This Academic Life

Earlier this semester, one of my students told me that being a professor must be great fun. “After all,” he said,  ”you only teach 9 hours a week. Even with all the grading you do, you probably work 20 hours max.” My family often has this same attitude. I get the impression that most of them think I am a glorified high school teacher, just with better pay. [I should add here that The Coach actually makes more money that I do, even though I have a Ph.D.] In fact, when I received my three copies of the Relatively Good Journal that included my new article, my first thought was to send one of the copies to my grandmother because, quite honestly, she is the only one who gets the fact that I work my butt off, even though she doesn’t really understand what I do.

This morning, CQ commented on my rant from yesterday:  

I’ve heard you speak of service obligations before, but I’m at a loss as to what they are, other than they seem to be a colossal waste of time that can be better spent, well, grading papers. When you surface, perhaps you could explain to those of us in fields other than academia what these are? It would help me understand better when you speak about them.

Hey, that’s not a problem. I always forget that there are people out there who are not familiar with the wonderful world of academia. Now, my experiences at the University of Sorta’ Cosmopolitan may not be representative of all academic institutions, but I suspect they are a fair representation of the typical teaching-oriented public university.

So, what exactly does a professor do? At USC, we are responsible for being active in the three different “prongs” of academia: teaching, research and service. Teaching is relatively simple to explain. At my school, we have a 4-4 load, which means that each professor is supposed to teach four classes per semester. There are some ways around this: (1) if you are an administrator, you only teach two classes per semester; (2) if you teach a “supersized class” of over 120 students, it counts as two classes in your teaching load; (3) if you win a research release, you only have to teach three classes during the semester. For the last one, you have to fill out an application and compete against your peers — and the release only lasts for one semester. Finally, people who teach graduate classes, only teach a 3-3 load because each grad class counts as the equivalent of .50 FTE.

Unlike my student’s perception, teaching takes a lot of work at USC. For each class, you have to prep it, grade the students, and physically teach it. We do not have teaching assistants at USC, so every professor I know is buried under a landslide of papers. Yes, I suppose we can squeak by with multiple choice tests in the lower level classes, but papers are required in grad classes and in the methods courses. Prep time can be minimized if you are teaching the same four to five classes each year, but our department is small and I have prepped 15+ different courses in my short career.

Advising also falls under teaching. Again, because our department is so small, I have a huge number of students for which I am responsible. It’s not just scheduling them; they also want career advice, help with graduate school applications, help with their resumes, reference letters, and a friendly ear. Some advisees are never seen; others are quite needy.

You have to be a good teacher and adviser to get tenure at USC. If you suck as a teacher, nothing will save you.

Research is the second prong. Research can include, but is not limited to: conference papers, presentations, in-house colloquiums, books, book chapters, and articles in state, regional and national journals. Some people also list encyclopedia entries and book reviews. For my particular discipline, the emphasis is on articles. Of course, the administrators will not tell us just how many articles you actually have to have to get tenure. I know of one person who was tenured based on two articles (and one of these was on the Internet). I know of another person who had a more difficult time because s/he had not been a solo author. It just depends on the mood of the committee, I suppose.

It’s been rumored that we should shoot for three publications, supported by a variety of other scholarly researcher AND a well thought out research agenda for the future. Our provost has also said that even though we have a 4-4 load, we should still be productive because “that’s what summers are for.” (NOTE: We have 32 week contracts that do not cover the summer. It’s not like we’re actually paid to do research in the summer. It’s just expected.)

And now for the part that CQ was wanting to know about. What the hell is service? At USC, service is divided into three parts: professional service, university service, and community service. Professional service includes things like: being the officer of a professional organization, hosting conferences, editing journals, reviewing articles, acting as chairs and discussants at conferences, etc. Community service includes things like: giving talks at the Lions Club, giving talks at the library, and service that is specific to your discipline. If I was an art professor, teaching pottery in an after-school program would count as service. If I was a sociologist, conducting surveys for Habitat for Humanity would count as service. Being a Brownie or Cub Scout Leader does not count as service, but helping the regional Scout office write a grant is service. University service includes: being a club adviser, being on various committees, being on search committees, editing the department web site, etc.Some of us — read that as the untenured staff — are stuck doing the majority of the university service because we are basically not allowed to say no. After all, if you say no, you are not being collegial.

Right now I am a journal editor and hold a state level office. I am also the advisor for two different student groups. I am on a search committee, interdisciplinary committee,  a graduate studies committee, and a self-study committee. I am also active in two three community service projects. And every year my dean tells me I need to do more service. When the hell do I have the time?  

This does not include all the other crap that comes along with the job. Every semester, we have required university and college wide meetings. Every two weeks (depending on the chair), we have department meetings. There’s also the quasi-administrative stuff that gets pawned off on junior faculty: being on the selection committee for student awards, answering the email requests for information, mentoring graduate students (and other grad-related stuff that I can’t talk about here). All of this has to be done with a smile and a nod, because you have to be congenial.

Anyways, that is what a professor does. Now, I must shower and go to my office where I will prep my night class, edit journal articles, and maybe grade some papers. Of course, I’ll also have to field “hall traffic” — those random drop bys by desperate students at the end of the semester. And I am sure there will be a “backdraft” from the fact that I complained about the two-day service obligation that was metted out during exam week. Fortunately, I am not alone in my complaints, so the fucktard’s feedback will flow over three of us.

P.S. I do love my job. I love my students (most of the time). I love my research (when I have the time to do it). I even love some of my service obligations. I don’t want you to have the impression that I’m bitter or anything. I just hate it when people fuck up and it ends up trickling into my already overfull life.