The brain trust at CNBC just published this little fluff piece about the least stressful jobs for 2013 and of course the least stressful job was being a university professor. Their rationale? There are no physical demands, no deadlines, no environmental condition hazards, we don’t put our lives on the line, nor are we responsible for other peoples’ lives. I will grant that we’re not crab fishing on the Bering Sea nor making command and control decisions on the front lines of a military conflict; however, this feeds the myth that being a professor in the US is like living in a plush ivory tower disconnected from the world — holding class like we’ve all seen in the movies. It’s also easier to dismiss us in a whole lot of different ways when this myth is perpetuated.
Let’s cut through the BS — being a professor in the US for the first 7 years is like being an indentured servant … and that’s if you’re lucky enough to have a ‘good’ tenure track position. There are different experiences in being a professor, but let me give you a bit of a walk through our world. I sincerely hope that some of my friends will also add their experiences onto this.
Beginning the “Life of Luxury”
Many of us in academia don’t come from backgrounds of extreme privilege — what I mean by this is that loads of us finish our Ph.D.’s (which is what you have to have to be a ‘regular’ professor) with between $75,000 and $160,000 in debt — and the debt mountain is enormous for those coming from lower income families. The median salary in this little fluff piece puts what professors make at over $60,000 per year. Silly story. The reality is that in most disciplines, a freshly minted Ph.D. is going to be making $45,000-$55,000 per year (depending on geographic location and field). So, we start from a place of financial trauma — if we don’t find a permanent job, we’re still going to owe Uncle Sam our pound of flesh.
Why did we do it? I think this is a question most of us ask ourselves… sometimes often. The two realities are #1 that most of us who are professors are there by choice — this isn’t the ‘fall back’ career and #2 we’re typically really smart people**(editing note at the end) (the PhD and doing original research is kind of a baseline test for that 
). I know, that’s probably not PC to say but it’s true.
Yet, why would we hamstring our lives this way? Well … lots of reasons, but most of us just frankly like the notion of research, teaching, and being a part of the intellectual endeavor. And we’re saps for it. There is a point that we realize we’re idiots for committing ourselves to a life of functional poverty (because seriously, we’re never going to pay off our student loans), but we still tell ourselves it’s worth it and there are good arguments to be made for the financial sacrifice depending on what we want out of life. It’s just that I don’t know that we all really ‘get’ what it’s like before we start. Why? Look at the silly story — most people just don’t understand what being a professor entails on a daily basis.
But I get ahead of the story — we have to find a job. Well, one of the realities since the economic crash of 2008 is that “real” academic jobs are getting harder and harder to come by both because there are too many new Ph.D.’s and because many universities’ endowments, state funding, and/or giving campaigns have been damaged. Not only that, but many at state universities haven’t seen appropriate cost of living raises for the last 4 years. What does this mean in a practical sense? Lots more applicants than jobs. For example, last year when we were interviewing for a position very late in the year we had amazing candidates because they were new grads who couldn’t find jobs — they were losing out to professors just looking to change jobs who were willing to take “entry” level jobs just so they could make the move. That was great for us, but ridiculous in the job search process.
The “Least Stressful” Job
Now, there are disciplines whose student to professor (for advising) ratio is quite low … Departments of English, Philosophy, Math, and the like who ‘make their money’ because they’re essential parts of a liberal arts curriculum and so each year they fill a lot of classes with students who have to take ‘required’ courses. However, if you happen to be in large majors (e.g., my own in Communication is just one of many that are either growing or already very large at most colleges & universities), the student to professor ratio is actually quite high… so let me walk you through the life of the “Assistant” Professor (i.e., the lowest level of the tenure track faculty, not tenured, and could be released just because they don’t like your socks and you don’t have a lot of legal recourse absent documented discrimination… kind of like working in a ‘right to work’ state) by sharing what my life looked like for the last 3 years. I was at a small ‘teaching’ college, but one that is beginning to place more emphasis on building Master’s programs and research. This ‘suited me’ because while I like teaching, I liked the notion of a balance between teaching and research.
Year One. ‘Breaking You In’
In your first year, you might get a course release … so instead of teaching 3 or 4 classes in an academic semester you might teach 2 or 3. This is a matter of negotiation. Doesn’t sound too bad does it? So what does it mean to teach a class? Well, as a brand new professor in a department, you’re probably having to put together your classes for the first time. So, what does the first year look like?
- You have to write your syllabus and all of the course materials (e.g., assignment descriptions, etc.). This will typically take 30-60 hours per class before the semester even begins — for the brand new prof, that’s 90-240 work hours (3-6 weeks) of UNPAID work before you even start your job.
- Preparing lesson plans for 16-32 class sessions per class that you teach. If you’ve never taught the class, you have to write the lectures, which takes me about 3 hours (and I’m actually pretty fast, but expect a high level of quality out of the lecture and the visuals) per lecture. Multiply that by 3, so you’re talking about 15-20 hours per week spent on class prep (Yes, this post requires simple mathematics… keep in mind I’m a social scientist, so the math won’t be too complex).
- You have to attend each of your classes — I know this seems obvious, but hell… it adds to the math. So, that’s 10-12 hours per week (ok… if you’re counting we’re already at 25-32 hours per week).
- You have to have office hours each week, so that the eager young minds can visit you to ask you the questions they probably could find in the lectures, class announcements, or other class documentation anyhow. At my college, we had 8 hours per week of office hours (33-40 hours per week).
