In part 1 of this series, I spoke about the "cult of the new" in academic publishing. You are rewarded for saying something new rather than something interesting or thought provoking. This cult of the new leads itself to acedemic work that is either concerned with minutia or saying ridiculous things.
Today's post is related. I will talk about the hiring and promotion processes in academia. It can be summarized this way: the more you publish, the higher your pay will be and the more likely you will be promoted. (In part 3 of the series, I'll talk about why this isn't good for students.)
The system is not universal. The rules are different for large and/or elite universities as compared to smaller or less elite ones. But, professors get paid a lot more at large and elite universities. Speaking for the top-10 program where I earned my Ph.D., in order to get hired in the first place you had to have at least 10 peer reviewed articles published in "tier 1" journals or have a book published by a respectable university academic publisher. Once you have the job, in order to get tenure, you have to have an additional (beyond what you had when you were hired) 30 articles or two books in the next six years. I know that may sound like a long time, but I assure you that it isn't. Most assistant professors at these institutions are putting in a minimum of 60 hours per week, 50 of which are spent doing research. But this is what you have to do to get the higher paying, presigious job.
Personally, at my non-elite smaller university, I get paid about the same as a public school teacher with a similar level of experience. I also want to note, for the record, that I put in 60 hours per week and maybe 5 of those go to doing research. If I, for my future job, wanted to make a better salary, I would need to produce a lot of publications (which means writing about things no one really cares about or making up ridiculous stuff). Then, once I got the job, in order to gain tenure (job security and a pay bump), I would have to publish a lot more.
At smaller and less prestigious institutions, though, they don't care about publishing as much. What they do care about depends heavily on the individual institution. Some schools will count mostly your teaching evaluations. Others will go with "collegiality" (i.e., do they like you). A handful will take into serious consideration "service" (working on a lot of university committees or in the community, thus making the institution look good).
Almost every university, in hiring, takes into consideration the categories of scholarship, teaching and service. What each of those categories mean to the institution and how they are weighted depends heavily. The more prestigious jobs that pay better overwhelmingly consider scholarship to be significantly more important. The less prestigious jobs that pay less gernerally take more account of teaching. So, to give a preview of what's coming in part 3, as a professor I am rewarded, at least in prestige and salary, by largely ignoring my students. That, I believe, is a problem in academia.
One day, as a know it all teen, I asked my Dad why he worked so hard at GCC when I knew we always struggled financially. He told me he had other offers, recently, one from Purdue. I gaped. Then he said, "GCC lets me do what I want to do, and that, primarily, is to teach. Yes, I have done research, but I come to work to interact with students. It is those relationships that make the material real." That is why he always gave himself a section of Bio 101, plus labs. As department head, he did not hog the upper level, pet courses. He wanted to see students in each year of their development. My Dad rocks.
ReplyDeleteAssuming "Anonymous" is who I think it is--Your dad does rock!
ReplyDeleteTo explain for everyone else, GCC is the college where I went with Anonymous, and her dad was (I think) the chair of the biology department. Her whole family was always very good to me. They never had a qualm about inviting me, this socially awkward young man, to dinner when school was out of session and I was on campus pretty much by myself. Both Anonymous and her sister were very patient friends to me when I needed it. They are exemplars of what a small college can be with good people there.