Chapter 7

Academia: Higher Education’s Risks and Rewards

Charles Steven Bingham

Higher education was not my first, second, or even third career. Having retired from a highly compensated job with the state of North Carolina at age 59, after more than three decades’ contribution to its retirement system, I had financial freedom. Thus, my risk was nothing compared to a mid- or early-career professional aspiring to a job that may pay less, at least initially, than a K–12 teaching job. If, however, you are a mid- or early-career professional considering university teaching, there are a few things you need to know. This chapter is about my own journey leaving my job as a public-school teacher to become first a consultant and presenter and now a university professor, a role that integrates all three skill sets. In many ways in this one job, I found my true self. I will provide some facts and share my experience to help you decide if such a job is a good fit for you. I will also share market trends and opportunities for the aspiring higher education professional and explore the comparative differences of working in higher education versus K–12 education. I will also introduce a competency model that is adaptable for all discussed roles.

My Story

As a public high school instrumental teacher, I knew my perspective was a little different from that of other teachers. I was acculturated from the beginning of my university training to view the world through the eyes of competitive musical performance, where award and acclamation served as fuel for self- and organizational improvement. Employed in two small towns and districts, I loved my job in each location, but I served my profession first.

By my mid-thirties I had two children and a wife, had earned a master’s degree in music education, and was winning awards and accolades in my field. Beyond wanting to expand my influence from the music program to a whole school, I frankly needed to earn more money. Back to school I went. Within a semester of attaining my principal licensure, I was appointed to an assistant principal job at a middle school. With encouragement of Bob Gordon, then superintendent of Asheboro City Schools in North Carolina, I joined Toastmasters International. If ever you wish to cure yourself of using filler language, hasten to join your local Toastmasters chapter. One becomes an eloquent speech master or loses one’s mind in the trying.

Bob also gave me my start on what would ultimately become the road toward my current professorship by selecting me to participate in the local chamber of commerce leadership institute. I became a master at presentations and got connected to numerous local civic leaders.

Through other local and regional education initiatives and projects, I met some of the most well-established, highly esteemed people in my field. Within three years of my new career in school leadership, I had enrolled in a doctoral program and, using my professional connections, was offered a part-time position as field representative for SERVE, a newly established R&D laboratory center located on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This was my introduction to teaching in higher education.

Having completed my doctoral coursework, I returned to my home school district to work an additional year as assistant principal, and then was appointed principal at the school where 30 years earlier I had been a student. The words of T. S. Eliot seemed then and now to capture my life: “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive at the place for the first time.” Evincing the truth of Eliot’s words, here is what happened:

On the first day of my new job as principal, I had a visitor. Looking up from my desk, I saw standing before me my first-grade teacher, Miss Rempson. Her then classroom shared a wall with my now office. I recognized her immediately and hurt my face smiling, eyes almost filling with tears. Hugs and catching up on the last 30 years of our lives ensued for the next 20 minutes. Miss Rempson, at the time of her visit in her late 80s, then grew unexpectedly quiet. “I always knew you were destined for great things,” she said, her words predating the journey from there to now.

Twyla Tharp (2006), in The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, explores how her own childhood experiences became a wellspring for life as a professional dancer and choreographer. Tharpe encourages her readers by writing about her own first creative act:

“When I was eight, living in San Bernardino, California, I was always forced to practice alone in my room. But I wanted human contact and some commentary on what I was doing. So I would gather the kids in the neighborhood and convince them to come with me to the back canyons where we lived, and there I would design theatrical initiations for the kids. This was my first creative act, my first moment of being a floor general and moving people around. My first choreography.”

Like Tharp, I encourage readers of this chapter to reconnect with and use as a springboard for career change those times when, as a child, you found yourself so immersed in a thing, a thing that seemed so natural as to be indistinguishable from your very identity, the thing in which you were most you when you were engaged in it. Such people become leaders in their field. Adults yearn for authenticity. For me, being authentic meant making solitary thought and action public. To consult, present, and profess was, and is, me being my true self.

After four years as principal, I returned for a second stint at SERVE, which proved to be among the most formative times of my career. As SERVE’s footprint included the entire southeastern United States, our projects routinely targeted schools and communities most at risk of failing their students. Consequently, my work took me to the Delta Region, that broad stretch of land between Memphis, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi, where deposited by 100,000 years of overflowing river, the soil was as rich and brown as chocolate fudge. Lessons and stories from SERVE continue to inform my practice as a consultant, presenter, and university professor, and I am better at all three for the experience.

One experience, in particular, stands out—my appointment as project director and co-principal investigator for the SERVE Leaders Institute. I had been with the organization for less than a year when I was given the opportunity to staff, design curricula, implement instruction, and manage operations for a multimillion-dollar, two-year, federally funded demonstration project to develop leaders for charter school and innovative public-school leaders. The project was a huge success, resulting not only in improved school performance but in having grown in me a professional with fire-tested conceptual, human, and technical competencies that serve me still.