- At most universities, faculty also have advisees — I had 40-55 advisees assigned to me at any given time (including by the end of my first year). While you don’t have regular contact with them, during ‘advising season’ (i.e., the 6 weeks before registration as well as the first week or two of classes) you end up spending 30mins to an hour ‘helping’ each one. So, that adds 25-50 hours over the course of the semester. The semester is about 16 weeks long, so let’s add 1.5-3 hours per week (oh dear, we’re up to 34.5-43 hours per week).
- In your first year, committee work tends to be pretty light because they’re ‘helping you to land on your feet’ — so you may only be on 1 or 2 committees the whole year, but those will likely add about an hour of responsibility to your time (especially when combined with routine department meetings, etc.) each week (35.5-44 hours per week).
- It seems like I’m forgetting something… oh wait … grading — the bane of all of our existence. Now, there are disciplines where the ‘challenge’ of grading consists of the time it takes to write multiple/choice tests and run them through a scantron machine (or post the test online). Unfortunately, the social sciences and liberal arts tend not to be those types of disciplines. None-the-less, if you’re teaching 25 students per class x 3 (or 4), if you’re efficient takes about a half hour to grade each person’s short assignment, add in feedback, and enter the grade into the ‘gradebook’. The norm in the US is to have 4-8 assignments per class plus one or two tests. I tended to assign less… so usually about 4 assignments per class and two tests. That adds on roughly an average of 15-19 hours per week more (realize, there are weeks with no grading and weeks with LOADS of grading). So… we’re now at 50.5-63 hours of work each week.
- Then comes the research — the stuff we tend to do ‘in our spare time’ — you know, like anytime that school isn’t in session. If we ever hope to be tenured and promoted, we need to produce about 2-3 published journal pieces per year (there is variance there by university and publication type, but that gets too silly to try to explain). Right. So, in the 10-16 weeks that we’re not ‘teaching’ each year, we have to collect data, write, revise, send out, etc. — uh huh…. The reality is that we’re working on projects year round and while we may use our ‘unstructured’ times to do a lot of our writing, each journal article is tough to come by. We’re committing no less than a week’s worth of time just to write the damn thing, let alone collecting data, analyzing it, etc. It’s not unreasonable to assume that the total time commitment to a single piece is about a month’s worth of work (assuming a 40 hour work week). That fills all of that “spare time” y’all seem to think we have AND also addresses the misnomer that university professors have no deadlines.
- Oh yeah — and for those of us who are trying to build a reputation of expertise within our fields, we travel to conferences (2-4 per year usually) to present papers, we review papers for those conferences as well as journals, etc. All of this is ‘unpaid’ but is really expected not only in terms of service to the profession but enables us to get tenured. That’s added on top of our 50-60 hour work week (before research).
Welcome to year one of your stress-free life as an academic. Oh yeah, and that “good” salary of (on average) about $52,000 per year comes out to $17-20 per hour that we’re getting paid BEFORE taxes. Awesome deal, right? I made more bartending in college than I make with my Ph.D.
Year 2. ‘Piling it On’
Right, so remember that in year one, we were already at 32 weeks a year of 50-60 hours per week of work for the awesome pay of about $20/hour gross. In year 2, your department chair or dean (i.e., your boss) talks to you about the importance of contributing to your college and the whole university through ‘service’ if you want to get tenured and promoted… that they would help you ‘manage’ your commitments (they are lying to you at this point), but that it would be ideal if you involved yourself with at least one student organization and got involved on some university-wide and more departmental committees.
You’ve just added about 3-10 hours worth of work each and every week to your regular work load. Now, hopefully by this time, some of the time you have to spend in course prep goes down a little bit, but you’re probably still being asked to teach different classes (often better classes because you’ve now ‘proven’ yourself) and you discovered that there were things about the ways you were teaching your classes that just didn’t work so you’re redesigning the damn things. Ok, the prep work doesn’t change that much in your second year.
It doesn’t sound like much, but if you happen to prove yourself to be ‘competent’ and affable enough on these committees, you start to get asked to work on side projects, you get encouraged to take on more. And before you know it, you’ve added 15-20 hours more work and honestly, you don’t know how it happened, but you can’t say no. Why? Because they can still fire you for any reason… they don’t even have to tell you why they’ve fired you. As a non-tenured faculty member, you live on a year-to-year contract with no repercussions if they choose not to renew your contract. Don’t make any waves!
Years 3-6. Have you lost your mind?
By year 3, if things have gone well, you play well with others, and you have adjusted well, then things start to get exciting. You will be approached to take on leadership positions; you will be approached to start doing administrative tasks; you will have the opportunity to really make your case for tenure… oh yeah and you’ll probably be going through mid-tenure review. This is the first point that a group of folks in your department really pay attention to you and ask the question, “would we want to keep this person?”. To get ready, you have to prepare your case… this means putting together a portfolio and building a set of arguments for your contributions to your department, the college, and your profession. You’re now regularly working 80 hours per week, so your effective pay rate comes down to somewhere under $15/hour.
Assuming your mid-tenure review goes well (i.e., they don’t put you on a one-year terminal contract), you still have two more years of this before you begin your tenure review process.
Oh… and if you have to move for any reason… you get to basically start all over again. Usually, you can con them out of a little higher starting salary, and maybe a shortened tenure clock, but you’re still starting over again….
