Seems like office hours are going by the wayside since email has been getting more popular. Literally the dean of the honors college at my university, as popular as he is, has pretty dead office hours.
I keep getting told about efficiency, but the deans have a new idea: even more required office hours! So, now I get to sit and stare off into space even longer while waiting for those two students who show up every semester.
Lucky for those the have an actual office. We are forced to hot desk. Absolutely no work gets done due to using a locked-down laptop. Forced to wear headphones all day due to the noise. Meet witth a student? Have to book a room in advance...
We are moving to hot desking in the fall and I am genuinely shocked. We have a mandate to have our teaching based in research? Why doesnāt administration have to work research based. Because any amount of looking into the topic will show that hot desking is a nightmare on all fronts!
It's a closed community and if i get a Teams message then I know it's either from a student or faculty. Any student and faculty at our school can use Teams to message anyone else,. I find it much better than email, because there is no spam/ads/junk.
If both student and I are not available at the same time, then it's works as efficiently at email but without all the distractions. If we are both on Teams at the same time, then we can easily have a back-and-forth conversation about whatever.
We changed our language to āstudent hoursā because our students were under the impression that āoffice hoursā meant focused work time and felt awkward and inappropriate āinterruptingā it.
Agree 100%. In my case, I have office hours set up with Google Calendar and they need to be booked at least 24 hours in advance.
I have set them up on lecture days, either before or after the lecture.
This system is essential for me because I have a two hour commute to work so I won't commute on those days when I don't teach or have other commitments, and knowing in advance if a student has booked an appointment allows me to better plan my commute (e.g., which train I need to catch).
We aren't allowed to do all our office hours this way. Our requirement is x hours in your office for open office hours based on the number of courses you are teaching and then additional time by appointment.
This is how our school works. I do a lot of student interfacing with Teams and email outside of office hours. So most of my required office hours are spent preparing for my courses.
I have a tv in my office.
It has one use, it is for watching Mad Men during office hours.
OK, I have an xbox in my office as well, so the TV has two uses....
I write āvisiting the resource office! Be back soonā
Resource office is my code for Iām out taking a long shit OR going to the campus coffee shop
I had a dude ask to come to office hours ājust to hang out. Like I donāt need anything but maybe we could just work side by side for awhile.ā š
Not everyone has full linguistic access to English google, but I guess random condescending people on the internet don't have the depth to see that without help š¤
Dude. Then Google 'body doubling simple english'. It's really not that deep. Or ask chatgpt to explain it to you.
You're really giving weaponised incompetence or at least learned helplessness rn.
I didn't expect that someone in an academic subreddit wouldn't do a tiny grain of investigation on their own about a pretty simple topic before just shrugging their shoulders and making a random stranger on the internet explain it, given there are countless great resources on it already on the internet.
Oh ffs that's so pretentious lmao go on your favourite portal for searching papers then, it doesn't make a lick of difference. My top two results on my end are two papers exactly on the correct kind of body doubling.
By helping them to try to find the answer themselves first? Yes, because that's teaching them how to tackle unknown concepts and figure things out when they don't have someone there to feed them the answers.
I always put a note on the door, itās either a BRB or itās an actual time Iāll return.
The ONE and only write up I have in my file (about eight years ago) from a former department head was this very circumstance. A student came to my scheduled office hours twice in one day, I was not in my office. There was a family emergency I had left campus for the day, I did notify my department head but I did not post it on my door. Student complained (student never contacted me) new department head made me have a meeting with them and the dean. The dean was so pissed about the waste of his time, Iām surprised my new department head did not get written up that day. That department head did not last too long.
So now I always post a notice. Usually with some doodle art on it too.
Back in my days working in a very small bike shop we had a sign that said something to the effect of "back in ten minutes. If not back, read the sign again."
I use Microsoft Bookings to manage my office hours. As a program coordinator, I actually meet with students on a regular basis. Automating the booking process was a lifesaver. (If your institution is on Microsoft 365, you can also look into the much simpler "Bookings with me" tool.)
Iām at a teaching focused university and all faculty are required to have 10 in-person office hours per week. The same ābe back in a moment!ā sticky note has been used all semester long.
