I have nothing against holding office hours. If no students show up, I just use the time to answer emails or check my gradebook and reach out to students who are falling behind. My office is also in a somewhat out-of-the-way place — at least, so students tell me. A colleague ends the first day of classes by leading all her first-year-writing students from the classroom to her office door, so that they won’t get lost when it comes time for a face-to-face meeting.

Office hours are so 1992. Meeting with students, on the other hand, will never go out of style. End the first thing, and it will become much easier for people like me to schedule the second. And it might very well help us complete a lot of other necessary tasks that constitute the life of the modern professor, too. —Vitae.