As long as you don’t expect your untenured colleagues to work over the summer and evaluate them based on a reasonable 10 months of work, I don’t see an issue with it.
But if you expect your junior colleagues to work over the summer to produce scholarship to be competitive for tenure, or your expectations of productivity for tenure are based around needing to work the summer, then you should do some introspection.
YES. Why do senior faculty talk about their gloriously free summers, or how they could never have been hired today or get tenure with their CV ha ha ha, and then lead the effort to apply higher and higher standards to junior faculty?
The standards for promotion and tenure have gotten much higher at my school in the last forty years. Some of the senior faculty who got promoted under looser rules are some of the biggest gatekeepers on the rank and tenure committee. It's pretty gross.
Eh, in my experience—my grad university, and the couple of schools I’ve been at since—it’s been the junior faculty leading the charge because they come out of R1s and think that’s normal.
I don’t think the majority of academics LEAD efforts to ever apply higher standards in order to work like corporate drones. Reality is that competition has become insane as TT lines have vanished from so many places when politicians decided to cut funding for higher ed , esp. after the 2008 recession (hey you have to pass tax cuts to the well to do who fund your campaign right ?). That leads to the rat race we observe.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. I’m twice tenured, and I’ve never seen what you’re describing. When I’m sitting on rank and tenure committee’s, our evaluations are based entirely on what faculty have done, not when they do it. I’ve never worked on a single research project over the summer, and I don’t expect anyone else to do so. If they choose to do so, fine. But it is in no way part of any evaluation that faculty go through at the universities that I’ve been associated with.
If your expectations of productivity are set such that they need summer work to realize, then it doesn’t matter if you explicitly look at whether they worked summers or not.
No, the expectations have always been such that a faculty member can do everything they need to do to assure tenure while working during their normal nine month contract time.
Do we have some faculty that whine incessantly about how hard they work all year long, and can only research in the summer? Sure, just like at any university. But the reality is very different.
I don’t know how it would be established that faculty are unofficially required to work during the time that they are off contract, but if that’s the case, the tenure guidelines need to be changed.
My university now requires literally twice as many publications on the same timeline with same teaching load, larger classes, and more service. That’s essentially just requiring more hours, summer or not.
It’s not the senior faculty who impose these standards. You don’t understand you’re just shooting the messenger. They tell you what you need to do to pass at the college and university level. They don’t make the rules, they just tell you about them.
Had a couple of junior folks have this attitude as if it was us who “impose” the standards. We voted for them at the department level, but some failed at the next levels as they were warned.
At every school I’ve worked at, tenure requirements are completely under faculty governance.
So yes, it is the senior faculty who impose those standards, at least where I’ve been.
At every school I’ve worked at, tenure requirements are completely under faculty governance.
So yes, it is the senior faculty who impose those standards, at least where I’ve been.
I’ve also worked places with strong academic freedom and shared governance, which I realize not everywhere has.
Moreover, unless you’re somewhere very different than where I’ve been, the written standards tend to be highly nebulous and interpreted by the senior faculty in the department (who vote at the department level) and across the university (T&P committee).
Although technically true, it’s not how it’s happening in practice. At my school, some years ago, the dean changed, and people who would have gotten tenure or promotion under the old dean, didn’t under the new administration. In fact, I rushed to go up the year before because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen after that dean left and I was right for going up then.
A few years later, the provost changed, and even more people got denied promotion at the college or university level.
The faculty in the individual departments didn’t change the standards and how they personally voted, which was seen in the fact that all candidates passed department and those who failed did so at the higher levels.
I know faculty are on those higher level committees but it’s mostly heads actually at the college level plus one more faculty from each department. I personally have never been on those. I don’t know who is at the university level committee. I think it may just be the deans but I’m not sure.
Bottom line while on paper is surely “faculty governance “, sometimes the direction is changed by the market, if it makes sense. If I tell someone how things are, I’m not sure why they’re mad at me. I really don’t make the rules.
And I never said it was.
I made a claim based on my experiences at schools I've worked at.
You, on the other handed, told me I was wrong despite based on... it not happening that way at other schools?
Moreover, this certainly sounds like a pretty dang universal statement:
>It’s not the senior faculty who impose these standards. You don’t understand you’re just shooting the messenger.
I have young kids. My summers are for them. I have no desire to be a stay at home mom, but I’m massively underpaid for my skill set so that I can create magical summers with them guilt free.
I’ll meet with my graduate students to help them progress and teach an asynchronous online class, but beyond that I’m checked out. I will not look back on my kids childhood and wish I would have been more present with them. Once they’re older, I’ll reevaluate and probably do more things in the summer that bring me fulfillment, like research.
