XXVII. THE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR FRANCIS EARL RAY
The author of this article was educated at Crane Col- ceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, Industrial and lege, and the Universities of Illinois and Oxford (Eng- Engineering Chemistry, and Chemical Reviews. land). He worked for a time as a starch and dextrine chemist in Chicago, then became a high-school teacher If you wish to be a university professor you must and principal in central Illinois. Later he taught at Grinnell College. Since 1930 he has been at the Uni- plan to spend seven or eight years in undergraduate and graduate study. Chemistry, physics, and matbeversity of Cincinnati. He is the author of the text, "Experimental Chemistry," matics will form the bulk of your studies, and a course pzlblished by J . P. Lippincott and Company, and of in public speaking wiU not be amiss. If you have taken the bachelor's degree with high standing it articles in the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION, Journal of the Chemical Society, Journal of the American should be possible for you to get a.scholarship or a Chemical Society, Journal of Organic Chemistry, Pro- teaching fellowship or assistantship that will help to
pay your expenses while you study for the doctorate. These helps vary in value from the scholarship that pays part or all of your tuition to the assistantships and fellowships that carry a stipend of $150 to $1000 a year. All graduate schools do not prepare men for teaching with equal success, so that i t would he wise to determine, in each case, if graduates go predominately into teaching or into industry. Early application is advisable. If you havenot been graded "A" or "B"in chemistry, physics, and mathematics i t is doubtful if you have the ability to profit by graduate work. In addition, you should enjoy the classroom and laboratory. Without this pleasure in study you are sentencing yourself to a lifetime of distasteful labor. If you do not like the routine of the university from the students' angle, you will not like it from the teachers'. (One cynic has called this a campus complex.) Your studies should be continuous. Those who intermpt their education before securing the doctorate are seriously handicapped in the long climb to the better positions. Let no one delude you with the advice to get "practical experience." No experience secured before taking the doctorate will count with administrators, while your absence from the routine of learning will make i t difficult to regain the technic of study, and especially the ability to pass examinations with high standing. After completing the long course of training that leads to the doctor's degree i t would be well to apply for a post-doctorate fellowship such as is offered by the National Research Council or similar institutions. This gives you an opportunity to begin independent research without the simultaneous responsibility of heavy teaching duties. On completing your postdoctorate research you should have some scientific publication to your credit that will enable a prospective employer to evaluate your possibilities. The next step is to secure a position as university instructor. This can best be done through the employment service of the university granting your degree. The News Edition of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry is useful, as are contacts with the leaders in the profession. Little can he expected in the way of salary, while a heavy teaching load is generally assigned the new instructor. Starting salaries vary from $1200 to $2000 for a nine- or ten-month year. A probable mean would he $1600 a year. Some of the expenses to he budgeted on this salary are membership in professional societies (there are about six on the must list); attendance a t scientific meetings in various parts of the country; membership in the faculty club and in your alumni and fraternity groups; contribution to church and charity; and the support of various civic and cultural activities in the community. With the end of June comes the last pay check until October. You must have saved enough to see you throuxh the summer. Luckily, the demands lessen
so that one may economize and pass the summer in semi-social seclusion. The true recompense that the nniiersity offers is freedom. The greater the university, the greater is the measure of freedom that i t offers. The freedom to work on your own scientific problems in your own way, to pursue any and every idea in your field without consideration of its practical value-this is what you may expect of the university. Only you may decide if this is of sufficientvalue. You will not be trusted with complete freedom all a t once. As an instructor you are in a somewhat precarious position, holding your post from year to year. If you do a fair job of i t and do not antagonize any of your betters and wisers you will gradually advance up the ladder in salary and rank to a full professorship with permanent tenure. This will take from ten to twenty years. Professorships pay $5000 to $10,000 with the mean about $6000. DUTIES
Your duties as an instructor will be to teach quiz and laboratory classes in the elementary courses. You may he permitted to give a graduate course in your specialty, hut do not be surprised if no one registers for it. You are still an unknown quantity. After a few years you will be given more complete charge of your courses. Then will come the making of programs and the registration of students; the checking up on laboratory supplies and lecture experiments; the ordering of textbooks; preparing quiz and examination questions; marking papers and assigning grades. Then there are conferences with both graduate and undergraduate students, and departmental and .general faculty meetings. Sometimes there is teaching a t night school or extension lecturing to he done. The journals and new books must he read and lecture notes revised in their light to keep up with developments in research. Scientific papers and books must be written and prepared for publication if you are to hold your position in the scientific world. If you have been diligent in research you will attract a few research students who will, if properly directed, greatly add to your effectiveness as an investigator. Gradually you will he asked to serve on more and more committees. It is wise to waste as little time as possible on the unimportant ones. A good committee man always goes along with the majority and gets a reputation for wisdom. After a few years i t would he well to cultivate offers from other universities. Nothing raises a man more in the estimation of his superiors than an invitation to join the staff of another institution. It results in the most rapid advancement in salary and rank. You may see the need for many reforms. If you are wise you will say nothing about them until you are iin a position of authority. By that time you will have forgotten them or the need may no longer exist. By taking part in the meetings of the American
Chemical Society and other learned societies you will ensure your continued scientific development, maintain old friendships, and cultivate new ones that will lead to a broad enrichment of your life. It would be less than honest if one did not admit that all members of a university faculty do not measure up to the high standards laid down in the preceding pages. Our prospective university professor may find among his colleagues the semi-invalid to whom the university with its holidays and long vacations offers a haven. B y careful planning most of the hard knocks and some of the realities of life may be avoided. Or, there is the lazy man with a charming air of culture who seems to do better in the university than almost anywhere
else. There is the social butter5y who dances attendance on his economic betters. His is the dizzy whirl of meeting the "right people," and telling all and sundry about it. His conversation is sprinkled with important names and places. These statements are not written in the hope of attracting the latter types to the university, but simply to give the professor a fairly true picture of what he may find. Universities are in the process of making themselves less desirable sinecures for the lazy and inefficient and will, therefore, become even more attractive to real scholarship and ability. But the newcomer must remember that universities are institutions, and institutions change slowly.