Adding Insult to Injury
So, we come back to the CNBC assertion that being a college professor is the ‘least stressful job’. To that, I say kiss my ass! Not nice? Yeah, being nice, playing by the rules, being erudite, and being smart has gotten us to being in a job we may still love (though by now we’ve gotten rid of our rose colored glasses and often have ‘happy hours’ spent drinking and bitching) but being paid insulting money.
And we have to listen to pundits talk about us like we’re idiot-savants who have no idea what the real world is like.
And for those of us whose research directly translates to the real world (e.g., in my case — persuasion, crisis communication, strategic communication), the so-called professionals look down their overpriced noses at us. That means that even if we did want to move back to the ‘real world’ — we have to basically apologize for our PhD, our time spent training them (Where do they think new professionals come from? Are they hatched?), and kiss their asses for handouts. So, basically until we write our book and ‘become’ a pundit or consultant later in our careers we’re stuck because Americans are scared of smart people.
So, while we may like our students, like our research, and like our colleagues (all of which depends on the day). While we may have unstructured time (because we can be productive without ‘clocking in’). And while most of us either chose this career path when we were young and stupidly idealistic and older and looking for a change — I think I can speak for most of us when I say fuck off with your patronizing understanding of what it means to be a professor in the US.
We know we’re not on the battle lines and most of the time we’re not risking death, but guess what if we do a bad job at our jobs… your workforce is screwed. We have to battle against bad parenting, stupid emerging social norms, a primary/ secondary education system that is broken, and try to reach people at the most annoyingly self-absorbed time in their psychological and social development. All while being paid $12-20/ hour in real wages.
Oh yeah and CNBC — learn to do some damn research you wankers!
* Just a small addition at the end*
Thanks for the conversation — even if you are just bitching because you think I suck 
… In particular, thanks to those folks who have shared their experiences (both positive and negative) in academia. Like a lot of conversations that happen in happy hour there are people calling bullshit, people adding their own experiences, people asking for reality checks, and I think it’s productive.
I’ve added some links to some research and information that folks might find useful about student debt, access to good jobs, job satisfaction, and intent to leave academia. I figured some of you might want quick access to additional information. Have more links to relevant points — feel free to let me know, I’ll add them.
Just a reminder — try to think about what/how you would say stuff to people face-to-face. Yes — this is how I talk and would talk to most of you in a social setting. I think everyone would appreciate the same courtesy.
**And since too many people have gotten so damn hung up on the fact that being exceptionally bright (especially in comparison to average folks) is offensive, I tweaked it because I was just annoyed with the whining about it… ffs…. who was planning on the rant going a bit viral?
As an adjunct teaching six classes (photography, at two institutions) and earning around $35k in NYC with two small kids… it’s incredibly stressful, and the need to teach so many classes means that both my personal work and my teaching sometimes suffer.
(Why am I teaching so many classes? Because they might not run, and I won’t find out until the week before they start, so better to overbook than under, and because the cost of childcare during the day classes means that I don’t actually take home more than ~$10 for those classes, but night classes don’t help me in advancing my position in the school, so I need to teach the day ones anyway…)
I watch the kids three days a week when I don’t have daytime classes. My (awesome and much-loved) wife gets home from her regular job around 7 or 8, we eat dinner and wash up, then I have a chunk of time from 10 until 2am to work on class prep/grading/my own work (also important for advancement). I teach two classes on Saturdays because I don’t have to pay for childcare then, so that’s the weekend mostly gone. Sunday maybe I get some work done and prep for Monday’s classes. Most of the time I’m getting 4-6 hours of sleep.
It’s sort of ridiculous. I’d make much better pay doing something else, but I really do enjoy teaching (I like the kids, I like making a difference, I like the variety of experience), and I think I’m pretty good at it. There’s the dangling carrot of a real job with health insurance if I can just manage to somehow build a good portfolio and find(!) a tenure track job, whereas just doing photo/art full time doesn’t have that.
I’ve worked desk-based jobs (architect), I’ve worked schlub jobs (food service, hotel housekeeping), and at least when you leave at the end of the day you’re done. You’re never done teaching. There isn’t a moment where I don’t have a dozen things I should be doing. (even now, on a sunday during break, I have prep and portfolio stuff I should be doing instead of this… grin)
Sigh. Sorry. Seems like the rant is infectious.
Hopefully, if nothing else ranting is a bit therapeutic and affirming that folks across the disciplines seem to have a similar experience. I spent a long time in commercial photography and advertising and even when dealing with clients at the end of the shoot/ project we were at least finished
.
Thanks for sharing!
As another person who has lived the story, all I can say is “Right on!” One particularly disgruntled day I figured out my per hour pay given the time I actually worked. Around $8/hr. Less than McD’s burger flippers in the same town. And that was in a tenure-track position. Twenty years, two 3-day vacations, working from 6am to 10pm, 24/7/364. (I’d take Christmas off.) For fifteen of those years, never knowing where my next semester’s meals were coming from. Stress free. Hah.
Oh, and you forgot a task that takes as much time as journal articles: submitting grant proposals. At least in the sciences, we’re supposed to do several, e.g. two to six, per year.
Thanks for writing the post I’ve been thinking about for years.
