I honestly think and have always thought the only way to get enough peace of mind and research time would be to let the major and graduate programs die. We do amazing amounts of service and out of field teaching to keep these going. Without them, we would teach one more section of service courses each semester, but it would be quite cut and dried and we could finally get those courses, at least, in good shape.
Our total teaching and service time would shrink down to the size stipulated in our contracts, the days would lengthen, and our minds would expand. We would be able to leave campus before afternoon rush hour and be winging our ways down the Interstate to an institution with a library, rather than running film club and conversation hour or doing budgets or hosting speakers or hacking HTML or coming up with one more senior to graduate course that is out of field for us but in a field or on a topic we are told will get enrollment next year.
The renunciation I suggest is not allowed, of course, since we were hired to save the major and graduate program, someone said — but did was someone really thinking, or just saying something customary, automatic? If we taught to service and the minor, we would produce more total student credit hours and more visible research. Our task would seem less Sisyphean and the creativity and energy that goes into shoring up and saving what greater forces oppose without wanting to, but oppose, could go toward a lasting contribution to the field.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 