What I Did Over My Summer Vacation (Faculty Edition)

smccormack
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As a conversation starter on the first day of classes I always ask what my students did during our three month academic break. A summer job or extra hours at their year-round place of employment are the most common answers. Some take a summer class or two, occasionally a student will have traveled somewhere interesting. When they ask me the same question I tend to focus on the fun stuff I did with my family -- concerts, movies, and family bike rides. I generally spare students the reality of what most faculty do during summer break: work.

This summer’s “work” can be broken into three distinct areas: teaching summer courses, preparing fall courses, and getting organized for my upcoming sabbatical. I view the work I do during the summer months as incredibly important because it rejuvenates my courses while also allowing me some mental space to think beyond the day-to-day prep, grading and lectures. So here are some reflections on this summer’s work.

Summer classes at my college are intense at six-weeks in length; barely enough time to cover the material but a sufficient time for me to rethink some of what I cover during the academic year. Often I will use the summer intensive course to try something new. This summer I instituted an additional requirement for my students’ research projects: a draft Works Cited page.

While grading students’ papers at the end of spring semester I was frustrated that in spite of the amount of instruction provided by myself and our reference librarians, the students’ Works Cited pages were poorly executed. In several cases students used an incorrect format (ie, APA instead of MLA), while others chose to ignore my instructions completely and utilize sources that were deemed unacceptable in the assignment instructions (ie, Wikipedia and history.com). Although requiring a draft Works Cited page created more grading for me at the outset of the project, I was much happier with the final projects. The draft was due a full two weeks before the project itself and I aimed for a very quick (24 hour) turnaround with comments for students. In the cases where problems were discovered, students then had two days to submit a new draft.  I’m planning to continue this practice with my fall semester students because I was so pleased with the overall quality of the projects, even though they were completed in a condensed period of time.

I spent a lot of time prepping for fall classes during the summer. Most important in this process was revisiting my syllabi and trying to discern the meaning behind the handwritten notes I kept about assignments that did not work as intended. My last blog discussed how I plan to make changes to my US I syllabus in light of rethinking how I cover the American Revolution. In upcoming blogs I will share additional changes to my US I and II syllabi.

I was most excited this summer to organize and plan for my spring sabbatical. The semester off from teaching will be my first in more than ten years and I want to make the most of it. My research will focus on care of the mentally ill in Massachusetts and Rhode Island at the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century. I was able to spend some time finalizing where I will conduct my research and reviewing secondary literature. Most fruitful, however, was my contact with the local historical societies in towns where state institutions were located. I was reminded this summer of how many talented historians are hard at work in the historical society buildings we regularly pass by in our daily lives. My interaction with these professionals has motivated me to think more about what I could be doing in my classroom to better connect students to the local history near my college.

All in all, it was both a relaxing and a productive summer, which I hope has rejuvenated my mind, body and spirit for the semester of teaching ahead!

How about you? What did you do over your summer vacation?

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About the Author
Suzanne K. McCormack, PhD, is Professor of History at the Community College of Rhode Island where she teaches US History, Black History and Women's History. She received her BA from Wheaton College (Massachusetts), and her MA and PhD from Boston College. She is currently at work on a study of the treatment of women with mental illness in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Massachusetts and Rhode Island.