In Honor of Laborers

[Student of Trinity]

Yes, I read a fair part of some three-book omnibus in the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series. My strongest reaction was to wonder wistfully at how these guys seemed to be able to get away with publishing nothing in decades. Technically I could, too; my job is not publish or perish, but really just publish or feel bad. But after decades in the academic rat race, the 'or feel bad' part is a serious burden. I simply could not for the life of me muster the serene entitlement that buoys von Igelfeld and his colleagues along, and part of me really wishes I could. On the other hand, of course, the utter pointlessness of those fictional professors' existence is unthinkable. Most real professors I know do a lot of active research, as well as taking considerable pains at teaching. I think those books represent some earlier epoch of German academia, now long past, at least in the sciences.

 

The Austrians are even more title-mad than the Germans, and by quite a lot. Having a doctorate may even lower your rent there, because your landlords will be so happy to have a Doktor as tenant. And I have seen a door label with 'Prof. Dr. Dr. X', representing the fact that the inhabitant had some kind of post-doctoral qualification (presumably a Habilitation) that was officially recognized as equivalent to a second doctorate. I bet that guy really wanted to collect an honorary degree or two as well, so he could stretch his nameplate even further. But those don't come easily.

 

I will say this for the Germans, though, that for all their love of titles, in daily use they mostly don't bother. Where American students will normally be careful to address lecturers as 'Professor X', in Germany they just call professors 'Herr X' (or, more rarely) 'Frau X'. (In German the formal title isn't unisex, anyway: a woman is a Professorin.)

[Dintiradan]

A lot of my professors prefer to be called by their first names, even during my undergraduate courses. I think it's a department-specific thing. The preferences of other professors varied a bit; some prefer 'Professor', some prefer 'Doctor', some prefer first name, and some prefer Mr./Mrs./Ms.

[Lilith]

Yeah, I know I was on first-name terms with most of my lecturers at university. At least, most of the ones I talked to at all.

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: waterplant

Originally Posted By: Lilith

right now i'm basically living off rental income from the properties my family owns

i'm pretty sure that technically makes me a capitalist ;_;

No, it makes you a feudalist - a 'Victorian' in the purest sense.

Sorry, Queenslander jokes don't even raise a smile any more - Victorians are much more fun.

I wasn't even aware there were jokes about us Queenslanders. Then again, I haven't step foot out of here much ever.

[RCCCL]

Originally Posted By: Cairo Jim

I wasn't even aware there were jokes about us Queenslanders. Then again, I haven't step foot out of here much ever.

Probably a joke in of itself!

Most Professors I've known like to be called by their first name(not that I've known a whole lot of them). I recall two that liked to be called Professor, one was just very strict on protocol, the other always just came off as a pompous ***.

[Student of Trinity]

I'm on first name terms with all my grad students, which I think is typical everywhere. In German we all use Du, which is also normal in Germany, at least in physics departments. That's something really wonderful in physics. A sixty year old Nobel laureate can discuss physics with a 20 year old student, and they're simply scientists working together on a problem, and they naturally use first names. The older one has more experience, of course, but research physics is hard enough that the Nobel laureate and the grad student may both be stumped together, and really work together getting unstumped.

 

But I'm not sure that's all quite right for undergrads, though. It's not about my being better than them, but in a way, almost the opposite. It's the fact that I might have to fail them. It's not nice to be failed by someone who's been calling you by your first name. If it has to happen, I really think it's easier to be failed impersonally by a Professor X than by your buddy Y.

 

This was the same way I understood the formality of ranks in the army. I might have had to send my subordinates to jail, or even, in time of war, order them to do something lethally dangerous. That's easier to take from an impersonal superior than from someone you've come to relate to as a friend.

[Slawbug]

That's the smartest explanation of rank and title I've heard.

[Alorael at Large]

There are reasons that officers are discouraged from fraternizing with the enlisted men. Professors, though, I'm less sure of. If you actually come to know students personally, I don't think a title will help if you fail them.

 

—Alorael, who has heard many people discuss their professors. The trends he's noticed is that "X" is the term of least respect and "Professor X" is more respectful. Usually, though, students talking about professors on a first-name basis are the ones who have the most respect for that professor. Perhaps you need a certain degree of closeness in order for someone to know you well enough to respect you. (First-name basis isn't required for closeness, but closeness is probably a prerequisite.)

[Lilith]

on the flip side of the coin, it pays to get on first-name terms with your lecturers because it makes it harder for them to fail you, even when they should

[Student of Trinity]

Yeah, that's the other thing. Difficult as it might be for any students to believe, I could quite easily like a person who was no good at physics. Maybe not like them really a lot, because (let's be honest here) if I bleed the drops have vector signs over them, but like them enough not to want to fail them. And that's not fair to the people who are less likable but just as bad at physics.

