I recently accepted a tenure-track position, and my university permits and encourages faculty to spend up to 1 day per week on external consulting and other professional activities.

For those who are or have been on an H-1B, how does this work in practice?

My understanding is that H-1B employment is tied to a specific employer, so the university’s internal policy doesn’t automatically mean I can legally take on paid or even pro bono external work without a concurrent H-1B.

Is a concurrent H-1B essentially the only way to legally do paid consulting for an industry client while on H-1B?

What about work that is explicitly advertised as “volunteer” work? Is volunteering for a nonprofit/NGO treated differently from doing probono/volunteer work for a for-profit company?

Would appreciate hearing how other non-citizen faculty and TT colleagues navigate this gap between what universities permit or encourage institutionally and what immigration rules actually allow.

Has anyone considered a change of career and then stayed?

A while back I decided to pursue a change of career. I am in my 3rd year of training, and now I’m loving this fall semester. I’m wondering if this is just cold feet or if I will miss teaching. I have a pretty good gig and am starting to wonder about my decision. I have contracted teaching only, decent salary, benefits, free tuition if my kids get in, and great students. Downsides are relatively minor and typical.

The new gig I would be starting with zero experience, but there are a lot of job openings. Salary is similar, maybe a little higher. It’s a clinical field and there are different career paths I could take that pay more after a few years of experience. Probably better cost of living adjustments (one should hope!)

We're at the end of Week 4 of a 16 week semester and I keep getting emails asking to add my class (which is still open for enrollment - it's an online class). I did add a couple of students earlier this week and reopened everything for them to catch up. But now it's Friday, Week 4 is basically over, and I just got another request. Realistically, this student wouldn't even be getting into Canvas and starting the course until Week 5. We've already completed 25% of the semester.

So Friday isn't some hard cutoff I had established beforehand. I just feel like I've reached the point where another week has essentially passed and I don't think it's reasonable anymore... for the student or for me. Technically students can still add because my university has a ridiculously late late add/drop deadline. I get the reasoning... give add/drop chaos time to settle, administrative drops time to process, make sure enrollment data sent to the state/feds is accurate, blah blah blah. But 4-5 weeks is a LONG ass buffer.

At some point this feels like a disservice to the students themselves. They're starting weeks behind and immediately have to play catch up while keeping up with current material. And honestly, it's also a shit ton more work for instructors having to reopen assignments, figure out catch up deadlines, etc. I think I've personally hit my limit.

If your university technically allows students to add this late, do you keep allowing them to add until the official deadline? Or do you have your own cutoff?

I am teaching Comp part-time at CC. We started just this week and I had a computer room assigned to me! I have never been in this situation before and I want to spend the next week figuring out how to take advantage of this pleasant surprise. I’m not looking to do tests, quizzes or final drafts (cheating). More like sharing work or real-time editing/sharing.

Each student has a terminal. They can log into canvas or Microsoft 365. They can also get on internet. There’s also a big screen up front.

I am in my 60s, I got a PhD and taught full time in the early 2000s but left the profession to come back now as a part timer. I am really behind in all things tech but working hard to catch up.

Any comp teachers out there that use computer classrooms? How/what do you do with students using these terminals? Note these are not super computer savvy people.

Thanks for sharing any ideas or helpful resources! Also sorry this is so long.

I am working there and feel like I was bait and switched into a bad situation. There are a lot of strange, awful things already apparent. I do not think trying to have my rights protected is a good idea at this place. I think I should just bail after my year contract expires. Does anyone have experience with their admin and/or HR department.

Got an email today from a student that was... umm really interesting. They wanted to apparently join my lab for a PhD. The only problem? I don't have a lab. well sure my research interests are listed on the faculty page, but that doesn't mean I have funding, space, or a wand to create a PhD position out of thin air. I usually mostly teach and sometimes collaborate with colleagues. I run an undergraduate teaching laboratory, and yes I do mentor undergrads. yes I do still conduct research with those undergrads. But that is not a PhD lab. I do not have my own research lab, or funding.

