Lazy College Professors

[The Lone Ranger]

So, I was writing up my lecture for this morning's Zoology class yesterday when I recalled an editorial I encountered in the local newspaper not too long ago. According to the author of the editorial, college professors are overpaid and underworked. According to him, we come in to "work" late in the morning, spend all day sitting around and goofing off, then we go home at 3:00 p.m. or so.

Hmm. Let's see. Yesterday was a holiday; there were no classes. I spent 9 hours researching and writing my lecture. That's not counting breaks -- counting time off to have dinner, stretch my legs occasionally, and go to the bathroom, I spent more than 12 hours preparing the lecture.

Granted, that's somewhat longer than it normally takes to prepare a lecture, but neither is it the first time by any stretch of the imagination.

Let's assume it takes an average of 4 hours to research and write a lecture, and to prepare any relevant handouts for the students (PowerPoint slides to illustrate key points, for example). If I had to sit down and carefully do the accounting, I'm pretty sure that's a serious underestimate, but I want to be generous here. I teach 5 regular lectures a week, so that works out to 20 hours a week spent preparing lectures. Okay, not too bad.

Oh, wait. I also teach 5 labs a week. Some of those are repeated, so let's assume I spend an average of only 1 hour per lab on pre-lab preparation. Again, I'm pretty sure that's a serious underestimate, but I'm trying to be generous.

So, 25 hours a week ... not such a bad job, is it?

Oh, wait; I have to teach those lectures too, don't I? That's another 6 hours. Oh, and I have to teach the labs, too. That's another 13 hours.

Let's see; that's 44 hours a week. Well, that's not too bad.

Ah, but between the labs and the lectures, I give an average of 1 exam a week. Let's assume that it takes only 4 hours, on average to prepare and give an exam. (Lab exams take much longer than that!)

Okay, so we're up to 48 hours per week.

Ah, but then I have to read and grade those exams. That takes, on average, about 8 hours per class, in my experience. So we're up to 56 hours per week.

Then there are office hours, when I'm contractually-obligated to be available for student consultation. In truth, however, I spend much more of my "free time" up in the lab helping students dissect hearts or in a lecture hall helping them understand the intricacies of aerobic respiration than I do in consultation during my official office hours. Let's say 10 hours/week for consultation with students.

Then there are staff and committee meetings, student advising, and other activities I'll just lump under "miscellaneous."

So, all in all, I easily put in a 70-80-hour work-week.


Ah, but I get my summers free. Well, actually, I don't. Even if I don't wind up teaching a Summer School course or two (which I often do), that's when I'm expected to do my research. And that can be really time-consuming!


Don't get me wrong; I love my job. But somehow, I don't feel like I'm an underworked and overpaid bum who sits around all day doing nothing.


Cheers,

Michael

[beyelzu]

70-80 hours a week is a decent work week.


what prompted the dipshit to write the editorial???


seems to me it is really just some of that generic hatred of ivory tower intellectyoualls.

[BDS]

You work only 70-80 hours a week? Here in the business world, we put in 90-100 hours every week!

(That's only if you include posting on the internet, making personal calls, flirting with women, and sleeping, however. Still, I might work harder if I got to do cool things like dissect hearts.)

[The Lone Ranger]

what prompted the dipshit to write the editorial???
Beats me; it seemed pretty random to me.

seems to me it is really just some of that generic hatred of ivory tower intellectyoualls.
Actually, I suspect that may well have been it. Maybe he was sending his kid back to college after the break and had to pony up the tuition bill. Heck, I'm the first to complain about how much our students (or their parents) have to pay for a college education -- but all that money ain't going toward supporting an extravagant lifestyle on my part, I can tell you that.

Still, I might work harder if I got to do cool things like dissect hearts.)
This job does have its perks!

Cheers,

Michael

[Qingdai]

Do you find yourself teaching the same classes each year? Or do you have to verify and do a lot of research each year? My anatomy professor ended up memorizing his lectures just by repetition. That cut down on his lecture writing time after a while.

[Clutch Munny]

Michael, get to work.

