You sound like my dad

Reader comment on: Peter Beinart's CUNY Pay

Submitted by an assistant professor (United States), May 18, 2010 20:31

My dad always seems to think that if I'm not on campus and in the classroom, I've got the "day off". It's funny from him because he's an old guy just giving me a hard time.

Think of a job where you're expected to give interactive and informative presentations to a skeptical and possibly ill-informed audience three to four times a week. Each presentation should be between 90 minutes and two hours. Each one should be original but at the same time linked to the one that came before and the one that came after. You should also be prepared to answer a complete array of questions from the very basic to the very complex to the ocassionally completely bizarre. That's about a third of the job in academia. The rest of it is completing original and in-depth research. Not journalism or blog posts mind you, but actual research that will pass the peer review process and contribute to the greater pool of knowledge. Then of course you'll need to keep up with administrative tasks.

It's good job, but is actually very demanding. And let's be honest, a bit more than $100,000 a year in NYC isn't excessive.

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