College professor

Duties and responsibilities: A member of our Board of Regents once calculated the amount of time that professors spend in the classroom. He used that number, and his assumption that professors only work at the front of a classroom, to conclude that professors of higher education only work about 200 hours a year.
     I was surprised that anyone charged with oversight of an academic insititution (or any institution) would have so little idea what their employees were doing. His remark prompted me to make the following list of things that college and university professors are required to do outside the classroom:

Work directly related to classroom teaching:

· Prepare lectures for classes

· Prepare syllabi for classes

· Prepare labs for classes

· Grade class assignments

· Prepare exams

· Give make-up exams

· Grade exams

· Calculate grades

· Meet with students outside class for help

· Integrate new learning into existing classes

· Develop new classes

Salary: College professors may teach at either private or public universities; their level of expertise and interest will determine where they spend the bulk of their years teaching. If a professor can obtain a position at a prestigious private university, he or she will most likely be paid a lot more than at a second-tier or lesser-known public school.