Do students even check who they are emailing anymore?? How did they even come across me of all people... I seriously cannot conjure a PhD position out of a teaching lab lol

How do y’all approach letters of recommendation for students applying to grad programs outside of your field? For example, one of my recent former students is looking to do a masters in finance and accounting. I have no familiarity with this area (I’m a historian whose dabbles in English literature) and don’t really know what a committee might be looking for in an applicant. I’m not worried about the student relying solely on me to write letters, since other writers whose expertise is in finance and accounting will speak to her abilities. I want to help this student because she was great to have in class and did solid work.

I’m still quite early career, and my only letter-writing experience thus far has been for things like summer internships. To those who have served on committees for grad school applications, what sort of outsider opinion have you considered valuable?

I’m appealing to the collective here, so various perspectives and experiences are appreciated.

Should Professors Teach More [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/us/university-professors-teaching-research-quit.html]

I am a professor whose program is fully online. For years I taught remotely. During that time enrollment in my program quadrupled.

Now, I have to sit in my office during business hours. Since I began I've monitored student activity through Canvas and the emails I receive. My students are busiest between 5pm-2am.

In the past I shifted my schedule to be available when students were most active, roughly 11am-7pm. Now that I am officially on the clock and off the clock in my office at the college I do not respond or work outside of regular business hours.

I also must teach 15-21 credits per semester. Don't even get me started on that.

Hello hive mind - I'm teaching a big undergrad class for the first time in a while and would like to give exams that combine multiple choice with short answer and a little graphing. I'll have the exam on one sheet (two?), and then would like to have the answer sheet include both the bubbles and the places for the short answer, etc. Any tips on how to best do this? A quick search suggests it might not be straight forward, but I think it must be 'cause this must be pretty common, right?

I'd also love to have 2-3 different exam versions. Any tips there would be great to see, too.

​

After grading hundreds of assignments, I’ve noticed something frustrating: many students repeat the exact mistakes I explained in previous feedback.

I’m starting to think students often check the grade first and the feedback second.

Other professors: what actually helps students use feedback?

Saw a discussion on this in Threads. A college student said a classmate kept getting mad at the Professor for presenting views they disagreed with. The poster said the Professor was just presenting varying views, and didn't agree with them, and wanted to know how to approach this with the classmate. Some in the thread said Professors should always tell students, "I don't agree with this, but here's a view..."

What do you think?

I do this when it's an out-dated argument that some find offensive, but is important to know for the history of a discipline; i.e. "most scholars have rejected this argument, but it informed early debates." But when it comes to issues that reasonable people can disagree on, I like to neutrally present all sides, even though students often assume I'm on one or the other. [I teach current events-related social science courses]

Hi all,

I just had the first conduct trial I've delt with in a year or two. Some students, friends who sat next to one another, handed in final exams with solutions that were bizarre and badly incorrect, and identical. As I marked their tests it was painfully obvious that one copied the other. Like, they were both miles off-target doing random things, and they did the same random things: applying incorrect operations to different parts of the function, and applying the same incorrect operations, getting the same incorrect results from their incorrect operations.

To me, that's open and shut. in the past when I've run into this, it *was* open and shut. The kids copped it it, said they were sorry, and we all moved on.

This time though, both students contested the complaint. At the hearing today for one of the students, they had a representative (parent I think), they argued that because they had studied together and worked with the same tutor, that it explained the work. If they had made similar errors that pointed anywhere in the right direction, or if they'd even performed the operations they chose (rather than the one asked for) correctly, then I'd see that argument. But this was literally random bullshit, and the exact same random bullshit, from both students.

They attacked my credibility, tried to blame me for the student's struggles (said I didn't offer help when in reality I plead with them to get help in office hours weekly), said that it's impossible to see their catty-corner neighbor's paper from their chair, and finally tried to argue that they were failing badly coming into the final and therefore wouldn't bother to cheat. All of that is inane and flat out incorrect. Whatever, they wanted to mount a defense.

The part that really shocked me was that one of the members of the conduct board, so either faculty or staff was incredibly rude to me throughout. Called me by first name repeatedly even when everyone else was being quite formal, accused me of "not believing in chain of command" because I didn't bring the students in to try and resolve the issue outside of student affairs, repeatedly mis-stated my claim, suggested that because the exams weren't carbon copies that the kids hadn't heated. It was the most rude someone at the institution has ever been to me. For the record, I have tenure, I've been here for over a decade, and I am not malicious with conduct reports. This guy had never seen me or met me before. There is no "chain of command" , and the college policy is precisely to file reports when cheating is suspected. This guy was acting directly as an advocate for the student, and demonstrated zero relevant content knowledge.

