SamR's Schedule, Fall 2026

This pages represents a draft of my schedule for Fall 2026. As with all of my schedules, it is subject to frequent change and may only vaguely approximate my actual schedule. Many activities—such as grading, writing, and more class preparation—take place during evening and weekend hours.

Online signup for office hours is available at http://bit.ly/book-samr. If office hours don't work, suggest a meeting time via Outlook or drop me an email and I can probably find time during paperwork or class prep times. For walking office hours, DM on Teams or email me to claim a time.

For those who have to schedule meetings (and I do not envy you): I try to keep my Outlook calendar up to date. Beyond that, I prefer to be scheduled in the Open slots, but I will generally have to attend such meetings remotely. If those do not work, try my paperwork times next, then class prep time, then scholarship time. Finally, if no other options are available, you can schedule during office hours.

Teaching

I am teaching three sections of one course this semester:

• CSC-151, Functional Problem Solving, our introductory course in CS.

Other Activities

• Class prep. Preparing for one of the classes that I teach. Experience shows that the typical one-hour class takes two to three hours of preparation, so not all class prep is shown on this schedule. (Feel free to come visit me for questions during these times, but realize that I may be too busy.)
• Community Time. A space in the schedule for community-wide events, such as town halls. There isn't always something in community time, but when there is, I try to attend. (When there isn't, I often schedule another meeting then.) (Community time was eliminated in the latest revision to the schedule of courses, but I keep an entry here in its memory.)
• Convocation. A campus-wide lecture, usually of general interest. Because of an unexpected vote of the faculty, we no longer have weekly convocation, but there are other talks scheduled at that time, so I try to be at those, too.
• CS Table. Weekly meetings of folks at Grinnell interested in computer science. We discuss articles of interest.
• Department Meeting. The Computer Science department meets weekly to discuss department issues.
• Division Meeting. The Science division meets on one Monday a month (usually the second).
• Community Fridays. The Dean's Office sponsors weekly "Community Fridays" for faculty and staff to discuss various issues related to teaching and scholarship.
• Faculty Meeting. The campus-wide faculty meeting, held the 1st and 3rd week of the month.
• Office Hours. Priority time for meeting with students. (I also have an open office policy -- if I'm in my office, my door is open, and I'm not too busy, I'm happy to talk to my students.) This semester, I am following the lead of my former colleague, Janet Davis, and incorporating "Walking Office Hours" when possble.
• Open. Sorting through mail, doing a little scholarship or programming, catching up on class preparation, running errands, fixing Web pages, etc. etc.
• Organization. Attempting to organize the chaos that is my office and lab. I may have forgotten to schedule time for organization this semester.
• Paperwork. Dealing with email and the mass of paperwork I seem to attract. I may have forgotten to schedule time for papework this semester.
• Scheme Squad. The weekly meeting of the folks who work on CSC 151.
• Scholarship. When I hope to get some work done on one of many scholarship and writing projects. Unfortunately, usually time for me to catch up on my class prep and administrative responsibilities. This semester, I am likely to be using what would have been scholarship time on the SIGCSE Technical Symposium. That's okay; SIGCSE TS is a form of service scholarship.
• Science Teaching. A discussion group on science teaching that meets at various times.
• SIGCSE TS. I'm serving as one of the program Co-Chairs for the SIGCSE Technical Symposium in Computer Science Education, the flagship conference on CSEd. While my work for SIGCSE TS will come in waves (e.g., when submissions are due, when camera-ready versions are due, in the weeks leading up to the conference), I'm setting aside weekly time for the many tasks that will likely appear.
• Thursday Extras (CS). Departmental talks, primarily aimed at undergraduates.