Professor-The Last Good Job in America?

"Our Dear Leader" at my university gave a special talk this week.  Faculty received so many notices and reminders about it that many of us thought he was going to have some major announcement, akin to the recent bomb dropped at SUNY Albany on the languages (except Spanish), classics, and theater.

It was scheduled to be 90 minutes. I arrived for the last 30 minutes.  But it had already ended, and everyone still milling around had suits on and nice buttons with the university seal in their lapels--in other words, administrators.  Faculty had bolted.  I took that as a very good sign, and I was right. Turns out nothing new at all was said.  Thank goodness!

But I still feel embattled as a professor, with a job that could just disappear "poof" into thin air.  Ironic, given that many think tenured professor is the last secure job around.  A personal finance magazine came to my area to have a workshop on the new economy, and one of the financial experts quipped, "Well, if you're a tenured professor up at [my university] you have job security, but the rest of us...."

Ha ha, very funny.  I just don't believe in job security through tenure anymore.  And when a professor loses his or her job, they must move to a new job in a new city/state (if they can find a new job).  I do not want to move--I dread that more than losing my job.  I can envision not being a professor, but I cannot envision moving from this area.

Inside Higher Ed has an interesting interview with Ellen Schrecker (author of The Lost Soul of Higher Education) out today.  Schrecker notes: "Professors are getting a bad rap these days.... After all, a full-time tenured position in a college or university is, as many observers have noted, the last good job in America. No wonder, therefore, that ordinary citizens, who currently face so much economic uncertainty, resent the security and autonomy that tenured professors enjoy."  She notes that many of the people teaching in higher ed are instructors or even lecturers stringing together 5 classes at 3 different area colleges.  Also noted is the importance of academic freedom!

Refreshingly, she argues that tenure "attracts talented people into the academy and protects its quality. The security that tenure provides makes up for the economic disadvantages of the academic profession, whose members, faculty stars excepted, rarely make as much money as other similarly educated professionals. At the same time, the rigorous process through which they are hired and achieve tenure ensures that the men and women who staff the nation’s faculties are competent, experienced individuals who deserve a lot more respect than they have been getting these days."

Exactly!  THANK you!  As I wrote in an earlier post, in my discipline, failure in academia can be rather lucrative--as the other options available to us pay better.  And about the respect that we deserve--Stanley Fish in NYT calls upon us to refuse "to allow myths (about lazy, pampered faculty who work two hours a week and undermine religion and the American way) to go unchallenged."

First, I insist that the "American way" fundamentally involves questioning authority--an impulse upon which the country was founded.  Universities with academic freedom through the tenure system help keep it that way.  What could be more patriotic!

Second, I work way too much.  I was at a campus meeting for "mid-career" faculty.  Most of us there were yearning for a better "work-life balance."  Lazy?  Pampered? We are own most demanding taskmasters.  As one faculty stated, "we choose the stick with which we beat ourselves."  A politician here has been calling for faculty to teach 5 classes a semester!  Teaching more would force me to be a worse teacher or give up research--and I hate both ideas.

So in response to Stanley Fish's call to action, maybe we all need to start tracking systematically how we spend our time.  That politician might be surprised to find out that I wake up at 6AM to write or prep for class.  And I do the same 9:45-11pm.  And in between those hours, I teach, go to meetings, respond to endless work-related emails, and stress out about university budget cuts.

But I'm not sure I have the time to systematically track my time....

A publishing contract is not a contract

There's a shakeup at one of the university presses that has tenure implications for people in my area.  I have reviewed several books for the editor at Biggish University Press.  I respect his work.  Plus, I wanted to support that press because it has been so good about publishing books by tenure-track faculty in my narrow area.

He told me he was retiring.  I was disappointed, but I assumed the press would continue its interest in this line.

I sent in my latest review about 6 weeks ago.  He contacted me last week.  It seems that even though he had extended a provisional contract to the book I reviewed, the press was reneging on that contract now that he was gone.  The book had gone through two revisions, and I had reviewed three different versions!  And the university committee had also approved it.

My old advisor from grad school had his edited volume canceled late in the game by the same press.  The editor is now working with another press (part-time, semi-retirement), trying to get these books published there.  Problem is, while this second press is pretty good (and getting better), it is not a university press.

It probably won't matter too much for the edited volumes.  But several of my friends got tenure based upon their monographs being published by Biggish University Press.  And one of my colleagues here at my Univ. had sent his manuscript for review at the beginning of summer. I'm scared to ask him about it.  He needs publication by a university press.  And it needs to happen in the next 18 months.