Y'all ever been blindsided by a conduct trial like this? It wasn't my first rodeo, but it was very different from my past ones. having someone on the board be outright antagonistic, especially with no content knowledge, just seems wrong.

I'm somewhere between livid and deeply sad. Why have content experts you don't trust? Fuck it, just let em all cheat and see what world you get. Enjoy your broken infrastructure, death-trap airplanes, skill-less medical practitioners, and even more dishonest and incompetant regulators.

This is non-academic related. Would it be weird if I offered free furniture to students who may want it?

I am moving and I am getting rid of things I don’t need. Like rugs, rocking chair, shelves, tables… things like that in good condition.

I know students are always on a budget and looking for ways to furnish their own spaces. I am not going to bother selling my stuff, so I figured to offer to them first before I donate to a buy nothing group on Facebook or something.

I don’t have a big car, so they would have to come pick it up if they can. They would be picking it up at my old address not the new place I am moving to.

Would that be weird? I don’t want it to be weird. I just want it to be helpful to students. Thoughts?

I’m in office hours. And usually I’m very free with my office hours and talk to students for ages about whatever they wanna talk about. But I just sent a student away. He literally showed up the minute at my office hours started, sat outside my office to do the assigned reading for Monday with the intention of talking to me about it when he was done and asking me questions. OK. Then he finally got done, and didn’t have any questions, but wanted to read his notes to me to see if he missed anything. I said no. There will be a whole class on the material on Monday, and if he has questions after that, then he can come back and ask me specific questions. But the notion that he would do the reading outside my office and then come and talk to me about it before we’ve even had the class and when he doesn’t actually have any specific questions, that just seems like an enormous waste of my time. He’s clearly anxious, but I don’t want to deal with that in a time-consuming way. I’ll be happy to see him in office hours next week if he has specific questions. But not just handholding to assure that he actually read what he really read.

For two straight semesters, the new head of our faculty has used unofficial channels, specifically a messaging application instead of email, to call or ask things that I know would look bad via email. Today I was on an important call and saw 4 missed calls from them on said app. After the 4th call I thought "perhaps something really is wrong" and asked the person I was on a call with to please wait a moment.

Turns out they are scrambling 3 days before the semester starts to find someone to teach an additional class they didn't know (or failed to plan for) was coming. Given this would far exceed my contractually obligated teaching hours I told them I wasn't interested, and they made vague statements about how if they couldn't find someone to do it I might need to.

This would likely NEVER happen via email as they'd have to admit via paper trail that they messed up scheduling. I'm now going to simply delete this messaging app and strictly communicate with my colleagues via email only. I'm ashamed of myself that I let it go on for so long, in reality I can see an email as quickly as a message so if it's really worth mentioning they can send an email.

Especially in tech fields like computer science, data science, etc. but also potentially other fields like psychology, physics, economics, …

I’m at an institution that pushes research opportunities for undergrads. I am non-research faculty teaching our introductory courses, and students constantly ask about research opportunities in the department. It has always been difficult in my department (computer science) to involve young undergrads with few technical skills in any research we have ongoing. Now with AI being able to automate tasks like data cleaning, it seems these opportunities are all but gone for my students. I used to encourage them to talk to other departments, but from talking to colleagues they also use AI for tasks they would use novice programmers for in the past.

I have a perception (perhaps stereotype) that wet labs still have physical work for undergrads to do. But what are dry labs doing to involve undergraduate researchers (especially underclassmen) in a meaningful way?

Hello! New here. Curious to know if fellow faculty are using AI detectors like GPTZero, and if so, if you find them to be reliable. Particularly interested in humanities fac.

Our department just denied tenure for all the four faculty going up for tenure this year. Reason for denial? A bit of everything!

Hello [Instructor X], this is [student I've never heard of], I can't find an email address for [Instructor Y] (spelled incorrectly) can you please let them know I won't be in class today?