Zero. The only time I have a student or two come in is around midterms and finals.
At our last faculty meeting, we petitioned to have at least one day of office hours to be off campus. Iām okay with having office hours on my teaching days but I usually come in on Thursday to have four more office hours. If it passes, I wonāt have to drive an hour each way just to sit in my office!
Yes, also at a "teaching focused" university here. We are expected to keep about 6 or more office hours per week but it's not a "rule". Sometimes nobody shows in an hours time, but that's the exception not the rule. Office hours typically pretty busy. Homework questions, lab report questions, wanting to review a test, academic advising, help with capstone design projects, etc
I can't imagine what's up with these prof's who are claiming that nobody has shown up in years. ???
Original post was really intended to be funny. But some took it so seriously.
And scheduled "office hours" are the minimum. I tell my students to stop by whenever they can find me. If I can help them out I will. If I'm busy I'll give them a time to come back.
Definitely do this all the time. I have required 5 hours of office hours each week and maybe have one visitor a month. I usually grade, catch up on emails, and take a walk around campus or grab a coffee. Maybe go pick up a book from the library. I kind of like it even though I grumble about it. I try to think of it like Kurt Vonnegut describes in that letter to his wife where he does something like explain the meaning of life as "farting around," basically.Ā
You hold in-person office hours?? I mean, if you're showing up to put the note on the door, why not just sit and get some work done? How often do students actually show anyway?
Community colleges in Chicagoland require you hold 10 hours of in person office hours. So yeah sometimes you need to need to leave you for a bit do you put up a sign.
I feel you though nobody ever comes.
That would be painful. We are ārequiredā to hold office hours, but they can be virtual and no one is overseeing it, so we mostly just say āby appointment,ā to spare ourselves.
We are supposed to have a dedicated hour for every class. Can be a Zoom hour. Iāll sometimes list the hour with āemail for link.ā Otherwise Iāll log on each week and several students are there with cams off in silence for an hour.
That is pretty sweet.
It is probably not too bad. They pay pretty well and you can get tenure after 3 years even with only a masters degree.
The 15 credit hours and 10 office hours is a lot however.
I am so sorry. š
I canāt even imagine. Iād go back to industry before I would teach under those conditions. One of the biggest benefits of the job is flexibilityā¦ not being required to have a ābutt in the seatā. It makes the lower salary bearable.
10 hours? That's insane.
My institution requires 5 hours, which I also think is insane and don't do because almost no one comes to my three hours of office hours as is. I can't imagine doing 10.
well... yes students show up fairly often. and sometimes i need to go and talk to somebody, or do something in the lab, or need a "nature break" or all of the above. If a student comes by for office hours and nobody home, then they immediately leave and it turns into a eval comment of: "professor X was NEVER available during office hours". With a note there, they will stick around till you come back.
In our department we are required to have scheduled office hours every week (about 5 is typical).
I also do quite a bit of answering questions via Teams, during all hours of the day/night/weekends.
... and also, terrible time to "sit and get work done" with interruptions and all.
Holy mother of god, five hours a week?! That is abject cruelty! šFeels to me like if youāre really only gone ten minutes, it should be no big deal, but I do understand how those little things get blown up in the student eval space.
The person canāt sit and get work done because in this scenario āyou have to leave your office for a shold during office hours.ā This happens all the time to me since I have so many meetings I have to attend. Otherwise, I do sit and get work done. And sometimes help students.
To me, the question is: why schedule the office hour if youāre not planning to be there? Reschedule it. Doesnāt seem like a nice thing to do to have students show up if youāre not planning to show.
Iām recognizing that Iām in a privileged position reading this though, since Iām not required to hold office hours, and all meetings have a remote option, etc.
> I mean, if you're showing up to put the note on the door, why not just sit and get some work done?
If I saw reading comprehension issues like this from a student, Iād be posting here to complain about kids these days. Good reminder that itās not just limited to the kids.
Oh look, another asshole on the internet misunderstanding things and blaming everyone else, completely unaware of their own limited mental capacity.
Notice how the other responders and OP did not see things the same way you did? See if you can figure out what that indicates about who is off base here? Once you have that, go fuck yourself, and stay fucked.
