A professor's life: Spring 2017

Yes, yes, it's still winter, but it's the Spring semester coming up, because universities are apparently in denial about the seasons, or something.

In any event, here's what's on the January-May agenda for yours truly, a full professor at a regional comprehensive with a 3-3 teaching load:

Teaching:

• Three courses (Freshman Composition, 19th c. British Short Fiction, British Novel II).   Composition is always a new prep, because I change the syllabus to provide some sort of context for whatever that year's summer reading was.  British Novel II is revised from its last appearance, and 19th c. British Short Fiction will be pretty much a repeat.   

Service:

• Academic Senate (this is my last semester as a rep)
• Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (a senate standing commitee; this will get very busy after February)
• Chair, Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure Committee (we need to do our semi-regular revision of our guiding document)
• I've also been working with a colleague on a new minor that will be co-hosted with the History department.

Research:

• Article #4, due at the end of February (this exists as part of a longer chapter in Book 3 1/2, so it needs to be sanded down, as it were, with a new intro and conclusion; this will also be an excellent time to update the scholarship, anyway)
• Invited lecture, end of April (about 40 minutes, so 19-20 pages or so; I've already begun this)
• Two book reviews, one this month or early next month and one by March (for Open Letters Monthly and Victorian Studies)