Professor Morale?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make six figure salaries, get summers off and fall and spring breaks, and BS “sabbaticals all for teaching two one hour classes. Boo freaking hoo.

You’re an idiot. Professors do their real job—researching & applying for research grants-during that “time off” you speak of.

Studies have shown that professors work an average of 48 hrs/wk year round.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a former professor who left, and I now work in an academia-adjacent field. I still go to a lot of conferences and interact with many faculty members through my job. To generalize, they are stressed out, deeply concerned for their students and the challenges many of them face (mental health, student debt, etc), and extremely pessimistic about the state of the profession and the direction things are going. They are worried about the increasing reliance on adjuncts, erosion of academic freedom, and crumbling of shared governance. At the same time, they tend to be dedicated teachers and - in many cases- active scholars. . . when they have the time. There is definitely a sense that too much of their time is eaten up by often-pointless service requirements.

Exactly this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think morale is back to where it was pre-Covid. For one, we are dealing with the blow that Covid dealt to student learning. Many students have entered college in the past couple of years not having learned what they should have in high school. Moreover, they have gotten used to being given accommodations at the drop of a hat.

I find I have to go slower in lectures than I used, covering less material, often having to teach more students basic algebra (this is in a "STEM-light" field). The end result is that my tests are easier than they used to be and I don't get to cover the material I should in my courses.

Quite a few colleagues remark that teaching takes much more time and energy than it used to (yes, we have duties other than teaching!). In a sense, we (professors) are trying to compensate for the time and effort that students seem less willing to put in and the lower level of knowledge that they have come out of high school with thanks to Covid.

Also this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make six figure salaries, get summers off and fall and spring breaks, and BS “sabbaticals all for teaching two one hour classes. Boo freaking hoo.

You are showing your ignorance. Face time teaching is a very small part of a professor’s job. Even to teach, one must prepare, create, and practice delivery of topics, cases, and multimedia. But then they must also handle research and service to their departments snd universities. Who do you think recreates the curriculum in all the programs and course offerings? Interesting seminars, speakers, exec meetings, hiring/firing at the department level—-all falls on the profs. Not to mention adhoc tutoring, counseling, letter of recommendations, etc. the list goes on. Standing in front of the class is what pops in everyone’s mind but is actually a small fraction of all of the work.

[Anonymous]

It really depends.

I am a tenure track professor (I should get tenure next year, it's not difficult at my university). I love my work. Genuinely love what I do, my students, my colleagues, the way my work is conducted, the creativity and research, and the flexibility of my schedule (not a straight 9-5, I've generally always been able to avoid aftercare for my kids especially now with a spouse who WFH, slower summers and breaks, etc...). My school is not a top school by any means but I feel proud and accomplished and purposeful and mostly appreciated.

The things that get me down are:
- how little I'm paid (I couldn't afford to do this without a high earning spouse)
- the trend toward professors providing a service rather than being educators and the nasty students and sometimes parents that you rarely encounter
- the drudgery and slowness and inability to get things done in academia (administration mostly)
- the weird butt kissing in academia
- I hate to say this but the quality of students I teach has gone way downhill and each year the number of students I have who do not seem cut out for college increases, which feels icky and is challenging in a way that is not fun or motivating

I'm not old, but I would say my retirement-age colleagues are over it, mostly. Their morale has declined, sometimes precipitously, since I began teaching about 10 years ago.

If you are not on a tenure track (and trying to be) I would imagine your morale is very low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make six figure salaries, get summers off and fall and spring breaks, and BS “sabbaticals all for teaching two one hour classes. Boo freaking hoo.

I am on the tenure track, make under 70K, work my ass off during fall and spring breaks and much of summer break which is unpaid, and my university didn't give sabbaticals this year (by the way, sabbaticals are a teaching release: you have to apply with a viable research project and be granted one).

[Anonymous]

I'm the "exactly this" and "also this" commentator above. But it's also true that morale varies widely between different colleges and campuses and between different ranks of professors. (I have been a professor at 2 major universities and a medical school; my sister-in--law is a dean at a major university and many of my friends and relatives have been in higher education for years.) The more senior, well-compensated and "protected" you are (only teaching classes with select graduate students, for example) - well, what's there to complain about? Lower ranks are increasingly miserable and treated abominably. If you're a senior professor who goes to bat for a junior professor you feel is being treated unfairly, you might both lose and both be punished by a venal administration. On the other hand, there are colleges and universities that are delightful places to work. They hardly ever have faculty openings because no one ever wants to leave. I've been on the faculty at both kinds of places. Life as a college professor can be heaven or hell, just like any job in America. If you want to suss out ahead of time what a particular environment is like, you can't rely on any printed material or "tours." You have to go there, sit in on classes, go to lunch at the cafeteria or faculty club and put your ear to the ground. You will hear everything you need to know. P.S. About those published statistics. When I was a tenured faculty member at state university, I chaired a Faculty Senate committee on part-time faculty policies. The university statistician told me point-blank that the state university routinely lies to all accrediting bodies about the ratio of student credit hours taught by part-time vs. full-time faculty. By a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It really depends.