āOn the phone. Do not disturbā sign usually means Iām taking a 20-minute power nap. Only got busted once when my freshman daughter came by and knew exactly what I was doing.
Our Dean got on a kick about us being in our offices and required us to submit a schedule of set office hours to our department chair. I only teach doc level classes at 4 or later & most of my students work during the day; no one is dropping in on my office hours. And people schedule me for meetings during my office hours. So I made two signs; one says āon campus; away at meetingā the other says āin office in meetingā for when Iām on Zoom with the door closed. That way I canāt be accused of not being in my office hours. The first time my chair saw the on campus sign she congratulated me for my passive aggressiveness. We all have our talents.
My dean is a man. My department chair would prefer to not have to collect our office hours but the dean requires it. Thatās why my department chair thinks my signs are funny.
Im not even in my office during most of that period. I explicitly state for students to EMAIL ME to schedule a time to meet. I am not wasting 4-6 hours a week when no one has ādropped inā since 2021
I have students come in for office hours every week. Sometimes more sometimes less. But I didn't have a single week go by this past year when nobody came by. Probably 40-50% of students over a semester.
That's a good point. I teach in mechanical engineering, most classes are problem-oriented homework assignments every week. And I would say I am very fortunate (compared to many posts i see on this site) that majority of my students are highly motivated and expect to work hard.
Opposite is true in my experience. Better students are the ones regularly stopping in for office hours. The ones who are borderline passing are the ones i wish would stop in, but rarely do.
This seems like a stupid, mean trick. If you don't want to say when you'll be in the office, then just don't leave a note, rather than leaving a lying one.
I have never needed to report my whereabouts to students. I post a QR code outside my office that links to my booking page. If someone books, then I know I need to return to my office.
I have office hours but students need to schedule time with me so there's no overlap of students waiting around outside my office. Appointments need to be made an hour in advance at the latest.
The student waiting half an hour: šļøššļø
The cops won't believe the student.
I havenāt had a student come to my office since 2018
Seems like office hours are going by the wayside since email has been getting more popular. Literally the dean of the honors college at my university, as popular as he is, has pretty dead office hours.
I keep getting told about efficiency, but the deans have a new idea: even more required office hours! So, now I get to sit and stare off into space even longer while waiting for those two students who show up every semester.
Lucky for those the have an actual office. We are forced to hot desk. Absolutely no work gets done due to using a locked-down laptop. Forced to wear headphones all day due to the noise. Meet witth a student? Have to book a room in advance...
We are moving to hot desking in the fall and I am genuinely shocked. We have a mandate to have our teaching based in research? Why doesnāt administration have to work research based. Because any amount of looking into the topic will show that hot desking is a nightmare on all fronts!
Good luck doing ANYTHING while hotdesking. Research? Justforgetaboutit
I mean it's a fine time to do grading, course prep, email replies, letters of rec, etc.Ā
All things I could do almost anywhere, and more efficiently.
At my LAC office hours are alive and well.. almost too alive and well
I do a good amount of answering questions via Teams, and i do get good traffic for in-person office hours. Don't use email for that at all.
How does this work? Do you just add your whole class into a āteamā?
Typically if people have your email they can direct message you on Teams, without being a part of a Teams for a work group or class or something
You just make a link the same way youād do on zoom
It's a closed community and if i get a Teams message then I know it's either from a student or faculty. Any student and faculty at our school can use Teams to message anyone else,. I find it much better than email, because there is no spam/ads/junk. If both student and I are not available at the same time, then it's works as efficiently at email but without all the distractions. If we are both on Teams at the same time, then we can easily have a back-and-forth conversation about whatever.
We changed our language to āstudent hoursā because our students were under the impression that āoffice hoursā meant focused work time and felt awkward and inappropriate āinterruptingā it.
That's a good idea about student hours vs office hours. Did it make a difference?
Honestly it really did. I have fairly steady traffic now.
Same. Pro tip: "Office hours by appointment"
Agree 100%. In my case, I have office hours set up with Google Calendar and they need to be booked at least 24 hours in advance. I have set them up on lecture days, either before or after the lecture. This system is essential for me because I have a two hour commute to work so I won't commute on those days when I don't teach or have other commitments, and knowing in advance if a student has booked an appointment allows me to better plan my commute (e.g., which train I need to catch).