Damned lazy professor.

Me and the other financial planners were just talking about how lazy you guys are, over our 3-beer lunch at the strip club.

[The Lone Ranger]

One of the classes I'm currently teaching is one that I taught last year. That drastically cuts down on prep time, of course, since it's more a case of revising the previous year's notes than preparing an entirely new lecture. Otherwise, I'd never get home before midnight!

But giving the actual lecture is pretty simple. Heck, I could easily stand up and give a "cold" lecture on, say, the anatomy and physiology of the digestive system, or the phylogeny of the phylum Arthropoda. It takes a great deal longer to prepare lecture handouts and PowerPoint slides illustrating key concepts.

So, the nice thing is that if you're teaching classes you've taught before, the prep time is somewhat reduced, but not as much as you might think. That's especially true for most science courses, like Zoology, where the current state of knowledge changes from year to year.

Anatomy classes are a nice exception; it's not as if we discover too many new organs each year.

Cheers,

Michael

[Naru]

Heck, I could easily stand up and give a "cold" lecture on, say, the anatomy and physiology of the digestive system, or the phylogeny of the phylum Arthropoda.

That's what the zoology lecture I was in yesterday was on :yup:

But it definitely wasn't cold. My professor told us he couldn't send us powerpoints in advance because he's frequently working on them right up until class starts.

[Qingdai]

One of the pains of lecture notes is that they keep (at some of the schools I am familiar with) switching the format of the notes, first they want them published on paper, then available on line, screwing around with the formatting is a big pain too. For that reason alone, I hate powerpoint.

[Ari]

It wouldn't surprise me if some writers have a stash of generic "complain about the establishment, champion the little guy" papers for when they are lazy and don't want to do work.

[BrotherMan]

Ya lazy bum! When I was a college professa, I had 12 other job, mon!
:hermesconrad:

[godfry n. glad]

There should be a 12-step program for powerpoint users.

Hey...I'm a not so innocent bystander.

There are teachers (who happen to be professors) who are great teachers...able to assist students in grasping concepts and using them. All too often, the press of "publish or perish" sacrifices the really good teachers to the researchers. Being good at one does not necessarily assure proficiency in the other.

I personally think really good teachers, at all levels, are underpaid. Professors at undergraduate level and community college teachers shockingly so in some circumstances.

Then, there is the attitude, amongst the uninitiated, of "those who can't, teach." Unfortunately, it's widespread. I know better.

[Clutch Munny]

In 10 years (eep!) of teaching full-time, I have yet to teach a course the same way twice.

Stuff gets conserved, of course. I try keep the things that work. But I constantly add new things, and bring in current events as relevant to every course. (e.g., current grad seminar on Personhood -- incorporated Phantom Blackberry (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=3740984&page=1) phenomenon to stimulate discussion on how we should individuate the boundaries of the self.)

[Qingdai]

Most of the high school and elementary teachers I know of also have to supplement their income by having second jobs. Not as well paid as it should be, indeed.
Then add continuing education seminars (which are also shockingly expensive frequently) and other student loans to pay off and other "incidentals" and it's no wonder that many leave teaching.

I didn't figure there were many classes (outside of anatomy, which still has function information being updated all the time) that one could sleepwalk through.

I also suspect (especially non-tenured) professors don't have a regular teaching schedule.

[Ari]

You also forgot the include the time spent learning enough about the subject to teach it at a college level. Obviously teachers are just injected with knowledge.

[lisarea]

Michael, get to work.

Damned lazy professor.

Me and the other financial planners were just talking about how lazy you guys are, over our 3-beer lunch at the strip club.

This is an unfair characterization. We have no reason to believe that TLR is lazy, or that he is misrepresenting the amount of time he spends preparing material for his courses.

We should consider the possibility that he is telling the truth, and that the reason it takes him so long to do such an easy job is that he's just really stupid.

[Adam]

You also forgot the include the time spent learning enough about the subject to teach it at a college level. Obviously teachers are just injected with knowledge.