Manly professors bond over meat and poker

My friend just told me about the Men's Night Out that the male faculty members in her department hold monthly.  At my two previous institutions, the men in my department similarly indulged.  There was a "Meat Night" (manly dinner at a steak house) and a poker night.

My friend is tenure track at a research university.  There are quite a few untenured women in that department, but none ever objected publicly to being excluded.  This is understandable, given the power differentials and the pressure to get along.  But criminally, no tenured faculty objected--man or woman.

My friend brought in a co-author--a man--to give a talk and meet other faculty.  She could not schedule a department dinner for him because of this Men's Night Out.  So one of these guys told her to just let co-author come along to their Men's Night!  He thought it was a great idea!  My friend declined.  And she was embarrassed to have to explain to her co-author where most of the men were that night.

Men's Night has the effect of excluding women from crucial opportunities to bond and network with others the department--including the powerful men who will hold a lot of sway in terms of tenure. 
It took a new, untenured man in the department to forcefully point out how problematic Men's Night is.  Not coincidentally, his wife is also in the department.  Now many of the men finally get it.  Geeeeez. 

I'm wondering, how common is Men's Night?  Is it just my discipline (still male-dominated)?  Is it OK to have women faculty events (under the argument that women are clearly disadvantaged in terms of salary and promotion plus work-life balance issues)?   Are men whose wives work in the same department more tuned in to ways that women are disadvantaged/discriminated against?  (And is this one of the unrecognized benefits of spousal accommodations?  If so, deans take note!).

Professors--elitist fashionistas or still wearing clothes from grad school?

The NYT had a funny op-ed by Douglas Coupland yesterday, in which he provides new dictionary terms for the near future.  I've been thinking about one of them in particular:

"BLANK-COLLAR WORKERS Formerly middle-class workers who will never be middle class again and who will never come to terms with that."

One of my passions is personal finance.  I'm fascinated by the decisions people make in terms of their money and their sense of who they are.

I know some people who fit the above description of "blank-collar workers." It's both a sad reflection on our economy and also throws a dim light on blank-collar workers' retirement.  I know many others who could use the advice: "Stop acting rich" (or at least spending like you're rich). But none of those people are professors.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have watched friends and relatives spend and consume conspicuously and beyond their means.  But this recession is one of those instances when you hate being right.  Kind of like when I was right about war in Afghanistan.  Fate of the eternal pessimist, I guess.

One thing we can say about professors--as a group we are quite sensible with our money! But on average we're also not paid so extravagantly.   Just take a drive through the faculty parking lot of your nearest university.  Then drive through the student parking lot.  Who has better cars? At my university, the students drive more expensive cars.  That should tell you something.

One "end tenure" book recently reviewed in the NYT claimed, "today's senior professors can afford Marc Jacobs"!  Hah! Most of us professors would have to look up "Marc Jacobs" to get it, and then we would laugh at the claim once we saw the price of that clothing line (at least I laughed).

What an outrageously stupid point.  Even a quick look at the AAUP Faculty Salary survey reveals, in my state, that full professors at a few institutions average $120k-$125k and more average $63-$75k.  At the lower end, it is certainly a livable wage--but Marc Jacobs?  What a small world those authors must live in--projecting NYC elite institutional norms (and fashion sense) on to higher education nationwide.

Eliminating Tenure?

Yesterday, faculty and staff went out for tapas and wine.  We had a lovely time and even managed to speak of things other than work.  On the ride home, I was feeling very positive about my job and my work environment.

Then I got home and read yet another NYT article suggesting the elimination of tenure, and my outlook took a decided turn south.  Frankly, academia is much less attractive without tenure.  And I'd need to get paid a lot more to do it in order to make up for lack of job security.

My first faculty job was in a small liberal arts college that did not have tenure.  I left after a year, largely because of that.  I might well have stayed otherwise, as it was in a lovely place.

This points to a problem that those advocating to eliminate tenure haven't discussed much.  Tenure wouldn't be eliminated all at once everywhere.  So the better or more marketable would flee to those institutions still granting tenure.  The newly nontenured institutions would take a big hit--one that I'm hoping the public R1 universities, at least, wouldn't be willing to risk.  But anyone concerned about the apparent growing division between public and private universities might do well to consider this (assuming the public universities strapped for cash would be first to move toward tenure elimination).

Another scenario would be a gradual elimination of tenure, which I believe is already occurring.