Yeah. What she said.. And as an Adjunct we have it even worse as we have not even the slightest security. I have been teaching anywhere from 5-7 classes a semester at multiple schools (some as far as 80 miles away from my house). I also teach in 2 fields (History and Communication) so I not only have multiple preps in the same field but multiple preps in different fields. In the Spring of 12 I had 6 different preps for 7 classes. I was spendind about 33 hours a week just on one new history course. I was so stressed I got Shingles. I don’t even get the benefit of a year contrat with decent salary. I get paid by the credit (usually between 800-2200 a course, although one school I got an astounding 5400 a course) so I make about 23000 a year and only get paid 7 months out of the year. I end up working 4-6 weeks every semester before I get my first check, but do not make enough to save enough to make that 6 weeks comfy. When you break down my per week hours for all aspects of my job I get paid a lot less than what you posted. Stressless job my ass..
The life of the adjunct is rough for so many reasons…. you have my empathy. I know there will be some people who read that and have something smug to say like, ‘get a regular job’ or ‘that’s what you get for not being a computer scientist’… but there’s lots of challenges and reasons that really good teachers and researchers get trapped in the adjunct treadmill.
In part, the negative attitudes and lack of knowledge about what we do make it hard to even get past the HR types if folks apply for ‘regular’ jobs. In part, the academic world looks at folks who’ve been doing adjunct work beyond their PhD years with suspicion (yes, we tend to be terrible to our own, just like in all professions).
I agree with much of what you’re saying (although some estimates of how long things take etc. are so university/career-level specific that they cannot be taken at face value) but the professorial salary comment you make is misleading. CNBC talks about an average salary of “$60,000 per year”, which, for real ladder-rank professors is probably way too low (looking at Chronicle of Higher Education statistics). However, you compare that to the starting salary only, which is of course much lower than the average salary they were talking about. This type of misleading comparison doesn’t do justice to your otherwise fairly accurate or well-estimated rebuttal.
Just a follow-up: . Check out not the University of Chicago salary (hardly representative) but the histograms on teh right: on average, full profs make 107-120K, associate profs make 79-89K, and assistant profs 66-76K.
I’ve been an Assistant Professor at a state university for 5 years (tenure-track) and am making 51K. And yes, I’m happily leaving academia after this semester for the very reasons you’ve outlined. I’m exhausted.
Fr the 5 years I’ve taught, I’ve received the top evaluations of the entire university. That said, I’ve had my life threatened by 2 students (who were furious when they received F’s because they didn’t turn in assignments. I receive phone calls and text messages day and night from students (who have become far too lazy to just read the texts), and because I’m considered a “public figure” I am not allowed to express my opinions about many, many things.
I’m done. Life’s too short.
It’s too bad that the academy is losing a dedicated professor, but congrats on making a tough decision. I’m in flux right now as to what I plan to do once I get settled in Europe with the scales tipping towards a different kind of life as well.
Thanks for the most part.
I do want to clear up the salary issue though…. the reason that I focused on starting salaries was because I was talking about the first years as an assistant professor. So, for the first 7 years, if you’re lucky you’re going to get cost of living increases (I think at most about 1% a year) and merit raises which amount to 2-3% (and usually you’re not eligible for them before your second year). So, for instance after the first 3 years I was at my institution, my base salary had increased about $2,000 per year based on the increases but it hadn’t yet bumped me into the next tax bracket and I got all of my cost of living and merit raises I was eligible for.
Also, if you check out the Baylor U. source that I linked above on the $45,000-$55,000 range you get a break down by discipline the average starting salaries. That also goes to your follow up comment. There is a list of about 30-40 schools in the country (Research 1 and Ivy League… another reader posted the link yesterday sometime) like the U of Chicago where starting salaries are substantially higher. They are certainly not the norm across the country and if anything only push the averages up artificially. These universities have probably about 20 faculty on staff in each department (give or take… that’s roughly what my Research 1 program had), so in someone’s field, you’re only talking around 1000 faculty members in that range in any given field in the US. There are probably more than 4000-5000 universities in the country by the time you add everything up, so we’re talking about a minute fraction of all faculty members who live at that salary.
And of course, the estimates about how long stuff takes is going to vary … hell it’ll vary for me by day, project, student, etc. I was just trying to give a ballpark estimate of what I did on a regular basis. It’s a snapshot more than anything else. There’s a lot that I didn’t include in there like time spent if you teach online classes (increasingly the case and they tend to take more time), advising graduate students (also take more time), things that other folks have mentioned like grant work, and community linked service work at universities that really push for that.
Of course, I know YOU were targeting the newbies–I just meant to clarify that one needs to be careful when the original article you responded to did NOT quote a newbie salary but an overall average. Like I said, I agree with most of what you said anyway. While I am lucky to be at a R1 university with much better condition, I am not sure I would gamble my life on such a lucky outcome again …
There’s a huge difference between ‘Professor’ salaries and ‘Assistant Professor’ salaries, which is what was discussed here. For my own crazed reasons, I’ve successfully gone through (by choice) the tenure/promotion process at three different universities in three different states. The writer knows her subject — and she didn’t even get into the evil potential of vicious internal politics which elevates the stress level to stratospheric levels. Great article, but I’d also say that probably most jobs that are taken seriously have their own levels of stress.
Thanks.
Internal politics … that’s just an ugly beast.
In my private sector way of life, there is no *right* to job security for anyone. Once you take that away, you will see your own stress level come down, because you know you can *quit* any time if they mistreat you, just as people do in the private sector all the time. It is the expectation of tenure that keeps your nose at that grindstone. Once you take that out, you will find it liberating to consider *all* your options, and since you say you are smarter than the average population, you will have many options, and most of those options would not involve this kind of torture you report.
