Dear all, it's not just teaching

Here is what professors actually do

Photo by Anton Shuvalov on Unsplash

Dear family and friends,

This is one is for you. I know you fantasize about my long vacations are and how little I work. Every time I go to Spain to visit my family, I get messages like this:

It could be that we all like feeling like we work more than average. But it could also be that the average person has no clue about what college professors actually do. I’m here to fix that 🦸🏻‍♀️ If you are a professor harassed by messages like the one above, have this post handy to educate your haters. Also, if you are a grad student, check this out to see how your life is going to change once you get a tenure-track job.

In the US, professors working full-time on a tenure-track job split their time between three main areas: research, teaching, and service.

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Teaching

Let’s start with the popular one you all know. Most of you went to college and saw that professors teach. Well, it turns out there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. This is the most straightforward part. It has a schedule, it has clear goals, it has a way of measuring whether people achieve those goals, and your contract says how much you are supposed to teach. My contract says I need to teach three courses per semester. There are usually two semesters, although most institutions offer some courses you could teach during the summer. Summer courses are extra and you get paid extra for them. Easy peasy 💁🏻‍♀️

Research

We’re getting into this part you’ve probably heard of, but you’re not sure what it means. Research is about creating knowledge. You read a lot and come up with new questions that haven’t been answered before. How much research you are expected to produce depends on the type of institution you work at, your field, and the type of job. In my case, I’ve been told I need to get one peer-review publication per year. This means that when I send my tenure file at the beginning of my 7th year —I’m currently in my 2nd year— I’ll be expected to have around 6 publications. Mind you, publications take long. Really long. From the moment I have an idea until it gets published, several years will go by. I’m in an experimental field, which means that I need to prepare experiments, apply for permission to collect data with humans (this can take months), go look for the humans that fit the criteria to participate, have the humans do your experiments (and complain about how difficult or boring they are), analyze the data, write the paper, and submit for publication. And wait. Wait a bit more, get comments, review it, and send it again. Repeat two or three rounds more and, if you are lucky, it’ll be published. When things go extremely well, at the very least, 2 years went by. Unless you are in a teaching-focused institution, where you are only required to have a couple of articles published to get tenure, this is the most important part of your job. It is also the one where you have the most freedom. You can do this whenever you want. If you like sleeping until noon and going to bed at 5 am every day, nobody stops you from doing it. There’s zero structure. You want to write from that beautiful coworking space in Bali? Go ahead.

And that is precisely the problem. The average human being doesn’t work well with zero accountability and deadlines in 5 years. So self-discipline and a good self-established accountability system are key for most people. I have a writing partner, with whom I meet twice a week on zoom to write for two hours straight (she’s in Utah and I’m in NYC); and an accountability partner, we meet once a week for 30 minutes to discuss whether we met our research goals for the week and to establish research goals for the following week (she’s in Philadelphia). If you want to sit next to me for a couple of hours a day and pressure me into writing, I’ll make coffee for you ☕️

Furthermore, I’ve created a lab (The Bilingual Lab Project) to get students involved in the process of research. I meet with them once a week and I give them readings, help them prepare presentations, Instagram posts, etc.

Service

This is the one nobody told you about. Service is a hodgepodge that sucks all your time. It’s further divided into three subcategories, namely service to your department, the college, and the field. I’ll give you examples of what I do for each category. At my department, I’m the language coordinator. This means that I oversee part-time instructors teaching lower-level courses of Spanish (around 10 people, teaching approximately 500 students). I talk to the representatives of the publishing companies, I fix issues when a student buys the wrong edition of the book, and I coordinate final exams. I’m also the minor’s advisor, whenever a student wants to do a minor in Spanish, I meet with them and create a study plan. I go to events to promote our department’s programs. I’m also in search committees, where we need to advertise an opening at the department, review materials, and interview candidates. Here, add the occasional random thing, like contacting your boss about an instructor not wearing a mask in class, organizing internships for students, or giving feedback on a new course on Arab Film and Literature.

At the college level, I’m part of the curriculum committee. We meet several times during the semester to discuss changes in programs and new courses. I’m also part of the programs’ subcommittee. Whenever a minor or a major wants to change something, they write a report and we evaluate whether that makes sense. For example, when the applied maths minor wanted to start teaching Python because it’s the new hot thing. Preparing for those meetings involves reading around 300-pages and in less than a week 😬 I also volunteered to the online education subcommittee, I just thought it would be fun. Additionally, I’ve served as a reviewer for grant applications within my university system.

For the field, I’ve reviewed articles for several journals. Remember I told you that when you submit an article for publication you get feedback? Well, you also have to give feedback. And I have reviewed abstracts for conferences in my field. By the way, I’m going to a conference next month and I have the feeling that I will get involved in something else that I could add to this section. Send help, please. Help me say no 😭

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Oh, and just to make it more fun, a couple of things I’m not sure where to put. This semester I’m part of a seminar where a group of professors teaches how to apply the humanities to the job market (we have meetings to guide us on how to create experiential learning classes). I’m also part of the online excellence program, where we develop online courses with the help of an instructional designer to ensure the quality of online education. Final note. Most professors in the US have a 9-month contract. So, technically, during the summer, we’re unemployed. This is just the theory. In reality, many professors do not have time to do their research during the academic year and use their summers to complete the research part. So next time you tell me I’m vacationing all day, get ready, because I’m gonna make you read this article. After all, I’m a professor, I feel entitled to assign homework at random.

P.S.: If you wanna know more about what happens when you become more senior, I highly recommend you watch the show The Chair on Netflix. It’s painfully accurate 👩🏻‍🏫