I know the phylogeny of the phylum Arthropoda...whoa.
:matrix:

Seventeen odd million smileys and you'd think there's be a Neo, but nooooo! :shakeff:

[The Lone Ranger]

There should be a 12-step program for powerpoint users.
I have a love/hate relationship with PowerPoint.

I don't like using it during lecture, and rarely do. In my opinion, slides tend to distract students, and I'd rather they were paying attention to me. If I'm attempting to explain a process that can best be understood graphically, and it's too complicated or time-consuming to draw a diagram, I'll show them a picture. Otherwise, my standard procedure is to prepare some PP slides with relevant illustrations and explanations of what they mean and post them online. I tell the students to download them and examine them before class.

That way, when I'm lecturing on, say, what rugae look like, I can assume (well, hope, anyway) that they've seen the picture(s) and know what I'm talking about without distracting them by projecting a slide.

That's not to say I never use PowerPoint during my lectures -- I do -- but it's pretty rare. That's for two reasons. First, no matter how much I insist that they shouldn't do so, some students will insist on trying to copy down every word that's on the slide, and/or reproduce the drawing. If I say, "here's a picture of a cardiac muscle cell, just to illustrate what I just explained to you" and then try to go on to the next topic, someone will inevitably complain that I haven't given them time to copy the picture. Oddly, this sometimes happens even when I post the slides online and tell the students to download and examine the slides before class. (So, presumably, they already have copies.)

The second reason is that far too many teachers use PP as a crutch. I don't know how many people I've seen who put all of their notes on PP slides and then simply read straight from the slides as their "lecture." Not only is it a lousy teaching technique, it misses the whole point of making illustrative slides, in my opinion. The point isn't to get the students to slavishly copy your lecture notes -- if that's what you want, just give them copies of your notes and save everyone the trouble -- but to use the slides to illustrate key points.


There are teachers (who happen to be professors) who are great teachers...able to assist students in grasping concepts and using them. All too often, the press of "publish or perish" sacrifices the really good teachers to the researchers. Being good at one does not necessarily assure proficiency in the other.
That's one of my biggest gripes about academia. I've known some excellent teachers who were ultimately denied tenure because they spent "too much time" on teaching and "not enough time" on doing research. Conversely, I've known a number of truly awful "teachers" who were granted tenure because of their skill at securing research grants.

The two skills are not incompatible, but being a good researcher does not make you a good teacher, or vice versa.

That's one of the reasons I refused to even consider a position at a big, research-oriented university. It's a bad-enough problem at the college level.

I personally think really good teachers, at all levels, are underpaid. Professors at undergraduate level and community college teachers shockingly so in some circumstances.
Community colleges all too often treat teachers almost like indentured servants -- and how adjuncts are treated is downright criminal, in my opinion.

Then, there is the attitude, amongst the uninitiated, of "those who can't, teach." Unfortunately, it's widespread. I know better.
Yup. It's an awfully stupid notion, but rather widespread nonetheless.


Anyway ... I'd best get back to work! Those lab handouts for tomorrow aren't going to write themselves!


Let's see now ... arthropods are animals, right? Maybe I'd better go double-check ... :daftbrush:

Cheers,

Michael

[godfry n. glad]

RAMEN!!! :fsm:

[godfry n. glad]

Oddly, this sometimes happens even when I post the slides online and tell the students to download and examine the slides before class. (So, presumably, they already have copies.)

:roflmao:

heh...

heh...

Yeah....right.

[TomJoe]

There are teachers (who happen to be professors) who are great teachers...able to assist students in grasping concepts and using them. All too often, the press of "publish or perish" sacrifices the really good teachers to the researchers. Being good at one does not necessarily assure proficiency in the other.

