As winter break nears, Tufts students pack into Tisch to cram for finals, hug goodbye to friends they won't see for the next four weeks and figure out how to hitch rides home, but what does the break mean for the population of professors and instructors on campus?
While students may look forward to winter break to be a stress-free period of time to spend with friends and family, vacation time does not seem to be a time to escape from work for "no work" for many Tufts professors.
Some professors take advantage of their time away from the classroom to conduct and write personal research for books or other literary publications. Because Tufts is a university rather than a college, professors are required to not only perform work in-class, such as holding office hours and keeping course material up-to-date, throughout the academic year, but are also expected to do out-of-class work.
Professor Martin Sherwin will dedicate his energies over break towards editing and finalizing a book on J. Robert Oppeinheimer, a work he has spent many years on with writer, Kai Bird. Classics professor Anne Mahoney will continue her literary work, after having already published an extensive commentary on the Greek writer Plautus this past summer. Mahoney plans to complete an intermediate Greek textbook by January and she will also continue her work as an editor for a book publishing corporation.
Professor George Marcopoulos also intends to take advantage of break to continue his research on Greece and Cypress, his area of concentration. "There is always another historian's view to analyze, which keeps me busy," he said. Although the yearly Encyclopedia Americana Yearbook publications, which the professor contributed to greatly, have terminated, Marcopoulos still would like to write in other
publications.
Mahoney also plans to attend the annual meeting of the American Philological Association and American Archaeology Association, which will be held in Boston in January. In addition to being a forum during which professors can share work, these meetings can also serve as hiring sessions. Mahoney and the Classics department in general will be keeping an eye out for candidates for a position as permanent resident archeologist at Tufts.
While the prospect of four weeks away from the classroom may seem to be more than enough time to plan for the spring semester, Mahoney says that "designing a course for the spring semester is almost impossible within this month due to constraints on book orders and classroom availability." However, during the break, she does fine-tune and re-familiarize herself with the upcoming course work.
Yet, for history instructor David Proctor, winter break will be a time for him to further design coursework for his two History 10 recitations, work on the course Web site, and to develop innovative approaches to course assignments. In addition, he'll be collaborating with the other section instructor and Marcopoulos on developing newer historical perspectives on the course topics.
Being Director of Administration in the Classics department - a full time position - is one more reason that Proctor must manage his time effectively. Each year, Proctor welcomes the winter and spring breaks (contrary to popular belief, summer breaks are hectic in terms of administrative matters, such as reporting end-of-the-year budgets and accommodating to campus renovations). Getting work done, however, is affected by the brevity of the breaks.
"I do try to get as much done as possible, but invariably something comes up," Proctor said. Proctor also hopes to capitalize on his four weeks to catch up on his research for his doctoral work, an interdisciplinary thesis.
Work aside, however, winter break is also a time for professors to catch up on their personal lives. In addition to reorganizing all his books and professional documents in his new house, Marcopoulos will help his uncle and cousin to prepare an archive which will be held in the University's personal family archives in Tisch Library.
Marcopoulos's uncle served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the 1920s, and his cousin worked as Leon Trotsky's guard and chauffeur in Mexico.
Work can't ever be completely separated from fun, however. For Tufts Literacy Corps Director Cynthia Krug, the winter break serves as both a family bonding experience and a period where work can be finalized. Krug is dually spending her vacation in Florida with her family and brainstorming ways to augment particular reading programs within the Literacy Corps.
