Everything in the meeting could have been in an e-mail

[lightning]

I attended my college's academic year kickoff meeting, last week. It was 2.5 hours of content, all of which could have easily been disseminated in an email.

It was the same last year, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Nobody can force me to attend this very useless annual meeting, because I'm tenured, but I go anyway. I'm not sure why I bother.

I'm sure others are in the same boat as me. Why do you bother to go to these meetings where everything that comes out of the speakers' mouths could be sent in an email?

C'mon. Give me a reason to show up in Fall 2025.

[sinenomine]

I feel your pain, lightning. I'm bracing myself for three days of meetings like that this coming week. I expect attendance will drop precipitously as the days drag on. The lackluster meals provided on-site aren't much of an incentive, either!

[spork]

I stopped going to these events pre-pandemic. 3+ hours of meetings, a 2-hour round-trip commute, lunch on campus = a full day wasted at my own expense when I'm off-contract.

The best rule I ever heard about meetings: "If it's so important that I be there, put me on the agenda."

[AmLitHist]

Our contract always begins the week before classes, which happens to be service week. If we don't attend meetings all of the five days, we have to take a personal day. And yes, both our chair-/dean-level bosses and brown-nosed colleagues will rat us out if we don't proactively put in our own leave requests.

[EdnaMode]

Although all the School relevant things in these meetings could be said in an email, we often have guest speakers from, for example, the grants office, the business office, student services, etc. who let us know of any changes in procedures. For whatever reason, we are never given slides or handouts about these changes, so I make sure I attend just for those nuggets of information. It's also a time to catch up with colleagues I rarely see. The food is never worth it though.

[pgher]

I went to a training about how to run an effective retreat. The most important principle is to have discussion, not just information dissemination. That said, I've had enough faculty tell me that they haven't read such-and-such email that certain things need to be said out loud.

[the_geneticist]

I stopped going to these events pre-pandemic. 3+ hours of meetings, a 2-hour round-trip commute, lunch on campus = a full day wasted at my own expense when I'm off-contract.

The best rule I ever heard about meetings: "If it's so important that I be there, put me on the agenda."

Love it! 
I used to try to follow the advice "If there isn't an agenda/if you don't get the agenda N days in advance, don't go".  But that doesn't seem to work in academia.  Apparently I'm an outlier for having agendas AND sharing them in advance.

[Ruralguy]

I realize that if you are about to establish a new unpopular policy, its best to announce it in person,
and put details in an email or on a static web page.

But some administrators (and faculty) feel the need to go through minutiae in a meeting like this "because they have everyone's attention."  Seems like a waste to me. Better to go on to some discussion, if there is anything worth discussing. A past chair once asked if we should have a dept. retreat and my reply was "unless its a working meeting, I'm not interested. His reply was "oh, I thought we could mostly relax and have a good time." We never had the retreat.

[bio-nonymous]

I realize that if you are about to establish a new unpopular policy, its best to announce it in person,
and put details in an email or on a static web page.

But some administrators (and faculty) feel the need to go through minutiae in a meeting like this "because they have everyone's attention."  Seems like a waste to me. Better to go on to some discussion, if there is anything worth discussing. A past chair once asked if we should have a dept. retreat and my reply was "unless its a working meeting, I'm not interested. His reply was "oh, I thought we could mostly relax and have a good time." We never had the retreat.

HA! We have two "retreats" (just a most of the day faculty meeting) per year, which, like our faculty meetings, mostly consisted of our Chair talking at us most of the time. The last retreat (or two) was more group activities--some team building (some cringe, some good) and some work-group stuff (good idea)--much better than just hearing someone talk for 4-5 hours. We have a new interim chair and I hope the new retreat format continues. If you want to talk at me for hours, just send a document I can read instead!!!!

[kaysixteen]

A bunch of college professors are subjected to 'team building' activities?

[AmLitHist]

I realize that if you are about to establish a new unpopular policy, its best to announce it in person,
and put details in an email or on a static web page.

But some administrators (and faculty) feel the need to go through minutiae in a meeting like this "because they have everyone's attention."  Seems like a waste to me. Better to go on to some discussion, if there is anything worth discussing. A past chair once asked if we should have a dept. retreat and my reply was "unless its a working meeting, I'm not interested. His reply was "oh, I thought we could mostly relax and have a good time." We never had the retreat.

HA! We have two "retreats" (just a most of the day faculty meeting) per year, which, like our faculty meetings, mostly consisted of our Chair talking at us most of the time. The last retreat (or two) was more group activities--some team building (some cringe, some good) and some work-group stuff (good idea)--much better than just hearing someone talk for 4-5 hours. We have a new interim chair and I hope the new retreat format continues. If you want to talk at me for hours, just send a document I can read ignore instead!!!!

^^ Fixed that. . . .

[bio-nonymous]

A bunch of college professors are subjected to 'team building' activities?

Yep. Like any good adoption of business practices this works if done well. Imagine if you will a 6.5 hour meeting, broken up by a 20 minute fun "team" activity (clinical versus basic science faculty team volleyball for example) and then lunch. Makes the other 5.5 hours more palatable...

However, imagine other various team building exercises or "ice-breakers" that fall flat and are annoying (too many to list)--but at least break up the monotony (thanks for the update on admissions, can we now hear the report from the faculty clinic, bla, bla, bla--anything to break up endless committee reports is maybe better than nothing). Small group breakouts to work on issues which we then come back to discuss is like "active learning" for issues and is another way to get more out of meeting times. Just someone spewing verbal updates at us is better served as a document in an email. We have a number of micromanagers and listening in person to their micromanagement is exhausting.

Not everyone can sit still and listen for 6 hours without some sort of breaks. And I do believe that a department in the best sense of the word is a team--though sadly of course some departments are in open warfare.

:)

[apl68]

A bunch of college professors are subjected to 'team building' activities?

Yep. Like any good adoption of business practices this works if done well. Imagine if you will a 6.5 hour meeting, broken up by a 20 minute fun "team" activity (clinical versus basic science faculty team volleyball for example) and then lunch. Makes the other 5.5 hours more palatable...

However, imagine other various team building exercises or "ice-breakers" that fall flat and are annoying (too many to list)--but at least break up the monotony (thanks for the update on admissions, can we now hear the report from the faculty clinic, bla, bla, bla--anything to break up endless committee reports is maybe better than nothing). Small group breakouts to work on issues which we then come back to discuss is like "active learning" for issues and is another way to get more out of meeting times. Just someone spewing verbal updates at us is better served as a document in an email. We have a number of micromanagers and listening in person to their micromanagement is exhausting.

Not everyone can sit still and listen for 6 hours without some sort of breaks. And I do believe that a department in the best sense of the word is a team--though sadly of course some departments are in open warfare.

:)

I've seen things like this occasionally at library seminars.  I'm sure it can be beneficial.  Like kay, though I found it a little startling in the context of college professors.  It put me in mind of somebody trying to train cats to perform a precision routine together.

[Langue_doc]

At least your retreats don't involve hiking with a bunch of nincompoops who will not only leave you behind but also remove all signs from the trail that would have helped the last person come down.

A hiker was rescued from a mountain in the US state of Colorado after being apparently left behind the previous day by his colleagues during an office retreat.

[Ruralguy]

Its was a retreat for the Colorado Society of Sociopaths. Eh, at least they're in good shape.