I personally think really good teachers, at all levels, are underpaid. Professors at undergraduate level and community college teachers shockingly so in some circumstances.
When I was weighing out my options of employment coming out of my postdoc, the academia job I had been offered was simply frightening. In addition to teaching 2 4 credit courses (1 undergrad, 1 grad) per semester (all with labs I might add), I was also expected to serve as 1 of the 3 academic advisors for the departments students as well as take graduate students for their MS program thesis*. This was, of course, in addition to all of my research to bring in extramural funding to justify the startup package they were offering me. To be nice, they offered to hire a part time teacher to teach my first semester of classes. Yay. When I explained to my fiancee that I would basically have to work at a minimum 70-80 hours a week, for less than what I had been offered for a research position with the government, she told me there was no way in hell that I was going to take it, no matter how much I wanted to shape the minds of our youth. Of course, I'm self-admittedly more research oriented, so in the grand scheme of things ... the final decision wasn't all that difficult to make.

Are there some lazy professors out there? I'm sure there are, but they're the bane of every department and they often, from what I can tell, get shuffled into the upper echelons of the university (if they're tenured) ... where they're about as useful as tits on a bull, but can cause the least amount of disruption until they retire.

*That, IMO, would have been the biggest drain on my time. Since their work would have no doubt been tied into my research ... which I would need to publish in order to apply for (and receive) grants I'd have to watch them like hawks before I'd trust them with my careers work on their own.

[Doohickie]

That's especially true for most science courses, like Zoology, where the current state of knowledge changes from year to year.

See, now I bet you wish you had specialized in creation science! I mean, they haven't rewritten the Bible in several hundred years. :yup:

In 10 years (eep!) of teaching full-time, I have yet to teach a course the same way twice.

Stuff gets conserved, of course. I try keep the things that work. But I constantly add new things, and bring in current events as relevant to every course. (e.g., current grad seminar on Personhood -- incorporated Phantom Blackberry (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=3740984&page=1) phenomenon to stimulate discussion on how we should individuate the boundaries of the self.)

I can verify that. My wife teaches high school world history. She is a lead content teacher which means that in addition to teaching students she also is responsible for teacher professional development and mentoring and stuff. Now, it isn't all bad; she only has to teach three sections of classes instead of the usual six.

Even so, she is teaching two sections of Advanced Placement (in an inner-city school where a lot of the students have already been given up on), and even though these are the "smart kids", she has to do remedial work with them to get them caught up on skills that the teachers who gave up on them last year and the year before that didn't bother to teach them. You know, how to write a paragraph, stuff like that.

Her third section is made up of the remedial seniors who have already taken the comprehensive exit exam and failed it. So she's got a couple months to get them to learn 3+ years of history and geography when they couldn't grasp it the first time.

Don't get me wrong, she gets good results, but we were talking yesterday and she said she really has no idea *how* she teaches; she is constantly adjusting to the learning styles of individual students and trying new things to get through to them. But exactly how she stumbles on the things that work and connects with the kids is purely intuitive on her part.

I have a love/hate relationship with PowerPoint.

Mrs. Doohickie doesn't use powerpoint much, but one thing she uses again and again and again is a template I developed for History Jeopardy. There's a front page with the board just like on the show, and clicking on any of squares opens up an answer, then the question for the answer, then navigates either back to the game board or to the next question in that category (depending on which link you click). I got a merit badge in PowerPoint Scouts for that. :D

[Uthgar the Brazen]

...useful as tits on a boar-hog...

:fixed:

Regional colloquialism fight! :sisfight:

[Farren]

...useful as tits on a boar-hog...

:fixed:

Regional colloquialism fight! :sisfight:

I like TomJoe's version more, because a boar-hog is whut?

[Sock Puppet]

In 10 years (eep!) of teaching full-time, I have yet to teach a course the same way twice.Of course not. It's damned nearly impossible to maintain that much consistency when you're drunk.

But srzly, I've met a few lazy professors. Not many, but a few. The worst was one who "taught" a creative writing course by rambling on and on about his favorite movies. He got all of his quotes wrong, to top it off. Granted, creative writing courses are the nadir of English classes, but still -- he could have at least pretended he had something prepared ahead of time.

[Farren]

True, true....

And what about the people who are good teachers, but only when their students are brilliant telepaths? What about them?