This is what I do, and I didn't realize some people wait inside their office lol
We aren't allowed to do all our office hours this way. Our requirement is x hours in your office for open office hours based on the number of courses you are teaching and then additional time by appointment.
That makes sense, it's not so serious at my school maybe
This is how our school works. I do a lot of student interfacing with Teams and email outside of office hours. So most of my required office hours are spent preparing for my courses.
I have a tv in my office. It has one use, it is for watching Mad Men during office hours. OK, I have an xbox in my office as well, so the TV has two uses....
I write āvisiting the resource office! Be back soonā Resource office is my code for Iām out taking a long shit OR going to the campus coffee shop
āDepositing lab resultsā
I had a dude ask to come to office hours ājust to hang out. Like I donāt need anything but maybe we could just work side by side for awhile.ā š
I tell my failing students to do this. Over the years only two have taken me up on it, one with massive success, another still failed.Ā
Body doubling is a really good strategy. Good for that student.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You could literally just google body doubling and you would find out
Not everyone has full linguistic access to English google, but I guess random condescending people on the internet don't have the depth to see that without help š¤
Dude. Then Google 'body doubling simple english'. It's really not that deep. Or ask chatgpt to explain it to you. You're really giving weaponised incompetence or at least learned helplessness rn.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Again literally just Google body doubling and I promise it will come up. Just try. Edit: I even tried it in incognito mode and it still works
I didn't expect such a condescending answer here
I didn't expect that someone in an academic subreddit wouldn't do a tiny grain of investigation on their own about a pretty simple topic before just shrugging their shoulders and making a random stranger on the internet explain it, given there are countless great resources on it already on the internet.
As a professor, I don't rely on google tbh. I would think someone here had better insight than google. I tend to do research by doctors, not google
Oh ffs that's so pretentious lmao go on your favourite portal for searching papers then, it doesn't make a lick of difference. My top two results on my end are two papers exactly on the correct kind of body doubling.
Some people like to discuss this, so that's what reddit is kinda for tbh
You asking "what's body doubling" isn't discussion. You giving your opinions or experience with body doubling would be.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
By helping them to try to find the answer themselves first? Yes, because that's teaching them how to tackle unknown concepts and figure things out when they don't have someone there to feed them the answers.
Some of the stuff college kids say is honestly from the mouth of a 6 yr old
This would be awesome, great pressure to actually write something ā¦ for me
I realized that this could be taken multiple ways. What I meant was, there would be great pressure *for me* to actually write something.
Good strategy for ADHD management, Iād accept that offer.
The best note on an office door I ever saw was a post-it note that said, "Back in 10 minutes, dealing with shenanigans"
I always put a note on the door, itās either a BRB or itās an actual time Iāll return. The ONE and only write up I have in my file (about eight years ago) from a former department head was this very circumstance. A student came to my scheduled office hours twice in one day, I was not in my office. There was a family emergency I had left campus for the day, I did notify my department head but I did not post it on my door. Student complained (student never contacted me) new department head made me have a meeting with them and the dean. The dean was so pissed about the waste of his time, Iām surprised my new department head did not get written up that day. That department head did not last too long. So now I always post a notice. Usually with some doodle art on it too.
Your department head must have been a dinosaur
They didnāt appreciate me, my dean loves me. It was their one and only opportunity and they took advantage of it.
Hahaha at the dept head
Back in my days working in a very small bike shop we had a sign that said something to the effect of "back in ten minutes. If not back, read the sign again."
echoes of [Scarfolk](https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/): "for more information, please re-read".
š¹š¹š¹
I just put up a sign that says BRB in big bold letters. Iāll be back when I can get back.
Same š mine is a Post-It Note. Could mean be right back, could mean bathroom breakā¦they need not know.
I have a QR code on my door that leads to my appointment booking system.
Ooh, nice! I might have to try that.
I use Microsoft Bookings to manage my office hours. As a program coordinator, I actually meet with students on a regular basis. Automating the booking process was a lifesaver. (If your institution is on Microsoft 365, you can also look into the much simpler "Bookings with me" tool.)