The media and general population resents academia because you have tenured-for-life professors and they want more taxpayer money to fund all this. Again, the point is not the freedom to pursue what you want. The point is that it is not *ethical* to demand the taxpayer to fund all this.
As an example, apart from my private sector job, I have a personal interest in industrial history, and do research on it on my own time and my own dime. Why should the taxpayer fund my hobby? And why should the taxpayer subsidize this for life?
You make a very interesting point about the stress that earning tenure puts on folks… that’s a conversation my husband and I’ve had many times and I think it’s a valid one.
I understand (though I don’t agree with it) your perspective about taxpayers investing in educational pursuits. That’s why I do think that people at state institutions, in particular, have to provide value in their job. Value is very broadly defined given that I think there is a lot of value across all of our fields of study. But, we are guardians of the taxpayer dollar when we’re at public institutions.
However, I would not suggest that our areas of research are mere hobbies — I am a politics addict… I do that on my own time but I’m also not contributing to knowledge nor application with my love of politics (or even political discourse). However, I had the opportunity to work on a grant, however, on disaster communication — a grant coordinating law enforcement across two continents and researchers from about 10 different academic institutions to more effectively manage disaster situations. That was funded by taxpayers from multiple countries and was serving the public interest. Though we could have political theory conversations about the role of governments, etc., I would still argue that’s in the public good. That’s not my hobby… it’s my job, just like the academics working on grants researching ways to treat HIV and AIDS (and yes, I do think their research is going to affect more people than mine… they also get paid more).
On the teaching side, I also think that we’re serving society by focusing on developing students interest in knowledge as well as their tangible and intangible skills. This enables folks like you to build successful careers/ businesses, it enables people to be productive… basically it makes a modern world work. So, I think that’s also a productive use of taxpayer dollars.
Fundamentally, that’s what I think people don’t actually understand about academics. What people see is the tagline of ‘tenured for life’ and that’s hard to understand — especially because you’re more likely to hear about it when there are abuses of the system rather than the majority of people who do good work before and after they are tenured. Tenure is exactly a contractual assurance that you cannot be fired without cause so long as you’re doing your job.
Personally, I’d be just as happy with long-term contracts like my husband is on — after the first 6 months, he has a 3 year renewable contract where the employer has to give him 6 months notice and he has to give his employer 3 months notice. Of course he can be fired for cause, but the contract protects both he and the employer. That’s what faculty without tenure lack — a contractual assurance that they can’t just be fired (though there usually are reasonable notice periods if your year-to-year contract isn’t going to be renewed) because… someone doesn’t like them. I think that’s something that most folks don’t understand — firings in academia before a faculty member is tenured can be 100% capricious because we’re merely contract workers.
I appreciate your response to Sid Victor. I would like to add that it isn’t as simple as quitting whenever you want. First, if I were to quit my faculty position now, I would have been out of the private sector for twelve years (and I am a young professor). Doctorates are not valued in most private sector jobs; in fact, they can be a liability. It is not the expectation of tenure that keeps my nose to the grindstone. Moreover, leaving academia for the private sector likely means that I can never return to tenure-track academia, even at another university. When I was a preschool teacher, I could spend some time working elsewhere and still return to my profession; in most cases, getting off the tenure-track academia train means you can’t get back on. OK, so let’s talk about what happens if someone wants to leave a faculty position for another one. The academic job season is short; faculty positions are only advertised during part of the year. If a professor were to quit in late April of this year, for example, she could not begin another tenure-track faculty position (on a 9 month contract) until August of 2014. That is, if she can get another faculty position. Anybody quitting before the end of the semester would likely be blackballed. In fact, potential employers would be highly suspicious of anyone quitting a tenure-track job in this climate (without another one lined up). Moreover, quitting a faculty position and getting a new one often involves moving to another town. When I worked in the private sector, I could quit one office job and get another without relocating my entire family. I’m not saying that jobs are easy to come by in the private sector or that people with PhDs have no other option than to keep jobs they hate, only that academic job hunting is different from that of the private sector.
Finally, I want to reiterate your point about academic freedom. Tenure isn’t about giving people cushy lives. It’s about making it relatively difficult for a university to fire a professor for doing research that conflicts with a donor’s point of view (and yes, even public universities care desperately about donors, especially now that state funding has drastically decreased).
Boy oh boy, this whole discussion has been both an eye-opener and has made me appreciate what I have. Today was my first day back at work (it’s late arvo on Monday). I’m a senior researcher at an Indigenous Institute in the Northern Territory, but actually work from home in Queensland. I get enormous support from my institution, research makes up about 80 percent of my work, with just one small online postgraduate class that I teach, and a handfull of PhD students rounds off my requirements. I didn’t pay for my PhD – in fact I got paid 20,000 a year tax free to do it. On a big aside, Audra I promise this isn’t me rubbing it in, it’s a bit about how this whole blog and all of the responses have made me so grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. I also knew that I would have the offer of a dozen jobs after I finished, and I got them. I got to have a dream job really where I am focusing on the research I want to focus on, and it sounds like I’m getting paid twice what your high end earners get as well, with all of the opportunities of promotion. Some of this is stuff I knew about the differences between the American and the Australian systems, but recently I – along with a lot of my colleagues nationally – have been whinging about requirements from our institutions about publishing (again, not mine, but I *am* a researcher, so it’s a bit different) and teaching hours etc… but the three things that aren’t factors are salary, opportunity and a burdensome post-doctoral debt (while not everyone gets a living scholarship, nobody pays for a PhD in Australia and can always work while they do it as there is no coursework requirement at all, it’s only dissertation).
