Office Hours and Appointment Policies - Fall 2010

Rationale and Outcomes

I am committed to helping you achieve your goals at PTS and am honored to be a part of it! To that end, I am looking forward to talking/chatting/emailing with you about those matters where it is my role to help and advise you. I wrote this policy in order to ensure that:

  1. We communicate clearly and respectfully, with appropriate boundaries:

    During the time I have cleared for you on my schedule, you are entitled to my full attention and preparation. Likewise, I am entitled to be able to plan my day, and to know well ahead of time exactly what you are asking me to do and how much time you expect me to invest. Moreover, we are both entitled to negotiate the terms of your request so that both our needs are met.

  2. Our schedules are honored:

    Our appointments should be long enough to cover everything you want to cover, and short enough to make efficient use of our time. They should start and end promptly. You and I both have other demands on our time, and we need to know when an appointment will start and end.

  3. I am equally accessible to all students:

    do not want to make it easier for certain groups of students to get access – on- campus versus online, chattier students versus more reserved students, students more like me versus students less like me, etc. Having a clear policy mitigates this unintentional privileging.

  4. I appropriately protect my non-student time:

    In order to do my job, I need to be able to count on having blocks of uninterrupted research/writing and class prep time. Furthermore, my husband and young children are entitled to expect that they will be my top priority on most evenings and weekends, without my needing to check email or Blackboard every hour. Moreover, students benefit from having instructors who are active and current in their fields, who set reasonable limits, and who have healthy social support systems and home lives. (Incidentally, the same may be said for congregations and their pastors!☺)

Your Responsibilities (top)

Think of it this way: I need you to send me a “syllabus” for our meeting. Just like if I were a student in your class, I need to know when you are going to require my presence and what you are going to ask me to do, before you require my presence or ask me to do something.

Therefore, please thoughtfully answer all of the following questions and include these answers when you make an appointment (which you should do at www.sarahmoricebrubaker.net) or make a request of me over email. These are the same questions I try to answer in a syllabus:

  1. What is your general goal here?

  2. What are the specific things you are asking me to do in order to meet your need? These should be concrete and actionable.

  3. How much time do you envision me spending in order to accomplish these things to your satisfaction? Yes, please include an actual number of minutes or hours.

  4. How and when do you wish to communicate with me about this matter?

  5. Will you be asking me to take additional action beyond our appointment/email exchange? If so, what?

  6. What is your timeframe? Bear in mind that I schedule appointments a week ahead, and I cannot commit to being available at the last minute, especially for deadlines you’ve known about.

My Responsibilities (top)

As my advisee or student, you have a right to expect that your appointment with me will start on time. You are entitled to my preparation and full attention when I am meeting with you or reading your email. You should not have to stay later than the agreed-upon ending time of our appointment, and it should not be your sole responsibility to bring the conversation to a timely close. You should be able to expect a prompt and honest answer about whether I can help you or not – and a referral to the appropriate person if I can’t help. And if you are an online student, you have the right to assume that I shall spend as much time on your education as I would spend on an on-campus student who has the same relationship to me (advisee, TE500 student, etc.) as you do.

Therefore, I commit to carefully considering all your answers to the above five questions, and:

  1. Repeating what I understand you to be asking, and/or confirming that I understand correctly.

  2. Asking for any additional information I need from you.

  3. Responding in one of the following three ways:

    1. Agreeing to meet with you and/or take the actions you seek, or

    2. Not agreeing to your terms, but agreeing to continue the discussion until we reach a set of terms that we are both happy with.

    3. Referring you to someone who can help you, if I am simply not the appropriate person to help you meet your needs.

  4. (if applicable) Concluding the appointment at the agreed-upon ending time so that you may keep your schedule and I may keep mine.

A Word on Unscheduled Interruptions (top)

Unscheduled interruptions deprive you of my best attention and preparation. Unscheduled interruptions also prevent me from meeting all my responsibilities to other students, advisees, faculty, the seminary, and my family. You probably do have “just a quick question,” but often so do five or ten or fifteen other well-meaning and lovely and wonderful students whom I enjoy… and when they all drop by unexpectedly during a window of time I’d set aside for class prep or research I cannot do my job properly. Moreover, unscheduled interruptions unfairly privilege students who are able to spend a lot of time in the same (physical or virtual) places where I spend my time. Therefore I must ask that you make an appointment, even for just quick questions. They can be quick appointments.

Availability (top)

During my office hours I am available – by signup appointment only - to students via PHONE, CHAT, and FACE-TO-FACE MEETING.

To Sign Up For Office Hours:

Go to www.sarahmoricebrubaker.net and click “appointment” on the left of the screen. When you sign up, please answer all the questions listed on the preceding page, under “Your responsibilities.” You may sign up for multiple adjacent slots.

  1. PHONE: Please schedule an appointment at www.sarahmoricebrubaker.net and call me at 918.270.6418 at your scheduled time.

  2. FACE-TO-FACE: Please schedule an appointment at www.sarahmoricebrubaker.net and then come to my office at your scheduled time. It is at the far end of the long hallway in the Academic Wing.

  3. CHAT: Please schedule an appointment at www.sarahmoricebrubaker.net and then come to that same website at your scheduled time. There will be a chat window and I will be available there. You do not need to sign in or have an IM account. Be advised there is no real privacy in a chat. For a private conversation please choose a different option.

Office Hour Times:

  1. Tuesdays, 4-5PM , Tulsa local time, during regular weeks of class (excluding breaks, holidays, concentrated course week, etc.)

  2. Thursdays 2-4PM , Tulsa local time, during regular weeks of class (excluding breaks, holidays, concentrated course week, etc.):.

Email Availability for TE500:

Tuesdays are my Teaching Day for TE500. I will respond to all non-time-sensitive emails related to class on Tuesdays. Time-sensitive emails – which are limited to emails concerning website problems, netiquette violations, or unforeseen emergencies that affect your immediate participation in the class – must say “TIME SENSITIVE” in the subject heading. To these emails I will reply within 24 hours barring unexpected email/power service disruptions, severe illness, or family emergency.