[Uthgar the Brazen]

TLR, you forgot about all the time you also have to spend on exciting adventures in faraway lands amidst exotic cultures. The dry-cleaning costs for your hat alone have to be astronomical, especially since you keep forgetting it in tombs and stuff. Oh, and the time you spend fighting Nazis.

[BDS]

. Oh, and the time you spend fighting Nazis.

It's not just the hours -- it's the hassle of having beautiful coeds close their eyes to reveal "I love you" written on their eyelids.

In the business world, people love to brag about how many hours they work. Whenever I hear them start bragging (they pretend to complain, but we all know they're really bragging), I always try to one up them -- to the mirth of any colleagues who happen to be listening and know that I rarely work at all.

(Weren't you once an anthropology grad student, Uthgar -- just like I was? Hence our love for Indy -- our role model.)

[Farren]

I recall one night sitting on the scaffolding supporting a highway sign, smoking a joint with an anthropology nut/student who was inspired by Indy, watching the cars go by underneath and listening to him enthusing about ancient African bones... Good times.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Nope, but I spent a good bit of time with those folks. I was a music major.

* Uthgar the Brazen waits for the many light bulbs of sudden understanding to appear in the forums.

[Sock Puppet]

I recall one night sitting on the scaffolding supporting a highway sign, smoking a joint with an anthropology nut/student who was inspired by Indy, watching the cars go by underneath and listening to him enthusing about ancient African bones... Good times.Wow, I've done exactly the same thing! Oh, but without the anthropology student. I'm pretty sure there was talk about ancient African bones, though.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

I recall one night sitting on the scaffolding supporting a highway sign, smoking a joint with an anthropology nut/student who was inspired by Indy, watching the cars go by underneath and listening to him enthusing about ancient African bones... Good times.Wow, I've done exactly the same thing! Oh, but without the anthropology student. I'm pretty sure there was talk about ancient African bones, though.

Bones =/= boners, dude.

[BDS]

The truth (unfortunately) is that archaeological research is boring. It comprises picking meticulously through the dirt in the hope of finding – well, you ain’t going to find no Lost Arks of the Covenants. When I was in grad school (some time ago, now) the archaeology grad students did have lots of money (by my impecunious standards), because all new subdivision builders were required to hire archaeologists to meticulously pick through the dirt before construction could start. I remember one Archaeology Prof in my undergraduate days rambling endlessly about the “New” Archaeology (not so new anymore), which consisted of endlessly recording exact positional data on every tiny artifact one discovered. It was supposedly more “scientific” than rappelling into ancient tombs in search of Lost Arks, but it didn’t seem like much fun.

Cultural anthropology rules!

[Farren]

I recall one night sitting on the scaffolding supporting a highway sign, smoking a joint with an anthropology nut/student who was inspired by Indy, watching the cars go by underneath and listening to him enthusing about ancient African bones... Good times.Wow, I've done exactly the same thing! Oh, but without the anthropology student. I'm pretty sure there was talk about ancient African bones, though.

Bones =/= boners, dude.

In SA, is =. However, we were, in fact talking about skeletrons.

[godfry n. glad]

TLR, you forgot about all the time you also have to spend on exciting adventures in faraway lands amidst exotic cultures. The dry-cleaning costs for your hat alone have to be astronomical, especially since you keep forgetting it in tombs and stuff. Oh, and the time you spend fighting Nazis.

There are Nazis to fight in the frozen tundra of Tulavit whilst collecting rabbit scat? TLR's specialty is bunnies...Snowshoe hares, IIRC.

[Clutch Munny]

In 10 years (eep!) of teaching full-time, I have yet to teach a course the same way twice.Of course not. It's damned nearly impossible to maintain that much consistency when you're drunk.

Only on power, baby.

But srzly, I've met a few lazy professors. Not many, but a few. The worst was one who "taught" a creative writing course by rambling on and on about his favorite movies. He got all of his quotes wrong, to top it off. Granted, creative writing courses are the nadir of English classes, but still -- he could have at least pretended he had something prepared ahead of time.

Yeah, there are a few. If you don't care about the well-being of your department, your legacy, and the opinions of your colleagues, students, staff, and supervisors, a tenured prof can get away with doing very little work. And poor quality work at that.