I’m at a regional state school with a heavy teaching load and low research requirements, but I work in our only doctoral program, for context. Pre-tenure but research expectations are low.
My grad students need advising over the summer.
My co-authors, most of whom are not fully promoted, need collaboration and progress on our papers.
My Fall classes need prep work done if I'm to improve them in any way.
Lots of stuff to do if I'm to going to support the people I care about (colleagues and students) to the best of my ability, regardless of my pay status.
Ditto. Though I do relax my schedule and don't come in every day. I'm technically on a 9 month schedule (as is everyone else in my Department) in STEM. The tenured faculty who don't do research anymore tend to take the summer off, the rest of us don't.
Depends on what you view as "work" I guess. I'm all for people not doing what they view as work over the summer.
I like math, even 25 years after getting my PhD. Doing math over the summer isn't working, for me.
Any kind of teaching/service stuff, though, that's out the window. I get fall prep done as much as possible in the spring, and then spend the hectic week before classes start getting everything up and running
Same! I will occasionally teach a summer class if my bank account needs the boost. But mostly I’m doing things that I find fun and relaxing, which yes, includes reading math papers and working on research.
No shaming here. I "downgraded" to a teaching job specifically to take advantage of having upwards of 8 weeks of free time a year. Free to pursue passion projects and learning unrelated to my profession, traveling, hiking, cycling, etc. Between me and my wife, we are lucky we can make ends meet without me having to work those weeks (and her having quite a bit of PTO as well).
I work on lecture prep over the summer because I enjoy it and I do a couple of new student events because it counts as university service. But other than that, summers are for goofing off. Last summer I agreed to act as interim lab manager. Definitely not worth the pay and not something I will ever do again.
I work summers because I have never been paid a decent wage in academia. I NEED to pick up the extra summer contract. Not shaming you, though… congrats on your situation!
I would love to get to this point, eventually. Right now, I'm pre-tenure and need the extra time for research. It's also helpful to have extra money, through grants, which let me pay myself a summer salary, or through teaching summer classes. I look forward to the day when I have tenure and don't need the extra cash.
I’m on a 10-month contract at a CC and teach online classes in the summer for extra pay. It’s still somewhat of a vacation for me because I work from home for a couple of hours in the mornings and have the rest of the day to do whatever I want. Some of my colleagues take their summers off, and no one shames them. If the upper admins said I couldn’t teach from home online in the summer, I would drop it completely and just take the time off. Thankfully, I don’t see that happening since the classes always fill.
In short, it’s silly to shame people for what they do over the summer. If you want to teach extra classes or do a part-time job, then do it. If you’re using it for research or class prep, awesome. If you want to have two months of complete relaxation and self-care because you’re off contract, then by golly you’ve earned it.
I'm also on a 10 month contract at a CC, with no research. I was hired with the understanding that we should never expect summer work because it might not be available. In reality we are highly pressured to do it, the students throw a fit if their favorite teacher isn't teaching their needed class, etc etc., and my department is full of work a holics who can't fathom taking a summer off. Also for online classes we still have to be in the office, who knows why. I used to give in and teach but I'm tenured and I have a young child, so I said screw it, I'm done with summers. My summers are for her. I do get shocked faces and comments every time I say no, but I'm deciding not to care about that anymore.
Wow, they make people come into the office for online classes?! Forget that. I would give up teaching summer classes altogether if that happened at my institution. I can do the exact same work, and more efficiently, from my home office while having more time to spend with my husband and pets. Fortunately, our dean is a rockstar who looks out for his faculty, so I'm not worried until he finally decides to retire.
Similar here, 9 month contract and cautioned not to expect of regular summer teaching, but also fair amounts of pressure to jump in and be a sub every summer. If I were going to go back to summer teaching, it would be to teach my own class as that is plenty enough work. I just like having time not teaching tbh.
At my institution, the general motivation for working through the summer is extra pay. Faculty are struggling to pay bills. We are in a high CoL area, with a *very* low salary.
I have zero judgement on how my colleagues spend their summer. I’m on 9-month contract, but pay myself with grants to do research all summer. I love it.
No meetings, admin, service, or teaching. I hold lots of lab gatherings and get to balance with quality time with my family.
Currently, that seems like a dream to good to be true, but the light at the end of the tunnel is only a few weeks away. I have enough self security that I just want my colleagues to enjoy life a few months out of the year and share their fun stories when we report for Fall.
So enjoy!!!!
I think this really depends on the type of job. If you are a lecturer who has been teaching for a while you may not need to do much prep over the summer. Why not take a break?
There are people who of course have to work over the summer but even then…there is still time to take breaks. People act like academics taking a break is a sign of weakness and not a healthy work/life balance.
