In our August "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
I am a junior faculty member. Faculty salaries at my university are lower than the national average, but I am offered opportunities to teach extra courses, especially during the breaks. That's a big help for me financially (I have a family to support) but it's also a serious time commitment. I have a 4/4 load and can rarely have research done during the semesters.
I am curious how people decide whether to teach extra courses for financial reasons. I know this depends on each person's particular situation. And in theory, one should teach extra courses only if it would not significantly affect one's research. But I still feel hard to decide in practice. I am curious what others do and why you do it. Thanks!
This is a great query, and I am very curious to hear how people respond. Although I understand some people have families and may need extra money in the short term, in general–that is, extreme financial need aside–I'm inclined to think that it is probably better for junior faculty in permanent positions not to teach extra courses during breaks. In any case, even though I needed the money earlier in my career, I decided very early on to not teach additional courses. Let me briefly explain why.
Look, if you need additional money to meet basic expenses, such as mortgage, credit card, or student loan payments–and to feed your family–then of course choosing to teach extra courses is understandable. However, in the long run, there are three obvious drawbacks:
- Depriving you of time to work on other things (such as research) that are advantageous in tenure and/or promotion.
- Potentially depriving you of substantially greater long-term earnings (from merit raises, tenure, promotion, etc.).
- Burnout
Let me briefly explain each. This reader reports already having a 4/4 teaching load. Although I know one person with a teaching load like this who (somehow) manages to publish a ton of stuff, my sense is that it is very difficult to get much research/writing done during the semester with a teaching load like this. This means that if you are in a position like this, summer and winter breaks are likely to be the periods of the year that you have any real time to work on publishing stuff. Indeed, although I don't have a 4/4, something like this is true of me. My semesters are so busy that it is very hard to get much research done (I mostly try to work on R&R's and the like). Nearly all of my serious paper drafting happens during breaks. Consequently, teaching extra courses during breaks would be disastrous for my research productivity. So, I think, if you're a junior faculty member in anything like a permanent position with tenure and/or promotion, teaching extra courses is probably a bad idea. It can substantially interfere with other things you should be doing.
A second point, related to this, is that teaching extra courses can also deprive you of greater long-term earnings. For example, at my university, we have annual evaluations each year that normally confer merit raises (this was the first year we haven't had merit raises, for obvious reasons). Because the merit raises are some % of your previous salary (the exact % depends on your scores across research, teaching, and service), over a period of 10-20+ years, this raises can seriously add up, leading to much higher long-term earnings than teaching an extra class or two here or there. Additionally, on top of merit raises, there can be promotion raises–both for tenured faculty and non-tenure track lecturers. Insofar as these raises can be substantial and annual merit % raises accrue on top of them, once again it's the case that one's long-term earnings are likely to be far higher than if one taught extra courses but weren't as productive in other areas (such as research).
Finally, there's the very real issue of burnout. I was warned early in my career (at the pretenure review stage) not to do so much stuff that I could suffer burnout. Although I was a bit skeptical, I later learned from my spouse, who is a Psychology PhD, that burnout is a very real syndrome, and I also seriously struggled with it on several occasions. I learned here that summer and winter breaks can be a real godsend: a chance to recharge your batteries, as it were. Summer and winter breaks are, of course, a privilege–but they are, I think, a privilege that can be used well, not only for your own sake but for others as well (such as volunteering, activism, etc.).
Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What are yours?
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