Life as a Professor

Almost everyone has been exposed to what professors do in the classroom--they teach. However, teaching is only one aspect of a professor's career. One of the attractive parts of being a professor is that, in addition to teaching, you get to do a lot of other enjoyable activities. The purpose of this page is to discuss the many different things professors do.

Life as a Professor - an Overview

An attractive aspect of being a college professor is that they get to do many different activities on a regular basis. During the year, a professor will teach classes, conduct research, attend accounting conferences, review others' research, mentor students, serve on university/college/department committees, and interact with professionals/regulators/standard setters. The diversity of the activities makes the job exciting and stimulating. It is easy to avoid getting stuck in a rut because you get to do many diverse things.

The exact mix of what you do depends on the institution where you work, the stage of your career, and your personal interests. An additional benefit of being a professor is flexibility. This occupation affords you flexibility not only in the types of activities you engage, but also within how the activity is performed. Being a professor is unique, in that you get to learn and investigate issues and topics that you find interesting. There is relatively no structure put on the topics that you can research and learn about. For example, as a professor you get to decide what types of questions you will research, what you teach (to some degree), and what service activities you perform (again, to some degree). If you are a person that likes learning, then being a professor can be very rewarding.

In addition to having diversity and flexibility, professors are constantly challenged. Professors are always learning because each research project and each time teaching is a different experience. One can always improve their teaching and find new things to research, especially as the economy constantly changes and evolves. How a person absorbs this new information depends on the unique characteristics of each individual learner.

What do you do as a Professor? In Detail

The activities of a professor fall into three main categories: research, teaching, and service. Each is discussed in turn, followed by a summary of other activities in which a professor may participate.

Research

What in the world do accounting professors research? If you are wondering this, don't worry, you are not alone. It is a common question asked by many accounting professors. Oler, Oler, and Skousen (2009) provide an academic definition of accounting research as "research into the effect of economic events on the process of summarizing, analyzing, verifying, and reporting standardized financial information, and...the effects of reported information on economic events." A less technical and more encompassing definition is that accounting researchers examine how accounting impacts/informs (and is impacted/informed by) business, economics, psychology, sociology, history, politics, technology, and just about all other academic disciplines.

While there are various branches of accounting research, the more popular in North America can generally be divided into several topical areas that are examined by four basic methodologies. The most common topical areas of accounting research in North America are accounting information systems, audit, financial accounting, managerial accounting, and tax. The four most common methodologies for examining these topical areas are analytical, archival, experimental, and other (e.g., survey, interviews, case studies, etc.) Generally speaking, the greatest number of accounting researchers examine financial accounting issues, and the majority of researchers use archival methodologies.

After people understand what accounting academics research, the question most commonly asked is whether it is boring (usually said in a more polite manner). The answer: Of course not! While the technical definition may sound boring, the process of scientific discovery is interesting and exhilarating, especially applied to accounting. Most "lay" people erroneously believe accounting is cut, dry and mechanical like introductory mathematics (i.e., bookkeeping) when in fact accounting is dynamic, full of uncertainty, and very meaningful in the lives of individuals, businesses, and countries. With this perspective, accounting research becomes an awesome adventure into how accounting can impact the welfare of our lifestyles. Like medicine, where each individual research study may not prove to cure cancer, each individual accounting study does not "cure cancer". However, the collection of research from many scholars works to inform decision makers to "see the big picture" and hopefully make better decisions. Engaging in this process can be very rewarding to the individual scholar.

In addition to "making a difference" to others, learning to research changes the researcher. Conducting high-quality, scientifically-based research is a demanding practice that instills discipline in the thinking process of the scientist. So in addition to having an impact on the world, engaging in research transforms the researcher to become a more careful, wiser thinker. Once schooled in this way, the researcher becomes a powerful decision maker capable of wielding tremendous influence.

Teaching

Many people investigate the career path of a professor because of their desire to be a teacher. Teaching provides a wonderful way to impact lives and "make a difference in the world". There is tremendous satisfaction in helping another person understand a difficult concept or problem. Teaching is very rewarding.

