How to break into becoming a college professor.

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Look over Keith Drury’s Shoulder as he answers his mail

I’ve had a wonderful fifteen years here as pastor but I’ve been thinking recently that our time to move on is coming. I’m not burned out, but I am worn out. Lately I’ve been thinking about teaching at one of our colleges. I think the reduced pace and opportunity to read and study would be a more refreshing ministry than pastoring—at least if teaching at the college level is about the same as I perceived it to be 20 years ago. So I have two questions: (1) Can you describe to me the daily work of a college professor (besides class lectures) and (2) How do I "break in" to college teaching?                                  --A pastor

 

Great question! Actually to be honest with you, I get a dozen or so emails every spring just like yours. However, most only ask the second question—how to "break in." You’ve asked the more important question—"What is the daily work of a professor like?" Too many pastors imagine the life of a college professor different than it really is.

As you know I teach the freshmen introduction to pastoral ministry. I see the same thing there. Some of these bright-eyed freshmen are so excited about going into the ministry--but their picture of the work is restricted.  Some imagine the ministry is getting paid to take ski trips with the youth or to get a worship band together and practice several nights a week. It is my job in this first class in the ministry major to help them see the actual daily work a minister really does. We interview ministers about what they do, talk about the work, and each student spends three or four hours each week shadowing a minister observing local church ministry. Some are shocked the minister has to do "office work" or "go visit the hospital more than once a week" or that they "attend lots of meetings." For some it is a testing of their call. So your thoughtful question asking what a college professor actually does shows your insight--you are not naïve enough to assume the actual work is what you seemed to see as a student 20 years ago.

So what does a college professor do? It varies from person to person, of course.  Professors who are finishing their doctoral dissertations have a different schedule than those already finished.  Professors with children at home have a different schedule than empty nest professors.  So you'd need a solid research project to see what they do on average.  I can't give you that, but I can tell you what I do--since I keep a running record of my time.  After all--time is all I've got in life…so keeping fairly careful track of where I spend it is a reminder to me of how it is running out!  Here's is how I spend my time as a college professor:

 

1. Preparation & Grading

By far preparation and grading takes up the largest part of my time--almost 30 hours a week. Classes are hungry monsters--they eat up content ravenously!  I worked at my denominational headquarters for 24 years and learned a lot from reading and traveling to speak every week.  I was pretty well known for having "good stuff" I gave at seminars.  But I'll be honest with you--when I entered teaching that content was all gone in the first three weeks.  I had to start digging furiously.  I still have to.  Teaching a normal load is like having twelve messages to prepare a week.  But they are harder than messages--students need solid content that is "testable" and they ignore your stories (they love them but know you won't test on them).  So you've got to dig up what they need to know, arrange it in a way that is testable, then (and here is where the real time is spent) figure out how they can learn it without just telling it to them.  

Probably the biggest change in education since you attended college is a professor can no longer get paid for standing up and talking about their subject area for an hour pretending to be teaching.  The trick is to get students to learn the content without your talking it into them.  That takes at least twice the preparation time--first finding the right content (the easy part) then figuring out how they can acquire it in an interesting, fun, and collaborative way.  All this means you don't just produce words out of your mouth but paper out of your printer and photocopier.  Professors today (at least the good ones) are "educational designers" not "lecturers."  They design the total classroom experience to create a positive learning atmosphere, then they manage the activities that cause learning in the students. This means you spend lots of time at the computer making these things, then lots more time at the photocopier each day making handouts, group project sheets, or overhead transparencies (most college professors don't have a secretary do their photocopying--they do it on their own.)

 But once you've created all these learning activities who will grade them?  A pastor seldom grades the parishioners (other than secretly).  College professors must turn in official grades at the end of each semester knowing that your students have parents who have lawyers.  So you have a rubric clearly stating what is required and what loses points, but you can't delegate your grading--you've got to do it yourself.  This means if you required 40 students in your worship class to produce a two-page typed list of principles for leading music you have to read and grade them today, because tomorrow they have a similar assignment due on prayer in worship.  And this is just one course--you'll have three other courses with things due tomorrow too.

