What to do on a “it’s too hot to work in the office” day

Today happens to be a “work from home” day, given the heat in Georgia and that my pressing matters can be dealt with by email.^[1]I say this fully recognizing the blessing of having a job where I can do my work remotely. Not everyone is so fortunate. Email is the joy and curse of many of us, and today seems like a good day to try to reduce the piles of it. And I also have a pile of books that I’ve either bought and need to read, or checked out of the library and really need to read and get back to the library. And my website could use a little more content — after all, the kinds of things we research and talk about in our classes should disseminate to larger publics.

What does all of this have to do with being a professor? Many of those emails I need to get through have to do with newspaper stories that I haven’t had time to read, but saved because I thought there might be something helpful. And so far, I’ve found a few of those… if you were to watch me work today, among the things I’m doing:

• Reading Strength in Numbers for insights that I’ll use in my Theory and Research course (the book’s subtitle: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them).
• Catching up on some New York Times emails that have to do with politics, since political communication is one of my interest areas. Some example articles I found while trying to purge emails from my inbox:^[2]You don’t have to agree with the premise of the articles to find them interesting. I don’t always agree with every article I read or share with students. That’s part of the point of the liberal … Continue reading
  • “A Campaign Aide Didn’t Write that Email. A.I. Did.”
  • “Are Democrats Actually Winning Older Voters?”
  • “A.I.’s Use in Elections Sets Off a Scramble for Guardrails.”

Not everything I read has to do with artificial intelligence, even though it is one of those topics we in academia have to be concerned with. Universities really need to think through the implications of the various versions of A.I. apps that are out there, since the technology seems to be moving faster than our ability to truly understand what it will mean for us. I could list a lot of articles here pondering what it means for academia, but some of them seem so old (circa January 2023!).

Our students don’t always have the time or inclination to think about these (and many other) issues, or even know why they should know about them — but if we’re going to teach the next generation, we must have the time to be reflective about what’s going on around us, and what role the discipline of communication has to play in understanding and shaping our world.^[3]Another argument for and against the idea of “summers off” for academics… I’m personally not off, because I’m on a 12-month contract, but without time to think about these issues, we’re … Continue reading.

And in my case, I’m the chair of a broad department that includes all of the following, all of which I try to have at least some familiarity with (I do better in some areas than others):

• Public speaking
• Performance studies
• Classical to contemporary rhetoric
• Relational communication
• Multimedia journalism
• Rural journalism
• Sports journalism
• Audio, broadcast, and film production
• Public relations
• Advertising
• Media design
• Social media

I also need to be up on different teaching ideas, including the use of different approaches and technologies in the classroom. Just because I’ve taught for a while doesn’t mean I can’t — or shouldn’t — continue to learn. After all, I work at the state’s designated public liberal arts university, where teaching is an important part of who we are.

I also need to keep up with happenings in the realm of computing (we’re an Apple-centric department), and with changes in the photo and video industries. Two of our computer labs are being updated this summer (thank you, Information Technology!), and it’s important to know not just what we need now, but what will still be valuable 4-5 years from now.

And it means looking at trends in social media and internet developments, but I’ll save that discussion for a different post. 🙂 After all, who’s still using MySpace or Geocities? Or surfing the web on Netscape Navigator, unless one is truly flexing their nerdiness?

If I look at my “to-read” list, it continues to increase. But that’s also the curse and blessing of being in academia: there’s so much to learn, and yet, at the same time, the recognition that there’s so much I don’t know. And it’s why many of us continue on the treadmill of trying to increase our knowledge and skills bases during the summers so that we can be even more prepared for what the future of communication and academia holds.