day in the life of a college professor

1. day in the life of a college professor • dr. manuel a pérez-quiñones • department of computer science • virginia tech

2. the transition

3. different universities • state vs private • research intensive • liberal arts • special focus (HBCU, HSI, Women’s Colleges, etc.)

4. 70% 20% 10% job responsibilities • Three main areas of responsibilities • Research (40%) • Teaching (40%) • Service (20%)

5. week looks like this...

6. research • get external funding (and lots of it) • write papers (journals + conferences) • support students (i.e. pay GRAs) • become a household name, an international celebrity, sought out by everybody, movie deals, magazine covers, consulted by the president...

7. external funding • write proposals to government agencies, and industry to pay us for research • most of the money goes to student salaries, travel expenses, equipment (see “pay” coming up) • most proposals get rejected one or two times, if at first you don’t succeed, keep on trying

8. publish or perish • ... refers to the pressure to publish work constantly in order to further or sustain one's career in academia. The competition for tenure-track faculty positions in academia puts increasing pressure on scholars to publish new work frequently.” • Frequent publication is one of the few methods at a scholar's disposal to improve his visibility, and the attention that successful publications bring to scholars and their sponsoring institutions helps ensure steady progress through the field and continued funding. Scholars who focus on non-publishing-related activities (such as instructing undergraduates), or who publish too infrequently, or whose publications are not clearly connected to one another in topic, may find themselves out of contention for available tenure-track positions.Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish)

9. the game of publishing

10. not all papers are created equal • journal publications are considered “archival” publications - i.e. they survive fads and trends • conference proceedings are a bit quicker turn around, but considered archival in some cases • workshops, panels, short papers are not valued much

11. teaching • everybody thinks this is all we do “you have it easy, teach a few hours a day and all summer off” • 3 classes per year (called 2-1), 1 of them is a graduate course • encouraged to create new courses, particularly graduate courses

12. teaching v2.0 • professors: pick textbook, prepare lectures, prepare exams, assignments, lecture, grade, prepare labs, etc. • at research institutions, we get GTAs to support on these tasks • at other higher ranked institutions, GTAs often teach the class “this professor should teach all the classes in the department” ~anonymous student comment in evaluation form

13. service • committee, committee, committee • different levels/types of committees • department • university • profession To get something done a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent.  ~Robert Copeland To kill time, a committee meeting is the perfect weapon.  ~Author UnknownIf you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."  ~Dave Barry

14. department committes • undergraduate, graduate, admissions, honorifics, resources, executive • elected or named, often serve for a term (2-3 years) • not all committees are the same

15. university committee • when the provost calls, you answer • committees at the college & university level • some similar to dept committees (curriculum), others unique to college/univ • often starts as “department representative” in some committees

16. professional service • serve in conference committees and professional organizations • conferences: general chairs, publications chair, local organizer, etc. • professional: national organization “looking to the future” PIM Workshop Seattle, WA on January 27-29, 2005

17. benefits • 9 month work, free May 10th-Aug 10th +/- • flexible schedule, only class, office hours, and committes have fixed time • ... and office hours can be moved and committe meetings skipped • CNN Money magazine, 2006

18. pay • CRA Taulbee Survey - yearly survey of enrollment, production, and employment of Ph.D.s in CS & CpE • provides salary and demographic data for faculty in CS & CpE in North America • 9mo average salary for new PhDs for 2004-2005, $80,194 http://www.cra.org/statistics/

19. pay++ • summer salary can “complement” your 9mo salary • you can earn up to 1/3 of your salary for summer research work • 9mo $80,194 can become 12mo $106,000 • consulting allows extra funding, up to 20% of my time, no limit in money

20. $#%@ tenure! • yearly evaluation, contract renewal every 2 years until THE DECISION • strict evaluation that determines if you keep the job or not • tenure means academic freedom “If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.” Bill Gates

21. tenure evaluation • research - publications (quality & quantity), funding ($$) • letters of outside evaluators seal the deal • teaching - student evaluations, awards, courses created • service - committes served the most stressful time of my life, I lost most of my hair and what remains is now gray - me