At the beginning of my Preparing the Future Professoriate class this semester, Dean DePauw asked us to write what we thought it meant to be a professor. Below I will copy my response from the beginning semester (which I will have pasted in after I write how I now feel at the end of the semester).

To be a professor (as in the sort I think I would like to become, which I recognize is certainly not the same kind all would like to be) is to commit to a lifetime of learning and mentorship and service. As a professor, I will teach, mentor, and serve in a way that makes the world a better place. I would like to provide opportunities for undergrads and grads to do research and to learn both in and outside of the classroom.

To be a faculty member is to commit one’s career to research, teaching, mentorship, and service. There are also implications for the personal life of a faculty member. For example, in many settings, faculty are seen as spokespersons and representatives of their institutions; new faculty might fare well to keep PR in mind with respect to public statements. To be a tenured faculty member is to then be able to make statements and do research with more concern for veracity than for political harmony. I think it is very important that tenured faculty feel quite secure in their position so that our knowledge can advance whether or not the interests in power condone a line of research.

It appears that I removed research from what I thought it is to be a professor; however, I now view research as one of a professor’s primary ways to serve the community and humanity, contributing to public knowledge seems to be a Great way to make the world a better place.

For many grad students, the process of choosing an adviser can be likened to courting. I cannot speak for other students, but I imagine I am not unique in my feelings. It is important to me that I share interests with my professor, but I would like them to be different enough from me that I feel that we will have much to learn from each other. It is also important to me that I can imagine a working relationship with the person: some form of prompt feedback/communication, our preferred working hours should overlap enough that we can meet face to face, our expected levels of hygiene for each other should be compatible, our senses of humor or lack there of should not be completely incompatible, and etc. So if this process of choosing an adviser is in some ways similar to courting, what of the courting etiquette does/should carry over? (What is the etiquette of courting anyways? Whether or not the etiquette carries over, what is the etiquette of this process?)

As I meet different professors and their students, aside from concerns about taking their resources, at what point am I being too much of a tease? When is it understandable for a professor to assume that I am their student? At what point do I need to stop working with professors so that I am not leading them on?

How does Intellectual Property play into the work of grad students? Particularly, when should the grad student and their group (professor, other students, etc.) seek out IP rights of their work? It seems to be that it would be nice to give the institution and opportunity to recover some of its investment in the project, but when things like patents are concerned, it complicates the work. For example, when I am no longer just trying to get things done, but now trying to finish work that will be patented, must I start recording every conversation so that who contributes what and therefore what percentage of the patent they will hold is more obvious? Why should my group mates share anything with me at all? Wouldn’t it be in their best interests to keep any ideas to themselves to patent as their own (in conjunction with the institution as necessary) so that they do not have to divide the ownership? Won’t this lead to less openness in research groups and inefficiencies due to record keeping of each persons every contribution? Am I devaluing the importance of IP? Maybe all projects should pay very close attention to precisely who contributed what whether or not there is a patent in question? If there is not patent, then maybe the only outcome can be name recognition or “fame” anyways, and so to receive one’s rightful recognition, their contributions should be meticulously documented? How do I know when I share an idea that the idea is new to the rest of the group? In order for me to get credit for the most ideas should i just spew out unfiltered stream of consciousness brainstorming and basically try to say every possible thing first? Should I write in a similar way publicly rather than speaking it so that my group doesn’t have to hear it all, but at least received notification that i thought of it?

At what point does patenting a work become contrary to the mission of sharing the knowledge that the public enables me to research/find/acquire?

It’s not at all about the Benjamins. In fact it is all about the minute hands. Professors all have different ways of managing and interacting with their students. I tend to prefer the professors who have a model most dissimilar (in their own various ways) to a business model of management. I don’t really want to think of my professor as my employer (Hooray I won’t need to anyways!). Even the professors that run their group most unlike a business, there is still the reality that this professor has a limited amount of time. How much time should a new student, especially one who has not chosen a particular professor as their adviser, take from that professor? Depending on how the professor manages its time, the new student is just stealing time from existing students. Ethically how much time can I take from a professor without declaring them my adviser? A professor has to spend some time recruiting new students, but at what point is the student exploiting this fact and taking more than their unfair share of professors’ time?

I’m quite late on this post, but HOORAY! I have been awarded one of the 2010 College of Engineering Graduate Teaching Fellowships! (At the time of this writing my picture had not yet been uploaded.) This will facilitate development of my teaching skills and philosophy. The fellowship also provides me 3 years of funding, so I need not depend on an adviser for funding. And, the flip side, is that an adviser need not fund me. As part of the fellowship, I will teach Engineering workshops, then I will be a TA again, but with a more participatory role than might be typical, and finally I will be the instructor for a course! The program also requires that I take a number of courses in the Preparing the Future Professoriate program, but I’ve already started on them! This program, and the resources it will provide are sure to accelerate my becoming an excellent professor.