But I think I’ve said all of that here before, what I wanted to add was that it’s been an insight into how similar the system is across the US, even across small and larger unis. While obviously salaries are different, the language about courses etc makes me think that there is a common systemic knowledge that I know is not shared internationally (here or in the other countries where I’ve worked) around how one becomes successful whatever institution you’re in, and it seems to be a formula, which alarms the hell out of me, but then I think I’m challenging it because it is making so many people here unhappy and seems counter-intuitive to a positive education system.
Someone (sorry can’t remember who) said that nobody chose the job because of the money… um, here people do. In fact I kind of did. I love the job, but it helps that I knew I could earn a six figure salary pretty much right away, and I do appreciate getting six weeks holiday a year (I assume that is the same for tenured staff in the US though).
Anyway I think I wanted to echo Audra’s comments (for anyone reading this) that if you see jobs advertised internationally, one way that you can change a system that you don’t like is to bring new knowledge and ways of managing it back into that system… do consider working internationally. But also beyond being thankful (which *does* seem like rubbing it in) I wanted to add that I am so pleased to be able to peer into the US System so that I can understand some of the challenges from our colleagues there… it makes me more aware of how much support we need to give with conferences and support for papers from emerging academics. But mostly I really wanted to thank Audra for this. It’s been a lot of work for you over the last few days, answering people and you’ve done it with an enormous amount of good will… even when some people have been pretty dismissive and rude about the energy to bring this conversation into the open. It’s clear how needed it was, and how cathartic it’s been for some of the folks responding here… myself included.
I had (don’t think I’ve written about this here) a pretty sad experience during October, when I was visiting the US and some good friends, I caught up with two folks – one who was ABD (again, no such thing here, there is only D) and another who was contemplating why she could never do a PhD (but is an example of someone who would contribute so much) and I just thought, if you lived in Australia, one would have it in a year at no cost and the other would be funded to go. And I didn’t feel lucky, I felt enormously sad cos it’s another great mind that we’re missing out on having some concentrated time to think about and contribute to some really meaningful research.
Thanks again, Audra.
Doc Blahblah
… Thanks for the addition … that’s spot on. Add to the suspicion if you leave a tenure track position (before tenure) that you’ve left because you’re not “tenurable” regardless of what your vitae might say.
Sandy,
Uh huh… awesome rub in
LOL… No, I think it’s incredibly instructive to hear non-American experiences. We are an incredibly insular country and assume that what we do is universal. While I think some aspects of it certainly ring true because of the nature of research and teaching, it’s clear that there are marked and substantial differences. To learn about them is useful for sure! And yes — as I’ve learned, we do things quite a bit differently than a lot of places in terms of the basic structure of higher education.
When my husband and I decided to relocate outside of the US, we talked about career issues because everything was going very well in terms of opportunities at my university, but bigger life issues mattered more — we didn’t want to wait another couple of years for tenure (I was literally on a fast track). He’s an EU citizen (Scottish) and so he had no rose colored glasses about the US anyhow, but like you mentioned because it wasn’t just a matter of changing universities because university life is what it is in the US.
And thanks for the support. By and large, I’ve enjoyed the conversation (I don’t even mind folks who are dismissive or disapprove… those are fun responses
). Frankly, I was surprised at the magnitude of views and response, but as a bit of a social media nerd, it’s nifty and useful. I’m quite confident more folks have read my rant than any of my pubs 
.
Thanks for watching and participating!
Look, I can understand your frustration that others outside of your profession (profession here being defined as professor, regardless of your actual area of expertise) claiming that your job is not stressful. However, I think your response basically just perpetuates the stereotype of academics. That is, you’re blowing something out of proportion and using lots (and lots and lots) of words to make a case for something and sort of still missing the big picture. Basically, you’re upset because people don’t understand what you go through on a daily basis and are criticizing your profession. Well, surprise surprise, we live in a society that is full of people not really understanding others and placing harsh judgment on them. This happens if you’re an academician, a physician, or even a waitress. Should it happen? No of course not. But it does. The fact that it’s CNBC shouldn’t really make it any worse, as the majority of the world has been claiming this for a long time (sorry….but if you didn’t have an awareness of this, then you really have been in an ivory tower!). It’s one of those career stereotypes that has and likely will always be there, such as: all surgeons are narcissists, all people in mental health are crazy, and no MBA wants to do anything to help the world unless it’s gonna increase their pay. I have a Ph.D. and chose not to go into academics, because I was also scared of the rat race that pursuing tenure involved, so I know from personal experience that some professors work very very hard. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you also do, I know a lot that do not, and it’s likely these individuals that keep giving academicians as a whole a bad name. It happens in every field. Stop stressing and go dedicate some time to figuring out more pointless minutia of some process…I mean…science! (Sorry…couldn’t help myself, interpret that as the envious words of a fellow Ph.D. who just couldn’t appreciate an academicians admirable ability to spend their entire life dedicated to figuring something out, and instead decided to go into the applied clinical world.)