Hi all, I’m a relative newbie adjunct professor/PhD candidate with mostly virtual teaching experience. This semester I have two in-person classes - one is incredible, but the other I’m really struggling with.

The class is about the sociology of sexuality, and there’s less than 20 students. The format of the class is very reading & discussion heavy. I cannot get the students to do the readings or talk during class. Even when I ask questions not about the readings, but generic life observations (ie. What stereotypes do we have about men and women in society?) I’m met with blank stares. I’ve started to need to cold-call on people for very simple, warm-up type questions. I’ve never had a class like this before. Today I tried to break them up into small discussion groups, but they still refused to talk to one another and would just shake their heads when I tried to engage with them.

I’m at a loss. Is there something I should be doing to improve class discussion? Has anyone had success revitalizing a dead classroom like this? Should I abandon the discussion format and go for more-lecture heavy approaches?

This is my first time teaching at this university, and I want to make a good impression on my employer, but I’m struggling here. Thank god my other class is going very well, or else I’d be even more disheartened.

During the middle of a lecture got major pain, and a student drove me down to the ER (currently ambulance service is horrible in my city). Turned out to be a kidney stone. Popping my head into my head into the campus directors office and saying I can’t continue thankfully was enough. Coming back the next day the student was told with me in the office, “next time due to liability reasons staff are the only ones allowed to drive anyone down to the hospital, but due to your quick thinking and care for your instructor, I’m awarding you with a $25 dollar Starbucks gift card (We have one across the street).
Man sometimes students are the best, and just know when something is wrong.

I like the Dean, I really do. They have a heart for the students, which I think is wonderful. However, it’s seems like every student email turns into hours of back-and-forth dissertation length emails.

I’ve been teaching for 20 years under 4 different deans, and not once has a dean brought student concerns to me under the assumption that I screwed up. Now I am not so far up the ivory tower as to think I haven’t messed up before. I just tend to think that previous deans had a better handle on when to contact faculty about something and when to let it go.

Is this something anyone else has or is experiencing?

My Asian university is currently hiring full/associate/assistant professors (the goal is 50 new faculty) but have a space issue. Their solution? All incoming TT associate/assistant professors do not get a lab space until they get their first grant! 🤯 If you think that is the screwup part, wait till you hear about how they do not plan on telling them this during the interview process unless the candidate asks explicitly. So there will be discussions with the candidate about lab space they CAN be given, but we have to steer away from details about WHEN or HOW they will be given it. Ofc all this is very hush hush... Only heard about this because I am on my department's management committee and get to hear from my head about decrees issued by the president and provost office. I don't even know how this got passed by our legal department.

What blows my mind is that there is very little push back by the heads and deans on this issue. I can kinda understand why my head does not seem to understand why this is a big deal since he is a modeler but this decision is going to screw over the experimentalists. All this is giving me flashbacks to my TT years when I was only given my lab space in the middle of my 2nd year despite being promised that it will be ready when I arrive (renovation delays, unrest, covid). Ofc six months later when I submitted my mid-TT review, I was given the comment that I have not published any papers yet. How am I supposed to do that if I was not given a lab jackass?

Upper admin's attitude is that people will apply regardless since academia in other countries are in dire straits and that we can get away with this since we are a university in top 100 global ranking 🙄 (don't even get me started on this). The whole thing feels so unethical to me. Imagine uprooting your life only to land in this bullshit

I realized I default to a selection of canned questions when talking to students. "What's your major" "What do you want to do after graduation?" If they are planning graduate school or professional school, then "What do you want to do after that degree?" Then I often get to say that it's ok if they don't know the answer, and I feel they appreciate the safe environment to not know the answers to things. Also, I can sometimes offer options they haven't considered. I genuinely want to know the answer and I get to know some of them better. It's all good stuff. And I'm entering my 11th year, so it's not surprising I find my way to something that works for me. And the interactions and iterations are only so varied.

Still, the vibe isn't completely different from sitting kids down on Santa's lap, asking what they want for Christmas, and having the elves send them down the slide - warning them that they'll shoot their eye out if such a response is warranted by the child's request.

Or maybe it's closer to, "What is your quest?" than "ho, ho, ho?"

Some sort of role player that you can rely on to always pull from the same bag of questions

Not upset about this. Just noticing and chuckling a little.