The future is calling! It's so demanding--just today it wants me to produce a schedule for a January teaching workshop, a list of classes I'd like to teach next year, a plan to help an advisee complete his graduation requirements before May, a final book order for a new class I'm teaching in the spring (and maybe some thoughts toward a syllabus?), and an essay question for Wednesday's exam.
The exam question is easiest: I don't like the essay question I used for this material last time I taught the class, so last Friday I put my students into small groups and asked them to discuss concepts appearing in the readings and write sample essay questions. All the sample questions circled around a tight little cluster of interesting concepts, so I'll knead and twist all the questions together until they form a coherent and compelling prompt.
Other demands from the future won't be solved so simply. Some require me to look to the past: When was the last time we offered a teaching workshop on this particular topic and how many participants did it attract? What classes have I offered for the past few years and how many students enrolled? How has the College previously responded to the particular type of glitch messing up my advisee's schedule? What book did I intend to order when I initially proposed this new class seven years ago, and is it still relevant today? (The future doesn't really care why I am only now able to teach a class that was approved seven years ago, but that's a tale for another time.)
The most complicated demand from the future deals with my teaching schedule for the next academic year, because I have to look forward and backward and even sideways to balance what I want, what my English majors need, what we've offered recently, and what our limited department can reasonably be expected to do without being permitted to replace lost positions.
I need to fill out my schedule for Fall 2025, Spring 2026, and Fall 2026 (so I can retire in December 2026, hurrah!). I have a list of classes I'd like to teach, but I wonder whether our English majors would benefit by my branching out a bit. Our expert on pre-Civil-War American Literature has not been replaced and probably will not be replaced for quite some time, so this year our English majors are getting no exposure to American literature before the Civil War except the little bit of it we covered in my African American Lit class early in the semester. How long are we expected to continue with no early American literature classes? How will that affect our majors' future prospects? Should I offer to teach the early American Lit survey even though I've never done it before? Should I develop an upper-level course on an early American author (Melville!)? If I teach a class or two outside my area of expertise, which of my regular classes should I sacrifice?
That's too much to think about right now, but the future is standing outside my office door tapping its foot and demanding some answers. I'm tempted to close the door in its face so I can focus on today's issues--like lunch. Surely the future can wait until after I've eaten?
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