TEACHING AND OFFICE HOURS



How many hours a week do faculty members teach?

Most full-time faculty members at Texas A&M teach two or three courses per semester. Each course usually meets for three to five hours per week.

Some people think that this is not very much time to work for a state-supported salary. But professors are like other professionals who work in the public eye for a few hours and in private for many hours. Believing that teaching two or three courses means working only six to nine hours per week is like thinking that a lawyer only works when in court, or that a preacher only works during sermons. Teaching requires preparation, often estimated at two to three hours per hour of classroom contact. Then there is the creation of fresh exam and paper topics, grading, help sessions, office hours and other time spent advising students, and time spent in administrative activities related to teaching such as copying, recording grades, and working with teaching colleagues or assistants.

Faculty members have spent years preparing to teach a given subject. Then they spend countless more hours to stay current, to keep in touch with the latest developments. Even when doing research, faculty are enhancing their teaching, bringing the cutting edge to the next generation of scholars.


Why do you have "office hours?" That is, why aren't professors in their offices most of the working day?

Professors who are currently teaching classes are expected to be available to their students during announced "office hours." Professors who are not meeting this obligation should be reported to the Head of the Department by the students.

But faculty members are paid to read and write and think and talk. These activities do not require them to be in their offices all day, every day. In fact, sometimes the office is not conducive to such work. Faculty members not in their offices during normal working hours may have night classes and need the time for preparation at home, away from phones and interruptions. They may be in the library, or may have worked until 2 a.m. in the lab on a research project, or may be grading term papers. Or perhaps the previous weekend they presented a research paper at a professional conference. All of these activities are proper parts of the professors' jobs.

Office hours are typically used by students to discuss material not understood in class, to discuss specific paper or project assignments, and simply to talk informally with professors about academic, professional, or personal matters. The claim sometimes heard that professors are rarely available to their students as a group usually ignores the many unscheduled hours of contact with individual students that occur before and after classes, in laboratories, and during unscheduled office hours. Professors often meet with students during non-scheduled times to accommodate working students' schedules, and they often offer extra group hours in the form of help sessions. They also talk with students by telephone and e-mail. Moreover, many professors spend extra time with students by sponsoring student organizations and by counselling them (e.g., through the MENTOR program).

Aside from preparation for classes, teaching them, office hours, and grading papers, how is teaching time used?

In addition to the uses of time mentioned above, many research professors spend additional, unscheduled time supervising independent study students, graduate students, and beginning teaching assistants. Students usually need increasing amounts of individual time with professors as they become more advanced. Doctoral students learn to do research by doing it, aided and advised by their thesis supervisors. During the last year of a PhD student's study, the time spent with a student's advisor may increase to many hours per week. Thus there is a lot more teaching going on at Texas A&M University than meets the eye.