on campus is relevant to any professional duty. I do 70% of my research and writing at home in the evenings and on the weekends; I transact lots of administrative business via e-mail each morning; and so on. Obviously a perk of an academic job is flexibility in scheduling, which is why rules like that described by my correspondent are worrisome.

    Reply
  7. Anna

    My campus does not do this. And honestly if it did I would almost certainly start planning for another career. I do all my research at home. At a time when more and more businesses allow at home work, this seems an odd trend (if it is one). I think it is fine to say faculty members must come into meetings when asked, and that they must in principle be able to teach anytime Monday through Friday. But to demand to be on campus 40 hours a week is nonsense, and frankly I have other jobs I could do that I would if such a big brother requirement was put on me. We have two faculty members that live out of state. With the way academics have to move around the country, often the only way one can maintain a relationship with a spouse is if one lives pretty far from campus.

    Reply
  8. Dennis Arjo

    I usually associate this kind of thing with community colleges, so this is interesting. I teach at a CC and we have no such requirement. A while back the faculty had a discussion with the administration about it as a way of addressing some concerns that included both people who seem to never be around and also the question of whether someone could teach their entire load online. We resisted any kind of mandatory presence and the administration wasn't too big on the idea either. In the end we sort of agreed to a loose policy that everyone would teach a certain amount of their load on campus.

    Reply
  9. Michael Otsuka

    "I've heard about this happening in the U.K. …"

    Really? Where?

    BL COMMENT: I believe it was Edinburgh that was requiring all faculty to account for all their time.

    Reply
  10. Ted Nannicelli

    This is a message from the head of school to all staff in The School of Communication and Arts (we don't have autonomous departments) at The University of Queensland — the equivalent of an R1 in Australia:

    "Related to this is how we use office hours. The school expectation is that staff come to work five days a week, Monday to Friday. I understand academic staff who have research days sometimes wish to take these off site or at home, and that is fine. But apart from that, unless you have approval to do otherwise, I would expect to find staff in their offices or somewhere on site during the week. If this causes anyone difficulties, please arrange to see me."

    The "research day" refers to the policy here that one day per week is reserved for staff members to do research without any teaching or service commitments.

    Reply
  11. Axel Gelfert

    When I started my new position as a Professor at the Technical University of Berlin last month, the head of administration took a moment to explicitly remind me that, because of the constitutional protections of academic freedom, I would not be required to engage in any timekeeping (though I would need to apply for permission to engage in any private-sector activities such as consultancy etc.).

    Reply
  12. Brian Leiter

    Interesting example! Germany probably has the strongest protections for academic freedom in the world; they are not only constitutionalized, but they include positive entitlements (such as support for research). I am happy to hear academic freedom also prohibits bureaucratic time-keeping requirements.

    I discuss the German case in passing in this paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2943774

    Reply
  13. Anon

    Certainly a number of UK universities have a related requirement that both faculty and students live within 25miles even though family commitments etc. may make it far easier to live further away but still within roughly a 1hr commute. In some ways even more of an imposition: if you do you're 9-5 the rest should be up to you. I do wonder whether attempt at community which in practice means ensuring attendance at non-obligatory late evening events (talks, dinners, etc.)

    Reply
  14. Phil

    UK (non-prestigious) university here; thankfully we don't have anything remotely like this. I essentially work from home and communicate by email; I go in to work to teach, for meetings and for 'office hours'. (We're required to nominate two hours on different days of the week, for students to drop in; nobody ever does, or not without an exchange of emails beforehand.) The only extended periods of time I spend at my desk (the one at work, not the one I'm sitting at now) are when I've got time between an office hour and a teaching session. The idea of having to go to work every day – meaning, among other things, doing all my teaching preparation in the office – makes my skin crawl.

    I'm sure I'd feel differently if I had an office of my own, but I don't know if I'll ever qualify for that honour. I currently share a 150-square-foot office with two other lecturers, and that (I find) isn't an easy space to work in.

    Reply
  15. Anon2

    I once had a colleague who tried extremely hard to keep her commitments to Mon-Thu so she could see her partner (in a far-enough-away city) for a long weekend. She was the best colleague I have ever had because she worked like Stakanhov for four days a week. Even better, precisely because she had no family commitments etc for Monday to Thursday, she attended every single evening event those days, took speakers to dinner, spoke to student societies etc… I don't know how this anecdote speaks to the issue of general policies, but it does suggest that we should be careful. (Here's a rebuttal of the anecdote: lots of hard-working people have to be away from their families and partners, why should academics have it easier? Here's a response: that's just a levelling down objection! We should work towards a society where everyone has the kind of flexibility my colleague did!)