As a teacher of accounting, professors cover several diverse subject areas. Similar to research, these topical areas are usually accounting information systems, audit, financial, managerial, and tax. They also range in difficulty from introductory to advanced level courses. The amount a professor teaches depends on the type of university at which they are employed. At most research intensive universities, a professor will likely teach a single class three times in a year. At a university or college focused on teaching, a professor can teach as many as 12 classes a year--with many different "preps" (a prep is a different class that a professor teaches). Obviously, at the schools where professors teach less they are expected to produce more research. Between rigorous research and extreme teaching workloads, there are a wide variety of schools that balance research and teaching in varying amounts.

Professional Service

In addition to teaching and research, professors are expected to give professional service. Service takes on many different forms including, but not limited to, reviewing peer's research papers for publication, attending conferences and discussing peer papers (or moderating sessions), editing journals, serving on department/college/university committees (this encompasses a broad range of activities from deciding promotion and tenure decisions to such things as managing how the university will invest their money), serving on national committees, and serving administrative roles (e.g., department chair, dean, etc.). Professional service can bring recognition to the individual and their institution. It can also be away of making important contributions to improving the state of the profession or academy.

Other Activities

Professors often participate in other activities that don't fit into the three previously mentioned categories. Other activities that professors participate in include consulting (i.e., professional training, CPE teaching, or project implementation), textbook writing*, special projects while on sabbatical, and expert witnessing. Many of these activities can be lucrative for the professor and therefore may be governed by institutional rules as to the extent a professor may participate. Participating in these types of activities can be viewed very differently depending on the institution in which you are employed, so care should be taken when deciding whether to participate in these activities or not.

• A note on textbook writing. By many (most?) institutions, this is not considered research as it is not producing new knowledge.

Phases of a Professor's Career Life

A professor's life can differ significantly depending on where they are in their career. Professors have three different phases that lead to different performance expectations. Those three phases are life as an assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor. What each phase encompasses depends on the the type of school you attend. For purposes of this section, we will discuss life at a mid to top-tier research university.

Assistant Professor, aka Pre-Tenure

Upon graduating a taking their first job, a professor is usually assigned the rank of "assistant professor." This position usually lasts for 5-7 years. After this time, the professor submits a packet of information about their research, teaching, and service to the university. If viewed favorably, the professor is granted tenure and made an associate professor. Being granted tenure means a professor cannot be dismissed without due cause--which is something usually very difficult for a university to demonstrate.

Assistant professors are expected to primarily focus on research and teaching as they begin their career. To publish accounting research it can take anywhere from 1-2 years (very fast) to 5+ years to publish any single paper (from idea to print). Given the long delay it takes to publish research, new assistant professors have significant pressure to get a lot high quality work started early in their career. Often times, new assistant professors are given easier teaching loads, extra research support, or other benefits to help them get started producing research. Knowing how important it is to produce research, doctoral students will also try and get their research pipeline started so that they hit the ground running when they start in their first position. To earn tenure, the expectation is that an assistant professor will gain national recognition as a research scholar.

While trying to produce lots of high quality research, new assistant professors are also expected to demonstrate competency in teaching (or even excellence depending on the university). New assistant professors are usually assigned to teach a course that does not need lots of preparation or remodeling and also they usually teach "less demanding" students such as undergrads (rather than MBAs). Although research productivity is usually weighted as more important to an assistant professor, poor teaching evaluations can result in an unsuccessful tenure decision. Also, if a professor starts off with poor teacher evaluations, they may find it hard to overcome the reputation of being a poor teacher--making it even more important to be an effective teacher from day one.

Assistant professors are usually expected to provide a nominal amount of service. Typical service activities of assistant professors include reviewing papers for journals and conferences and light department service requirements (e.g., scheduling other academics to present papers at the school). At research intensive schools, assistant professors are "protected" from heavier service burdens while they develop their research and teaching portfolios.