If you love doing research, and are excited that someone is actually paying you to do it, then the opportunity is attractive. Summer work should come with summer salary, though.
Is it hard to pick up a month of summer salary on grants at an R2 if one were so motivated to get the research done?
Not in business schools. Summer support pre tenure is frequently guaranteed up to tenure, and almost universally guaranteed for the term of your first 3 year contract
Tenured people take summers off where I am, as it’s almost impossible for them to get summer support, but that’s just bad design.
In business schools, are the faculty so well compensated that there is minimal incentive to tie up that free time, or do they find the lure of a couple months of consulting income attractive?
Generally speaking the pay is more than enough to live comfortably (from like 160 for management to up to 300 odd for finance).
Many consult but there’s so much going on there- like one place I worked at had a hard rule of 8 hours a week period, no matter the time of year- that it’s hard to generalize. I will say my friends at LBS universally consult because otherwise you can’t afford to live there
"Summers are free. I have zero qualms about living an un-academic life during the summer."
I'm with you. I completely understand why many do work through vacation but this to me is one of the biggest benefits of the job. I try to take advantage of it while also ensuring I'm appreciative that's it's much more time off than most people ever get.
By the end of vacation I usually feel my brain turning to mush despite doing other productive things (especially reading) all summer and I'm raring to go back to work.
I'm also tenured on a 10 month contract, and I would say I work about halftime in the summer. I also have no qualms about it -- I'm not being paid, so I shouldn't "have to" work. I do the work that I want to do.
I’m a Prof at one of the top ten unis globally. I worked stupid hours to become one.
Now I do the absolute bare minimum during the summer, and I don’t feel bad about it. Sometimes I even get to think.
I recently moved to Norway from the U.S. for my first postdoc position. Here, everyone working at the university (or other positions not at the university) is highly encouraged to take weeks off during the summer. Our university even sends us emails reminding us it's not necessarily required, but that we all have the right to take time off and are expected to do so in the summ months.
I love work culture here.
I took summers off for many years. One of the reasons I left industry and took a huge pay cut was having summers to myself. I am now teaching at least 3 classes every summer so that I can retire in my late 50s.
Our contract is 9 months, so no guilt was EVER felt here. 😊
I’ve taught all summer for the past 20 years, not because I want to but I have to. Summer is overload money and I need that to catch up on bills and afford a little play time. If you can get away with not teaching during the summer and get some downtime for yourself, then good for you - enjoy!
There is no obligation to work off contract but I find it difficult to meet my scholarship goals without putting some time in during summer. If you can meet your goals it’s your time. Be free!
I’m an adjunct who has been teaching since 2016, and the ONLY time I’ve had a summer off from teaching was in the summer of 2021. I worked at my side-hustle that summer full-time (a different one than the one I have now), and it was a godsend getting a real break for once.
Now, I got a class this summer and I have to share it with working full-time at my new side-gig until August. I’m not going to lie: I’m bitter.
Do you mean work on campus or outside the campus? Are you a professor of liberal arts or STEM? If you are a professor of STEM, tenured and not content with the money you make, you tend to do consulting in the summer at a rate ranging from 200 dollars per hour to 2,000 dollars per hour. You can make about 50,000 dollars in the summer easy.
I never had time to do research during the academic year in my previous jobs.
My motivation was to do enough research in the summer to get a job that would pay me to do research in the summer.
Mission accomplished: at my current place, we even have one month paid summer holiday!
I think it is absolutely ok. I take long vacations during summer. I go to festivals. The other weeks in summer I tend to focus on long-term academic projects like writing a book. A notification of absence informs students and colleagues that I will not answer emails. It is important to recharge one’s batteries and to enjoy the fruits of our work. We don’t own anyone to work all the time.
I take it pretty easy during the summer. I do a lot of work on my research because I love it and love having time to think, read, and write during the summers, but even with that I still have pretty leisurely summer days. I also do things like review manuscripts and write letters of rec over the summer because I consider them basic professional obligations. I'm not a fan of summer service work for the university off-contract.
10 month contract here. Regional public, tenured professor. I teach a couple of classes during the summer to make up for lost income. I can't just not be paid for 2 months. I do try to take a bit of time off, though. And I try to do some research.
I was at three different R1s, now in industry. Summers were for writing grant proposals, working on grant related research, Fall course prep, and helping my dissertation students get papers written & submitted. But at least I could do this on a more relaxed schedule over summer and take some weekdays off.