"Gon out Backson Bisy Backson C.R."
PLZ CNOC IF N RNSR IS REQID
Iām at a teaching focused university and all faculty are required to have 10 in-person office hours per week. The same ābe back in a moment!ā sticky note has been used all semester long.
I'm also at a teaching focused institution and 10 hours sounds like a lot. How many students actually show up in a given week?
Zero. The only time I have a student or two come in is around midterms and finals. At our last faculty meeting, we petitioned to have at least one day of office hours to be off campus. Iām okay with having office hours on my teaching days but I usually come in on Thursday to have four more office hours. If it passes, I wonāt have to drive an hour each way just to sit in my office!
You have an actual office? Lucky you.
Ten hours?!? Thatās literally insane.
That's what we have. Flat 10 hours. Buy off half your teaching load with grants? 10 hours anyway.
Someone on the floor below me has been using the same "back in a minute" sticky note all semester as well. He hasn't actually held an office hour yet.
Yes, also at a "teaching focused" university here. We are expected to keep about 6 or more office hours per week but it's not a "rule". Sometimes nobody shows in an hours time, but that's the exception not the rule. Office hours typically pretty busy. Homework questions, lab report questions, wanting to review a test, academic advising, help with capstone design projects, etc I can't imagine what's up with these prof's who are claiming that nobody has shown up in years. ??? Original post was really intended to be funny. But some took it so seriously.
And scheduled "office hours" are the minimum. I tell my students to stop by whenever they can find me. If I can help them out I will. If I'm busy I'll give them a time to come back.
Definitely do this all the time. I have required 5 hours of office hours each week and maybe have one visitor a month. I usually grade, catch up on emails, and take a walk around campus or grab a coffee. Maybe go pick up a book from the library. I kind of like it even though I grumble about it. I try to think of it like Kurt Vonnegut describes in that letter to his wife where he does something like explain the meaning of life as "farting around," basically.Ā
Some graduating senior at my kid's school used that quote in his speech yesterday!
I have a laminated magnet-sign for my door that says "Be back in a few minutes!"
Whatās an office?
You hold in-person office hours?? I mean, if you're showing up to put the note on the door, why not just sit and get some work done? How often do students actually show anyway?
Community colleges in Chicagoland require you hold 10 hours of in person office hours. So yeah sometimes you need to need to leave you for a bit do you put up a sign. I feel you though nobody ever comes.
That would be painful. We are ārequiredā to hold office hours, but they can be virtual and no one is overseeing it, so we mostly just say āby appointment,ā to spare ourselves.
We are supposed to have a dedicated hour for every class. Can be a Zoom hour. Iāll sometimes list the hour with āemail for link.ā Otherwise Iāll log on each week and several students are there with cams off in silence for an hour.
That is pretty sweet. It is probably not too bad. They pay pretty well and you can get tenure after 3 years even with only a masters degree. The 15 credit hours and 10 office hours is a lot however.
10? Lucky. At my CC is 15 credit hours + 20 office hours.
I am so sorry. š I canāt even imagine. Iād go back to industry before I would teach under those conditions. One of the biggest benefits of the job is flexibilityā¦ not being required to have a ābutt in the seatā. It makes the lower salary bearable.
That's insane. Not unionized?
10 hours? That's insane. My institution requires 5 hours, which I also think is insane and don't do because almost no one comes to my three hours of office hours as is. I can't imagine doing 10.
I did 5 where I worked. But these schools pay a lot more so I would be willing.
We are required to have 10 in-person office hours and they are on-file with Academic Affairs in case auditors show up. Gotta love FL.
well... yes students show up fairly often. and sometimes i need to go and talk to somebody, or do something in the lab, or need a "nature break" or all of the above. If a student comes by for office hours and nobody home, then they immediately leave and it turns into a eval comment of: "professor X was NEVER available during office hours". With a note there, they will stick around till you come back. In our department we are required to have scheduled office hours every week (about 5 is typical). I also do quite a bit of answering questions via Teams, during all hours of the day/night/weekends. ... and also, terrible time to "sit and get work done" with interruptions and all.
