A day in the life of a

professor
Dr. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones
perez@cs.vt.edu
http://perez.cs.vt.edu
Associate Professor Associate Dean
Computer Science Graduate School
 Goals for session
• Give you a peek at what we (professors)
do on a day to day basis
• [all you ever wanted to know but were
afraid to ask your advisor]
• Give you a little bit of advice on how to
keep it all under control (and succeed)
• Try to keep it interactive - ask lots of
questions
the transition
the transition
 benefits of faculty job
• 9 month work
• flexible schedule, only class, office hours,
and committes have fixed time
• ... and office hours can be moved and
committe meetings skipped
• CNN Money magazine, 2006
 ac
ti vit
where to work? y

• How do you pick a job? How do you apply?

• Have your laptops?
• Go ahead and lets find an open position
for you...
• What can you tell about the position and
other information available?
• Type of institution?
 types of institutions
Our
f
• state vs private Res
o cus
earc
tod
ay (
• research intensive Scie h
nce inten ostly):
/Eng
m
sive
• liberal arts inee
ri ng
,

• special focus (HBCU, HSI, Women’s

Colleges, etc.)
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org
 faculty positions

• assistant professor • postdocs

• associate professor • research scientists
• full professor • visiting professor
• instructor
eye on the price: tenure

• what is tenure?
• how do you get there?
• what do you need to do now?

n
sio
us
sc
di
 definition: tenure
• Tenure: Essential for the protection of
academic freedom, faculty tenure is, at its
core, a presumption of competence and
continuing service that can be overcome
only if specified conditions are met.!
• Two key components: your research &
letters from outside evaluators
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/about/mission/glossary.htm
job responsibilities

Service Scholarship

Teaching
 job responsibilities
Service

Teaching

Research
Intensive
Scholarship
 my week looks like
this...
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

Teach class Teach class Teach class

Office Hrs Office Hrs Office Hrs Grade

papers &
homeworks
Teach class Teach class Teach class

Research Research
Committee
Meeting
Class Office Hrs
Preparation Dept.
Meeting
Service
work
scholarship
 Sc
En ien
gin ce
scholarship/research ee &
rin
g

• get external funding (and lots of it)

• write papers (journals + conferences)
• support students (i.e. pay GRAs)

• become a household name, an international

celebrity, sought out by everybody, movie

n
deals, magazine covers, consulted by the

sio
us
president...

sc
di
 Hu
ma
nit
scholarship/research ie s

• publish books, monograms

• write papers (journals + conferences)
• invited to give presentations

• become a household name, an international

celebrity, sought out by everybody, movie
deals, magazine covers, consulted by the
president...
 Sc
En ien
gin ce
external funding ee &
rin
g

• write proposals to government agencies,

and industry to pay us for research
• most of the money goes to student
salaries, travel expenses, equipment (see
“pay” coming up)
• most proposals get rejected one or two
times, if at first you don’t succeed, keep on
trying
 Re
Int sea
en rch
publish or perish siv
e

• ... refers to the pressure to publish work constantly in order to further or

sustain one's career in academia. The competition for tenure-track faculty
positions in academia puts increasing pressure on scholars to publish new
work frequently.”
• Frequent publication is one of the few methods at a scholar's disposal to
improve his visibility, and the attention that successful publications bring to
scholars and their sponsoring institutions helps ensure steady progress
through the field and continued funding. Scholars who focus on non-
publishing-related activities (such as instructing undergraduates), or who
publish too infrequently, or whose publications are not clearly connected to
one another in topic, may find themselves out of contention for available
tenure-track positions.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish)
the game of publishing
author list

n
sio
us
sc
di
 not all papers are
created equal
• journal publications are considered
“archival” publications - i.e. they survive
fads and trends
• conference proceedings are a bit quicker
turn around, sometimes also considered
archival
• workshops, panels, short papers are not

n
valued much

sio
us
sc
di
peer review
 ac
ti vit
y
pick a future paper

• write title
• write short abstract (3 sentences)
• write a sentence or two about your paper
• from another person’s point of view
• citing your paper
teaching
 teaching
• everybody thinks this is all we do “you have
it easy, teach a few hours a day and all
summer off”
• teaching load varies with type of institution
• CS@VT: 3 classes per year (called 2-1), 1
of them is a graduate course
• encouraged to create new courses,
particularly graduate courses
 Sc
En ien
gin ce
teaching... ee &
rin
g

• professors: pick textbook, prepare lectures,

prepare exams, assignments, lecture, grade,
prepare labs, etc.
• at research institutions, we get GTAs to
support these tasks
• at other higher ranked institutions, GTAs
often teach the class
“this professor should teach all the classes in the department”
~anonymous student comment in evaluation form
 Hu
ma
nit
teaching... ie s

