What Do Professors Do, Anyway?By Susan Herbst, President, UConn
On March 23, the Washington Post ran an op-ed by David Levy, a former chancellor at the New School University, asking: "Do college professors work hard enough?" He suggests that faculty at non-research institutions don't put in enough hours for the pay they receive. Not surprisingly, this created a small firestorm among faculty nationwide who weren't shy about telling him what they thought.
I have held faculty and administrative positions only at research institutions -- where the mission is both teaching and research -- so I wouldn't presume to speak for faculty at schools focused exclusively on teaching. Yet there are some across-the-board myths about academic life in general, and professors sometimes seem to be a target.
This likely has to do with the fact that unless someone has been a professor or graduate student or worked with them, they probably don't fully understand what professors do. Instead, presumptions are made about an alleged leisurely life spent in an ivory tower sitting around in tweed coats, smoking pipes and discussing Kant or Rawls (which actually doesn't sound bad, except for the pipe smoke). That scene may happen, but it doesn't reflect how faculty spend most of their time.
So perhaps the best question isn't, "Do college professors work hard enough?" Instead, it might be, "What do professors do, anyway?"
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ReplyDeleteThat, at least offers some explanation for what some professors do. Our posts on here, however, suggest that college professors spend a lot more time expending emotional energy while trying to encourage students to not flake. I know I've contemplated giving up the job simply to eliminate interacting with one more snowflake.
ReplyDeleteIn the comments section is a link to "The War on Teaching Wages On in Higher Ed." I thought it was a good response to Levy's Washington Post piece.
ReplyDeletehttp://open.salon.com/blog/geekate/2012/03/30/the_war_on_teaching_wages_on_in_higher_ed
This is probably off topic, but can I just toss in here that this is another of the myriad reasons I hate The Big Bang Theory? (I mean the television show. I don't share Fred Hoyle's abhorrence of the idea of a singularity to kick off the universe).
ReplyDeleteWe wonder why it's so easy to paint professors as a bunch of whiny self-absorbed poindexters who spend their work lives in the cafeteria putting each other down, dissecting minutiae, planning strategy for the interdepartmental paintball tournament, and plotting pathetic schemes to sleep with co-eds. All the while society pays a bunch of mediocre actors millions of dollars a year to act like a bunch of whiny self absorbed poindexters who....
OK, I'm sure the actors and writers are all very nice people who are just trying to make a good comedy (ditto similar shows like the old 3rd Rock from the Sun). But it sure doesn't do anything to debunk the myth of a lazy overpaid professoriate.
To be fair, the guys on BBG are not professors -- They are research scientists working at a university. It would be nice if the show would discuss why they never teach. (Sheldon taught once, and it was pretty clear it was a short-term guest lecturer sorta thing.) Somehow, I suspect the writers don't know the difference.
DeleteOh, lighten up, willya? You sound like the ever-somber Carl Sagan, when the Journal of Irreproducible Results invited him to one of their Ignobel Prize ceremonies, and he wasn't even being awarded an Ignobel prize! A discipline that has lost its ability to laugh at itself is in a bad way.
DeleteAlso, the characters on the show aren't professors, they're science postdocs. They're far better than the stereotypical scientist, a middle-aged-to-elderly white male with bad hair, bad eyewear, the invariable white labcoat, and questionable sanity and motives, like my grandfather, Victor. (That was back when the family spelled it, "Frankenstein.") Sagan spent the last several years of his life in the "seemingly hopeless" pursuit of improving the image of scientists on TV: this is it. They're not too different from other young men, in that they spend much of their time trying to get laid, and not very successfully (and never with students: you may be confusing the show with "Californication"). At the same time, they're likable, and above all, -intelligent- characters. How many sitcoms have those?
If you want a TV series featuring real scientists, you might get a National Geographic special, but it certainly wouldn't be a comedy. If it's like most scientists work, it'd be like watching the wool grow on sheep.
And what about that awful Ted Mosby, who upon failing in his architecture firm, fell into a job at COLUMBIA as a professor? 'Cause that happens all the time. And his interactions with his class and individual students are at best sketchy.
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