Most of Polish professors are actually retired in place. They do the minimum required amount of teaching and put their names on (usually completely unoriginal) papers of their subordinates. Most of them didn't do any significant original research in decades. To pass the time (and to gain power to protect themselves from being kicked out etc.), they take on administrative functions such as deans, heads of units etc.
That’s not how it works in real life. Professors have PhDs in a narrow speciality in their field. They aren’t trained to be excellent teachers and teaching is often an unpleasant afterthought to them, as the main focus is doing research.
Interesting. That seems to be quite different from any other system I've encountered so far. Hereabouts being a professor is an all year job (with usual vacation times), with the two-fold task of doing research as well as doing teaching.
The time periods in which there are no classes are usually used by professors to focus more on their research and take their vacations (5 weeks per year like everyone else). Similarly, these time periods are not strictly holidays for students, with many students taking exams.
I've seen a few professors simply neglect their research and take the whole time period where they don't have classes as "vacation", but this seems to be limited to a few older professors who are still state employed, basically untouchable and seem to have lost their motivation over the years. They usually seem to not do much research at all anymore, but are often willing to pick up additional teaching duties to ease the load on their colleagues.
Most people however do actually work on their research in this time period.
Professors not knowing how to teach is common for research universities in the US. Their main job is research, and teaching is just something they do on the side.
It's not that they're unfocused on research, they don't do research as part of their CC duties. IME many are bored retirees, underemployed MS/MA holders, or adjuncts moonlighting.
IME many aren't technically professors either, instead they're instructors. It's a weird distinction but academics huff and puff about it a lot.
Professor do not only "talk," as the article states. He might be confusing them with instructors. Professors with research responsibilities, often 1/3rd to >50% of their duties, are "publish or perish". My professor was still publishing at age 78, and a European colleague of his moved to the U.S. because his country mandates retirement. https://iotmote.substack.com/p/a-tribute-to-carl-woese
In many countries a professor is usually extremely distinguished in their field, with perhaps twenty years' research experience, and you will only get a couple of them in each department, with some universities not having any.
I think in the US everyone just automatically gets the title 'professor.'
> professors at research universities don't view teaching as their main vocation but as something they have to do (their "real" job is research/writing papers).
Some of them view it this way, and end up being excellent lecturers. They get laid off for not publishing often enough or successfully enough. Like the one statistics professor I've had that was worth a damn.
My wife tutors at a college, and she said the same thing about the professors there. She said that most of them looked well past retirement age, and some could barely stand up on their own or talk loud enough for a class to hear them. Meanwhile, the younger people who want to teach are stuck being adjunct professors with no job stability or benefits, or working as tutors grading papers and picking up the slack for teachers that refuse to retire.
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