Somewhere near what would be the end of my work as director of the SERVE Program on Education Leadership, I got a call from Joe Peel, a retired superintendent looking for help in expanding a district leadership into a regional consortium of districts. The result was the Triangle Leadership Academy, one of the most influential school leadership academies in the southeastern states. The next six years of my career found me working first as director, and then as executive director. We provided programs for leaders at every level, from C-suite to classroom, state house to schoolhouse. Our mission statement evinced our commitment: Changing leadership from the power and position of the few to the collaborative practice of the many. And we did.

Following the Great Recession and waning financial support for the academy, especially from our public-school member districts, I retired from the state of North Carolina and launched my own consulting company. Missing life in the arena, within a year I had accepted a full-time teaching position at Gardner-Webb University. It seemed that my entire professional and personal life had led up to this moment, and it was not as though I had no point of reference. I had been adjunct professor in no fewer than four universities, including North Carolina’s largest, North Carolina State University. I was contributing competently to four graduate (one master’s, and three doctoral) programs, including the doctor of education in organizational leadership. I also remained a mainstay in the master of executive leadership program for aspiring principals. What brought me greatest joy was connecting on a personal level with my adult students, all professionals seeking to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. After years of developing programs and products, I was at last putting my energy where it mattered most—developing people.

Six years at Gardner-Webb University came to an end when I accepted an unexpected offer to work in leadership studies at the Stout School of Education at High Point University (a small private liberal arts institution whose mission highlights the institution’s caring teachers). It was an extraordinary education, and an inspiring environment—a transcendent purpose worth waking up for every day. As I approach the end of my second year at High Point University and the last decade of employment anywhere, I could not imagine a happier, more authentic work life for myself.

What Is University Teaching?

At this point, assisting you in better understanding what teaching in higher education is and is not like, I want to pull back the curtain a bit. I would also remind you of my atypical pathway and late arrival at its doors. Believing then that proximate experience matters, I talked with several of my younger High Point University colleagues, all more recent K–12 immigrants than me. In aggregate, here’s what they told me:

Junior professors in undergraduate programs—that is, untenured assistant professors and the rank at which almost everyone starts their higher education career—are assigned teaching loads that rival the worst K–12 settings. For example, one of my colleagues teaches six different courses with six different class preparations, six different sets of essays and tests to grade, and six sets of personalities whose learning needs range from “I’ve got this” to “Is this going to be on the test?” In terms of teaching load, things get worse before they get better.

On another issue, several undergraduate-program colleagues commented on intrusive parental concerns. Falsely assuming they left their helicopter parents back at good old PS 99, teachers of undergraduates find a surprising number of moms and dads insinuating themselves into the academic lives of their adult children. Colleagues in large public universities have said the same thing. Do not leave K–12 education for the university if parents there are driving you crazy. They will follow you.

Another emerging issue among my younger peers is the abiding sense of responsibility they feel when realizing that they are no longer teaching children; rather, they are institutionally and ethically charged with grooming young professionals who themselves may teach children. Being a force multiplier is not for the weak-hearted.

Beyond obligations associated with teaching itself, my colleagues remind me that there are tasks concerned with the care and feeding of the institution. Most universities are run by faculty committees. With no sense of irony at all, there is even a committee on committees. Larger universities have a senate whose job, in part, involves advancing the concerns of faculty. And faculty concerns are many—from tenure and promotion to professional development to student conduct. After one’s first year, everyone is expected to serve on one or more committees.

To be a teacher of teachers conveys more responsibility still. Tasks singularly associated with school or college of education faculty include, for example, conforming with state regulations governing licensure, internship experiences, and education program and candidate credentialing and certification. In my experience, universities often hire professionals who focus primarily on such issues. Public education is a function of the separate states and institutions that prepare the states’ teachers must, for better or worse, march to the drum of state lawmakers. In many ways, the press for conformity will resonate very well with K–12 teachers moving to higher education, particularly those who teach teachers and school and district leaders.

Rank and Advancement in Higher Education

How does one move up in higher education, and what are its ranks? As stated, one usually begins as an untenured assistant professor. In my undergraduate education, the assistant professors taught all the 8 a.m. classes. If the institution is a Research 1 university, the old saw “Publish or perish” applies. You may expect not only the teaching load to be great, but also expectations for publication in double-blind, peer-reviewed journals approved by the academic program in which you teach. A minimum of two published articles per year is typical. If you are successful in obtaining tenure in the normal five- to six-year timespan, you may also apply for the rank of associate professor. With higher rank comes higher pay. If you fail to obtain tenure in the contracted period—which is up to a committee of your peers—you may only have a year left at that university. Move up or move out. Some people are content to remain at the associate professor rank while others, like me, are unhappy until they climb the next mountain, and become a full professor.