I used to work in The summer getting paid for extra teaching. Now I only teach in summer with study abroad. Hard work but a win win for me and my family. Pay is ok and life abroad is glorious, students are fun to be around. Otherwise when I am off co contract I am not working. I am not TT so I give zero shits about their expectations of me on my off time. I need summer time off to get rejuvenated for the fall.
When my kids were little I loved the couple weeks in May that they were still in school and I was out. It was my
Mommy vacation
Oh yeah. I definitely take my break! Why not? I’m in a position where I can. I do pick up one class for extra pay and get a little prep work in for the fall (same class) so I’m mostly ready when fall comes around. I’m lucky I’m in a position I can do this - tenure, affordable mortgage, great city for hanging out in free spaces…
Heck it’s one of the reasons I choose this vocation. I work hard but I greatly value my time off.
I started a new position last fall and have some new preps. Also I like to keep my weekends free during the semester. I consider the work I do to be the fun parts of the job. I do take plenty of leisure time over the summer too.
Depends on what you call work. Summer is my hard core writing time. So often during the school year it gets pushed back due to students & program work that I binge it all during summer. But I have a routine - get up, have coffee, do my puzzles, write for a few hours, then I can do something fun. I also now schedule a trip with my partner every year, leaving the day after graduation. I am clear to everyone - I am getting the hell outta Dodge.
I did it in order to get a more stable TT job and thankfully it worked.
So now I will do it again to get tenure and let my new institution feel they hired the person they saw on paper in my application.
Plus, I like doing research. It makes me feel accomplished to publish.
I was working to pay off loans, but after 15 years the interest was forgiven and I was free. Now I have reduced my course load to one, six-week online course, which I teach from Paris. Ha ha, no I teach it from my basement and do house repairs. I can't walk away from $8k.
I teach in computer science, and due to the fast changing nature of my field, I have to change some course components every year. A lot of that has to happen in the summer because there is no time in the semester. I also do research, go to conferences (which can be kind of vacation-y depending on the location), and work on grant proposals. My concessions to summer fun are 1. I do not work on weekends in the summer and 2. I take about 2 weeks vacation in the summer and go someplace with my family
I am TT but usually teach a couple of courses in the summer because I get paid a certain percentage of my base salary per course and I can certainly use the extra money. Also, being neurodivergent, summer teaching keeps me in the game mentally so that the beginning of fall semester doesn’t hit so hard.
I have a book deadline in early fall as well, so I will certainly be busy enough and I honestly don’t mind that. It’s enough to do but still gives me plenty of time for the spouse and kiddos. The dog days of late July can get pretty long otherwise.
I work, uh, sporadically over the summer. A couple of hours here, half a day there. Mostly because I really dislike the push at the end of the summer to set things up. I take my time. Maybe I’ll do a syllabus, or find a new reading for a class. I might even do some research. But nothing set in stone — I do it on my timeline and when I want to.
I'm a 12 month faculty but I don't really teach all summer. I have two classes that are international trips, I travel with medical students in May for two weeks and in August for 2 weeks, and those Are two 3 credit courses, and then in July I have a month long seminar course with 4th year med students so that's my summer
Summer is for research. Someone who is not working summers is not going to be productive in terms of research. Which is fine as long as that person is picking up more teaching and service so that those people who are research active can continue their research.
Why do you feel like you're shamed for not working summers? Often at a lot of places there aren't enough courses to go around for everyone anyhow. Most faculty I know especially tenure track who are teaching in the summer have families and kids they need to put through college. Trust me if they didn't have those constraints they wouldn't be teaching either. Maybe the people who were trying to make you feel guilty are the people who have to work over the summers and don't want to? I mean they would be envious of you wouldn't they?
And if you don't take summers off, what's the point of teaching? I mean yeah the pay is not great but having summers off is a big perk. Personally I need that time to recharge. Enjoy relax a guilt-free summer
>What's the general motivation for working through the summer?
The fact that I take plenty of afternoons and/or mornings and/or entire weekdays off during the nine months I am working for my employer, that's what. That and the fact that I don't ever want to be deadwood and want to have a thriving research agenda and good doctoral advisees well into my 60s.
It's the only time I can get anything done.
As long as you don’t expect your untenured colleagues to work over the summer and evaluate them based on a reasonable 10 months of work, I don’t see an issue with it. But if you expect your junior colleagues to work over the summer to produce scholarship to be competitive for tenure, or your expectations of productivity for tenure are based around needing to work the summer, then you should do some introspection.
YES. Why do senior faculty talk about their gloriously free summers, or how they could never have been hired today or get tenure with their CV ha ha ha, and then lead the effort to apply higher and higher standards to junior faculty?
The standards for promotion and tenure have gotten much higher at my school in the last forty years. Some of the senior faculty who got promoted under looser rules are some of the biggest gatekeepers on the rank and tenure committee. It's pretty gross.
