BY KELLY HAND

Summer is a great time to join the AAUP! If you’re not already a member, JOIN TODAY and choose one of these thank-you gifts.

You’re probably all too familiar with the common misperception that academics have a cushy schedule. If you are only in class fifteen or fewer hours per week and do not teach at all during winter, spring, and summer breaks, the assumption is that you can do whatever you want with your abundant free time. Even if you start rattling off the list of professional obligations that fill up the “extra” hours during the academic year—class preparation, meetings, departmental and university service, and your own research and writing—you may not get much sympathy from people stuck in offices for forty or more hours per week. And those people may be downright envious if they compare their weeks of vacation to your months.

Here at the national AAUP we are aware of the challenges faculty members experience, and we know that for most of you summer comes with so many strings attached that the word vacation is probably a misnomer. The word break might be more apt—at least in the sense of a break from the routine during the rest of the year. Even if you teach summer courses, the rhythm of condensed summer sessions is different, if not necessarily easier.

We would like to hear about what summer means for you. What are your plans? Are you a graduate student or adjunct instructor struggling more than usual to pay your bills over the summer? Do you work outside the academic sector to make extra money? Are you traveling somewhere new or familiar for field work or other research? What are you reading this summer? Do you plan to attend this year’s AAUP annual conference June 14–17 or the AAUP/AAUP-CBC Summer Institute in Durham, New Hampshire, July 19–22 (you can register until June 29)? We invite you to write about any of your summer plans, challenges, or experiences likely to interest your fellow AAUP members and other blog readers.

This blog series is also an opportunity to highlight the role summer plays in academic careers, whether in terms of progress toward tenure or promotion or in terms of work–life balance. Will you hunker down to finish that article or book you had to set aside during the academic year—and what’s at stake for you in completing those projects? Is it your turn to serve as primary caregiver for your children and/or aging parents? Do you simply need to recover from an especially challenging semester and catch up on household and personal matters?

If you would like to share your insights about summer break for academics, please write to Kelly Hand at khand@aaup.org with a completed blog post or a short proposal for a blog post. Suggested length is 250–1,000 words. We strongly encourage sending along a photo (ideally, one that is horizontal in orientation and croppable to 460 x 260 pixels); you should have permission to use the photo (or use an image in the public domain) and provide a photo credit if appropriate.

Enjoy your summer! If you don’t already subscribe to the blog, please sign up now (on the right column of each blog page) to receive email notifications about new blog posts. Look out for blog posts in the coming months with the heading “Summer Series.”