• professors: pick textbook, prepare lectures,

prepare exams, assignments, lecture, grade,
prepare labs, etc.
• TA’s often teach introductory levels (they
are instructors of record)
 teaching ...
• we (PhD’s) are often not trained on how to
teach and have as models people with little
training on how to teach
• class preparation can take a long time
• seek help from faculty training institutes,
from senior colleagues, use educational
theories
service
 service
To get something done a committee
• committee, committee, should consist of no more than
three people, two of whom are
committee
absent.! ~Robert Copeland

• different levels/types of
committees To kill time, a committee meeting is
the perfect weapon.! ~Author
• department Unknown

• university
If you had to identify, in one word,
• profession the reason why the human race has
not achieved, and never will
achieve, its full potential, that word
would be "meetings."! ~Dave Barry
 running an effective
meeting
• Based on Marissa Meyer’s (Google) meeting
rules
• set an agenda (ahead of time)
• assign note taker, keep track of notes
• stick to the clock (agenda done, meeting
adjourned)

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2006/sb20060927_259688.htm
department committes
• undergraduate,
graduate, admissions,
honorifics, resources,
executive

• elected or named, often

serve for a term (2-3
years)

• not all committees are

the same
 university committee
• when the provost calls, you answer
• committees at the college & university level
• some similar to dept committees
(curriculum), others unique to college/univ
• often starts as “department representative”
in some committees
 professional service
• serve in conference
committees and
professional
organizations

• conferences: general
chairs, publications chair,
local organizer, etc.

• professional: national
organization
“looking to the future”
PIM Workshop Seattle, WA on January
27-29, 2005
 Sc
En ien
gin ce
pay ee &
rin
g

• summer salary can “complement” your

9mo salary
• you can earn up to 1/3 of your salary for
summer research work
• 9mo $90,000 can become 12mo
$120,000
• consulting allows extra funding, up to 20%
of my time, no limit in money
 Co
mp
salaries ut
ing

• CRA Taulbee Survey - yearly survey of

enrollment, production, and employment of
Ph.D.s in CS & CpE
• provides salary and demographic data for
faculty in CS & CpE in North America
• 9mo average salary for new PhDs for
2007-2008, $86,059
http://www.cra.org/statistics/
 public salaries

• state universities are public institutions

• salaries are part of public record
• often found at public libraries or online

Google Collegiate Times salaries

tenure
 tenure evaluation
• two key components
• research - publications (quality &
quantity), funding ($$)
• letters of outside evaluators seal the deal
• teaching - student evaluations, awards,
courses created
• service - committees served
 tenure statement

• you write a statement that puts all of your

research, teaching, and commitments into
context - into an organized plan of what
you have done and contributed
• should not be an after-the-fact surprise,
but a before-you-start plan
 outside evaluators
• external to your department, objective
review of your work
• often cannot be “direct collaborators”
• you recommend a few, the department
picks a few
• overall 3-5 letters are requested on your
behalf
 how to pick them
• Conferences are important to meet others
in your field (workshop participation,
panels, session chairs)
• Meet authors citing your papers at
conferences
• Meet co-authors of your colleagues
• Send early copies of some of your papers
to a few senior researchers to seek advice
funding research
 Sc
En ien
gin ce
funding research ee &
rin
g

• Government, • Graduate student gets

Foundations, and hired, does the work,
Industry provide funding writes he papers
for exploring topics of
interest • Professor becomes
famous
• Faculty writes proposals

• Proposal gets evaluated

• Proposal gets funded

 cycle
6 mos after
proposal

Letters of Evaluation Proposal

intent due Panels awarded

Program Proposals Reviews to Money Work

90 days 30-60 days
announcement Due authors is here! begins

es
pl
m
sa
 program
announcements
• Some are continuing, • Details of grant/project
you know ahead of time depend closely on
when they will be announcement

• Ex: CCLI - May • Announcement specifies

restrictions
• Others are one time
programs or new • Budgetary (max
programs amount), Time (max
time), PIs limits,
institutions, etc.

es
pl
m
sa
budget (or dude, where
is my money)
• Everybody takes a cut • Overhead!

• Faculty gets paid by • Must be coordinated by

limits imposed by OSP
university (9mo salary +
3mo summer) • Must be carefully
planned with proposal
• limits on faculty salary
from NSF funds • buy just what you
need
• Grad students salary
determined by steps • Will get renegotiated

es
pl
m
sa
 Closing...

The mediocre teacher tells.!

The good teacher explains.!
The superior teacher demonstrates.!
The great teacher inspires.
~William Arthur Ward