Here at Pitt, Composition teachers are encouraged to have midterm conferences with all of our students. (Mine begin in 30 minutes). I know that teaching one class, 19 students, isn’t much at all. But when it comes to scheduling the half-hour meetings, suddenly it seems like an enormous chunk of time. Two enormous chunks of time, to be exact — 8 students today, 11 tomorrow.
So instead of sitting in my shared gray cube in an office area the English department locks up at 5pm, I’m meeting with my students at Hillman library, Pitt’s main branch, in its coffeeshop. Not only am I surrounded by books. No only am I in a comfortable chair. Not only can I stay here until 11pm, or whenever the library closes tonight. I can do all those things — and also buy coffee.
I’m not buying coffee just now — I’m typing this, see — but the fact that it’s there, across the room, behind that weird statue and on the other side of the woman who’s talking loudly about shoes, well, it even makes up for the shoe-talker. Coffee! With books! Free library books! Who came up with this mad, wonderful formula?
A toast to you, my friend. Once I decide to grab the afternoon’s cup of joe, that is.
I feel like I’ll be shunned if I publicly admit it, but I’ve always been more fond of the Carnegie across the way. I’m not sure that I checked a single book out of Hillman while I was at Pitt.
But! Kudos to you for making your conferences less wearisome.
Amy – you’re right, the Carnegie is more lovely, and if you go deep into the stacks there you can accidentally find yourself at windows that overlook the new dinosaur exhibit next door. But I brought my students to Hillman for a scavenger hunt, in an effort to get them to be familiar with, if not enthusiastic for, the library, and by asking them to meet me here for conferences I hope to remind then that Hillman is a resource for them. Now, if it only had dinosaurs….
Hang in there. Although it’s a ton of time, my students always say they learn the most from the conferences. Of course, we have a few more, too. At USC, we have five one-on-one conferences with each student over the course of the semester. I had three hours today and will have three hours tomorrow. 🙂 Almost like tutoring/teaching.