I’m a grad student who hopes to be a professor some day. My field is history, and many recent Ph.D. graduates in this discipline would prefer to be offered a tenure-track position at a good state school or liberal arts college, rather than somewhere like Harvard or Yale.
Some of those highly-prestigious schools have a reputation for paying their assistant professors poorly, and asking them to take on most of the department’s teaching load. More importantly in the long run, those schools also tend to retain a smaller percentage of their Assistant Professors when the time comes to make tenure decisions, leaving them once again on the job market.
This is not to say that many people would actually turn down a job at the big Ivy League schools. Even if you don’t get tenure, the very fact that they hired you at all still looks good on your resume, and increases your chances of getting another job. And who knows, you might end up being one of the lucky ones who gets to stick around.
As some people have pointed out, salaries also differ widely from discipline to discipline, depending largely on issues of supply and demand. Disciplines that have good non-academic job opportunities can ask for more money, because they have more alternatives and more employers competing for their skills.
Echoing mhendo*, I’m an academic and I’ve known quite a few professors (many of them extremely intelligent** and extremely nice) who have left Ivy League & Magnolia League*** schools for public colleges and universities. Almost invariably it was because the pay was just as good or better (especially when cost of living was adjusted) and more importantly the publish-or-perish climate is absolutely out of control, especially for untenured faculty. (Ivy League & peer schools llooooooong ago forgot that college is first and foremost and primarily about educating students- public research universities have forgotten this also, but not quite as much.)
A friend who works for CNN said that one of the few funny things that happened during the week of 9-11 was the large number of professors (religion, political science, sociology, history, etc.) from all around the country calling to offer their expert advice and wanting to be quoted or, preferably, interviewed about the situation. All of them were desperate for exposure (and the few who had actually published books on the Taliban and or Osama suddenly became very wealthy overnight).
I don’t think this is necessarily so. The academy must be both about increasing the store of human knowledge and passing that on to the society at large. In many disciplines there simply isn’t any other place for new work to take place but the academy. Yes, private firms can (and do) well support a lot of cutting-edge computer science and engineering research, but ultimately they’re focused on the bottom line. In fact, it could be better stated that universities have forgotten that the academy is not first and foremost about making money.
Something else that bears mentioning: Although it is true that if I’d gone into industry, I’d be making much more money than I am as an Asst. Prof., it’s also true that my relativley meager salary (mid 40s) is for a NINE-month contract (Sept. to May) during which I get a month off for Christmas, a week off for spring break, nearly a week off for Thanksgiving &c. IF I decide to teach classes in the summer, I can increase my salary by about 1/9 of my annual base pay per class (usually up to four classes), otherwise I can spend my summers doing the research I want to do instead of something assigned to me. The apparent “pay cut” is well worth the time and freedom to me, at least.
(P.S., I’m at a largeish [15,000 student] public university with more of a teaching [“student-centered”] focus than a strong research mission, although research is encouraged and supported.)
I do not know what institution you work for, but as a full Prof. I find my summers are extremely busy. [last sumemr I was on a little hiatus, but that was not usual] If I am not teaching summer session I am on summer sabbatical. I have taken summer sabbatical several times during my tenure here and it is always a wonderfulk experience. Two summers ago I was in Italy researching with an Italian Psychologist.
Maybe you can explore summer away programs for profs…Again I do not know your institution but if there are opportunities to study elsewhere, they should not be overlooked.
(I’d e-mail you this, Phlosphr, but I haven’t coughed up the $5 yet!)
One problem I face in my field (Geology) is that field-work is a major part of research, and with classes dominating Sept to May, Summer becomes the only time I can get time in the field–especially if I my research area is far away (which it is, since I’m a hard-rock geologist surrounded by soft-rocks). So, I can squeeze in a quick 4-week session of Summer teaching before I leave, but that’s about it. This summer, I’ve got a grad student working under me that I’m spending 6 weeks with out in the desert, for instance…
We do have a teach-abroad program in the Summer; I may submit a proposal for next year.
In academe, Harvard has long had the reputation of bringing in junior faculty at a low rate of pay with little intention of tenuring them. They come for the cachet of Harvard and the chance (presumably) to work with top students, and they get hired away by other places who are happy to snap them up. Harvard may not be only one, but that is certainly the way Harvard is talked about.
Credible surveys of faculty which have included time studies show that most faculty put in well over 40 hours a week on their job. Now, on the one hand, they are not tied to campus from 9-5 each day, and have considerable flexibility once they fulfill teaching and advising commitments. On the other hand, there is always more to do and no clear boundaries on working hours. So yes, they have flexibility, but they spend many hours on what they do and some of them have a hard time finding time for their families/lives outside of academe. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t find a faculty job wholly appealing.
It really depends what you count as “on the job”. Does me sitting around reading a book on mathematical attacks on the theory of Go endgames count? I’m not doing active research in the field, but it always pays to be well-read. Does sitting around in the department flipping through the LRB or the NYT count? I’m in the office, but not really doing “work”.
It really depends what field you’re talking about. If your work requires field time, that’s a fixed requirement. If it requires referring to noncirculating media, that’s more time you have to be in one particular place for some length of time. If your (non-teaching) work basically boils down to reading and thinking, you’re golden.