On Behalf of My Fellow Academics...
It's that time of year. Go ahead, ask me how things are going. I dare you. I shouldn't even be writing this post given my workload this weekend. That's how well things are going. Most days about now, when people ask me how I am, I respond, "Overworked and underpaid...Just like everyone else." Of course, I am usually talking to my academic colleagues, which is safe, because I know that they, too, are overworked, and since we work under the same union, I know roughly what they are paid, as well. I remember once asking a laborer how work was treating him. "The way a baby treats a diaper" was his comment. I've been there. I might just even be there right now. For example, here's my list of work-related tasks to do this weekend.
The longer I work in the profession, the more convinced I am that the public largely does not understand the demands of higher education. I heard someone say that being a college professor is a "dream job." It's true that I do more than half of my work from home. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have spent the last 70-75% of my time since 1997 in roughly this position. (See why I have a dog? It's all about keeping me company while I work!)
In some respects, I would agree with this, but I'm pretty sure that the person who made that comment had visions of faculty pulling out yellowing lecture notes, semester after semester, using bubble sheets for examinations, and refusing to meet with students. That person probably didn't know about the "three legs of academia:" (1) teaching, (2) scholarship, and (3) service.
College professors need to demonstrate competence in all three areas - teaching, the creation of new knowledge, and service to one's institution. What does that look like? Right now I'm teaching three graduate-level and one undergraduate-level classes -- all in different subject areas. This includes mentoring five master's-level research projects. One student and I spent five-six hours together over the course of three days this past week, getting her data ready for analysis. She'll get to spend time with me again tomorrow, at 6:00pm on Sunday, when my applied research class gathers for a virtual meeting. We also get emails from students that start with the following: Hey, Emily... My favorite teaching evaluation came from a gem of a student who wrote: She's mean. She's ugly, and she's an ass. Those are the moments that I hold close to my heart.
Academics also need to demonstrate competence in the area of scholarship, which usually means creating new knowledge. For me, as a social scientist, this takes the form of conducting research, writing grant applications to fund this research, writing up my research for publication in peer-review publications, presenting my research at national professional conferences, being a peer-reviewer for other people's publications and grant proposals, and writing books. With the exception of book publications, researchers are not paid for any of these activities. Everyone "donates" their time in order to make sure that financial incentives do not inappropriately influence scholarship. I would say that I dedicate about 80% of my summer to these activities (when I am not teaching a course for additional compensation). To add to this, I also am the founder and chair of an annual conference, the National Research Conference on Child & Family Programs & Policy. About 80 people from all over the country (and even from outside the country) come to my institution in July, for a three-day conference, to present their own research. This, too, comes without any financial compensation.
Faculty members also pay service to their institution. In many ways, we are the "movers and shakers" of academic institutions. In my five on-campus years in my current job, I think that I have served on about 15-20 committees. This means attending meetings, helping to facilitate workshops, planning campus conferences, recruiting and hiring new faculty, getting our Master in Social Work program re-accredited, starting a program to supporting writing at the graduate-level, meeting with students who are at academic-risk in our program, reading 40 applications for graduate school every year, and so forth.
Now, in truth, there is a big perk here, which is... it is really the best job in the world. I always swore that I would never be an academic, because of the crushing workload. But, in truth, it suits me well for the following reason: I get to spend my entire life studying, researching, teaching, and writing about what interests me. Further, those interests can evolve and change over time, but I don't have to change professions. So, when I am staggering around campus, walking into walls, having 16 hour days away from home, sleep-deprived, grumbling about the low pay of (most) college professors, and have over 130 unopened emails in my inbox, I take the time to remember what a privilege it is to do what I do - like now, with this blog post.
The longer I work in the profession, the more convinced I am that the public largely does not understand the demands of higher education. I heard someone say that being a college professor is a "dream job." It's true that I do more than half of my work from home. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have spent the last 70-75% of my time since 1997 in roughly this position. (See why I have a dog? It's all about keeping me company while I work!)
In some respects, I would agree with this, but I'm pretty sure that the person who made that comment had visions of faculty pulling out yellowing lecture notes, semester after semester, using bubble sheets for examinations, and refusing to meet with students. That person probably didn't know about the "three legs of academia:" (1) teaching, (2) scholarship, and (3) service.
College professors need to demonstrate competence in all three areas - teaching, the creation of new knowledge, and service to one's institution. What does that look like? Right now I'm teaching three graduate-level and one undergraduate-level classes -- all in different subject areas. This includes mentoring five master's-level research projects. One student and I spent five-six hours together over the course of three days this past week, getting her data ready for analysis. She'll get to spend time with me again tomorrow, at 6:00pm on Sunday, when my applied research class gathers for a virtual meeting. We also get emails from students that start with the following: Hey, Emily... My favorite teaching evaluation came from a gem of a student who wrote: She's mean. She's ugly, and she's an ass. Those are the moments that I hold close to my heart.
Academics also need to demonstrate competence in the area of scholarship, which usually means creating new knowledge. For me, as a social scientist, this takes the form of conducting research, writing grant applications to fund this research, writing up my research for publication in peer-review publications, presenting my research at national professional conferences, being a peer-reviewer for other people's publications and grant proposals, and writing books. With the exception of book publications, researchers are not paid for any of these activities. Everyone "donates" their time in order to make sure that financial incentives do not inappropriately influence scholarship. I would say that I dedicate about 80% of my summer to these activities (when I am not teaching a course for additional compensation). To add to this, I also am the founder and chair of an annual conference, the National Research Conference on Child & Family Programs & Policy. About 80 people from all over the country (and even from outside the country) come to my institution in July, for a three-day conference, to present their own research. This, too, comes without any financial compensation.
Faculty members also pay service to their institution. In many ways, we are the "movers and shakers" of academic institutions. In my five on-campus years in my current job, I think that I have served on about 15-20 committees. This means attending meetings, helping to facilitate workshops, planning campus conferences, recruiting and hiring new faculty, getting our Master in Social Work program re-accredited, starting a program to supporting writing at the graduate-level, meeting with students who are at academic-risk in our program, reading 40 applications for graduate school every year, and so forth.
Now, in truth, there is a big perk here, which is... it is really the best job in the world. I always swore that I would never be an academic, because of the crushing workload. But, in truth, it suits me well for the following reason: I get to spend my entire life studying, researching, teaching, and writing about what interests me. Further, those interests can evolve and change over time, but I don't have to change professions. So, when I am staggering around campus, walking into walls, having 16 hour days away from home, sleep-deprived, grumbling about the low pay of (most) college professors, and have over 130 unopened emails in my inbox, I take the time to remember what a privilege it is to do what I do - like now, with this blog post.
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