I don't mean all professors teach like this. But the better ones do.  So, if you went into teaching would you plan to be a mediocre professor or a good one?   Your answer will determine how much time you'd spend on preparation and grading.   With up to 30 hours a week invested in preparation and grading you can readily see how a college professor can get a couple dozen free hours a week…just "drop the record" and "talk through the textbook" in class and give a machine-graded midterm and final exam.  If you have taught for 30 years and are about 60 years old you can survive doing that (in some schools).  But if you are trying to "break in" (or really care about the craft) you can't.  In fact, even after you've taught a course five times in the last five years, you'll spend hours fine-tuning it.  But you know that--any worthy preacher knows they can't just pull out a message from the last church and preach it again without considerable fine tuning to the changed day, changes situation, and changed audience.  And, of course even if you do get your act together after a few runs through a course, the gained time is gobbled up by more and better feedback on grading. (A "grade" isn’t feedback--students expect a chat room-type response to their work or they consider you lazy.) 

So, would you like studying the content until you have determined what the students should know?   Would you like designing an educational learning experience for each class to cause learning without you doing all the talking?   Would you like typing up handouts and activity sheets for each class and running them off on a photocopier?   Would you like to read 40 (or in lower level classes up to 60) papers on the same subject and providing feedback to the students that is readable, corrective and affirming?   Would you like to do this up to 30 hours a week to be a “good professor?”   If so, then you'd like about half the work of a professor.  Now, the rest of the work.

 

2. Actual in-class time

Class time is what most students see. It is the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  It is like preaching to the pastor--it is what people see and presume is your primary work.  Most college professors teach four courses each semester--12 hours a week.  If you are not prepared, these hours will be embarrassing to you and painful for the students.  If you've done your preparation these hours are just swell.  Well, usually.  As a pastor you preach every Sunday to your people, so let me compare it a bit.  Imagine that you had to preach at 7:50 AM… and your people commonly stay up to 2 AM the night before… and when they come in you realize that during the last seven days they have attended 16 other similar services, now they are here in yours!  That's closer to the real truth.  Most students take 15 hours of classes, plus they attend four or more worship services a week.  Frankly they are hard to impress!  But it can be done--if you prepare well and deliver well.  If you do, it is possible to come out of class feeling like you feel after preaching one of those slam-dunk sermons.  But you and I both know what its like to come away from the pulpit when you really fumbled the ball—the same is true for the classroom.  Like preaching, the relatively small part of your work week (one sixth of mine) in the classroom can be the highlight of your week--and maybe even some of your student's.  I spend about 13 hours a week actually in class.  Like preaching—it is where the entire thing comes together.

 

3. Student Appointments

Teaching at a college is no way to escape people.  After all, remember our parishioners live where we work!  Students have lots of daylight free time (most don't start studying until after you and I go to bed!  They are hungry to talk to a trustworthy adult.  I spend about 13 hours a week meeting with students.  Some professors (like my colleague Jim Lo) spend far more than this, but I'm giving you my numbers here.  This time is similar to counseling as a pastor.  Perhaps the major difference is all my parishioners are the same age, thus they want to talk about the same subjects: How will I know whom to marry?  How do I get him back?  How long should you date before getting engaged?  Are people who have never heard of Christ going to hell even though they never had a chance?  Is Masturbation a sin?  Is there any truth to entire sanctification?  How far can I go with my gal?  I'm confused about tongues.  My mother told me this morning that dad's been cheating on her for ten years and she's filing for divorce tomorrow.  How do I know what God wants me to do over summer?

Most effective professors are available at least 10 hours a week for student appointments. Some colleges (like mine) simply require it.  In the department where I teach most of my colleagues have their appointment schedule hanging right on their office door and students can simply fill in the blanks and use up their week.  Many post the schedule for the entire semester and some students sign up for regular appointments months ahead of time. 