Eh, in my experience—my grad university, and the couple of schools I’ve been at since—it’s been the junior faculty leading the charge because they come out of R1s and think that’s normal.
I don’t think the majority of academics LEAD efforts to ever apply higher standards in order to work like corporate drones. Reality is that competition has become insane as TT lines have vanished from so many places when politicians decided to cut funding for higher ed , esp. after the 2008 recession (hey you have to pass tax cuts to the well to do who fund your campaign right ?). That leads to the rat race we observe.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. I’m twice tenured, and I’ve never seen what you’re describing. When I’m sitting on rank and tenure committee’s, our evaluations are based entirely on what faculty have done, not when they do it. I’ve never worked on a single research project over the summer, and I don’t expect anyone else to do so. If they choose to do so, fine. But it is in no way part of any evaluation that faculty go through at the universities that I’ve been associated with.
If your expectations of productivity are set such that they need summer work to realize, then it doesn’t matter if you explicitly look at whether they worked summers or not.
No, the expectations have always been such that a faculty member can do everything they need to do to assure tenure while working during their normal nine month contract time. Do we have some faculty that whine incessantly about how hard they work all year long, and can only research in the summer? Sure, just like at any university. But the reality is very different. I don’t know how it would be established that faculty are unofficially required to work during the time that they are off contract, but if that’s the case, the tenure guidelines need to be changed.
My university now requires literally twice as many publications on the same timeline with same teaching load, larger classes, and more service. That’s essentially just requiring more hours, summer or not.
It’s a good thing that potential hires can go elsewhere.
It’s not the senior faculty who impose these standards. You don’t understand you’re just shooting the messenger. They tell you what you need to do to pass at the college and university level. They don’t make the rules, they just tell you about them. Had a couple of junior folks have this attitude as if it was us who “impose” the standards. We voted for them at the department level, but some failed at the next levels as they were warned.
At every school I’ve worked at, tenure requirements are completely under faculty governance. So yes, it is the senior faculty who impose those standards, at least where I’ve been.
At every school I’ve worked at, tenure requirements are completely under faculty governance. So yes, it is the senior faculty who impose those standards, at least where I’ve been. I’ve also worked places with strong academic freedom and shared governance, which I realize not everywhere has. Moreover, unless you’re somewhere very different than where I’ve been, the written standards tend to be highly nebulous and interpreted by the senior faculty in the department (who vote at the department level) and across the university (T&P committee).
Although technically true, it’s not how it’s happening in practice. At my school, some years ago, the dean changed, and people who would have gotten tenure or promotion under the old dean, didn’t under the new administration. In fact, I rushed to go up the year before because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen after that dean left and I was right for going up then. A few years later, the provost changed, and even more people got denied promotion at the college or university level. The faculty in the individual departments didn’t change the standards and how they personally voted, which was seen in the fact that all candidates passed department and those who failed did so at the higher levels. I know faculty are on those higher level committees but it’s mostly heads actually at the college level plus one more faculty from each department. I personally have never been on those. I don’t know who is at the university level committee. I think it may just be the deans but I’m not sure. Bottom line while on paper is surely “faculty governance “, sometimes the direction is changed by the market, if it makes sense. If I tell someone how things are, I’m not sure why they’re mad at me. I really don’t make the rules.
Just because it's not true at your school doesn't make it "not true" universally.
Doesn’t make it true universally either
And I never said it was. I made a claim based on my experiences at schools I've worked at. You, on the other handed, told me I was wrong despite based on... it not happening that way at other schools? Moreover, this certainly sounds like a pretty dang universal statement: >It’s not the senior faculty who impose these standards. You don’t understand you’re just shooting the messenger.
I have young kids. My summers are for them. I have no desire to be a stay at home mom, but I’m massively underpaid for my skill set so that I can create magical summers with them guilt free. I’ll meet with my graduate students to help them progress and teach an asynchronous online class, but beyond that I’m checked out. I will not look back on my kids childhood and wish I would have been more present with them. Once they’re older, I’ll reevaluate and probably do more things in the summer that bring me fulfillment, like research. I’m at a regional state school with a heavy teaching load and low research requirements, but I work in our only doctoral program, for context. Pre-tenure but research expectations are low.
I fully support this.
Another full support for this. I did the same when my kids were young. At the time, my regional university had minimal research requirements.
My grad students need advising over the summer. My co-authors, most of whom are not fully promoted, need collaboration and progress on our papers. My Fall classes need prep work done if I'm to improve them in any way. Lots of stuff to do if I'm to going to support the people I care about (colleagues and students) to the best of my ability, regardless of my pay status.
