College Professors/Instructors

[AmandaLeigh]

I was just contacted by a recruiter for a college regarding a position as a food studies professor. This is something that I had thought about doing at some point down the road, but not just yet. I had thought to get a few more years of professional experience under my belt before looking to move into this type of position. What aspects of your career do you like most/least? Was your previous experience academic or professional?

[Pine Tree]

What college is it? It's VERY unusual for a college to use a recruiting service to hire faculty.

I love my job. I got hired as a tenure-track professor straight out of my PhD and got tenure a year ago.

Things I love:
teaching
being able to choose my own research
the flexibility in the schedule (except for teaching -- zero flexibility there)


Things I don't love:
- the pay (I was offered twice my salary to work in the private sector),
- the fact that there are no substitutes for teaching a class -- one time I left class and went directly to the ER because I was so ill, but I couldn't cancel the class without a major hassle
- the pressure to get tenure and to get big money grants and to publish
- the complete independence can sometimes be a negative -- you have to be a 100% self-starter to get your research started and to keep it going
- I don't get paid at all in the summer, yet still work 50 hour weeks on research for 3 months
- the constant evaluation and rejection -- just par for the course in research, but it does get to you sometimes

Let me know if you have any questions. I know there are a few of us on here.

[AmandaLeigh]

The position is to specifically teach food institution management. They want both an advanced degree,7 years industry experience, and previous teaching experience. From what I understand, they haven't had much luck in finding candidates that meet the industry experience, especially since they have a very tight timeline to fill the position.

[Megande]

I absolutely love my job! Like PineTree, I got a tenure track job right out of a PhD program. I've got two more years before tenure. I think a lot of the pros and cons depend on what kind of school you work for. I teach at a selective liberal arts school. Teaching is the most important aspect of the job, so I don't have the pressure to get grants or to publish much. I am also lucky in that I only teach 3 classes a semester, so I'm only in class 7.5 hours per week. The teaching load at most teaching schools is much higher than that. My classes are also small (between 5 and 30 students), which makes a HUGE difference in workload, relationships with students, and general pleasantness. My students are also very smart, which also helps

Things I love:
Teaching (although it does make me feel like a performing monkey at times. It is also exhausting.)

The flexibility in the schedule. I drop my kids off at school in the mornings and pick them up at 3 in the afternoon. If I can't get all of my work done in that amount of time, I can do the rest after they go to bed. I agree with PineTree, though, in that it is utterly inflexible about the hours you are supposed to be in class. My school sounds a little more lenient than hers in that I don't have to do anything to cancel class other than email the students, and no one checks up on me, so a class here or there isn't a big deal. I put a lot of pressure on myself to get through all the material, though. I do get paid through the summer, but I don't teach. I am at home with my kids, but we have a nanny, so I can work on my research in between trips to the pool and such. That is a pretty nice perk.

The time off - I am only in class 26 weeks per year. The breaks aren't pure vacation time, you have to prep for other classes, do research, write letters of recommendation, do committee work, etc. But the job is even more flexible at these times, and I easily take off 5+ weeks per year.

Independence- I LOVE this. I only have a boss in the very loosest sense. I decide what to teach, what textbooks to use, and when and how to give assignments and tests. I decide what research to do and largely how much. No one *ever* tells me what to do or how to do it. That is a huge plus for me, but it is easily overwhelming if that is not how you like to operate.

Things I don't love:
The pay. I do pretty well because I'm in a relatively highly paid field, but I also would get paid twice as much to work in the private sector.

Some aspects of my colleagues/the committee work- Community is a big thing where I teach, so we have to do a lot of committee work. Every faculty member has to go to school-wide faculty meetings once a month that last forever. We have to go to convocations dressed in full regalia 5+ times per year. We take turns advising new students (no professional advisors). Professors are often very weird, pompous, and combative (Pinetree and myself excepted, of course!). I don't know if you would have a tenure-track job, but permanent faculty members are notorious for treating non-tenure track faculty poorly.

I'm also happy to answer any other questions you have. I love my job, but I think it makes a huge difference what kind of institution you are working for. Research schools/the state flagship schools have lots of research pressure and a very demanding work environment, but you also get lots of research support and class reductions. Liberal arts schools tend to pay much less but put less pressure on research, more on teaching, and have smaller class sizes (but no T.As). From looking at friends, I think the hardest jobs are those at state schools that aren't the flagship (University of Central _____, North _____ State, etc). Research is usually required but not well supported. The classes are large and the teaching load is usually heavy.

[Pine Tree]

I'm at a non-flagship state school. I'm lucky in that I have a TA every semester (a master's student) who can help with grading and some research stuff. I should clarify - I can cancel classes when need be, but in that particular case it was the day before the midterm and I absolutely had to cover some key material

I totally agree with megande about the other professor thing -- one thing I've realized is that because profs are paid to talk in class, they assume everyone is always interested in what they have to say. NOT TRUE! Makes for some really deadly meetings.

I thought of a few questions you might want to ask the recruiter:

- teaching load -- teaching 4 classes in a semester with no research expectations would be a full-time/busy week
- are there research expectations?
- are there service (e.g. committees) expectations? This is a major time suck in universities.
- do you have a teaching assistant of any kind?
- do you get to choose your own textbooks? Are you free to design your classes how you want?
- What type of contract is it? Is it one year? Is there a possibility of renewal? Is it tenure track?
- Is there a union?
- What classes would you be teaching? Undergrad or graduate?
- How many people are in the department? How many are tenure-track/tenured?
- How big are the classes?

[littlebear]

What college is it? It's VERY unusual for a college to use a recruiting service to hire faculty.

It depends on the field and the type of university. I'm at an elite liberal arts university and in a highly specialized field, and we use head hunters about 2/3 of the time to try to draw qualified applicants out of government/industry.


Pine Tree's questions are good. I would just add that you might want to ask about mentoring for junior faculty. I've found this to be invaluable in my career growth. I love my job. I am not tenure track by choice, but I'm on 5 year contract cycles so that provides good job security. I'm at the associate level and two years out from full professor. The fact that I'm not tenure track reduces pressure to get research money. I still have to produce in terms of research, but there isn't the pressure and grind that you would have with tenure track positions. I only teach 1-2 classes per semester and have TAs for any classes over 20 students. I usually get 1 TA per 20 students so that I can run small group or laboratory sessions. I do teach a summer session so I get paid during the summer. My time is split 50-50 between sponsored research projects and academic responsibilities (teaching, mentoring, advising, directing a graduate program, administrative responsibilities, and service work). I teach on the graduate level so the students are quite a bit different than what you see in undergraduate. I am actually fortunate in that the my salary is really competitive, but this is because the tuition at my university is sky high. Others in my field at state universities aren't paid nearly as well. I really love the flexibility, freedom, and independence. I loosely report to a department chair, but no one is really checking to see when I'm in the office or exactly what I'm doing. It's up to me to be productive and get my work done. This works really well with the fact that I have children. One of the drawbacks is that I do have to teach evening classes since I'm in a graduate program.

Overall, I absolutely love my job and don't have much bad to say about it. I went straight into academics after my PhD program because I always wanted to do that. I love teaching so that's the best part of my job. I actually really enjoy my colleagues and the academic atmosphere so I think that is really dependent on your department as to whether it is a plus or minus. I'm in a female dominated field and in a relatively small department (~20 faculty) so we have developed some tight bonds over the years. I'm also fortunate in that I have had wonderful faculty mentors to assist along the way in career development.