    Reply
  16. Harold

    My school does not expect us to be on campus every day, but it is doing away with offices altogether in two years. If you want to meet with a student you will need to book a meeting room. I often meet my students now in public spaces like a cafe or the library and it seems to work ok. As I understand it, the move to 'open plan' is not student-driven but rather about making savings by reducing fixed infrastructure costs. The only people that use their offices during non teaching periods are those who don't have a suitable workspace, or have too many distractions, at home. You could fire a canon in every building at my institution in non teaching periods and not disturb more than a handful of people. I suspect it is the same at most universities. I tell my nonacademic friends about this and they are incredulous. Is there another profession in which a fully equipped office is an expectation yet you don't have to ever use it? My wife thinks that the best thing about me being an academic is that I keep on top of the clothes washing.

    I'm research active so I console myself that all the 'nonwork' related time I spend at home during the non teaching periods is compensated for by the papers that the university rewards me for writing. But I do wonder about the sustainability of my non -research active colleagues. What do non-research active people do in nonteaching periods? Thats almost half the year on the same pay and conditions as those of us who teach and research.' At a previous job, the dean caught one of my colleagues red handed, painting his holiday house 300 kms from campus.

    Reply
  17. Anna

    I would say almost not job has as little location freedom as academia. The flexibility and work place/time freedom I simply see as a leveling out of the total absence of location freedom.

    Reply
  18. Non-Academic Public Servant

    Along the lines of what Statesman said, I attended a public university as an undergraduate and for two years of graduate school in the humanities. Non-tenured faculty were always around and made a conscious effort to stay visible. But most tenured faculty were like ghosts, coming to class a couple of hours a day and then going home, especially if the department lacked a graduate program. Their never-changing CVs confirmed they weren't doing research or other work-related activities away from campus. I am a staunch defender of public education, but my God those experiences made me question the system. I think a lot of my professors retired but just didn't tell anyone. My best guess is there is less incentive to do more than the minimum at public schools because the increases in pay and prestige are negligible. Sure, you can advance to full professor and make 10% more than the guy in the office next to you, but is it worth working 35 instead of 15 hours a week over the course of a career? I doubt it.

    At the risk of throwing gas on a fire, I'll admit I laughed out loud when I read the OP's query. In this very dangerous climate of hostility to academia, you really want to die on the "I will not come to work any more than is absolutely necessary" hill? Yikes. Good luck with that. Maybe just bite the bullet and play solitaire on your computer to pass the time at the office until the political winds change a bit. And to Brian's point that any dead weight is derelict and deserving of sanction, implying that departments can self-regulate and don't need a "full time presence" mandate: someone, anyone, PLEASE provide an example of a tenured professor who was meaningfully reprimanded, let alone punished, for doing the absolute bare minimum? I don't ask to be snarky. It would be nice when I'm defending higher education in politics (and I do, I promise) if I could say to my lunatic anti-education colleagues: "We don't need some silly policy about academics being present full time at work. You can trust them and, in any event, you can't just teach 12 hours a week, go home to watch game shows, and keep your job. Look at what happened to person X at school Y!" I would love to weaponize that accountability unicorn on your behalf.

    BL COMMENT: I don't know why I would know about such a case at other institutions: how would it become public? (I know of a related case at my former academic institution, which led the faculty member to retire when faced with the prospect of a higher teaching load because of dereliction of other duties.) My point was simply that failure to attend faculty meetings involving official business is grounds for sanction. Flexibility in scheduling one's time is a major perk of academic life; like tenure, it offsets things like compensation, which is usually inferior to comparably skilled non-academic work.

    Reply
  19. James Wilberding

    Regarding Germany, those working here would do well to check their local laws before working too much from home. Each Bundesland decides this differently. In NRW, where I currently am, it used to be required by state law that professors teach over three days and be on campus a total of four days per week:

    Lehrverpflichtung an Universitäten und Fachhochschulen vom 30. August 1999 §5 Präsenzpflicht In der Vorlesungszeit haben vollzeitbeschäftigte Professorinnen und Professoren ihr Lehrangebot an mindestens drei Tagen pro Woche zu erbringen und an vier Tagen pro Woche in der Hochschule für Aufgaben in der Lehre, Studienberatung und Betreuung zur Verfügung zu stehen. Ausnahmen dürfen durch die Dekanin oder den Dekan nur bei Vorliegen wichtiger Gründe erteilt werden und sind der Präsidentin oder dem Präsidenten oder der Rektorin oder dem Rektor mit Begründung anzuzeigen.

