In Praise of Double Dipping

When in the course of professional events it becomes necessary for one professor to dissolve their perfectionist bands which have disconnected their teaching and their scholarship, and to assume among the powers of their intellect, the beauty of refusal to which the time-space continuum calls them, a decent respect to that professor’s sanity requires that they couple classroom preparation and forward movement on scholarship.

I am, of course, riffing on the declaration of independence for good reason. Also realizing that was an impossibly long sentence in the original document. And, yes, consider this your invitation to independence.

At Bates, students are allowed to “double dip,” that is, they can count one class for two different requirements. This isn’t unusual for students in relation to curricula. We seldom talk about the ways that professors can double dip as it relates to teaching and research.

I am fond of using classroom preparation as a double for scholarship. While I wrote the second book, my contemporary Black literature classes included some of the theory and most of the books I worked with. In addition, my early Black literature classes focused conceptually on the topics of my study.

This freed me from feeling like I was drowning in work. Pulling them together topically also allowed me to develop my thinking so that I could deliver it to the students. The students’ questions then were helpful in pressing me to consider what well-meaning questions and objections would look like.

Sometimes, this is not possible if you’re expected to teach outside your wheelhouse. This semester, I have two classes slightly afield of my current intellectual projects. But, that has not stopped me from building in weeks that cater to my strengthens conceptually or textually. In those weeks, my workload decreases significantly.

How might you think about this for your classes next term?