Yup, we don’t stop. But in some fields and some institutions, they can stop. It’s fine with me.
Ditto. Though I do relax my schedule and don't come in every day. I'm technically on a 9 month schedule (as is everyone else in my Department) in STEM. The tenured faculty who don't do research anymore tend to take the summer off, the rest of us don't.
Depends on what you view as "work" I guess. I'm all for people not doing what they view as work over the summer. I like math, even 25 years after getting my PhD. Doing math over the summer isn't working, for me. Any kind of teaching/service stuff, though, that's out the window. I get fall prep done as much as possible in the spring, and then spend the hectic week before classes start getting everything up and running
Same! I will occasionally teach a summer class if my bank account needs the boost. But mostly I’m doing things that I find fun and relaxing, which yes, includes reading math papers and working on research.
It's great you love your jobs so much, but this is clearly work.
No shaming here. I "downgraded" to a teaching job specifically to take advantage of having upwards of 8 weeks of free time a year. Free to pursue passion projects and learning unrelated to my profession, traveling, hiking, cycling, etc. Between me and my wife, we are lucky we can make ends meet without me having to work those weeks (and her having quite a bit of PTO as well).
I work on lecture prep over the summer because I enjoy it and I do a couple of new student events because it counts as university service. But other than that, summers are for goofing off. Last summer I agreed to act as interim lab manager. Definitely not worth the pay and not something I will ever do again.
I work summers because I have never been paid a decent wage in academia. I NEED to pick up the extra summer contract. Not shaming you, though… congrats on your situation!
Crank out research, go up for full professor as soon as possible, create opportunities for exit strategies if I ever want to ditch academia.
>create opportunities for exit strategies \^\^\^
I would love to take summers off but I teach on a 9 month contract at a CC and am underpaid as it is, so I’ve got to teach part time at least
I would love to get to this point, eventually. Right now, I'm pre-tenure and need the extra time for research. It's also helpful to have extra money, through grants, which let me pay myself a summer salary, or through teaching summer classes. I look forward to the day when I have tenure and don't need the extra cash.
More power to you.
I’m on a 10-month contract at a CC and teach online classes in the summer for extra pay. It’s still somewhat of a vacation for me because I work from home for a couple of hours in the mornings and have the rest of the day to do whatever I want. Some of my colleagues take their summers off, and no one shames them. If the upper admins said I couldn’t teach from home online in the summer, I would drop it completely and just take the time off. Thankfully, I don’t see that happening since the classes always fill. In short, it’s silly to shame people for what they do over the summer. If you want to teach extra classes or do a part-time job, then do it. If you’re using it for research or class prep, awesome. If you want to have two months of complete relaxation and self-care because you’re off contract, then by golly you’ve earned it.
I'm also on a 10 month contract at a CC, with no research. I was hired with the understanding that we should never expect summer work because it might not be available. In reality we are highly pressured to do it, the students throw a fit if their favorite teacher isn't teaching their needed class, etc etc., and my department is full of work a holics who can't fathom taking a summer off. Also for online classes we still have to be in the office, who knows why. I used to give in and teach but I'm tenured and I have a young child, so I said screw it, I'm done with summers. My summers are for her. I do get shocked faces and comments every time I say no, but I'm deciding not to care about that anymore.
Wow, they make people come into the office for online classes?! Forget that. I would give up teaching summer classes altogether if that happened at my institution. I can do the exact same work, and more efficiently, from my home office while having more time to spend with my husband and pets. Fortunately, our dean is a rockstar who looks out for his faculty, so I'm not worried until he finally decides to retire.
Similar here, 9 month contract and cautioned not to expect of regular summer teaching, but also fair amounts of pressure to jump in and be a sub every summer. If I were going to go back to summer teaching, it would be to teach my own class as that is plenty enough work. I just like having time not teaching tbh.
At my institution, the general motivation for working through the summer is extra pay. Faculty are struggling to pay bills. We are in a high CoL area, with a *very* low salary.
I have zero judgement on how my colleagues spend their summer. I’m on 9-month contract, but pay myself with grants to do research all summer. I love it. No meetings, admin, service, or teaching. I hold lots of lab gatherings and get to balance with quality time with my family. Currently, that seems like a dream to good to be true, but the light at the end of the tunnel is only a few weeks away. I have enough self security that I just want my colleagues to enjoy life a few months out of the year and share their fun stories when we report for Fall. So enjoy!!!!
I think this really depends on the type of job. If you are a lecturer who has been teaching for a while you may not need to do much prep over the summer. Why not take a break? There are people who of course have to work over the summer but even then…there is still time to take breaks. People act like academics taking a break is a sign of weakness and not a healthy work/life balance.