I am a tenure track professor (I should get tenure next year, it's not difficult at my university). I love my work. Genuinely love what I do, my students, my colleagues, the way my work is conducted, the creativity and research, and the flexibility of my schedule (not a straight 9-5, I've generally always been able to avoid aftercare for my kids especially now with a spouse who WFH, slower summers and breaks, etc...). My school is not a top school by any means but I feel proud and accomplished and purposeful and mostly appreciated.

The things that get me down are:
- how little I'm paid (I couldn't afford to do this without a high earning spouse)
- the trend toward professors providing a service rather than being educators and the nasty students and sometimes parents that you rarely encounter
- the drudgery and slowness and inability to get things done in academia (administration mostly)
- the weird butt kissing in academia
- I hate to say this but the quality of students I teach has gone way downhill and each year the number of students I have who do not seem cut out for college increases, which feels icky and is challenging in a way that is not fun or motivating

I'm not old, but I would say my retirement-age colleagues are over it, mostly. Their morale has declined, sometimes precipitously, since I began teaching about 10 years ago.

If you are not on a tenure track (and trying to be) I would imagine your morale is very low.

Is this because you are not tenured yet?
I thought that one benefit of being a professor is that you don’t need to do butt kissing (or much less compared to other jobs). Butt kissing to whom? Department chair, dean?

[Anonymous]

Complaints I've picked up from others:

1. Decline in student quality due to COVID but also longer term structural educational and admissions policies. Even at elite colleges, more kids are turning up without basic learning skills and knowledge that was once taken for granted.

2. Colleges are far more ideological places than they were 20 years ago. Many professors who don't rush to embrace the latest woke beliefs feel pressured to keep their mouths shut to get tenure, or ride it out till retirement. Some are afraid of their more extremist students and self-censor in classes and curb free discussions because it's just not worth the hassle any more.

3. Admin has exploded in size and influence and directly interfere with research and hiring and departmental matters. More micromanagement. And admin are fully signed up to DEI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really depends.

I am a tenure track professor (I should get tenure next year, it's not difficult at my university). I love my work. Genuinely love what I do, my students, my colleagues, the way my work is conducted, the creativity and research, and the flexibility of my schedule (not a straight 9-5, I've generally always been able to avoid aftercare for my kids especially now with a spouse who WFH, slower summers and breaks, etc...). My school is not a top school by any means but I feel proud and accomplished and purposeful and mostly appreciated.

The things that get me down are:
- how little I'm paid (I couldn't afford to do this without a high earning spouse)
- the trend toward professors providing a service rather than being educators and the nasty students and sometimes parents that you rarely encounter
- the drudgery and slowness and inability to get things done in academia (administration mostly)
- the weird butt kissing in academia
- I hate to say this but the quality of students I teach has gone way downhill and each year the number of students I have who do not seem cut out for college increases, which feels icky and is challenging in a way that is not fun or motivating

I'm not old, but I would say my retirement-age colleagues are over it, mostly. Their morale has declined, sometimes precipitously, since I began teaching about 10 years ago.

If you are not on a tenure track (and trying to be) I would imagine your morale is very low.

Is this because you are not tenured yet?
I thought that one benefit of being a professor is that you don’t need to do butt kissing (or much less compared to other jobs). Butt kissing to whom? Department chair, dean?

I'm a professor who has also worked in industry and I would say there is little to no butt kissing required of professors. It's one of the reasons I stay besides the fact that I value teaching/mentoring students and enjoy research. I didn't feel obligated pre-tenure either, but I think that was because I felt I could always go back to industry if it didn't work out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really depends.

I am a tenure track professor (I should get tenure next year, it's not difficult at my university). I love my work. Genuinely love what I do, my students, my colleagues, the way my work is conducted, the creativity and research, and the flexibility of my schedule (not a straight 9-5, I've generally always been able to avoid aftercare for my kids especially now with a spouse who WFH, slower summers and breaks, etc...). My school is not a top school by any means but I feel proud and accomplished and purposeful and mostly appreciated.

The things that get me down are:
- how little I'm paid (I couldn't afford to do this without a high earning spouse)
- the trend toward professors providing a service rather than being educators and the nasty students and sometimes parents that you rarely encounter
- the drudgery and slowness and inability to get things done in academia (administration mostly)
- the weird butt kissing in academia
- I hate to say this but the quality of students I teach has gone way downhill and each year the number of students I have who do not seem cut out for college increases, which feels icky and is challenging in a way that is not fun or motivating

I'm not old, but I would say my retirement-age colleagues are over it, mostly. Their morale has declined, sometimes precipitously, since I began teaching about 10 years ago.

If you are not on a tenure track (and trying to be) I would imagine your morale is very low.

Is this because you are not tenured yet?
I thought that one benefit of being a professor is that you don’t need to do butt kissing (or much less compared to other jobs). Butt kissing to whom? Department chair, dean?