Yet almost everybody does care about at least some of those things, to at least some extent, all the time. And most people care about almost all of them, a lot. Even though I could get away with doing shockingly little and shoddy work, I do an awful lot of work and most of it to the best of my ability. If I didn't think that way, it's most unlikely that I would have done the things necessary to get my job in the first place, so it's not that surprising, I guess.

[ChuckF]

As a graduate student, I am sick to death of my lazy professors. If they weren't lazy, how would they have time to teach seminars, read and correct my well-written and theoretically dense but frequently wrongheaded papers, serve on my thesis committee, publish, and teach 100-person undergrad classes? Only a lazy person would have the free time to do all of that.

[godfry n. glad]

Cultural anthropology rules!

That's because it has no rules...

wait...no...

it makes them up as it goes along!

[BDS]

Cultural Anthro does too have rules. Haven't you ever heard of cultural relativism?

Archaeology would be more fun if it had fewer rules. Indiana Jones was never found carefully marking the location of each ancient treasure he found with a little flag, and recording it in his notebook. If he'd taken the time to do that, we'd all be speaking German.

[Angakuk]

Don't get me wrong; I love my job. But somehow, I don't feel like I'm an underworked and overpaid bum who sits around all day doing nothing.
Preach it brother. I feel your pain.

In my case, of course, the canard is true. I, like all preachers, work only one day a week and then only for an hour or two. Now excuse me while I go take a dump in my toilet with the gold plated fixtures.

[Qingdai]

Cultural anthropology rules!

That's because it has no rules...

wait...no...

it makes them up as it goes along!

Ohhh! Cultural anthropology fight! (It was my B.A.)

Signifyer! Sign! Signifyer!
:cheer:

[Angakuk]

Shouldn't that have been a B.S.?

[Qingdai]

Cultural Anthropology B.A., Physical Anthropology B.S.

Although there usually enough B.S. to go around. :bullshit:

[godfry n. glad]

Heh...

I took one, and only one, cultural anthropology course in my entire university career, "Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthrolopology".

I signed up because I needed to fill out a full-time schedule to qualify for credits on my Japanese language classes, which were offered through the night school extension.

I sat through that class in a state of confusion. The professor droned on...and on...and on...about the most minute of details (and about his experience amongst the Tooba people of the Phillipine archipeligo). By midterm, I had only five pages of sketchy notes. The midterm was one take-home question (whiners who request take-home exams should be strung up by their thumbs and flagellated with a vine of poison ivy)...."What is "freedom" in social-cultural anthropological terms.

Luckily, the prof had regularly repeated the names of his favorite authors during his lectures, and I'd actually written them down....Off to the library I went. I looked up texts by his favorite authors, checked the indices for "freedom" and copied down all the text quotes indexed. I then went home and strung those quotes together with pure, unmitigated bullshit.

When the tests were handed back, I was sitting next to a anthropology major, for whom it was a required class; he got a "C" on the midterm. Me? I got an "A".

I did the same on the final, and finished with seven sketchy pages of notes. I tore those out and used the notebook next term.

I got the impression that it was mostly bullshit. But I aced the class.

[Brimshack]

One of the more malicious fuckwits to serve as an administrator where I used to teach decided to make a very big deal out of ensuring that the college got an honest 40 hours a week from each of its faculty members. As one of my colleagues put it; "Fine all go home on Wednesday."

[Qingdai]

One night school class, does not a career in cultural anthropology make.

Fight! Fight!

Much of what I found interesting in anthropology of culture was learning how much can be different from culture to culture, and unreliable narrators (shh. Don't tell, but I think Lisarea may be one!).

[godfry n. glad]

Don't get me wrong; I love my job. But somehow, I don't feel like I'm an underworked and overpaid bum who sits around all day doing nothing.
Preach it brother. I feel your pain.

In my case, of course, the canard is true. I, like all preachers, work only one day a week and then only for an hour or two. Now excuse me while I go take a dump in my toilet with the gold plated fixtures.


