Administrative Duties as Academic Director

When I was considering the opportunity to become Academic Director of the law school’s High Tech Law institute, a lot of people warned me that the administrative duties would cut into my time for scholarship. I knew this would be true, but after last week I can put better parameters on the time allocation. Last week, my administrative role included:

Monday: 1 hour meeting regarding curriculum matters; 1/2 hour on adjunct relations

Tuesday: 1 1/2 hour meeting with admissions regarding general admissions matters and preparation of marketing collateral; another 1/2 hour reviewing marketing collateral

Wednesday: nothing!

Thursday: 2 hour meeting to discuss strategic planning; 2 hour meet-and-greet with incoming first years

Friday: 1 hour research on curriculum review; 2 hour meeting regarding curriculum planning for Spring semester; 1 hour meeting with an LLM student to discuss his thesis paper; another 15-30 minutes on adjunct relations

There was probably another couple of hours on various event planning and scheduling sprinkled throughout the week. So, by my count, this week required about 15 hours about administrative matters. Now, some of this time reflects my learning curve/ramp up investment. And don’t get me wrong–I’m not complaining. I actually enjoy these duties. But, I can’t help but note that the semester hasn’t even started yet.