Faculty keep asking me why I say I'm busy—a question that utterly bewilders me, because the answer seems so obvious. But perhaps it's not. So, faculty: here's what your grad students might be dealing with this week (keep in mind, it's Wednesday): 1/

Sitting in my inbox so far:

-ask from prospective grad student for application help
-request for help w/ organizing on another campus
-consulting request
-friend's paper to read
-student (not mine) directed to me for help w/ data sources 2/

Add to this…

-job ad notifications (to triage, prep materials for, etc.)
-workshop presentation I agreed to months ago
-2 department workshop papers to read
-bills (bills bills)
-family drama
-two friends’ birthdays 3/

And then the things I actually needed/wanted to do for my own work this week:

-lots of reading for dissertation/coauthored project
-work on empirical dissertation chapter
-maybe write my job talk at some point oh dear gods 4/

Some of this gets a polite "no" or pushed further down the to-do list. That's not the point (& there's time & emotional labor in deciding & triaging).

I know many faculty have even more demands on their time. That's only the point insofar as it provides a familiar comparison. 5/

The point: in my experience, faculty think grad students in their final year have little to do except finish their dissertations and get a job (and maybe teach—I feel so fortunate to not have this additional demand on my time right now). This could not be more wrong. 6/

It's wrong in a normal year, & it's wrong now, against the backdrop of a pandemic that has wrecked many of us emotionally & a horrifying surge in white supremacy—and fighting that, frankly, feels far more important than writing a thesis. 7/

Please stop asking your grad students why they are busy. Please be understanding. And please, please stop scheduling meetings with very little notice under the assumption that they have nothing else going on. /fin