Just the fixtures? I heard the Jesuits across town have a gold bowl and tank, with platinum fixtures.

Piker.

[godfry n. glad]

One night school class, does not a career in cultural anthropology make.

Fight! Fight!

Much of what I found interesting in anthropology of culture was learning how much can be different from culture to culture, and unreliable narrators (shh. Don't tell, but I think Lisarea may be one!).


Heavens...I'd not want to make a career of it.

Besides, it wasn't night school...the Japanese was. You got something against night classes?

Sure...it's anedotal, but hey...it was enough for me.

Heh...Unreliable narrators. Maggie Mead was taking her lumps just about that time, too.

[Qingdai]

I do have something against night classes, they are too late and I get sleepy.

[Angakuk]

I felt much the same way about morning classes Qingdai.

[Angakuk]

Just the fixtures? I heard the Jesuits across town have a gold bowl and tank, with platinum fixtures.

Piker.

The Jesuits have had 473 years to accumulate their filthy lucre rewards of righteousness. I have only been at it for 25 years. Give me a break!

[Hugo Holbling]

Recently I was working 14-15 hours a day, sleeping on the floor or in the desert and hoping to not have my legs and arms blown off, so being a lazy professor sounds like a good deal. Then again, you probably have a better chance of being shot so you can keep it.

[Farren]

Hugo what induced you to go to war? BTW I still have your clown shoes if you want them.

[Hugo Holbling]

I did it for the girls.

[Adam]

Just the fixtures? I heard the Jesuits across town have a gold bowl and tank, with platinum fixtures.

The pastor at the Catholic church I attended as a child didn't have gold plated fixtures, but he did have a huge big screen TV, a cutting edge for the time stereo system, and a shiny new Lincoln. He was far from lazy though...he found time to launder money through the church's bingo game and defraud the IRS in between his regular pastoring duties.

[Doohickie]

I did it for the girls.
So how'd that go?

[The Lone Ranger]

In 10 years (eep!) of teaching full-time, I have yet to teach a course the same way twice.
Yup. I only use my notes as an outline and general guide anyway. They're there to ensure I don't forget to mention anything important and to make sure my lecture is properly-organized.

There are some instructors who basically just recite their notes. But what could be more boring -- either for the instructor for the students -- than that?

Stuff gets conserved, of course. I try keep the things that work. But I constantly add new things, and bring in current events as relevant to every course.
If they're involved in the course, students will ask questions or offer comments based on personal experiences or current events, which can completely reshape your lecture. I try to note what sorts of questions and comments arise, and so the next time I lecture on that topic, it most-definitely will be a different lecture. Heck, even on those occasions when I've taught two sections of the same course back-to-back, I often wound up giving very different lectures to the two sections.


I'm frequently surprised at how very different an experience it is to teach two different sections of the same course. Partly, that's because just one or two students with either very good or very bad attitudes can profoundly influence the rest of the class. Not infrequently, I'll find that one section seems to consist mostly of slackers who simply cannot be made to feel enthusiastic about the course, while the other section seems to consist mostly of students who are enthusiastic and keenly interested in the course.

It's a weird experience, but whenever I've mentioned that phenomenon to my colleagues, they always agree: two different sections of the same class can be (and often are) vastly-different in their attitudes and how you must deal with them.



Oddly, this sometimes happens even when I post the slides online and tell the students to download and examine the slides before class. (So, presumably, they already have copies.)

:roflmao:

heh...

heh...

Yeah....right.
It's amazing how many students have the attitude that acquiring an education should entail no effort whatsoever on their part. Somehow, I'm supposed to magically imbue them with "knowledge," without them going to the trouble of reading the assigned texts or even downloading the slides and notes I make freely available to them.

And, almost invariably, these are the students who complain that they "just don't understand" why they do poorly in the course. When I ask them, "Have you been reading the assignments I've given you before class, as I've repeatedly asked you to do?" they give me a look that says, ""Assignments? What assignments? And why should I go to the trouble of reading them? You're the teacher!".




When I explained to my fiancee that I would basically have to work at a minimum 70-80 hours a week, for less than what I had been offered for a research position with the government, she told me there was no way in hell that I was going to take it, no matter how much I wanted to shape the minds of our youth.
A few years ago, I was teaching as an adjunct at a small college in North Carolina. We needed someone to teach a Genetics course, but no one in the department had either the time or the expertise to teach it. So, the Department Chair got the bright idea of calling a nearby laboratory that specialize in doing genetic testing -- for court cases, paternity suits, that sort of thing.

The Department Chair convinced one of the geneticists there to come in to talk with him about the possibility of teaching that one course for us. She read through the proposed lecture/lab syllabus, did some rapid calculations in her head, and then asked, "So let me get this straight; you want me to teach this one course for you, but the time I would be putting into preparing and teaching for this 'part time' position would be more than the amount of time I spend in my full time job -- and pay 1/10th as much." She literally laughed in the Chair's face.


Oh, and the time you spend fighting Nazis.
Nazis! I hate those guys!

Actually, I did a lot of field work in the Selkirk Mountains of northeastern Washington/northern Idaho. That area has a disproportionate number of "Survivalist" and "Neo-Nazi" types. (They're a tiny minority, even so.) One evening, as I was just getting in from a long day of tramping around in the woods and checking my traps, I turned on NPR to hear that some local "survivalist" types had gotten into a shootout with the police. Apparently, they had been holed up in the National Forest where I was doing my work, and had I decided to scout out potential study sites just a couple of miles to the east, I might literally have stumbled onto their compound. I'm not sure that would have been a pleasant experience.

Then there were all the times I was out on snowshoes in some wilderness area many miles from the nearest town (which had a population of less than 50; the nearest hospital was over 30 miles away), and it occurred to me that if I had an accident of some kind, the chances of being found and rescued were pretty darned slim. (So I always made sure to have a knife and matches on me.) Not that I would have wanted to be anywhere else, however!



It's not just the hours -- it's the hassle of having beautiful coeds close their eyes to reveal "I love you" written on their eyelids.
Yeah, I can't tell you how distracting it is to have that happening day after day!

[Once, in an anatomy class, a young woman who was dissecting a cat was having some problem getting to the cat's reproductive organs. That's not all that unusual; getting to a female's reproductive organs is rather labor-intensive. She attracted my attention and asked, "Would you look at my vagina?" I paused for a bit, then suggested that I'd be happy to take a look at the cat's vagina.]

Cheers,

Michael

[Uthgar the Brazen]

(So I always made sure to have a knife and matches on me.)

Just remember to not build your fire under a snow-laden tree. ;)

[BDS]

I think I can safely say that IF I were a college professor, I'd be lazy. (Actually, I wasn't lazy as a grad student. I was particularly energetic about hooping, playing soccer for the school club team, riding my bicycle, mountaineering, and chasing women. I was just lazy about studying, writing papers, and teaching classes.)

[Naru]

A few years ago, I was teaching as an adjunct at a small college in North Carolina.

Really? Because I go to school at a small (kinda) college in North Carolina...

[The Lone Ranger]

A few years ago, I was teaching as an adjunct at a small college in North Carolina.

Really? Because I go to school at a small (kinda) college in North Carolina...

Winston-Salem, North Carolina?

[Uthgar the Brazen]

A few years ago, I was teaching as an adjunct at a small college in North Carolina.

Really? Because I go to school at a small (kinda) college in North Carolina...

Winston-Salem, North Carolina?

Why do I have the feeling a musical is about to break out?

[Naru]

A few years ago, I was teaching as an adjunct at a small college in North Carolina.

Really? Because I go to school at a small (kinda) college in North Carolina...

Winston-Salem, North Carolina?

Alas, no (http://www.unca.edu/).

[Angakuk]

getting to a female's reproductive organs is rather labor-intensive
Not to mention the costs associated with dinner and a show.

[Joshua Adams]

Wait, you teach at a small, private, liberal arts college in eastern Pennsylvania? Because...


(Or so I'd say, but it appears they've recently upgraded to a university -- sell outs!)