Three weeks to go (#1297)

Topics/tags: Academia

Today is August 8th. Three weeks from today is August 29th, the first day of classes [1]. Agh! I’m not even close to ready. One could argue that I don’t need to be ready because I’m on a nine-month contract, and those nine months start on the first day of classes for the semester [2]. Nonetheless, it behooves me to ensure that I’m ready to hit the ground running, as it were.

I’m teaching two sections of CSC-207 this fall. That’s a good thing; I do better with one prep. And CSC-207 is a course I’ve taught before, including twice in 2023–24 [3]. But I’m switching CSC-207 from a 3x80 class to a 2x100 class [4]. Since it’s mostly a workshop-style course [5], that means rearranging not only topics but also labs. I’d hoped to start that rearrangement early this summer, but life intervened. Still, I found time to develop other things for the course, such as instructions for using Maven. There’s more to go, such as improved unit testing of student work and tools for stylistic feedback [6].

I also have to do the smaller things for the course: setting up the Gradescope instance, adding students to Gradescope [7], adding students to the Microsoft Teams Team [8,9] for the course, making sure the Web site is up to date [10], emailing the students to tell them about the textbook and the readings for the first day of class [11] and many other things I’ll remember closer to the start of the semester.

The next three weeks are also the time for reviews for the SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. We’re getting a few questions every day right now. I assume things will ramp up as we get closer to the review deadline of August 21st. We’ll certainly need to start looking for emergency reviewers about then. Next, we have the discussion period from the 22nd to the 29th. There are usually lots of things to handle then. After that, we have two or three weeks of reading reviews and making decisions; we can only accept about 1/3 of the 600+ papers we received and about four or five reviews per paper.

What else do I need to do before the semester starts?

My sabbatical application is due the second week of classes. I should try to wrap that up soon so that I have one fewer large thing on my to-do list. Wrapping that up mostly means working on my CV and FAR [12]. For some reason, that kind of paperwork doesn’t enthuse me.

I tried to do prep work for my committee assignment to the Web Governance Committee. However, it seems like we’re going to put that committee on hold while other issues of IT governance are considered. I appreciate how receptive our new CIO has been to making positive changes! Even though that committee is on hold, I anticipate that my muse will gently (or not so gently) encourage me to reflect upon some of the issues the Web Governance Committee should consider.

I have to figure out my schedule. I know when my classes meet. I know when the department plans to meet (or at least I think I do). I’ll need to figure out office hours and whether I’m holding those in-person or remotely. I have to set up meeting times with my class mentors and graders. I also need to coordinate scheduling with my family. And we need new times for SIGCSE TS meetings.

I’m running a tenure review and participating in at least one other faculty review. These shouldn’t require much prep before the start of the semester, but I should check so that I’m not caught unawares. I did get one of my questions to the Dean’s office answered.

The number of things I want to rant about keeps increasing. Perhaps that’s not surprising. My family has discouraged me from posting rants. Nonetheless, I may write a few rants for myself—even if I don’t post them—to get the concerns out of my system. My muse also tells me that I should get back in the habit of writing regularly. Let’s see if I can post at least every-other day [14].

My department chair wants me to meet with him before the semester starts. I’m not in trouble; he wants to meet with everyone. I worry that he likes to make more work for himself. I’ve also promised to meet with a junior colleague. Time’s running out!

Finally, I hope to straighten my office before the semester starts. Making it perfect is impossible. Making it more habitable—or at least a bit less disorganized—seems like an appropriate goal.

Anything else? Almost certainly. Other tasks will likely come to me soon after I post this musing.

Good luck to everyone on fall prep!

Postscript: It took until the next morning, but I remembered at least one other thing on my list. This year is my triennial review. Given the faculty vote of last spring, it’s not a triennial review.

[1] August 29th will also be Michelle and my 37th anniversary. We made it! At least I assume we’ll make it. Fingers crossed.

[2] The faculty nine-month work period is from the first day of classes until the day after commencement.

Latham, Mike. 9 August 2017. Personal message sent via email from his Administrative Assistant.

[3] Although not in the same semester.

[4] That is, from a class that meets three days per week, 80 minutes per day, to one that meets two days per week, 100 minutes per day.

[5] Most of the time in class is spent with students working on problems in pairs.

[6] I expect my students to follow something similar to Google style for Java. It’s nice to have automatic style checkers.

[7] I wonder how hard it is to add two sections of a Blackboard course to the same Gradescope instance. Answer: You can only have one linked section, but you can pull students from multiple sections. Since I don’t use Blackboard, that’s fine with me.

[8] I need something better to call an MS Teams Team.

[9] Did you know that you can’t get a list of your Teams members in alphabetical order using Teams Desktop or Teams Web? I knew Microsoft seemed incompetent at basic UI features, but this takes it to another level.

[10] There’s no site in place yet.

[11] I assign readings for the first day of class. Does that make me nice or mean? Perhaps both.

[12] Faculty Activities Report.

[14] If I’d written every other day, I’d need to find a way to identify other days.

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Version 1.1 of 2024-08-09.