What’s a day in the life of a tenured professor like? Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t (usually) involve golfing or “polishing the fixtures on our yachts,” FemaleScienceProfessor writes in a recent column. And, in fact, professing is but a small slice of the professorial-duty pie, she points out. Much of a tenured professor’s time is actually spent working outside the classroom on an array of (largely unheralded) administrative tasks, FSP writes:
After tenure, our service commitments ramp up, and we serve on committees at our own university and beyond. Some of us edit journals and hold other positions in professional organizations. And we spend a lot of time advising students and other researchers, helping them reach their career goals. Most of us are busier after tenure than we were before.
Universities really do “get what they pay for: hard-working faculty members,” FSP adds. And then some, Brainstormer Gina Barreca is quick to chime in. She notes, for example, that professors have taken on many administrative tasks that used to be handled by support staffers:
When I started as an assistant professor 23 years ago, there was more help available for faculty. For example, an administrative assistant would photocopy the exams or make copies of articles for graduate students, and another might be assigned the responsibility of typing letters of recommendation written by faculty for both undergraduate and graduate students, not to mention making sure they were sent to the correct addresses.
In those days (can you hear the old-lady voice?) we were not expected to handle our own enrollments/permission numbers either. …
In fact, Barreca writes, rumor has it that …
once upon a time, there was support staff to help with typing and with manuscript preparation, as well with as the preparation of annual reports and committee reports. I don’t know if I believe it, though. It’s sort of like hearing about Atlantis, or about the time when department offices would have a hot pot of coffee available so that people could gather and talk. Sure, it sounds nice, but who could conceive of such a thing?
It’s no wonder some tenured professors have service fatigue. Of course, paperwork is just one of a number of additional burdens that have been placed on professors in recent years, David Evans, a fellow On Hiring contributor, noted last year. The problem, as FSP, Barreca, and Evans see it, is that professors’ contributions outside the classroom are usually overlooked or undervalued by the public, which increasingly views professors as spoiled and lazy.
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25 Responses to The Myth of the Lazy Professor
sadeghi - September 24, 2010 at 5:34 am
An inventory of what professors do is not enough to pass judgement, as it were; it is a comparison with what other professionals fill their days with that is really needed!
lauraeastwood - September 24, 2010 at 7:51 am
At some universities, reducing non-faculty salary costs is seen as a means to allow more focus on the core of the university – faculty and students. Those of us who have lost our positions as administrators and support staff in the recent budget crunch wish we could still be there to support faculty members in their work.
bpdavis - September 24, 2010 at 8:18 am
Since I am a lazy professor of literature (part time) and an administrator (the rest of the time), I read the myth as being more indicative of the tellers of the story than of the reality of professing and administering. The myth suggests not what professors do, but what business people and other wage slaves would be doing if they did not have a boss looking over their shoulders at all times.
quidditas - September 24, 2010 at 8:45 am
I’m not surprised that the response to the accusation that too many tenured faculty are largely MIA from the institution is to whine they have no subservient female to do their photocopying for them.Wow. You really mastered a big one there–I’ll skip the complaint that you need to work the word processor all by yourself.
jenmata - September 24, 2010 at 9:13 am
So it doesn’t get better? I just started a tenure-track position as Assisstant Professor at a university and this being my first quarter back in the fulltime work field again, I am beat. Really, exhausted. I was hoping it got better with the years, but apparently it just gets more “interesting” from here onwards?
punkassninja - September 24, 2010 at 9:31 am
I don’t know where the myth of the “lazy” professor comes from. I never have one spare moment of time that I’m not utilizing to write new lecture sections based on new readings, creating new testing/writing assignments, doing committee work, serving as Union President, etc. I am a CC professor and tenured, but there is always something to do. And if people envy the 30 hr work work, I always reply that I spent 10 years earning three degrees to earn that right. Plus, no one work that anyway since most professors got into teaching because they care about their profession and aren’t in it to slack.
tuxthepenguin - September 24, 2010 at 9:41 am
@jenmataIt took me a while to adjust. I learned: (1) to say no, (2) to be satisfied with doing a mediocre job for most things, (3) that it’s okay to miss unimportant deadlines, and (4) to do the important and ignore the urgent. These days I go to the office for a certain amount of time, go home at the end of the day, and don’t worry about what didn’t get done. Once you accept the rules of the game, you won’t be so exhausted. Life after tenure requires more work, but by now I know better how to organize things.
dziuk - September 24, 2010 at 10:49 am
There is reason for pay for every job. If it were so easy why not take a position as a professor and enjoy the “lazy” life?
