ROBERT STEINBUCH: Academia Is Not A Sideline Career.

I smile when lawyers tell me they want to become professors after they retire. Apparently, to them, academia is equivalent to playing shuffleboard at Del Boca Vista.

The false perception that academia is a side hustle largely arises from confounding the entire enterprise with the act of classroom lecturing–which is merely part of one of academics’ three responsibilities of teaching, scholarship, and service.

Indeed, teaching itself is far more than just lecturing. Good instructors spend more time preparing for classes than conducting them.

I point out to students who complain about the length of my assignments that I read all the assignments myself before every class. I teach without notes, which means I have to load everything into my brain’s equivalent of RAM. Sure, I can remember the important part of cases from year to year, but I can’t quote footnote 4 on page 567 without a refresher.

I could just teach from the same notes every year (or, nowadays, just read from the same Powerpoints) and save myself a lot of work, but then it wouldn’t be fresh.

Plus: “I’m disquieted by the displacement of professional academics resulting from the significant growth of part-time (adjunct) faculty. These folks–earnest as they are–generally teach without engaging in scholarship and service, without dedicating comparable time to class preparation, and without honing their skills in the vocation.”

But they’re cheaper, and cause fewer problems for administrators.