 

So the point is, I don't really think it's right to get friendly enough with students, whom you might have to fail, for first names to be appropriate. Our relationship needs to be more professional than that, not because I deserve that respect, but because we all deserve that respect.

 

I guess it would be fair to say that there is something worth respecting in the office of teacher. Even regardless of how miserable the incumbent might be; in the army one learns that you salute the rank, not the individual. But by the same token there is something worth respecting in the office of student.

 

Also no matter how miserable the incumbent may be!

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Alorael

—Alorael, who has heard many people discuss their professors. The trends he's noticed is that "X" is the term of least respect and "Professor X" is more respectful. Usually, though, students talking about professors on a first-name basis are the ones who have the most respect for that professor. Perhaps you need a certain degree of closeness in order for someone to know you well enough to respect you. (First-name basis isn't required for closeness, but closeness is probably a prerequisite.)

This. For me, "Doctor", "Professor", "Sir", "Madam", and so on aren't respectful terms, they are polite terms. The difference might be overly fine, and some people might not make the distinction, but there you go.

I listened to a panel of graduate student talking about TAing this afternoon (it's a required session for all new graduate students, despite the fact that I won't be teaching this year; ah well, still interesting). One thing they agreed on was how they disliked the attitude of entitlement some students showed -- the belief that the instructor is there to serve the student. And, of course, this extreme is wrong. But there is an element of truth to it: undergraduates pay (directly and through taxes) to be taught, and they have the right to be taught well.

It's a different dynamic than high school (where, I agree, honorifics should be used). Students should be trained for an environment of close collaboration with their peers and their supervisors, whether it be academically or in the workforce. Of course, like Student of Trinity says, keeping a spirit of professionalism between peers and supervisors is also important, and the opposite extreme of a 'buddy-buddy' relationship should be avoided. I just think there's a happy mean between the two.

(And a caveat: I have never taught before, so I may find myself horribly, horribly wrong if/when I ever find myself in such a position.)

[Randomizer]

Ah, the fun of being a TA, Bwahahahaha ....

 

This is where you get almost all the work of being a professor without any of the pay or respect. It really depends upon the course level that you are teaching or whether you just grade classwork for a professor. But in general you will learn to loathe and despise those idiots that you are force to deal with as you try to cram some knowledge into them.

 

Some are interested to learn, but most of them come less prepared than to a real professor's class. You get to find out the hard way that they haven't read the required material, haven't taken the previous courses that would have prepared them, and in general need to be spoonfed information just to get through the class.

[Student of Trinity]

There's a huge range on this. In physics, grad students often do homework grading and tutorial sessions (walking through the homework solutions), but that's it. In the humanities it's not uncommon for a Ph.D. student to teach a whole undergraduate course all by themselves.

 

Then, you know, there is adjunct faculty. This concept does not seem to exist in Germany, and I don't think it's common in Canada (yet?), but in the US it's a big deal.

 

In most of Europe, all university faculty jobs come with lifetime job security, regardless of level or title. In North America, an Assistant Professor is actually nobody's assistant, but is simply an entry-level faculty member who can expect to earn promotion to Associate Professor after six years of proving themselves. An Associate Professor can then expect to advance to Professor (without any prefix) if and when they attain the appropriate level of eminence. Associate and full Professors normally have tenure, which means they can never be fired except by the closing of their entire departments. An Assistant Professor who is working towards tenure is said to be 'on the tenure track'.

 

Job security for professors is supposed to enable them to pursue their research or teach their views without any political influence, and I guess it's probably a good thing. But tenure is maybe a bit of an over-engineered institution for the teaching of basic undergraduate courses. There are a lot of courses nowadays that are simply technical stuff that has to be covered, and there isn't much risk of political interference in teaching them, nor does teaching them require advanced scholarship or research skills. So a lot of schools, particularly in the United States, will hire anybody with a Ph.D. to teach such courses, on short term contracts — often simply for one course at a time. The going rate seems to vary between around three thousand to maybe ten thousand dollars for a one-semester three-hour-per-week course, depending on the subject and on how desperate the hiring department is at the time.

 

If you're teaching under that sort of deal, you are not on the tenure track, and your title will be something like Lecturer or Adjunct Professor. That might sound rather better than Assistant Professor, but it's really a big step down. Adjuncts often don't even have their own offices. I spent a year doing adjunct lecturing around Boston before I moved to Germany, and it wasn't such a bad experience overall, but it's not something I'd want to have to keep up for very long.

[Alorael at Large]

Adjuncts tend to be underpaid, overworked, and given no prospects for job improvement. The only step up is to assistant professor, and they're not on the right track. Thus, it's become a cost-saving measure that's also an abusive hiring practice.