You sound alarmingly like my husband (i.e., ‘how do you know an academic? they take 1000 words when 10 would suffice.)… ;-P
It’s an interesting exercise to have a rant seen by a very silly number of people — especially when history would suggest the message’s exposure would be limited … since I enjoy the pointless minutia of communication watching the explosion of message exposure is actually quite cool (contagion theory is fun).
On the plus side, I’m not stressed — that’s what the blog’s for … expressing annoyance in a long-winded and as obnoxious of a way as I really would want to put out into the universe. If I had been crafting a message to try to persuade folks to change their opinion of academics, it probably would’ve been a different message and involved less of a ‘fuck off’ attitude
. But then again, I don’t think those folks who already think we live in the ivory tower would be open to a thoughtful message anyhow (and besides, I’ve read a few gracious and lovely blog posts on this topic that fit that bill… I was going for the Doug Stanhope/Frankie Boyle approach….though without the jokes). I was going for an approach that would get a reaction (ummm, be careful what you wish for?:) ).
There will be some random folks in the world who think I’m a pretentious (and wordy) jackass and I’m ok with that too. So, if it annoys some, entertains others, and ultimately causes some interesting conversation (mostly those already in academia… because let’s face it, that’s the majority of the people reading it) then that’s actually pretty cool. I should note that I genuinely appreciate the folks who have shared their experiences.
Honestly, what hacks me off is our inability to empathize with people who live different lives. People find it so easy to make assumptions about others, denigrate what they don’t understand and that’s just a personal pet peeve.
The difference between being tenured and being an assistant professor is so profound that they are really two different jobs altogether, in my opinion, particularly when stress level is considered. I wonder if CNBC really means tenured university professors? They would need to adjust the salary, of course.
I should also add that I didn’t find my t-t job at a R1 institution very stressful for the first 6 years. This is most likely because I only taught 2 courses per semester, had very little committee work, and spent considerably less time on pretty much everything else you mention. I’d say that I spent maybe 10 hours a week on class prep, tops. It has never taken me 40-60 hours to write a syllabus — I don’t know how that would even be possible. And I’ve never spent more than 15 hours a week grading — that would be an unusually heavy week. As for office hours, before getting tenure (that is, before having grad students), students didn’t come that often and I got a lot of grading and other work done then. Anyway, I had plenty of time to get my research done (especially in the summer, of course) and was never very stressed.
I’m sure that what you describe is true at some institutions (in some fields), but it wasn’t mine. Other than the low pay, I consider being a professor a great job.
Fair enough — as I’ve said, there are lots of ways to experience academia.
I think it’s useful explaining the reality of the job. Though I do not condone the `begin smart bit’—I think our jobs are mostly about dedication and hard work, like any other job—, your description is quite fitting. I am working in France, in a tenured position, I am lucky to be teaching some of the best students in the country in a small institution geared towards research, and I like my job quite a lot. But there is one thing about this job: it *is* stressful. Every class, every paper is a deadline, and yes, we do 50–110 hours a week depending on the week, no we do not get much vacations nor week-ends (and in France the pay is way lower, clearly as you mention one doesn’t enter this job for the money). Certainly, a bit of general recognition would do a lot of good.
Thanks for the feedback — it’s nice to have some non-American perspectives (mostly for selfish reasons).
Thank you for the article. You raise some valuable issues that I find that many don’t understand. I work in Organizational Development and Recruitment for a higher education union. It’s a difficult road and many faculty feel very stressed, fearful, and even alone. Your article motivates me to work harder for the interest of higher education professionals because a society that does not value education and educators is surely in peril sooner or later.
Thank you for the work you do — I wish more campuses were union or had active teacher’s unions. It would certainly be useful.
I made it to tenure and learned what the expression, “golden handcuffs,” really means. The committee and advising load increased dramatically. And while firing me is harder, my university (a) continues to undermine tenure in contract negotiations and (b) finds other sticks (cut budgets chief among them) to coerce service. And having reached those gold rings, I am ever reluctant to let them go.
Coming up through the promotion process, I used to get frustrated at the so-called “dead wood” faculty, but now I understand how the system makes them. I also see how these so called burn outs still contribute a lot of labor to the place, but many have learned to protect their time and prioritize their contributions. Some have given up on research agendas, seeing that as its own kind of racket. I am trying very hard not to go this route, but the exhaustion of getting here is deep.
We’ve also seen the loss of junior faculty who choose to go elsewhere. Thanks to faculty attrition, they see particularly the graduate advising workload of an ever shrinking faculty (adjuncts and assistants cannot advise PhD grads) while grad enrollment remains constant to be a disincentive to stay. We still hit up our Assts. to serve on committees and we take advantage of the co-advise loophole, but they are not blind. They see how advising 10-15 Ph.D’s at a time consumes your life and impacts your own research. And really, lately, the pay increase per rank doesn’t offer much incentive, either.
I’m seriously soul-searching about staying in the academy. I feel like I’ve worked hard and built something I am loathe to give up on, but I also see the job as profoundly stressful — all the more so because too many family, friends, and national media outlets think it is stress-free. Being in Comm Studies means I am also in a discipline on the underside of the faculty salary average and perpetually dismissed by colleagues in other disciplines (and administrators, and popular culture, and…) for being slight and unnecessary (despite its millennia old roots).