But personal appointments aren't the only time you spend with students. Most professors are expected to mentor a number of students each semester. That means regular developmental appointments with the same person over four months.  And almost every professor does "Independent Studies" with students.   Independent studies are sort of tutoring--a student meets with you regularly through the semester for course credit.  They do all the regular assignments of a course and you advise them, tutor them and grade them.  For me this current semester I have 15 scheduled mentoring relationships or independent studies.

But that's not all. About half way through the semester all bets are off on student appointment ratios.  The period is called "advising weeks."  Students in college are assigned a professor as an "academic advisor."  You are responsible to see they make good choices and take the right courses.  You do this by meeting with every advisee personally during the three week period and working through their schedule for the following semester, "signing off" on the registration form to take joint responsibility for the schedule for how they plan to spend this year’s $15,000 on courses.  It is not uncommon for a professor to have 50 advisees (my colleague Russ Gunsalus has over 100!). So during this three-week period a professor gets to add another 50 appointments to their already-busy schedule.  Of course the other work continues during this time.  Most professors get mighty crabby during this period and their spouses have learned to ignore them for a few weeks. ON average I spend about 13 hours a week in these appointments (excluding the advising nightmare weeks).

So if you want to be a college professor ask yourself if you'd like to spend time in student appointments every week--at least ten hours but probably more. Would you like talking about the issues 18-22 year olds talk about?  Are you willing to personally mentor several students?  Would you enjoy the tutoring atmosphere of an independent study?  Could you survive an extra 50 appointments during "advising weeks" and still keep up your classroom excellence?  If so then you would like that 20% of my job.

 

4. Committees

Colleges and universities are run by committees. It's considered a "governance issue.”  That is, the faculty needs to have their nose in just about every decision made affecting the academic outcomes of an institution (which is everything, even the food service!)  How to do this?  Committees!  Churches have committees too, of course, but on a college campus everyone is piled up in one place day and night (even many professors live within walking distance) so "meetings happen."  Your department will have meetings to plan, decide, re-plan, reverse, plan again, decide, decide again, table, consider and sometimes even make final decisions.  Education is process oriented—thus educational administration is not real results oriented either!  There are food service, committees, strategic planning committees, faculty retreat planning committees, Faculty development committees, student services committees, curriculum revision committees, event planning committees, visit day committees, and should-we-drink-coffee-in-the-library committees and committees to appoint other committees, and committees that evaluate other committees.  There are even committees that accomplished their task long ago but keep meeting to rehash the long-completed task or to evaluate the task’s effect.  As a professor you will automatically be appointed to a few handfuls of committees and you will be expected to attend and take assignments.  I spend about 4 hours a week in committees.  Actually many faculty spend more than four hours a week in committees. I don’t and I'm hoping my dean doesn't read this and assign me another dozen! 

Do you like committee work?  Would you enjoy 4-5 hours a week on committees that do things only tangentially related to your personal work in the classroom?  Are you a “team-ball player” and able to do assignments for others to raise the tide so all the boats can rise?  If so then you might like this half-day of the job.

 

5. Writing

If you become a professor you might not spend so many hour writing.  I do, I'm a writer.  But even if you are not a writer, professors are expected to publish something somewhere, sooner or later.  The really smart ones publish in journals read by other professors in other schools.  Others write for the masses acting as "translators" of the discipline by putting content in readable form for the average person.  Some write abstracts or reviews of other books.  Some don't write at all and survive for a time--though in many schools they are the first to be "released for other duties" when a financial crunch comes along.  The best scholars spend far more time than four hours a week.  Of course if you land a job teaching at college after your comprehensive exams and you still have a dissertation to write--you'll be spending far more than four hours a week writing that mammoth work.  I only spend about four hours each week writing (you are reading the result of one of those mornings).  If you become a college professor you might write less than four hours a week, but if you do, they'll expect you to counterbalance your lack of writing by carrying a heavier load in other areas--like mentoring, committee work or representing the institution's interests in speaking

So would you like writing?  Is your dissertation already done or could you finish it while doing all the rest of this stuff?  Or would you settle for being a mediocre teacher until it gets done then try to break the habit later?  Can you write something that somebody wants to publish?  If so you might like this half-day of the job.

