Dive Summary:
- Being a university professor is indeed a stressful job, says Forbes contributor David Kroll in his response to a column by the publication's legal affairs columnist Susan Adams that listed "university professor" as the least stressful job of 2013.
- Kroll, a former professor himself, compiled a list of the top 10 reasons why being a university professor is stressful, with the top reasons including anonymous peer review being the basis for advancement and nearly every scholarly metric, universities rarely paying a full salary in fields like biomedical sciences and the requirement of faculty to provide salary and university benefits for research staff.
- Additionally, the post provides an 11th reason regarding the hot-button issue of "tenure" no longer being tenure, saying that the practice has a purpose in allowing academic freedom of thought without the threat of institutional retaliation and that while a tenured professor might not ever be fired, but can be made to wish they didn't have a job due to anonymous peer reviews.
From the article:
Being a university professor is in no way the least stressful job for 2013. In fact, 2013 is likely to be one of the worst years to be a university professor. But many pixels are being spent across the Forbes.com platform at the site of Forbes staff columnist, Susan Adams. Adams has been a legal affairs columnist at Forbes since 1995 and writes widely on leadership and careers. ...