Two other roles that bear mentioning are adjunct and visiting professor. The former works part-time with the university and is increasingly a point of entry for newly minted PhD and EdD program graduates pursuing university teaching. (In a subsequent section, I will share statistics that support my assertion.) The visiting professor job is typically full-time but time-limited, often on-loan to one institution by another institution. Such a teacher often serves to prime the pump for a new program or to revitalize a moribund program.

Transferable Skills

If you’re looking for a set of professional competencies equally adaptable for presenters, consultants, and teachers in higher education, I recommend exploring the North Carolina Standards for School Executives (North Carolina Board of Education 2013), whose adoption was informed by Triangle Leadership Academy (Table 7-1). My professional development colleagues and I have field-tested these 21 competencies on nearly 2,000 professionals and find them uniformly robust in capturing the responsibilities of people who consult, present, and teach adults daily—the school principal. In my experience, the cited competencies are generally possessed by successful K–12 teachers as well.

What to Consider

As you consider whether or not university teaching is right for you, be aware of several important differences between it and K–12 teaching, then ask yourself some questions. First, the autonomy one experiences in higher education is lightyears beyond what teachers in K–12 enjoy. With minor variation, university teachers are expected to create their own syllabi, choose their own teaching resources, and design their own assessments. Depending on the level and program, classes are typically one to five hours in length and may be taught as seated (one real space, same time), virtual (all online), or blended (a combination of seated and virtual). University policy typically stipulates faculty office hours, ranging from 10 per week to five per day. That is policy. Then there is practice. Practice is what one informally negotiates with one’s dean (like a school principal) and colleagues. Ask yourself, am I self-directed?

The autonomy of higher education builds from the fact instructors teach adults, as opposed to teachers in K–12, who are responsible for children and adolescents and serve legally in loco parentis, that is, in place of the parent. The other reason for autonomy in higher education is that teachers in most universities are considered knowledge creators, not knowledge conveyers. As mentioned earlier, that means scholarship and original research, resulting in publication, is the norm. Obviously, scholarship requires time and resources. Really creative university teachers apply for and receive grants and contracts that provide for “buying out” or using others’ funds to pay them for the time they will spend in research and for the “substitute teacher” who must be hired to cover the classes they would otherwise teach. I once served with several professionals who didn’t teach a single class in the near 10-year association I had with that university. Ask yourself, am I creative?

Another difference between university and K–12 teaching is what industry calls “platform hours,” the amount of time the teacher spends in front of students in seated or virtual classes. As I’ve suggested, here is where some major differences begin to appear, depending on whether one teaches at the baccalaureate, master’s, or doctoral level. Teaching undergraduates typically requires more time (up to three classes per week) than teaching those who aspire to a doctoral degree. My university work has been restricted to teaching in master’s and doctoral programs. If I am not meeting my students in a seated class on Saturday or Sunday, they have generally worked a full day before I see them. In either case, there are issues both with motivation (“I’d rather be home”) and ability (“I am worn out”). The upside is that seated classes at the doctoral level occur much less frequently—as few as once per month. Of course, during intervening weeks, there is the expectation for virtual work, sometimes synchronous (logging in to a shared platform with video and audio capability), sometimes asynchronous (working on one’s own on a common task). Ask yourself, am I flexible?

A fourth point of difference between university and K–12 teaching, though diminishing, is accountability and standardization. Whereas K–12 teachers have long lived under the federal governance of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the more recent Every Child Succeeds Act of 2016, university teaching has been affected to a lesser extent. The concept of academic freedom, so valued by tenured faculty, has been under increasing pressure. Ask yourself: Am I accountable?

If none of what I have written so far has dissuaded you from casting your net into the deeper waters of higher education, I leave you with five more things to think about:

First, to teach at most universities and in nearly any subject, you must have a doctoral degree. My transition from school principal to university professor would not have happened without my doctoral degree. Is the degree for everyone? Absolutely not. Think ahead, understanding that, in the time you could have earned a doctorate, you unquestionably will be older, but will you also be considered an expert in your field? Think carefully about your program of study. That said, most doctoral degrees carry the same institutional weight.

Second, when you get your first university teaching job, work with your colleagues. Be collegial. Avoid the “Peacock Farm,” solo artistry and self-aggrandizement. It is true that tenure and promotion committees reward individual effort (wrongly in my mind), but collaborate with your colleagues as often as you can and in every way you can. Think both inside and outside the box. Be flexible.

Third, even though they are harder and harder to obtain, seek a tenure track position if you can. With tenure comes increased independence and professional status. Sometimes intellectual freedom gets a bad rap, but scholarship is best practiced in an environment free of political pressure and independent of employment consequences. That is what tenure earns you.

