On the Academic Calendar

In the New York Times today, historian Tom Lutz, the author of “Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums in America,” has a fascinating and insightful essay on the nature of the academic schedule. In it he debunks the idea of professors with abundant leisure time, three day work weeks, summers off, month-long Christmas breaks, and spring break to boot.

On paper, the academic life looks great. As many as 15 weeks off in the summer, four in the winter, one in the spring, and then, usually, only three days a week on campus the rest of the time. Anybody who tells you this wasn’t part of the lure of a job in higher education is lying. But one finds out right away in graduate school that in fact the typical professor logs an average of 60 hours a week, and the more successful professors work even more — including not just 14-hour days during the school year, but 10-hour days in the summer as well.

Why, then, does there continue to be a glut of fresh Ph.D.’s? It isn’t the pay scale, which, with a few lucky exceptions, offers the lowest years-of-education-to-income ratio possible. It isn’t really the work itself, either. Yes, teaching and research are rewarding, but we face as much drudgery as in any professional job. Once you’ve read 10,000 freshman essays, you’ve read them all.

But we academics do have something few others possess in this postindustrial world: control over our own time. All the surveys point to this as the most common factor in job satisfaction. The jobs in which decisions are made and the pace set by machines provide the least satisfaction, while those, like mine, that foster at least the illusion of control provide the most.

I think he gets to the heart of the mythology but also the reality of the academic lifestyle. We do get schedule flexibility that most people do not get. At the same time, during that time, we have obligations that we have to meet. Sometimes that means writing through the weekend, grading during Sunday's televised football games, responding to emails after dinner, 15-hour days in the office. A professor's career is a lot like an iceberg. What you see pales in comparison to how much there is beneath the surface. Book reviews don't write themselves. Articles rarely emerge in between Monday classes. Books are the result of years of time stolen during holidays and on vacations and late at night and early in the morning.

But it is true -- I do get to set that schedule. I can make a doctor's appointment just about any time that I am not teaching with no consequences or worries. I can decide not to write a thing all weekend. I can blog instead of revise. And so surely to most people, this means that I live a life of leisure. Lutz's article encapsulates nicely the reality of academic life.