What do college professors do besides teach?

Question

Please answer only if you are a professor or know a college professor well outside the realm of regular student professor relationship.

What do they do besides teach. They spend about 6-10 hours teaching a week at my school, then 2 or 3 office hours a week.

This question is especially for non science professors. History, psychology, political science and sociology professors for example. Do they just read up on their subjects and write articles and books? Do they get to travel?

Answer 1

You are correct in observing that teaching is actually a very small part of our job.

Here's what we do:

Research. That includes visiting archives, library research, fieldwork, etc., but mostly involves constant writing. We are expected to publish consistently in top journals and to write books in order to keep our jobs.

Other publications. We are expected to write book reviews and make other such contributions to our field of study on a regular basis. This includes major work like editing series of books for publishers, as well as minor work like writing articles for encyclopedias.

Advise. This includes not only speaking with undergrads, which usually happens during office hours, but includes advising grad students, which takes up MUCH more of our time. We must review their work constantly, helping them to ready their theses and dissertations for submission and defense. We also help them prepare for the job market in other ways, reviewing their paper proposals, etc.

Committee work. You would be amazed at the amount of committee work we do. Most of us sit on departmental committees, university committees, and nationwide committees specific to our field of study. These committees have varied tasks, but all involve lots of meeting time and paperwork.

Curriculum Development and Pedagogical Development. We constantly revise the curriculum of our departments. This year alone, I bet I spent three months out of the year doing curriculum revision paperwork. We also attend seminars and workshops to hone our teaching skills. We are expected to file TONS of paperwork with the administration, and we undergo program review every few years, which involves generating all sorts of qualitative and quantitative reports on our department's curriculum and pedagogy.

Write Grants. We are expected to drum up funds for our own research. Therefore, we spend lots of time finding available grants, and applying for them.

Present. We are expected to present our work at conferences at least once a year. So we must write up proposals for conferences, hoping to be selected to present on our work in progress. Because this is a competitive process, one must submit proposals to many conferences in order to be selected to present at at least one.

Lecture. We give lectures at other institutions when invited.

I am sure I've not covered everything, but this should give you an idea of what we do.

Best wishes to you!

Answer 2

I'm a grad student currently teaching my own college freshman English class for an assistantship, and a few minor things you forgot to consider when working out your professors' schedules is writing lectures and/or planning class activities, reading and grading papers, serving on faculty committees to help plan and revise curriculums, sifting through grad student applications, and advising master's and doctoral degree candidates (this generally includes reading over about five different drafts of each candidate's 200-page dissertation).

So that is, of course, the core of the work, which additionally includes actual research, working on books, writing and rewriting journal articles, editing one or more journals, writing conference proposals, and presenting at conferences. In the same amount of time, most professors could have just gone to med school, whined about their residencies, and got a job to have their nurses do all their work.

And most professors teach a full-time credit load of courses, which is more than 6-10 hours a week (usually at least 12 credits, or 12 hours a week).

Pretty neat.

Answer 3

I work for the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at my school and that is where the paper work for what all of the professors do comes through. And I can tell you that yes, most of the time they only teach about 3 or 4 diff. classes. The rest of the time is spent on research, writing(most prof. have to have so much published in a year) I know some take entire semesters just for research, Confrences, travel, most serve on some sort of committe that benefits their college, and programs that would display their research results.

Answer 4

A good friend of mine is a college professor and is also the county extension agent in the county where he lives. He teaches ag. courses and science courses. He writes a column for his local paper. He goes mountain climbing, does scientific experiments in other countries, and races dirtbikes.

Another friend is a sociology/ nursing professor. She travels, studies other cultures and has written at least one book, based on her studies.

My mother is a college instructor. She teaches nursing courses. She also works part time as a Family Nurse Practitioner in a diabetes research clinic. She also works part time taking care of the feet of diabetic shut-ins.

Hope this helps...

Answer 5

To keep things simple, they have many more things than teaching. They need to prepare their materials for next lecture, exams, review guides, check homeworks, grade exams, etc. Also they have to plan ahead of time for future semesters. Such things can be updating content, talking with book editors, etc. Also many professors conduct research. They read a lot about subjects they are doing research on and also lead and monitor research assistants. Their assistants usually are graduate students but sometimes they also include undergrad students.

Answer 6

In addition to what others have said, many college professors are very involved in the governance of the institution. They do everything from departmental work, to developing curriculum, to sitting on various committees. They are asked by the institution to do everything from institutional research, to writing grants, to recruiting students (in person, on the phone, by e-mail). They are also expected to recruit new faculty and evaluate their peers in what can be a brutal process. They are often asked to help raise funds. They are expected to be involved in service activities in the local community. Outside of the classroom, they do much more with students than put in office hours. Many of them provide study sessions, tutorial opportunities, and even informal personal counseling. A lot of what they do is not in the job description. Some do a lot; some do very little. Some spread themselves widely; others concentrate on just few things. All I can tell you is that being a professor isn't nearly as glamorous, or easy, or profitable for most of us as it often looks from the the outside.

Answer 7

They think. It sounds strange, but they sit back and think a lot. About everything. Be it books, be it students, be it the subject, be it the syllabus, everything.
They do travel a lot also, to know ppl around. They talk a lot. They're the 'Professors' after all. What all we are, are because of them only.
Heads Off To All The Professors.

Answer 8

A professors main job is to do research. No matter their field of study a professor must do research and publish, teaching is often seen as a secondary exercise for professors.

"publish or perrish"

Answer 9

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Answer 10

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