Fourth, be strategic in determining what to say “yes” to and when to say “no.” Time is your greatest resource. Be an intellectual packrat. As the proverb says, “All is grist for the mill”; that is, what you read or write and discard for one purpose may be useful for another. Waste nothing. Be disruptive; follow the rules, then break them. Every innovator has upset someone or something somewhere.

Finally, and most importantly, put your students first. Treat them as your clients and the professional adults they are. To the best that you can and as you would with your clients, let your students be co-developers of your curriculum, instruction, and especially assessment. Provide voice and choice as often as you can. Pay attention to their personal lives. Have a family-first policy, and for that matter, make it yours too. Cut them some slack. Let them see you as a person worthy of emulation. That means being authentic.

Market Conditions for Teaching in Higher Education

Each August, the Chronicle of Higher Education releases its annual almanac. In the “Almanac of Higher Education 2019-20,” the first thing the reader sees is that, like K–12 education, universities and institutes of higher education (IHE) come in public or state-supported, and private or tuition-driven forms. In the academic year 2017–2018, a total of 837,577 instructional staff (teachers) were employed in one or another U.S. IHE, combining baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral institutes. In the same year, the number of teachers in K–12 was nearly 3.7 million. In other words, K–12 education employs four to five times more teachers (National Center for Educational Statistics 2018). Bottom line: The market for university teachers is much smaller than that for K–12.

Not only is the chance of full-time employment with an IHE reduced because of numbers of jobs compared with K–12 education—which is compulsory for all children up to age 16 in most states—it is reduced because of university instructor employment trends. A bar graph in the Chronicle’s almanac labeled “Change in Percentages of Full-Time Faculty Members Who Were Non-Tenure Track, by Institutional Classification, 2008–9 and 2018–19” caught my eye. Over the 10-year period in question, the percentage of non-tenured (read: temporary or unstable) teaching positions in higher education, combining baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral institutes, increased nearly 15 percentage points for public institutions and 17 percentage points for private institutions. Bottom line: The data support what I have been seeing first-hand for the last seven years—an increasing number of newly minted doctoral graduates attaining temporary work as adjunct professors, sometimes at more than one university. Why? The chase for a piece of the dwindling higher education pie is making for a bit of belt-tightening in the Ivory Tower.

Breakpoint: The Changing Marketplace for Higher Education (2015), by Jon McGee, explains the plight of the contemporary university, which is affected by demographic, economic, and cultural disruptions, resulting in what McGee calls “a liminal moment.” Addressing what universities must do to recapture “the good old days,” the period from 1993 to 2008, according to McGee, goes beyond the purpose of this chapter. But suffice it to say, the challenge of attracting students to four-year institutes and keeping them there is what is keeping every university president in America up at night. The downstream impact for employment in this time of disruption is dire, and I have said nothing about the impact massive online open courses on jobs. I wish I had better news, but higher education is experiencing a crisis, a point at which change is made or the lights go dark. If you are an early or mid-career professional, think long and hard about your tolerance for risk. Have plans B and C ready.

What Would I Have Done Differently?

As my narrative suggests, my transition from K–12 to university teaching was not accomplished in one fell swoop. Leaving public school for university teaching occurred in fits and starts, each role supported by and interwoven with other roles over four decades of work. In hindsight, however, I can identify three life lessons, probably universal ones, that may have accelerated my integration.

First, I should have been more responsive to my heart. Having spent my childhood in a dysfunctional, emotionally volatile family, I believed that to be guided by one’s emotions was to be misled. I distrusted my feelings both for a life partner and career, chose what I then thought were more rational paths, and hid in the relative security of a job in public education. Life Lesson 1: Embrace your passion.

Second, I should have appreciated the need to depend on other people more than I did. For example, I should have stopped pretending to know what I did not know earlier, and instead sought the wisdom of people who actually did things better and knew more things than me. I should have subordinated myself, sought the counsel of my superiors, and expanded my professional network faster and with brighter people than I did. Life Lesson 2: Don’t be a smart ass.

Finally, I should have been less selfish. As I learned new things and gained new skills, I should have taken under my wing people I could have helped. I would have appreciated that ambition is good but only if in the service of right things, and that the goal is not to be the best in the world, but the best for the world. And I would have valued people as people, not as steps to my brighter future. Life Lesson 3: Relationships are all there is.

Summary

Amazing as it may seem, life is not altogether about you. What need do you see in others? Answering that question may be the most consequential thing you can do for yourself as an emerging university teacher. Additionally, if you are faced with an opportunity to work with an organization that serves public education, not strictly teaching at a university, such as was my case with SERVE and later with Triangle Leadership Academy, my advice is to take it. Doing so will only increase your capacity to help others. Finally, as Twyla Tharpe reminded us, remember what made you happy as a child and do that now. Your true self is waiting!