nancy8 - September 24, 2010 at 1:26 pm
The “myth” of the lazy professor springs from the fact that what most (not all, of course) faculty members consider a full or “demanding” workload is fairly light when compared with that of the typical working professional. Not to mention the fact that faculty get three months off a year (and consider it a tremendous sacrifice to teach, say, one class over the summer). And the fact that there is little if any accountability for faculty, especially once they’re tenured. tuxthepenguin’s response is a good example–saying no, missing deadlines, doing a mediocre job, etc. are not acceptable in most professional careers, even though the demands are usually greater in those careers. And we all know those faculty members who do zero research or are such bad teachers they cannot fill classes and therefore do not carry full teaching loads–yet are never in danger of losing their job or taking a salary cut for sub-par performance.Of course most of them (especially the truly lazy ones) think they are extremely busy and important, partly because living in the Ivory Tower has robbed them of perspective, and partly because of Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
esgphd - September 24, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Oh, please. It’s so easy to complain about how little work OTHER people do. Yes I remember the days when we had adminstrative support. Those were also the days when we used mimeograph machines and typewriters, however. Theyve been gone a long time. For years now, if I want something typed or mailed or photocopied whatever I do it all myself. In my institution we do not get “3 months off” – we work a 12 month schedule, are required to bring in from outside sources most (80%) of our salaries, and get nickel-and-dimed for every conceivable thing. My colleague had to write several memos just to get a new stapler – she eventually just bought her own. I’m constantly writing grant applications and finidg other ways to grub for money. This is all in addition to the teaching I do. I dont know where you work nancy8, but it certainly isnt here.
tuxthepenguin - September 24, 2010 at 3:35 pm
@nancy8I don’t know how to respond to such a fact-filled comment.Just curious, though, in what “professional career” is it unacceptable to turn down uncompensated requests for help.
duchess_of_malfi - September 24, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Hmm…I wonder if self-reported anecdotes are the best way to answer the question. Let me ask my research-methods students and get back on that.
sffein - September 25, 2010 at 8:52 am
As so few workers in the US have even minimal control over their working conditions: when they show up, what they do, how they do it combined with steadily increasing absolute levels of work time, the complaint about “lazy” professors can be read, at least in part, as a complaint about freedom in/at work.Our jobs, whatever our particular circumstances, have so much more personal lattitude. And people hunger for this. The complaint is a misrecognition … our culture doesn’t even discuss quality of work experience, only hours worked and wages earned.
fergbutt - September 25, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I’m a professor. It’s not for me to convincingly label myself lazy or not, but I think we can agree that some professors are lazy and some are not. So to argue that all professors are lazy or that no professors are lazy is silly. And it’s similarly unwise to posit the relative proportions of lazy to industrious professors, especially if the opinion comes from a professor. The bias is clear. Here’s a new question: Why does critical thinking go out the window when the issue turns inward? Why do otherwise bright people ignore the obvious? That is, laziness is a variable, not a constant.
duchess_of_malfi - September 25, 2010 at 2:13 pm
#15, Fergbutt, when you say that “laziness is a variable and not a constant,” do you mean that laziness (or industriousness) is a continuous variable and not a discrete variable when measured across cases (people can be measured on a range rather than in yes/no fashion)? Or do you also mean that laziness fluctuates within an individual over time? I can see a strong case for both points.
rkgrkg - September 25, 2010 at 5:49 pm
I would not call myself lazy, but I don’t work that hard, either. I teach classes I’ve been teaching for many years, so all the lesson planning is done. I change a text or two every time I teach it to keep things interesting and updated, but that doesn’t create that much extra work. I’m on three committees right now, chairing one. Each meets monthly, but we get most of our work done in the meeting, so it’s not that much. Having been tenured for a while now, I don’t feel a huge push to publish, but I’ve averaged one standard peer-reviewed article every couple of years, some other smaller writing gigs like reviews, and a conference a semester.In other words, I think I do my job fully and well, but I take at least three days off each week, sometimes four. And I don’t always do eight hours a day. I’m on a 3/3 load. Now, I do say no. I think three committees is enough service, especially chairing one at the university level. I’ve been asked to join editorial boards and said no. I’ve been asked to help organize conferences and even co-edit collections and said no. Maybe this makes me lazy in some of your eyes. I pefer to think that I have been at this job long enough to develop routines that reduce how much time it takes to do things. Now, post-tenure, I work on family time and exercise and stuff that I didn’t give time to before tenure.My big point being that some of us do have three or four days a week when we do nothing job-related while others are going daily. Part of it depends on where you are working (things are quite sane where I work, I must say). It depnds on your own personal and professional goals. Personal choice is often a factor.