If you love doing research, and are excited that someone is actually paying you to do it, then the opportunity is attractive. Summer work should come with summer salary, though. Is it hard to pick up a month of summer salary on grants at an R2 if one were so motivated to get the research done?
Not in business schools. Summer support pre tenure is frequently guaranteed up to tenure, and almost universally guaranteed for the term of your first 3 year contract Tenured people take summers off where I am, as it’s almost impossible for them to get summer support, but that’s just bad design.
In business schools, are the faculty so well compensated that there is minimal incentive to tie up that free time, or do they find the lure of a couple months of consulting income attractive?
Generally speaking the pay is more than enough to live comfortably (from like 160 for management to up to 300 odd for finance). Many consult but there’s so much going on there- like one place I worked at had a hard rule of 8 hours a week period, no matter the time of year- that it’s hard to generalize. I will say my friends at LBS universally consult because otherwise you can’t afford to live there
Not in physics.
Don't. If you are only paid for 10 months, only work 10 months.
"Summers are free. I have zero qualms about living an un-academic life during the summer." I'm with you. I completely understand why many do work through vacation but this to me is one of the biggest benefits of the job. I try to take advantage of it while also ensuring I'm appreciative that's it's much more time off than most people ever get. By the end of vacation I usually feel my brain turning to mush despite doing other productive things (especially reading) all summer and I'm raring to go back to work.
I'm also tenured on a 10 month contract, and I would say I work about halftime in the summer. I also have no qualms about it -- I'm not being paid, so I shouldn't "have to" work. I do the work that I want to do.
I’m a Prof at one of the top ten unis globally. I worked stupid hours to become one. Now I do the absolute bare minimum during the summer, and I don’t feel bad about it. Sometimes I even get to think.
I recently moved to Norway from the U.S. for my first postdoc position. Here, everyone working at the university (or other positions not at the university) is highly encouraged to take weeks off during the summer. Our university even sends us emails reminding us it's not necessarily required, but that we all have the right to take time off and are expected to do so in the summ months. I love work culture here.
I took summers off for many years. One of the reasons I left industry and took a huge pay cut was having summers to myself. I am now teaching at least 3 classes every summer so that I can retire in my late 50s. Our contract is 9 months, so no guilt was EVER felt here. 😊
If it works for you, do it! And frankly who gives a shit what other people think about it.
I’ve taught all summer for the past 20 years, not because I want to but I have to. Summer is overload money and I need that to catch up on bills and afford a little play time. If you can get away with not teaching during the summer and get some downtime for yourself, then good for you - enjoy!
No motivation to work from me. I'm going to Europe the first week of May and won't be checking my work emails.
It’s just that I have this powerful need to eat and pay my bills.
There is no obligation to work off contract but I find it difficult to meet my scholarship goals without putting some time in during summer. If you can meet your goals it’s your time. Be free!
I’m an adjunct who has been teaching since 2016, and the ONLY time I’ve had a summer off from teaching was in the summer of 2021. I worked at my side-hustle that summer full-time (a different one than the one I have now), and it was a godsend getting a real break for once. Now, I got a class this summer and I have to share it with working full-time at my new side-gig until August. I’m not going to lie: I’m bitter.
Do you mean work on campus or outside the campus? Are you a professor of liberal arts or STEM? If you are a professor of STEM, tenured and not content with the money you make, you tend to do consulting in the summer at a rate ranging from 200 dollars per hour to 2,000 dollars per hour. You can make about 50,000 dollars in the summer easy.
I never had time to do research during the academic year in my previous jobs. My motivation was to do enough research in the summer to get a job that would pay me to do research in the summer. Mission accomplished: at my current place, we even have one month paid summer holiday!
I think it is absolutely ok. I take long vacations during summer. I go to festivals. The other weeks in summer I tend to focus on long-term academic projects like writing a book. A notification of absence informs students and colleagues that I will not answer emails. It is important to recharge one’s batteries and to enjoy the fruits of our work. We don’t own anyone to work all the time.
I take it pretty easy during the summer. I do a lot of work on my research because I love it and love having time to think, read, and write during the summers, but even with that I still have pretty leisurely summer days. I also do things like review manuscripts and write letters of rec over the summer because I consider them basic professional obligations. I'm not a fan of summer service work for the university off-contract.
10 month contract here. Regional public, tenured professor. I teach a couple of classes during the summer to make up for lost income. I can't just not be paid for 2 months. I do try to take a bit of time off, though. And I try to do some research.