 

6. Email

The supremacy email arrived in the mid 1990's and changed everyone's work.   It affected those of us who are college professors faster.  Our young students were "early adopters."  Phone calls are dead--email is in.  I receive only a few actual phone calls from students in an entire semester--mostly emergencies.  Students expect me to communicate by email or IM.  This is handy for me since phone calls don’t interrupt and I don’t take phone calls anyway during live appointments.  When I'm free to return phone calls (At 6:00 AM, say) it often isn't convenient for many pastors and all my students.  So students write to me after I've gone to bed and I answer them before they get up. 

The communications world is changing.  In the emerging world phone calls are increasingly considered a "demanding imposition."  In this world people who are considerate and respectful of others' time use email or leave telephone messages instead of demanding people drop everything and take their personal phone call at the exact moment they call.  Younger people represent this emerging culture best, so they email their professors.  However most students assume the professor will answer their email in the next 12 hours.  Since I write a regular Internet column I get a hundred or more emails a day from people off campus so I have to sort out the students. To do that I have a filtering system that searches the subject line of all my incoming emails (for a code word all my students know) then their message gets popped to the top of my in-basket. They are my first concern so they have the primary access to me. 

Besides student emails there are about another hundred organizational emails every week that requires a fast reply (or a faster click of the delete button). These are the easy ones. Greater time has to be invested reading or participating in the more serious debates and discussions between your scholarly colleagues.  For instance this year I'm a participant in on-going discussions between the science department and religion departments--some weeks that luncheon inspires a dozen thought-requiring emails.  Reading them or responding takes time.  Combined together all email might cost an efficient reader-thinker-typist three or four hours a week.  For me it takes more because I respond to the off-campus emails generated by my "Tuesday Column" and respond to pastors, former students, and denominational leaders. My filters pile up these messages and I handle them once a week.  So it costs me about six hours a week.

So, would you like spending a couple hours a week directly answering email from students and colleagues? Or (better yet) be willing to stay active for student IMs? Are you willing to get back to students within a day of their email?  If so, you'd like this part of being a college professor.

 

7. Obligatory show-ups

Every job has some stuff you're obligated to show up for.  So does teaching.  By “obligatory show-ups” I mean things you ought to attend where you don't have to lead but merely show your face and support.  This doesn't include committees--where you have to contribute.  Obligatory show-ups on the college campus are like 50th anniversary celebrations for pastors, or the graduation receptions to youth pastors.  For a college professor there is an "implied obligation" to show up for about ten hours a week, though many professors can't pull that off without draining other obligations.  But you are certainly expected to show up some at the student chapel.  Poof!  There goes about three hours a week if you go regularly.  A college professor is supposed to support the arts, so you sense an obligation to show up at a few orchestra performances or to hear the chorale, or to be there for a musical from time to time.  You’ll want to attend at least one or two of the Friday night student-led gatherings.  And a good “team-ball professor” really ought to be at some of the sports events occasionally, especially if you've got some of your own students playing.  And whatever your discipline you've got to make some showing at whatever the students are doing in your area.  For instance I teach worship--so I am "obligated" in a way to at least show up at some of our student-led worship services around my campus (there are a half-dozen every week). And there are information meetings by the college personnel department, or reports to the staff by the President, or "Town Meetings" called by your dean, or a special colloquium presentation or lecture series presented by your own department, the Honors College, or some other department. 

Most colleges expect you to be involved in the community too. Indeed will have to show evidence of your community involvement each year and for most schools it is a criterion for continued employment or promotion.  So you'll want to show up for the board of Habitat for Humanity or the United Way or some other social or political organization.  Some professors spend as much as ten hours a week in such obligatory show-ups—the higher you are on the feed chain the more hours of your time are obligatory show-ups (a college president has the most).  I give about three hours to obligatory show-ups, though I always feel guilty about it—and sometimes tiptoe past doors where meetings are being held that I really should have attended.  Sometimes I make a “cameo” and sneak out too, but I really shouldn’t.

So would you like to give about a half-day a week showing up for this or that event that may or may not be your real preference for using that time?  As a pastor you're probably already used to this--in fact this is one area where you might make a gain if you become a college professor! 