I laughed out loud at this question. One of my close relatives is a vice-president at one the 3 wealthiest state universities in the country. (Don't bother googling it - none of them report their actual wealth online.) Her job description might as well be "butt-kisser." The Board of Regents, the state legislature, wealthy donors, the football team, alum clubs far and wide. I once attended a donor event as her "plus one" when her husband was out of town. Actual boot-licking didn't happen but I had to smile through a conversation when a donor assumed I was a MAGA-supporter because my husband happens to have a high level government job. Story # 2 : When I was a tenured professor, another, slightly more senior, tenured professor reported me to the state legislature (on state university letterhead - he was scolded mildly for that) for teaching that evolution explains the existence of certain biological reflexes in humans. I was teaching at a fully-accredited RO1 state university nursing school. The higher you go, the more ridiculous the buttkissing becomes. This is American academia in this millenium.

[Anonymous]

I'm the "laughing out loud" commentator. All of the above comments can be true at the same time. As the government likes to tell us "Locals conditions apply." You can be a young junior female faculty member and be lucky enough to land a tenure-track university job where you are valued, promoted and mentored by senior (male!) faculty and life is good. Your students are eager and motivated and so are you. You are productive with great lab space, adequate funding for research, etc. But your tenure doesn't protect you from a change in higher administration, societal changes, government policy changes, the disappearance of sources of research funding, etc. The faculty members here who have nothing to say but "I'm good" are, in my opinion, lacking in empathy and self-absorbed. There's a full-on crisis in academia so many levels. I'm not affected by it directly because I'm one of the lucky ones. But if all you have to say about whether there's a morale crisis, is "nope, I'm, good" you're contributing nothing. You're part of the problem. Yeah, this post took a turn for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Complaints I've picked up from others:

1. Decline in student quality due to COVID but also longer term structural educational and admissions policies. Even at elite colleges, more kids are turning up without basic learning skills and knowledge that was once taken for granted.

2. Colleges are far more ideological places than they were 20 years ago. Many professors who don't rush to embrace the latest woke beliefs feel pressured to keep their mouths shut to get tenure, or ride it out till retirement. Some are afraid of their more extremist students and self-censor in classes and curb free discussions because it's just not worth the hassle any more.

3. Admin has exploded in size and influence and directly interfere with research and hiring and departmental matters. More micromanagement. And admin are fully signed up to DEI.

I heartily disagree with most of this except the bloated admin. I've worked in both a public and a private R1 university as a tenure track/tenured professor for 18 years. I feel zero pressure to be ideological. I would say some students can be vocal and strident, but it has little impact on me or how I do my work. It's comes with being 18-21. I like helping them develop and challenge their thinking at this key stage in life. I'm not particularly conservative nor particularly progressive--I focus on where the evidence lies and the reasonableness of the argument and require my students to do the same. I welcome whatever position they hold as long as they can articulate it clearly and justify it with logic and review of available evidence.

Overall, I think student quality and preparation has improved over the past 18 years (I have only taught at selective schools so I can't speak more broadly on this). Many undergraduate students now are ready for work I would have given to early graduate students when I first started. The only negative changes I've noticed in students is a decline in attention span and more mental health concerns (though the latter may just be increased transparency about these concerns).

[Anonymous]

I can tell you most adjuncts are miserable for obvious reasons!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really depends.

I am a tenure track professor (I should get tenure next year, it's not difficult at my university). I love my work. Genuinely love what I do, my students, my colleagues, the way my work is conducted, the creativity and research, and the flexibility of my schedule (not a straight 9-5, I've generally always been able to avoid aftercare for my kids especially now with a spouse who WFH, slower summers and breaks, etc...). My school is not a top school by any means but I feel proud and accomplished and purposeful and mostly appreciated.

The things that get me down are:
- how little I'm paid (I couldn't afford to do this without a high earning spouse)
- the trend toward professors providing a service rather than being educators and the nasty students and sometimes parents that you rarely encounter
- the drudgery and slowness and inability to get things done in academia (administration mostly)
- the weird butt kissing in academia
- I hate to say this but the quality of students I teach has gone way downhill and each year the number of students I have who do not seem cut out for college increases, which feels icky and is challenging in a way that is not fun or motivating

I'm not old, but I would say my retirement-age colleagues are over it, mostly. Their morale has declined, sometimes precipitously, since I began teaching about 10 years ago.

If you are not on a tenure track (and trying to be) I would imagine your morale is very low.

Is this because you are not tenured yet?
I thought that one benefit of being a professor is that you don’t need to do butt kissing (or much less compared to other jobs). Butt kissing to whom? Department chair, dean?

I don't do it but I hate the culture of it. Different institutions probably have different degrees of admin worship, depending on who the leaders are, but no it's not because I'm not tenured. Some people have to suck up to their chairs and deans, but I don't feel the need to. Also getting tenure doesn't mean you're at the highest level at most schools. To become a full professor you need to be promoted after tenure which can take 5-10 years. Butt kissing occurs because in academia there are a lot of rotations and details and fellowships and committees and chair positions that people love to position themselves for. This is likely true of any workplace, but in a place with lots of lifers and old-timers it has a special flavor. People love to be close to the top brass.