Associate Professor, aka Post-Tenure

After successfully achieving promotion to associate professor, what a professor does expands. Associate professors are still expected to produce significant amounts of research (especially if they ever want to achieve full professor status) with the goal of becoming a recognized national/international expert in their research area. At this stage, the quality of research is more important (at least slightly) than the quantity of research produced. Associate professors will typically try and focus on developing more significant contributions in each research study.

With respect to teaching, associate professors are expected to contribute more than assistant professors. Associate professors may be asked to restructure courses, teach more demanding student populations, or teach new classes. With respect to service, associate professors also take a more active roll. Service requirements may expand to include administrative positions, national positions in organizations, increased work load as a reviewer, etc.

Full Professor

Usually after 4 or 5 years as an associate professor, a professor will again submit a packet of information about their performance in research, teaching, and service to the university for possible advancement to full professor. To be advanced to full professor, an associate professor must demonstrate they are excellent researchers, teachers, and have provided service to the accounting community. If successful, an associate professor is promoted to be a full professor.

Full professors are the "guardians" of their universities reputation. They set the tone for the rest of the faculty as to the values of the institution. They play heavy roles in hiring new faculty, promotion decisions of faculty, and other internal decisions. In terms of research, full professors often engage in more "risky" research, that is, research that has high payoff in terms of moving the discipline forward but may fail and not result in a publication. Full professors seek to do meaningful projects that push thinking forward. In terms of teaching, full professors set the example for excellence and often develop new courses and teach the most challenging students/courses. In service, they are expected to be active and will regularly serve on committees at all levels of the university.

Additional Details

What do Accounting Professor get Paid?

Accounting professors are highly compensated. The AACSB conducts an annual faculty salary survey and reports the results. Numbers below are based on the 2008-2009 survey. The average salary of a recently hired accounting professor in 2008-2009 was $127,400. The average assistant professor earned $113,800, the average associate professor earned $114,900, and the average full professor earned $137,800. These salary numbers consider accounting professors at all types of universities and colleges. Salaries vary widely from this averages based on a number of different factors.

Salaries for accounting professors are usually higher if the employing school has a greater research reputation. Typical base salaries for accounting professors at a top 50 accounting research school start above $150,000 a year (and may start as high as $175,000). In addition to the base salary, many schools offer summer research support. The summer research support is quoted in ninths of the salary and the typical new professor at a research intensive university receives 2/9 of their salary as additional summer research support money. The combination of summer research support and base salary puts the total compensation arrangement above $200,000 a year for many of the new professors at these schools. In addition to salary, most schools offer excellent benefits including retirement plans, health insurance packages, and fringe benefits.

Salary information for individual professors at public universities is often released due to governmental disclosure regulations. The following links provide more explicit salary information:

• Salary information in Utah
• Salary information for state's that disclose this type of information.

Associate and Full professors can also be given "fellowships" or "chairs." These usually provide the professor with additional compensation and/or additional research funding. These are usually awarded based on merit, where merit is defined based on research productivity. The value of a fellowship or chair varies widely depending on the size of the donation that an individual or group gave to establish the fellowship/chair.

Work Load

Professors work a similar number of hours as those in industry. Some people believe that once you have tenure, you can just show up for class and only work 20 hours a week. While there are a few people who may do this, most professors have greater integrity than this and continue to work to serve others.

The big difference between the hours that accounting professors and those in industry work is that a professor has greater ability to decide when they want to work. A professor must be in the classroom to teach and at scheduled meetings, but other than that there is great flexibility in when and where you work. Professors are graded on their output (i.e., articles published, teaching scores, service activities, etc.) and so what is important is that the work gets done, not where or what time of the day it gets done. That means a professor could leave at 1:00 in the afternoon to participate in an activity and either catch up by working earlier in the morning or later that evening. The flexibility that a professor has with time management is a very appealing part of the job.

A recent report indicates that full-time accounting faculty at four year institutions work on average 52 hours a week (as of 2004).

Drawbacks to being a Professor

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