    As far as I can tell this was repealed by the 2009 Verordnung über die Lehrverpflichtung an Universitäten und Fachhochschulen. But it wouldn't surprise me if similarly laws were still around in other Bundesländer.

    Reply
  20. Nicholas Denyer

    In the University of Cambridge the rule is that, except when on leave, a University officer "shall reside in the University for the whole of each Full Term in each academical year". Residence is defined thus:

    "A University officer shall be regarded as resident in the University when that officer
    either (a) resides within five miles of Great St Mary's Church and is not habitually absent from home more than two nights in the week,
    or (b) resides within twenty miles of Great St Mary's Church and is usually in Cambridge for a substantial part of the day,
    or (c) has received from the General Board or from the Council, as appropriate, leave to reside farther than twenty miles from Great St Mary's Church, provided that the officer observes such conditions as the Board or the Council may require."

    Reply
  21. Edinburgh prof

    Just in response to the exchange between Mike Otsuka and Brian: What Edinburgh introduced a year or two ago was this thing wherein, if one is working away from one's office for more than half a day, one is supposed to log this in some sort of 'who's away' online calendar. The justification, supposedly, was that the university is obliged to know or keep tabs on where staff who are working on visas are, and it would be unfair to require such scrutiny for them but not for non-international staff. With typical British efficiency, the system is completely ignored as far as I can tell. Certainly I have never even tried to find where this calendar is, nor logged anything in it, and I don't know anyone else who has. People vary greatly in how much time they spend in their offices…some are there 9-6 or longer, some show up one or two days a week to teach and then disappear. I don't even know whether it's still an official thing anymore and it's irrelevant whether it is, nobody cares or follows it.

    Reply
  22. Brian Leiter

    That's interesting, that tells me the Constitutional Court must not have interpreted the academic freedom protections on this issue, hence there is regional variation.

    Reply
  23. Jan

    I teach a 3:3, have a research expectation of about 1-2 peer-reviewed articles/yr, and do a lot of service at a primarily undergrad institution. Our faculty manual says that we are supposed to "be available" during normal business hours, so someone could not beg off a department meeting midday for example, but we are given the freedom to work as we wish. We are supposed to have 4 published office hours each week so that students can find us. I am usually on campus 8-3 or 9-4 M-Th and save Fridays for grading. I have recently learned to tell students that I am not available evenings and weekends. The only research I get done is over the summer.

    Many of my department colleagues do very little service, come to campus only for their teaching and the minimum number of office hours. These folks are on campus only Tue and Thu usually, and then they take the summers to travel, vacations, etc. One or two might claim to be working on "very important" research, but I don't understand how their "extra" research (beyond the expectations) justifies sticking other faculty with their service and advising load. I would like to see them on campus a little more and me a little less. I also appreciate the reference above to the "university community." It was much different on campus several years ago when faculty were in their offices and students and colleagues could stop by to chat. While I understand the demands of intellectual work and the need for flexibility, I am also quite sure many of my colleagues work part-time for full pay. It is disheartening to say the least.

    We are starting to have conversations about workload since some departments now have graduate faculty on reduced loads. Our (red) state legislature is also demanding to know why we don't all teach 5-5 like our contingent faculty and CC faculty. Sad.

    Reply
  24. Phil

    The comment about "when faculty were in their offices and students and colleagues could stop by to chat" reminds me of something I'd completely forgotten. Some years ago, when I was employed (precariously) at a Russell Group institution, something I really valued was the ability to knock on a colleague's door for a chat about work; I'd usually be there for half an hour or more, and I'd learn a lot in the process (and, hopefully, make some useful contributions myself).

    Happy days. One of the first things I learned at my current, lower-status institution was that there was absolutely no point trying to drop in on anyone:
    a) mostly they wouldn't be there
    b) if they were, they'd mostly be too busy to chat
    and, perhaps most importantly
    c) if you did get a discussion going you'd be disturbing at least one other person
    People do sometimes drop in on me – or on one of my colleagues – but they feel duty bound either to keep it brief or to steer the conversation towards gossip, sport etc, thus approximating the conditions of any other damn workplace. (I worked in industry for 20 years; I was expecting something a bit different when I made it into academia.)
    It comes back to one-person offices; it seems like a trivial technical fix – not to mention a luxury – but it can make such a difference. If your office is your space – if you can go in there and work, or read, for hours without being disturbed (apart from by people who want to speak to you personally) – why *wouldn't* you be there from 9 to 5?