tcli5026 - September 26, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Nancy8 is partly right, but it’s absurd to argue that most professors have it easy compared to the “typical working professional.” I have experienced inside and outside of academia. I was a “typical working professional” (making much more as a 20s-something than I do as a 40s-something professor) and my life then was a whole lot easier than my life now. Then, I had a fairly predictable schedule where there was a clear line between my home life and my working life. (I also had an expense account and a company car.) Once I left the office, I had no professional duties to worry about. As a professor, there is no clear line–my home is my office. Nancy8 seems to be comparing a typical professor to a typical (high-level) executive, many of whom do work “all the time.” But that’s not a fair comparison, since high-level executive probably make two, three or 10 times the salary of a typical professor. She also assumes that there are no “lazy professionals.” That’s absurd, too. I saw them all the time. But, I also saw extremely hard working professionals. Of course, the same could be said of professors.Let’s dispense with this dichotomous, either-or thinking. That’s intellectually lazy.
duppy_conqueror - September 26, 2010 at 4:42 pm
there’s always accreditation concerns and the endless cycle of Student Learning Outcome revisions to fill any remaining spare time. Gosh, how did we ever live w/o SLOs back in the old days?
hieronymous - September 27, 2010 at 6:52 am
@rkgrkg: Thank you for your honesty in describing your current workload and schedule. In the spirit of being completely honest, most faculty I have worked with are among the hardest working people I know, but I have also worked with literally dozens of tenured faculty whose working conditions are like yours. While I don’t think you are “lazy,” it does appear that you are you able to manage your workload and schedule to a degree that most non-faculty will never attain until they are at least semi-retired. I hope you can see that your autonomy and relatively light schedule is increasingly a source of irritation and downright anger from those whose tuition and/or tax dollars support what appears to be a rather “cushy” lifestyle. This is especially true today, as people outside of academe have been losing jobs and those who remain absorb that work.@tcli5026: I wonder how much of the difference in your comparison of work life from two decades ago to today is due to the rise of the internet and email. It seems to me that the ability to be connected at all times is affecting the lines between work and home lives in nearly every profession. Twenty years ago I wasn’t responding to my boss’s or students’ emails or text messages at 10:00 at night or on the weekends.
rkahhamilton - September 30, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Hi, Jen, Hope you are well. It does not get less busy, just busy in different ways. But the anxiety over getting tenure disappears, which is a big relief.
mchag12 - September 30, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Lauraeastwood; is a 60% adjunct rate considered reducing non-faculty related salary costs? THe truth is, most universities are saving money on faculty and hiring more administrators. They just don’t help faculty do anything.
softshellcrab - September 30, 2010 at 2:15 pm
@ tuxthepenguin #7Nice attitude there, fella. Do everyone a favor and stay at your own school, or better yet, formally retire instead of being just retired on the job. So you are “satisfied with doing a mediocre job for most things” and think “it’s okay to miss unimportant deadlines” [as you define them]? That’s the boy! Where do they find people like you, anyway?
ozdemira - September 30, 2010 at 2:28 pm
As a departmental administrative assistant, I constantly hear about “ye olde days.” Just for the record: I still make copies (daily), I have a coffee maker in my office, and I try to take time to listen to any faculty member who walks through my door. I also run departmental reports, maintain the departmental website, complete all budgeting, complete all scheduling, maintain the departmental files, sit on two committes and many more things not listed in my job description. In other words, my day is also full. I am not complaining. I love my job. However, it would be nice to not have to hear about how great things used to be. I think things are really quite wonderful now. Look around. I’m certain that my office is not the only one still ready and willing to help faculty.
theyakofhappiness - October 1, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Thirty hour work week? Three months off? Whuh? As a Visiting Assistant Professor teaching a 3/3 load and developing at least one brand new course in my field each semester, directing an honors thesis, on the job market, also trying to publish and keep attending conferences in order to get a full-time job, I work about ten hours a day Monday through Friday and 5 hours a day on Sat and Sunday. And that is not enough to get everything done. I feel guilty about not working more. I spent the summer researching texts and critical background for my two new courses this fall, writing and presenting a conference paper, and revising an article for resubmission. Meanwhile, I got to hear people tell me that because I didn’t have to be at an office or in the classroom over the summer, that my job is “part time.” I can see how this schedule would slow down some once a person reaches tenure, but even with substantially fewer demands than someone at my stage of the profession faces, I think being a professor is a full-time, year-round job.
asurenyan100 - December 27, 2010 at 2:10 am
How about the professors who do not teach their two classes per week and complain that their teaching schedule is taking up their time? Some professors admit they hate teaching, but yet all they teach are two classes per week. It is not a hard task to prepare two classes per week and be committed to their students and still be able to do other work that the university requires. I see so mann tenure professors who do this and they make way a lot of money. Is this fair in the system?