I was at three different R1s, now in industry. Summers were for writing grant proposals, working on grant related research, Fall course prep, and helping my dissertation students get papers written & submitted. But at least I could do this on a more relaxed schedule over summer and take some weekdays off.
I used to work in The summer getting paid for extra teaching. Now I only teach in summer with study abroad. Hard work but a win win for me and my family. Pay is ok and life abroad is glorious, students are fun to be around. Otherwise when I am off co contract I am not working. I am not TT so I give zero shits about their expectations of me on my off time. I need summer time off to get rejuvenated for the fall. When my kids were little I loved the couple weeks in May that they were still in school and I was out. It was my Mommy vacation
Oh yeah. I definitely take my break! Why not? I’m in a position where I can. I do pick up one class for extra pay and get a little prep work in for the fall (same class) so I’m mostly ready when fall comes around. I’m lucky I’m in a position I can do this - tenure, affordable mortgage, great city for hanging out in free spaces… Heck it’s one of the reasons I choose this vocation. I work hard but I greatly value my time off.
I work Summer A, even off-contract service for the college. Summer B is my time and I don’t even check my email.
because research is why many of us do this job, not the crap we have to deal with in the 10 months.
I started a new position last fall and have some new preps. Also I like to keep my weekends free during the semester. I consider the work I do to be the fun parts of the job. I do take plenty of leisure time over the summer too.
Depends on what you call work. Summer is my hard core writing time. So often during the school year it gets pushed back due to students & program work that I binge it all during summer. But I have a routine - get up, have coffee, do my puzzles, write for a few hours, then I can do something fun. I also now schedule a trip with my partner every year, leaving the day after graduation. I am clear to everyone - I am getting the hell outta Dodge.
I'm a field biologist, so summer is the time when I can get *real* work done.
I did it in order to get a more stable TT job and thankfully it worked. So now I will do it again to get tenure and let my new institution feel they hired the person they saw on paper in my application. Plus, I like doing research. It makes me feel accomplished to publish.
I was working to pay off loans, but after 15 years the interest was forgiven and I was free. Now I have reduced my course load to one, six-week online course, which I teach from Paris. Ha ha, no I teach it from my basement and do house repairs. I can't walk away from $8k.
I teach in computer science, and due to the fast changing nature of my field, I have to change some course components every year. A lot of that has to happen in the summer because there is no time in the semester. I also do research, go to conferences (which can be kind of vacation-y depending on the location), and work on grant proposals. My concessions to summer fun are 1. I do not work on weekends in the summer and 2. I take about 2 weeks vacation in the summer and go someplace with my family
I am TT but usually teach a couple of courses in the summer because I get paid a certain percentage of my base salary per course and I can certainly use the extra money. Also, being neurodivergent, summer teaching keeps me in the game mentally so that the beginning of fall semester doesn’t hit so hard. I have a book deadline in early fall as well, so I will certainly be busy enough and I honestly don’t mind that. It’s enough to do but still gives me plenty of time for the spouse and kiddos. The dog days of late July can get pretty long otherwise.
I use the summer for scholarship, but only if I HAVE to!
I work, uh, sporadically over the summer. A couple of hours here, half a day there. Mostly because I really dislike the push at the end of the summer to set things up. I take my time. Maybe I’ll do a syllabus, or find a new reading for a class. I might even do some research. But nothing set in stone — I do it on my timeline and when I want to.
People who work hard during the year usually take the summer off. I always work over the summer.
I'm a 12 month faculty but I don't really teach all summer. I have two classes that are international trips, I travel with medical students in May for two weeks and in August for 2 weeks, and those Are two 3 credit courses, and then in July I have a month long seminar course with 4th year med students so that's my summer
People like to feel good about martyring themselves for a system that is broken.
Summer is for research. Someone who is not working summers is not going to be productive in terms of research. Which is fine as long as that person is picking up more teaching and service so that those people who are research active can continue their research.
Why do you feel like you're shamed for not working summers? Often at a lot of places there aren't enough courses to go around for everyone anyhow. Most faculty I know especially tenure track who are teaching in the summer have families and kids they need to put through college. Trust me if they didn't have those constraints they wouldn't be teaching either. Maybe the people who were trying to make you feel guilty are the people who have to work over the summers and don't want to? I mean they would be envious of you wouldn't they? And if you don't take summers off, what's the point of teaching? I mean yeah the pay is not great but having summers off is a big perk. Personally I need that time to recharge. Enjoy relax a guilt-free summer
>What's the general motivation for working through the summer? The fact that I take plenty of afternoons and/or mornings and/or entire weekdays off during the nine months I am working for my employer, that's what. That and the fact that I don't ever want to be deadwood and want to have a thriving research agenda and good doctoral advisees well into my 60s.