I’m glad you posted this rebuttal to this study. I read about it first in Forbes. I think the methodology is profoundly flawed. It’s less rigorous analysis than a Cosmo quiz masquerading as data collection. But, you know, it takes someone familiar with theory-testing and critical thinking to see that. And for saying that, I mark myself an elitist (now a bad thing) and an intellectual snob. The frustration I feel over that assessment isn’t stress inducing at all. Not. At. All.
Thanks for the addition — I know my friends who are associates say the same thing and the point you make about not wanting to give up on the work that you’ve done is something that I’ve not only heard in a lot of conversations but was actually used as an argument by an administrator trying to tell a faculty member he shouldn’t leave the institution (i.e., he wouldn’t get tenured again elsewhere and wouldn’t be likely to make the lateral transition). Ouch.
I know of a lot of faculty at universities that separate tenure and promotion who have also just given up on promotion … they’re tenured and decided that they’d stay assistant professors (or associate professors) for the rest of their careers in order to make the work/life balance work for them. The only time I object to “deadwood” is when they hide out and more crap gets tossed my way because they know I’ll get it done (I don’t like bad team players
).
Perhaps being a tenured university professor at the end of one’s career is relatively low on stress levels. Working toward a Ph.D. is hard enough, and job insecurity is always an enormous stress factor. The person that wrote the article was clearly only thinking about the former, which is an entirely inaccurate evaluation of the career itself. (P.S. Even if those that earn a Ph.D. are objectively smarter than most of the population, one still sounds like a pretentious jerk when one says it out loud.)
No, being tenured towards the end of ones career can be just as stressful. My wife is such a person. Whilst threat of losing ones job may be removed and the pay is better, the arguments put forward regarding overwork apply just as much for any who are concientious and committed to their work (though there are no doubt some professors who may to into cruise mode). My wife, a senior psychology professor, generally has to work around 60-70 hrs per week to meet all commitments and seldom has proper holidays. Summer break, forget it! However, strange as it may seem, she loves her job which she sees just as much as a vocation as a career. It is people such as her that keep the systems running. Though generally under appreciated, there are some rewards when graduates and Phd’s she has shepherded through their early careers remember her with affection and gratitude.
I had no idea! I figured that when one is about to retire there is less pressure to publish or take on doctoral students, plus most of my older professors seem so relaxed. I guess it’s because they are great at their jobs.
But now that I think of it, I have had professors, even older professors, tell me that there is no such thing as “summer break.” But I can understand that your wifeloves her job. From a students perspective–based on your description of her–it is educators like her that have inspired me to pursue a job in academia and convinced me that it is well worth the work.
Don’t forget the horrors of the academic “Middle Passage” experience – the growing ranks of the lumpenproletariat adjunct professors!
Thank you for your utterly non-anonymous response.
And you’re right… too many colleges and universities increasingly exploit the labor of adjuncts and rely on the inexpensive way to cover the classes. I certainly had that in mind as I made the caveat for those of us lucky enough to be in proper tenure track positions.
Pingback: Leung Lab Blog » Blog Archive » Is professor career stressful?
I appreciate you sharing this information. It is sad how so many Americans think teaching is such an easy job with so much free time! I think teachers would be much happier given a little respect! I taught upper level mathematics in high school in the U.S. for about 14 years. After (1) 4 years of no increase in pay (2) a work load that was almost impossible to complete and very stressful (3) working summer jobs to pay bills since we are paid practically nothing …. oh wait but everyone thinks we have summers off (4) no ability to discipline students or even fail them because of such a soft society (5) everyone blaming teachers for parental and societal failures; I realized that since my mathematical talents and hard work is not appreciated in this country it was time to either change professions or move abroad. I chose to move abroad. I now teach math in Europe and love it. I do not teach on a military base or anything associated with the U.S. government. Although the workload is no lighter or less stressful, I actually have students there who want to learn and work hard, very supportive parents and society, respect, and a nice paycheck. None of which are found in the U.S. anymore. And, this is all teachers ask for. Instead, we are treated like our jobs are so easy and we are idiots; although, no one would be where they are at without teachers. The education system (and the family unit) is the backbone of a society, and I think we all see where this is headed in the U.S.
Since education is not a corporation who makes millions and can grease the palms of politicians (which who really knows where our education dollars are going??? hint hint) the government truly does not care. I composed a very nice email with point by point reasons why this math teacher was leaving U.S. education system and what should be looked at to improve our education in this nation. I sent this email to every senator and representative of my state. I did not get a single response. To me, that spoke volumes of education importance.
Hi Lem,
I am interested in reading your email about the education system. Would you mind sending it my way?
[email protected]
It’s amazing how much better it is to go to work each day when you feel valued — not only in your institution but more broadly. Given that our reasons for teaching are typically not materially based (obviously, or we’d be fairly silly), those other forms of validation are valuable for most.
That, to me, is what is so frustrating about both this CNBC piece and the people on this blog who have supported it. Its the lack of respect and the perpetuation of disrespectful stereotypes of educators that are so frustrating to us. Its not about the money. Its not about the hard work. Even people I have worked with in the academy that I did not always get along with or like were really hard working people. Nobody that i know and respect in this position is afraid of making less money or working hard. We just want the same things that others want. respect and recognition about our profession and its contributions to society. We don’t want to be on a pedestal but we don’t want to be spit on or laughed at or misrepresented either.
For sure my friend, for sure.
Pingback: The Stress of Professing « Reassigned Time 2.0