I have become increasingly aware of how my institution values being busy over being productive and effective. This is especially true right now, during advising and registration.
The amount of time required to manage an always increasing number of advisees—meeting with them, answering follow-up questions, helping solve residual problems— takes away from doing pretty much everything else. Like teaching. Or helping a student with an internal research grant application. Or grading papers. Or writing grad school recommendations.
Worse, the emphasis is on scheduling, approving graduation applications, and solving problems with our online registration system so there is little time available for actual advising. You know, career goals, and such, the things we should be doing when we advise students.
So, we are very busy with advising, but I would hardly say that we are being effective. The good news is, registration ends this week so we should be able to get back to work!
Dr Parr Says... 