Making Office Hours Required for Students: The Best Bad Idea You've Ever Heard

It is well known that students who build working relationships with their professors are
more successful both in college and after graduation. One of the best ways to cultivate that relationship is the simple step of coming to a professor's office hours.

Despite the fact that office hours are theoretically beneficial for students, very few students seem to take advantage of this valuable opportunity. Office hours should be the time students are receiving much-needed mentoring that can lead to increased student engagement, leading to better performance in the course and ultimately to higher graduation rates.

Should faculty then make office hours mandatory for students? The logic behind this move is simple. Much is lost in the translation of course material and knowledge from the professor to the student during the lecture because it lacks personal and motivational factors that are typical in more personal conversations. This effect is compounded when grades and feedback are given only through writing, whether digital or analog. Making a personal connection has always been, and is still, extremely helpful to the learning process. Although practical ways to implement required office hours depend tremendously on course size, the idea that students benefit from engaging with their professors on an individual level about course topics is wholly unsurprising and is worth pursuing.

Let us know your feedback. Do you require office visits for your students? What would be some advantages or disadvantages?

Open Door Policies

As teachers engage students and become more familiar with students over the semester, the desire to extend the learning outside of the classroom seems natural. Some of the most rewarding conversations between teachers and students can happen outside of the classroom, during office hours, when the student has shown enough interest to discuss ideas further in a more direct way.

One informal policy I have adopted over the years is to have an "open door" before the student arrives and after the student arrives. Closing the door when only the teacher and student are in the office can send the wrong signals and can lead to misinterpretation.

Perhaps it was not misinterpretation when a Communication faculty member at Pasadena City College asked a student to come by the office to look at vacation photos, then closed the office door. Among the photos was a nude image of the faculty member on his boat during the vacation. The student showed minimal interest in the nude photos. The student later reported to officials that his grades suffered because he did not show interest in the instructors photos. The faculty member denies any wrongdoing.

This case brings up a number of issues, let alone policies related to sexual harassment. There are times when, based on the need for student privacy, discretion is the order of the day. I have had students ask, as they want to discus details of their grade and standing in the class, that I close my office door for the sake of confidentiality. If there is something I need to say to a student with my office door closed, I think twice about what I am about to say and question whether a closed door is necessary (often, it is not). I always I make it a policy that anything I need to say to a student should be said behind "open doors."

Frankly Fridays - The Erosion of the Credit Hour

You are invited you to the first installment of a new OFE event series called

Frankly Fridays

Frank Conversation about Faculty Issues"honest as a cup of joe"

Friday, February 15^th, Friday
9:30-10:30 AM
Osprey Commons Faculty Lounge (Building 16, 4^th Floor)

Topic: The Erosion of the Credit Hour
Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

Have you ever had two students with the same list of courses and credit hours but with completely different skill levels?
Have you become worn by students questioning your grading by saying, “but I passed my writing course?”

Is a measure of “time in seat” useful, or should the focus be on other measures of student success?

Students accumulate credit hours for courses taken, although the original conception of the credit hour was not for students but for faculty. Two recent Chronicle commentaries about the legacy and value of the credit hour. With a push in higher education for efficiency and movement by the State of Florida to make higher education less expensive, the credit hour is under attack.

Come discuss how these issues impact UNF and faculty in Florida.
We will meet in the new Faculty Lounge on the 4^th floor of the new dining facility, Osprey Commons.
OFE will provide the coffee and bagels.

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

Faculty Needed for Orientation Advising

The Academic Center for Excellence (ACE) invites full-time faculty at the rank of instructor or above to participate as advisers in the Summer 2011 Freshman Orientation Program. For details about the program, salary and application procedures, visit http://www.unf.edu/es/ace/callforfaculty.html. For more information, contact Trudy Cochrane in ACE at mailto:t.cochrane@unf.edu.

Applications are due Monday, March 28th, 2011

Selected faculty will receive a $3,500.00 stipend.