    Reply
  25. Curt

    I would’ve killed to learn in a real community of scholars. From where I sit, faculty being present on campus, available for stop and chats, informal tutoring, and chance encounters is incredibly valuable to the students. I wish the conversation was more about enlarging opportunity on campus, outside of class, and not grumbling about a minimum standard.

    I write as an alum of Nowhere Special — a commuter college and online. As a non-academic (M.A., Phil) fortunate enough to attend one or two philosophy conferences annually, I’m always deeply impressed by and jealous of the professors, adjuncts, and graduate students I encounter. In everyday life, my white-collar coworkers regard me as being supremely well-read, and yet at these conferences I am reminded how thin my grasp of the subject is. In theory, my M.A. and years of independent reading (I’m 45) should approximate me as a peer to the 25 year old grad students, but it’s not even close. The difference, I believe, is grad students live amidst philosophers and are doing philosophy outside of class, while I had only regular class time under adjuncts. I wish more students – undergrads, commuters, non traditionals included – had greater access to faculty, and as a taxpayer, I’m willing to fund that accordingly, but that’s another matter.

    Based on my personal experience, I’d urge professional philosophers to be physically present as much as possible, at least 30 hours weekly. From an outside admirer, peace to you all.

    Reply
  26. alexander stingl

    Just FYI: I have heard that increasingly, also in Germany, positions that have a mandated administration requirement will require "office presence" time. I know of colleagues, who held 50% or 75% positions, who were told that, as matters stand, they will have to be on campus 9-5 four days a week starting this year or next. I would also add that while there is a lot academic freedom in Germany on paper, the reality is a little bit different. It would be too long a text to write up my experiences here and now, but if an opportunity provides itself, I'd be happy to share my experiences and views. Cheers.

    Reply
  27. Happy

    Thanks Phil
    It is a great privilege to be an academic these days. And I too have worked elsewhere and understand how mind numbing things can be.

    Reply
  28. Anna

    I have a few friends in Germany, and most of them work at home most of the time, so perhaps it varies. The thing is if working on campus guaranteed a community I would be far more likely to do it. But every time I work on campus it is a ghost town. No one comes in to talk to me. Hence, I would be much happier working at home with a better view, my dogs, the chance to start and end work very late, and the opportunity to get other stuff done during writing breaks. Besides, most chores and doctors appointments I do during 9-5 hours when it is far less busy, and I make up for that by working late, when I am more productive anyway.

    Reply
  29. Alan

    That was a one off where the government imposed requirement that sponsors know where their Tier 2 visa staff are at all times was — misguidedly in my view — applied to all Edinburgh staff. I don’t know the upshot at Edinburgh, but no other U.K. university copied this policy. Non-visa staff do not, in the normal course, have to tell their line manager where they are working. My contract at York has no set hours of work — I am not paid extra for our Saturday visit days. But not do I “clock in” or “clock out”.

    Reply
  30. Hunter

    I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing to have faculty present and available during the "normal" work hours. I think this presents a chance for an open dialogue between faculty and students. Coming from a small public college as an undergrad, it was nice knowing that the faculty were generally available in their office if they weren't actively instructing. Now, this was an undergraduate only school, but they still encouraged a lot of research and several journals are based at the school. In comparison, at the large state research university I now attend, the grad student to faculty present at any given time in the department is always heavily skewed to the grad students. I understand that not all colleges or universities can offer individual offices, but all of our faculty have an private office (including the lecturers). Some of the above comments seems to be "well nobody else is doing it so why should I?" Sometimes, change is difficult to achieve but I don't think this is a sufficient reason to not try. I can understand the University's point of view, they need to be more accountable to where their money is going in an era of ever tightening budgets. I think this will take a two-fold approach to increasing daily faculty presence. First, the University should make the departments more "friendly" to academic research spaces (i.e.: individual offices, etc.). Secondly, the faculty need to be more willing to be open and accessible to their students. If this means not being able to do all of your research in your pajamas, then so be it. There is a fairly poor reputation of academics in wider society, we as a whole cannot lay all of the blame at the feet of society, they may have at least some partial truth to their complaints.

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