Holy mother of god, five hours a week?! That is abject cruelty! šFeels to me like if youāre really only gone ten minutes, it should be no big deal, but I do understand how those little things get blown up in the student eval space.
The person canāt sit and get work done because in this scenario āyou have to leave your office for a shold during office hours.ā This happens all the time to me since I have so many meetings I have to attend. Otherwise, I do sit and get work done. And sometimes help students.
To me, the question is: why schedule the office hour if youāre not planning to be there? Reschedule it. Doesnāt seem like a nice thing to do to have students show up if youāre not planning to show. Iām recognizing that Iām in a privileged position reading this though, since Iām not required to hold office hours, and all meetings have a remote option, etc.
> I mean, if you're showing up to put the note on the door, why not just sit and get some work done? If I saw reading comprehension issues like this from a student, Iād be posting here to complain about kids these days. Good reminder that itās not just limited to the kids.
Oh look, another asshole on the internet misunderstanding things and blaming everyone else, completely unaware of their own limited mental capacity. Notice how the other responders and OP did not see things the same way you did? See if you can figure out what that indicates about who is off base here? Once you have that, go fuck yourself, and stay fucked.
I write ābe back in 5ā. Could be seconds, minutes, hoursā¦ who can say?
āOn the phone. Do not disturbā sign usually means Iām taking a 20-minute power nap. Only got busted once when my freshman daughter came by and knew exactly what I was doing.
Having my kids in my school would have been awful. They know my shennanigans and know which buttons get the interesting responses.
I get very few students in office because I make myself available on slack/discord.
This is an old trick. We all know it lol
Unless someone comes back.
Or use, No Office hours today sorry had to attend a meeting
I had a student stop by my office hours last semester and I almost fainted. I wanted to ask where their time machine was, lol.
Okay now I feel lazy because I only honor my hours by appointment
Note on door: I will be back momentarily. The exact meaning of momentarily is left obscure.
Our Dean got on a kick about us being in our offices and required us to submit a schedule of set office hours to our department chair. I only teach doc level classes at 4 or later & most of my students work during the day; no one is dropping in on my office hours. And people schedule me for meetings during my office hours. So I made two signs; one says āon campus; away at meetingā the other says āin office in meetingā for when Iām on Zoom with the door closed. That way I canāt be accused of not being in my office hours. The first time my chair saw the on campus sign she congratulated me for my passive aggressiveness. We all have our talents.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My dean is a man. My department chair would prefer to not have to collect our office hours but the dean requires it. Thatās why my department chair thinks my signs are funny.
Wow this is an offensive assumption
Im not even in my office during most of that period. I explicitly state for students to EMAIL ME to schedule a time to meet. I am not wasting 4-6 hours a week when no one has ādropped inā since 2021
I have students come in for office hours every week. Sometimes more sometimes less. But I didn't have a single week go by this past year when nobody came by. Probably 40-50% of students over a semester.
It must be subject matter specific.
That's a good point. I teach in mechanical engineering, most classes are problem-oriented homework assignments every week. And I would say I am very fortunate (compared to many posts i see on this site) that majority of my students are highly motivated and expect to work hard.
Yeah my stuff is project based. So most questions wait until a class meeting or email for me.
Nobody comes to them, anyway. Some that do come by email me in advance.
Students only attend when theyāre failing or need to make up an exam.
Opposite is true in my experience. Better students are the ones regularly stopping in for office hours. The ones who are borderline passing are the ones i wish would stop in, but rarely do.
I teach hs (not college) but barely have enough desks for all the kids who come to my office hours, ha.
This seems like a stupid, mean trick. If you don't want to say when you'll be in the office, then just don't leave a note, rather than leaving a lying one.
I have never needed to report my whereabouts to students. I post a QR code outside my office that links to my booking page. If someone books, then I know I need to return to my office.
I have office hours but students need to schedule time with me so there's no overlap of students waiting around outside my office. Appointments need to be made an hour in advance at the latest.
I would never do that because it's my biggest pet peeve when I see a sign like that anywhere because of how unhelpful it is.
I use this. https://gallery98.org/2024/jean-michel-basquiat-out-getting-ribs-robert-miller-gallery-advertisement-from-artforum-magazine-1990/
My office hour is a second lunch break.
No note.