Are office hours obsolete?

Abstract

Office hours are a higher-education tradition. Unchanged for past-decades, the upheaval due to the COVID pandemic, transitioned office hours in many institutions from face-to-face to virtual and other formats. Historically office hours are a resource underused by students. Faculty-student interactions are considered a high-impact activity aimed at promoting student success. One purpose of office hours is to increase student access to faculty. It is time to revitalize and revamp this tradition. Increasing student engagement, clarifying course requirements, and role modeling professional behavior are potential goals for office hours and student-faculty interactions. To meet these goals, faculty will need to undertake activities that are much more active than the typical passive activity of office hours.