I continue to really love office hours (and even thrive on them!), and I had another semester of wonderful and very busy office hours, even busier than last semester! Here’s the data breakdown for the Fall 2019 semester. (Added 11/29 10:15 AM: Unfortunately, you might not be able to see the full data correctly unless you’re on a regular computer.)
This semester I was in the office available to meet with students a total of 132 hours (Mo/We 12:00-3:50 and Tu/Th 10:30-11:20). Students were present for 103 hours or 78 percent of this time. There were 239 office hours visits from 96 unique visitors totaling 10,821 minutes (180 contact hours – due to multiple students being present at once most of the time). 21 of these visits were by appointment and outside of regular times.
The following table breaks down each class I taught (or group, in the case of students working on Honors College projects) and how many came to office hours at least once.
| Group | # in group | came at least once | total visits |
| Women’s Studies | 29 | 22 | 45 |
| Queer Theory | 29 | 16 | 85 |
| GLBT Studies | 32 | 21 | 30 |
| GLBT Studies | 29 | 10 | 17 |
| “Heathens” | 18 | 14 | 32 |
| Honors | 3 | 3 | 16 |
Total, I had 138 unique students. (2 students took me for 2 classes.) 62 percent of these students came to office hours at least once. Additional visitors included 10 former students not taking a class this semester and 5 non-student visitors.
The following table breaks down session lengths.
The average visit lasted 45 minutes.
| Length of visit | # of visits |
| Less than 15 min. | 47 |
| 15-30 min. | 52 |
| 30-60 min. | 83 |
| More than 60 min. | 57 |
The following table breaks down how many times each student came.
Of special note, 2 students came 16 times and 1 came 22 times.
| # of visits | # of students |
| 1 | 70 |
| 2 | 16 |
| 3 | 5 |
| 4 | 1 |
| 5 | 5 |
| 6 | 1 |
| 7 | 1 |
| 8 | 1 |
| 9 or more | 5 |
The following table breaks down why people came to visit.
| Reason for visit | # of visits |
| General Visiting | 134 |
| Class Questions | 58 |
| Paper Review | 24 |
| Honors College | 18 |
| Program Information | 5 |
Office hours are one of my very favorite parts of teaching! I don’t understand why so many professors report having empty office hours all semester. Creating an inviting space and welcoming students works magic: They come and come again!
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda 