So there’s a minor brouhaha brewing over at Central Michigan University between Dennis Lennox, a 23-year-old junior at CMU and Democratic congressional candidate/CMU assistant professor Gary Peters.
Really the whole thing sounds rather trivial and boresome — in fact, the few stories I’ve read about the dust-up, I’m inclined to side with the professor. Lennox does seem to be engaging in some petty harassment.
But I found this part of the story interesting:
He [Prof. Peters] acknowledges it would be difficult to keep his $65,000-a-year job at the university if he gets elected to Congress, but says he will worry about that if he wins.
[snip]
He drives 130 miles from a Detroit suburb to Mount Pleasant to teach class once a week.
$65K/year for teaching class once a week? Seriously?
If he actually taught once per week for all 52 weeks of the year, that would come to $1250/class. Which are what? An hour long?
Nice.
But looking at the CMU academic calendar, it looks like Prof. Peters only has to show up 16 each during the Fall and Spring semesters. I’m guessing he doesn’t teach Summer Sessions, as those classes are typically held everyday of the 6 week session (which means that Prof. Peters would have to make the 130-mile drive to teach class everyday).
So, Prof. Peters makes $65K to show up to teach 32 days per year. Or $2031.25/class taught.
Very nice.
Since he probably recycles the same curriculum from semester-to-semester and probably uses a TA to grade papers/assignments — there’s probably not a whole lot of “out of the office” time actually spent preparing for his weekly course.
Sounds to me like 1) he has plenty of time to run for *Congress, and 2) I’m in the wrong profession…
_______
* Since Congress is only in session for about 150 days per year, he could hold down both jobs and still only work half the days in the year. Plenty of time for a 3rd and 4th gig, possibly.
That is certainly a light teaching load but keep in mind that professors are expected to be current in their research and publishing and like any teacher much of the work is outside of the classroom. It’s not a bad living but someone with 20-30 years of education could be pulling down a lot more money.
(And not that it changes the calculation much but if you are teaching once a week it is likely a 2 1/2 or 3 hour course)
As the prior commenter points out, there is much more to a professorship than merely classroom hours. And in this case he holds an endowed chair, which is likely a position aimed at scholarship rather than full-time teaching. (It’s odd that he’s only at the Assistant Prof. level with an endowed chair, but whatever.)
It isn’t to late to change your profession, if you have another 15 to 20 years to go to school. Most people know where they are going when they enroll in higher education. It can cost a lot of time and money to change your mind after your first degree. You could try politics. That doesn’t seem to require a lot of knowledge, wisdom, common sense, etc. All it requires is a lot of money to get elected. Oh, but I guess you don’t have enough of thst either. If you did, $65,000 a year for a PT Assistant Prof. wouldn’t surprise you.
Uh — yeah. Thanks for the input Thomas.
Asshole.
15-20 years to obtain a PhD to become a professor? Is that how long it took you?
I’m sure I could take my MA in Communications, and thanks to the Hazlewood Act, finish up a PhD and start working towards the lofty title of “professor” in a much, much shorter time (though being a Conservative Republican might diminish my chances of actually being hired in the Liberal utopia of academia).
But I’m not inclined to take the pay cut (though working that much less would be nice)…
Also, I still have a fond remembrance of all of my college professors…not a one of who I would consider any smarter or more capable of teaching than I am (I hold a minor in Secondary Education, too!).
I’ve never been inclined to look up how much my Prof’s were making. I always assumed it was below school teachers (at least it should be) — but at least now I know why tuition was so high…
You’re still not getting it.
You’ll very likely take a pay cut if you go into academia, but you won’t be “working that much less” (unless you’re working an extraordinary amount now).
A normal teaching load for a professor expected to also publish original research is three courses per semester. Four is considered heavy, and the only schools that load on five per semester are community colleges or bottom-dollar state schools that expect no research at all.
“But . . . but . . . that means they’re only working 10-15 hours a week!?”
Hardly. Teaching a single college course typically takes 10-15 hrs per week on average, assuming it’s not a lab class and ignoring course-development time. The three hours in the classroom is the easiest part of it. You have to spend time preparing for every class, record-keeping, preparing materials and handouts because you don’t have a secretary, holding office hours and conferences, and answering dozens of e-mails from students who lost their handouts and want another copy or didn’t write down the assignment and want you to expain it to them personally or want to know why you haven’t submitted their grade from last semester for the work they turned in two weeks ago, 5 months late. Tenure-track faculty are also required to peform committee work, and that takes a noticeable amount of time. The biggest time-suck of all, however, is grading; with 20-25 students per class, and, say, two term papers and a half dozen smaller assignments per semester (or whatever), you’ll likely have 200 documents to read, annotate, grade, and keep track of, and can easily have 300 or more, in a semester. (I once made the mistake of assigning weekly short essays to a class of thirty students, without stopping to think I’d have over 500 grades to process by the end of the semester.) Most of it is not hard but it all takes time, and the more conscientious you are about it the more time it takes.
Three courses a semester will fill up the large majority of a 40-hour week. You don’t think so? Neither did I, but you’re the one speaking from ignorance. Trust me, it just does. And only the most serious schools offer loads that light. Seven courses in two semesters is common, and 8 or more is not rare; if you want to do any productive work at all, in a full-time teaching position (i.e., not a dedicated research position), well, you’re on your own. But you’re still evaluated on it for promotion and retention, and, besides, that’s why you went into your field in the first place. So basically anyone with a full-time teaching position is working well over 40 hrs per week on average, with their actual professional work coming far second to teaching-related activity; those with research positions have more flexibility but likely put in more than 40 hrs also, because they want to and because that’s what it takes to make progress.
The constant denigration of academics and intellectuals fits well with the right-wing addiction to ignorance, but it’s wildly uninformed. If you think college faculty aren’t working full-time jobs, well, you’re just wrong. You may not appreciate what they do, but it takes only a little basic math (and something other than a complete lack of familiarity with the facts) to disprove the claim that professors only work “three hours a week”. Likewise, a holder of an endowed research chair who also teaches a class is very likely spending much more than 40 hours per week creating more knowledge for right-wingers to ignore. If you disdain people who take knowledge seriously, just say so, but don’t pretend it doesn’t take effort to work at that level.
Kevin
The point here is that it really doesn’t make a difference what Peters’ political affiliation is; I believe that Robbie has been consistant in pointing it out himself. You’re attempting to turn Robbie’s point into a political fight and, while Dennis Lennox is doing this, Robbie has not. Read the first couple of paragraphs of Robbie’s piece again.
What offends me, as a resident of Michigan, is that Peters has wrangled a taxpayer-funded job (Robbie’s figures are correct regarding his pay and his working one day a week) at a very good salary as a poly-sci professor, without having served in a major political capacity here in Michigan (he was a former State Legislator who was appointed by Granholm to be the STATE LOTTERY COMMISSIONER. He went from this exalted position to the taxpayer-funded job as a poly-sci prof.
I have an aunt and uncle who are both college professors in NY, and I understand that there’s more to the job than the one-day a week that he has to trudge into the classroom to teach; however, I’d gladly take $65,000 to teach one day a week, grade papers, sweep the classroom, etc. Given Robbie’s figures (which are correct), the $2,000+ per teaching session is gravy.
Gee, over $2,000 per session after being the STATE LOTTERY COMMISSIONER. Sounds like lofty credentials to me…
What makes me pleased is that someone from out of state has exactly the same frame of mind about this situation that I…a Michigan resident/taxpayer…has.
Peters has wrangled a taxpayer-funded job (Robbie’s figures are correct regarding his pay and his working one day a week) at a very good salary as a poly-sci professor, without having served in a major political capacity
As a former poli-sci student- I don’t really know what you’re talking about. Do you believe that it’s typical for political science professors to be state-wide office holders? Judging from the credentials listed on wikipedia he seems perfectly qualified: years in the state legislature, state wide office, a law degree and a business degree?
The critiques seem completely partisan to me.
Preston
Jeezus. Questioning whether or not someone is deserving of over $2,000 an hour to teach anywhere is partisan? How would you devine this, given the simple fact that nowhere in my “critique” did I mention my political affiliation…if, indeed, I have one?
Yes, I understand that holding office is not a requirement to teach poly-sci. Yes, I understand that Peters held public office.
No, I don’t understand how Peters can be making over $2,000 an hour to teach. Plain and simple.
I’ll guarantee that my aunt and uncle…both holders of PhDs…are not making anywhere close to $2,000 an hour to teach their subjects at their college.
As for “partisan”, let’s look at Kevin’s statement, posted earlier: “The constant denigration of academics and intellectuals fits well with the right-wing addiction to ignorance…”.
“Right-wing addiction to ignorance”???
You mean, ignorant like David Horowitz? William F Buckley, Jr? George Will? Charles Krauthammer? Laura Ingraham (law school grad, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas)?
MY statements were mere questions about the hourly pay being given to Peters. Even if his hourly was “halved” to a mere $1,000 an hour, dontcha think that this is just a bit on the excessive side for someone who was the State Lottery Commissioner of Michigan?
Let’s stop with the partisan nonsense and take a look at FACT. Maybe…just maybe…we’ll get somewhere in society if we try this.
Robert- my comments were directed to the notion that he is unqualified for the job. I don’t know anything about the man but looking at his resume suggests he has a varied background that makes him an atypical- but not necessarily weak- choice for a professorship. I wish more poli-sci departments had more real-world relevance rather than an entire line up of Ph.Ds…
As for your portrayal of his work load. It has to be acknowledged that he is seemingly trying to make the point that he doesn’t have much work to do but I feel the other posters have adequately made the point that teaching one class a semester does not equate to $2000 an hour.
He deserve to be a university employee. I am with him man.
Michigan Treatment Centers
Peters has wrangled a taxpayer-funded job (Robbie’s figures are correct regarding his pay and his working one day a week) at a very good salary as a poly-sci professor, without having served in a major political capacity
Hate to break it to you, gents, but he holds an endowed chair. Meaning? That the Griffin Foundation selects and pays for the Griffin Endowed Chairman all on their own. Thusly if any of you have complaints about misspent taxpayer money, you obviously need to do a little more research. From the Griffin Foundation site (emphasis mine):
The endowment funds the salary and associated costs of a U.S. and Michigan government and political expert to serve as a faculty member in Central Michigan University’s political science department.