 

7. Reading

The time budget outlines above shows why some professors do not read at all through the school year.  These professors catch up each summer on their reading—like their students do collateral reading the final week of classes.   But most professors try to at least “keep even” through the year.  If you are a college professor you ought to know what is recently written in your field.  A professor of microbiology can't run their classes the rest of their life on what they learned in graduate school in the 1980s.   Neither can a professor in religion teach students how to run a 1980's church  (Ok, Ok there are a lot of 1980's churches-- I take that back!)  But seriously, imagine a professor of worship who was not aware of Robert Webber's recent book The Younger Evangelicals.  Or at least some of the more then 100 books on worship that came out in the last 12 months.  The better your students are the less you can wait until summer.   I have several students who have "Amazoned" any book by Bill Hybels, Andy Stanley, John Maxwell, or Robert Webber the very week it comes out and they're asking me about it the following week.  It's not cool when your students are reading books before you knew they were published. This means setting aside enough time to read at least one book a week is sensible planning--especially if you're not going to read a lot over summer.  For me that is about three hours a week.

So would you enjoy the pressure to be current in your reading?  I suspect you would--most effective pastors already read a book every week or so.  So you'd probably like this part of the job.  The difficulty is not in wanting to read so much as disciplined scheduling of sanctified time to read.  If students see you reading they assume you're “not busy” and they can wander in and lay their latest crisis on your shoulder for prayer and counseling.   Professors who read the most have "reading hideouts" where they flee to get caught up on their reading (and I'm not telling where mine is).

 

8. Fellowship with colleagues

I saved the best for last. A good professor is not a lone ranger.  One of the best aspects of teaching is who you get to do it with. Pastoring is sometimes lonely work--even on a staff.  Being a college professor is to be a part of a team.  There is no competition.  Nobody ever asks, “How many did you have?”  All your faculty colleagues are more interested in quality than quantity.   This is the big benefit of teaching.  I get to spend about three hours a week with my colleagues: thinking together, imagining the future together, solving the church's problems together (or the University’s, or the country's), debating each other at lunch, talking about the most recent discoveries in science, or psychology, or biology or management or religion and trying to find points of connections and convergence.  We eat meals together, have serendipitous coffee breaks together, walk to chapel together, go out for dinner together, and some of us even eat Sunday dinner together on campus every week!   It amounts to about three hours minimum and something far more.  It is by far the most wonderful time investment on this list and I don't even need to ask you if you'd like this--I know you would.

 

So, would you like doing this?

This is a pretty hard job even though it is really rewarding.  Some don’t work as hard as others, of course.  Like being a pastor, the quality and quantity of your effort is largely up to you.  There are pastors who seldom make hospital calls, never read a book, and prepare their messages by listening to a cassette tape in the car.  They can survive.  And, there are professors who "get by" by completely chopping off whole segments of the above list and mumble through old lecture notes.  They can survive too--at least if they already have a job and are on the downward side of 60.   But a new professor can't.  Most institutions constantly seek to "upgrade their stable" of professors.  The standard is higher for new professors.  Educational institutions aren't looking for "new hires" that fit somewhere in the middle of the present faculty.  They want new professors that "raise the average" or “benchmark excellence” for the rest of the faculty.  So you’ll have to work harder if you are a new professor, so the above list may be closer to what you’ll do.  Even if you put in fewer hours, you’ll be doing the same things.

OK, I know…this list adds up to almost 80 hours a week.  That’s a lot of hours.  But it is accurate--based on my own records of the most recent five months.  Of course I’m an empty-nester and my wife is working on her PhD so I can easily work this much.  People with little kids at home can’t.   Others choose not to for other reasons.  I work hard because I love this work so much.  I don’t feel overworked most days.  But while I may not be overworked, I admit to being out of balance. 

So, how does a college professor get their life back in balance again? 

One word: summer!

 

So, are you still interested?

If so, then I'll answer your question #2 "How do I "break in" to college teaching?"

 

 

So what do you think?

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To suggest additional insights write to Keith@TuesdayColumn.com