 

Tenure, on the other hand, has gained a reputation for being overpaid and underworked. There's a substantial amount of anti-tenure thinking bouncing around the mediasphere. Academia tends to disapprove, and just about everyone else seems lukewarm to cordial about the notion.

 

—Alorael, who is in favor of tenure. Without some perks, who would go into academia? Okay, in the humanities, maybe, but which scientists could resist the lure of academia?

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Time Gash

Adjuncts tend to be underpaid, overworked, and given no prospects for job improvement. The only step up is to assistant professor, and they're not on the right track. Thus, it's become a cost-saving measure that's also an abusive hiring practice.

My mom is currently an adjunct professor. She hasn't taught full-time in as long as I can remember, so she ends up with shared office space, crappy pay, and tons of work.

As for tenure yielding higher pay and less work, I'm not so sure about that. My dad was a tenured professor before he turned to administration, but that was too long ago for me to remember.

[Slawbug]

Tenure *definitely* yields higher pay and less work. Well, less required work, anyway.

[Alorael at Large]

If you paid the same and required the amount of work put in by a good professor, good professors would be unaffected. The problem is a bar set too low and complete job security.

 

—Alorael, who isn't even sure the reasoning is good. Do professors absolutely need to do good research to be good teachers? Why are research universities and universities that teach undergraduates even necessarily the same institutions?

[Randomizer]

The interview requirements for professors hired to do research and hopefully bring in grant money to the university are only about their research. The professor I worked for was on an intereview committee and said there was not a single question relating to teaching or teaching ability.

 

It's assumed that a PhD means you know the material in your field. If they want someone for teaching, then they can contract just for that.

[Alorael at Large]

And that's completely reasonable for a research professor. But why are the researchers getting all tangled up in institutions in the business of educating students? Why are educators being pushed to publish or perish? The two professions require the same credentials but don't necessarily require the same day to day or week to week work.

 

—Alorael, who wants to hire people contractually obligated to bring in more money than their salaries, benefits, and operating budgets. Is that too much to ask of a professor?

[Student of Trinity]

The tenure bar isn't set so low anymore. In most places it is rare for tenure applications not to be granted, but getting on the tenure track in the first place is very hard nowadays. Positions are few and competition is fierce.

 

Because of the baby boom, and perhaps also a sharp rise in the proportion of people attending university, there was a golden age in the sixties and seventies, stretching even into the early eighties, when universities were all expanding and hiring and practically anybody could get a faculty job, and in the course of time receive tenure. A lot of these people were frankly duffers by the standards of today's much tighter academic job market. Most of this crowd has retired by now, or will retire soon; but their cultural impact remains.

 

So, some of the inefficiencies blamed on tenure as an institution are probably consequences of that one generation having it easy. And the same can probably be said of a lot of institutions, actually. Curse those baby boomers, for being so many.

 

Defining the professor's job as a mixture of research and teaching is an entirely separate issue. Actually the proportions in the mixture vary a lot. In the US there are a lot of undergraduate colleges where research is not an import part of a professor's job. But then there are research-oriented universities where, just as Randomizer says, teaching is barely even an afterthought when new faculty are hired.

 

The distinction between institutions is very simple: teaching load. Teaching three courses at a time is pretty much a full time job right there, so a school that expects that of its faculty simply can't also expect them to do research, except between semesters. But even the top research schools generally make all their faculty teach one course per semester. Some places will have people alternate each semester between teaching two courses and teaching one, or something like that. So teaching loads get described as "x and y", where x and y are numbers between 1 and 3 (or, rarely and brutally, 4). "One and one" is the load at places like Harvard or MIT, or at any other places with aspirations to status as research universities.

 

Where did this bizarre job description for professors come from? Universities are schools, of course, so professors have simply always been teachers. But why now this hybrid role of teacher-researcher, or even researcher-teacher?

 

It seems to have started in Germany in the 19th century, and spread around the world from there. Research was not a medieval tradition, and people like Isaac Newton were complete exceptions to the norms for academic professionals. But somehow German universities seem to have upped the ante for everyone, by promising higher education that would not only pass on the sum of past knowledge, but let students in on the ground floor of future knowledge as it formed. The creation of the doctorate as a research degree was part of this process.

 

I guess a lot more could be said about this rather significant slice of history than I know to say. What I can say about German universities today is that they actually combine both models, in practice. German professors normally have rather light teaching loads and are expected to be research powerhouses, but there are also decently paid, tenured lecturers, who teach more courses and are not expected to run research groups (though some of them manage to do so). It seems to be quite a sensible system, though I suppose it's easier to implement in a society where job security is the rule rather than the exception.

[Slawbug]

My impression (and it is only an impression) of the German educational system is that it manages to keep education in sight a sight better than we do.