A few people have asked me what is up with my blog (or lack thereof, actually). The short answer is that Winter Quarter sucks. The long answer is also that Winter Quarter sucks, but I’ll elaborate.

I’m teaching a 90-student undergraduate class right now (Educational Psychology: Learning, Human Development, and Schools). I actually like it very much. Undergrads at my current university seem so much more earnest and engaged than where I was before. But it also satisfies a writing requirement and a GE, so there are certain workload issues that I can’t change. I have two TAs, who are both awesome, but I can’t exactly offload everything on to them.

I’m also teaching a graduate seminar on Collaborative Learning, which is pretty much one of the things I’m known for, so I can’t slack on that either. I’ve gotten so many great mentoring relationships out of that class from teaching it last year, so I definitely want that to continue with this year’s group. Faculty are only as good as their grad students.

I’m also the Director of Undergraduate Programs, a position that started last summer. We have an undergraduate minor in the School of Education that I’m in charge of. Some of what I spend my time doing has to do with curriculum design, vision for the future, student welfare, instructional quality, and TA development, and I like all of that. But I also have to deal with resource management (particularly fun now with the budget crisis), hiring and reappointment (or not, again thanks to funding cuts), committee meetings, course scheduling, enrollment targets, etc, and those are the things that make my hair stand on end. Administration in academia is sometimes thought of as the Dark Side of The Force. I’m feeling distinctly shades-of-grey at this point.

I’m also Chair of the Faculty this year. This is a rotating service job that I agreed to take on before I got offered the Undergrad Director position, and I said (foolishly) that I’d do both. It might be easy enough to just convene the occasional meeting and call for a few votes here and there, but there are actually some big issues we’re dealing with this year involving faculty welfare and shared governance, so I can’t really phone in that job either.

And as if all that weren’t enough, I’m also chairing a dissertation, chairing a masters thesis, trying to edit a book and a journal special issue, and trying to write three articles (all three of which seem to get pushed to the back of the line on a regular basis).

I used to say that I was “just keeping my head above water” when I got really swamped. This quarter, I feel like my head is completely underwater, and I barely manage to bob up every once in a while for the tiny second it takes to gasp a breath so I don’t die. There are only three more weeks left in this quarter, so I’m holding my breath for Spring Break. The blog will be back, but not until I have time to think meaningfully about anything other than how behind I am.