Letter Of Appointment (Teacher Contract) 5: Fill & Download for Free

[The following answer is mostly relevant to becoming a professor in literature, though some of the information is also applicable to the sciences. You can read the comments at the end for differing opinions.]Be warned: this is a long, detailed answer. Take a stiff drink before reading….Step #1 High School Degree: You get good grades in high school.You apply to a good school for the BA program.Step #2 Bachelor’s Degree: You get good grades in the BA program during those four years and start networking to find a mentor, and try to learn all you can. If you are in the humanities, you will also probably have to demonstrate proficiency in at least one foreign language—though that might not be the case in other fields. You do that by successfully passing the equivalent of 12 credit-hours of coursework, at least 6 of which must be sophomore-level, but you can also gain equivalency by taking tests to demonstrate to your knowledge.Step #3 Admittance into Graduate School: During the senior year of the BA, you start looking for a two-year master’s program at another (preferably slightly more prestigious) school, and you apply to several with letters of recommendation from your teachers.If you don’t get it, you either give up and take a new profession, or you sit out for a year and try again.If you do get in, you only pursue it if the school offers you financial support in the form of a graduate teaching fellowship (GTF), teaching assistantship (TA), or otherwise pays for your tuition with waivers. This means, you will not pay tuition, and in exchange you will work helping established professors teach large lecture classes, assist them in research projects, or else teach low-level courses for Gen Ed students—sometimes after some very brief pedagogical training, but often with little to no preparation at all.If the school lets you into a master’s program, but doesn’t provide any financial support except student loans, you politely decline. It’s way, way too risky to accumulate college debt when academic jobs are so rare and competitive. You either wait a year and start the process over, or you pick another job.Step #4 Finish Your Master’s: In the master’s program, you will take two years of more advanced graduate classes. In the humanities, if you are at one of the better schools, you will probably have to demonstrate proficiency in a second foreign language—not the same one you used for the bachelor’s degree. Traditionally, if you used a Romance language for your bachelor’s, you will need a Germanic language at the master’s level, and vice-versa, though that is becoming more flexible. You show proficiency the same way as mentioned in the bachelor’s section—by passing four classes in that language or taking a proficiency test.Step #5-A: Thesis Research: The last year of the master’s program, you will typically write a master’s thesis. In the humanities, that might be a long study on a topic, perhaps 80–100 pages long, in which you provide some original insight or new information on the field that has never been argued before. The sciences, it will be some sort of lab research project with a shorter write-up afterward. You will have at least one advisor to guide your research, and usually two faculty readers, and you will sit with them at the end of the project for a thesis defense, in which there will be an oral examination and you will argue for the plausibility of your project’s results.Step #5-B: Ph.D. programsSome schools will combine the master’s program with the Ph.D. (doctoral program), and during the second year of graduate studies, you will undergo a qualifying examination. Students who score the highest may move on to the Ph.D., while the others take the master’s degree and then must apply to separate Ph.D. programs. In the sciences, some rare students go directly from the bachelor’s degree to the Ph.D., with no master’s degree in the middle. However, in the humanities, it is more common to earn a master’s at one school, then apply to a Ph.D. program separately.It’s considered bad form to gain all three degrees at the same institution. Normally, you seek to move up to more prestigious schools with each degree, if you can. That may involve moving across the country at least once, and possibly twice.Most master’s degrees are 30–36 credit-hour programs, and they typically take two years because you are enrolled in fewer hours and teaching at the same time, compared to the bachelor’s degree. Most Ph.D. programs take 3–6 years to complete, part of that variation depending on how much teaching or lab work you are doing while you are working on the degree.Note that in the humanities, if you are at one of the better schools, or if you are in a field like medieval studies, classical studies, or history, you will again need to show proficiency in a third foreign language as part of your coursework. Typically, they want you to choose a language relevant to your research in some way or a language in which significant scholarship is done in your field. (If you don’t like foreign languages, becoming a professor may be a very bad idea—however, the sciences usually don’t require so much background in other languages.)Step #6 Dissertation Research: The last year or two of the Ph.D. is spent doing your doctoral dissertation, a long, book-length study of a subject you will write in a process similar to the master’s thesis. Then you get the title of doctor—but you are still not a professor! The title doctor refers to the degree of Ph.D., while the title professor refers to an academic rank in the hierarchy of a university. People can be a doctor without being a professor or — more rarely — they can be a professor without being a doctor.At this point, you usually try to get the doctoral dissertation published through some scholarly publisher, and you go on the job market. To become a professor in the USA, you need to get a “tenure-track” job, as opposed to a lower-ranking, less-well paying job like a “lecturer” or “instructor,” or part-time work as “adjunct.”The job market is terrible and competitive. The majority of Ph.D. graduates will not get tenure jobs their first year. Many, many of them may not even get lecturer or instructor jobs, and some must settle for doing a “post doc” (a one-year post-doctorate appointment during laboratory scutwork). Some may wind up doing 3–6 years of such post-docs, and then either drift out of academia or get stuck doing adjunct work. (Edit: in this thread, some commentators in the sciences suggest post-docs have more prestige in their field than they do in the humanities, so this may vary.)Adjuncts are the worst position in terms of pay, recognition, and benefits. These are part-time teaching positions given as scraps or leftovers to non-tenured, non-full-time faculty. They pay so poorly, adjuncts may work at 2 (or 3, or 4!) different schools doing one class there, then commuting somewhere else to a different job there, all for terrible pay. They can try to compete for full-time jobs by publishing research, but that very rarely works. My advice is, if you try to be a professor, and you find yourself doing adjunct work, you might want to set aside an academic career and do something else with your talents and skills. The knowledge you gain in a Ph.D. will make you enticing to a variety of occupations, not just academia, which at least in the humanities suffers from a glut of labor right now.Step #7: Seeking TenureIf you’ve made it this far, a small percentage (less than a third in my field of literature) of those Ph.D. doctors will be hired on tenure-track jobs, which is the first step to becoming a full professor. Typically, when you are hired on tenure track, it is a 5–7 year contract. Once you are hired, you gain the rank of “Assistant Professor.”During that time, you will teach classes at the hiring university, and you’ll have a 3-year or 5-year review when you sit down with your department head or the provost and discuss your progress and how you are doing. At a research institute, their main concerns will be how your research is going. During that 5–7 year period, they’d like to see you publish 3–5 scholarly articles or publish a book-length monograph, be active in national scholarly organizations, and present 3–5 papers at academic conferences.In the sciences, where there is a lot of group collaboration, the administrators de-emphasize book-length monographs, but want to see you as “P.I.” or “Primary Investigator” on 3–5 experiments that get published as papers in scholarly journals and maybe as a secondary investigator on another 7–12. They’ll also want to see you apply for and land some large financial grants to run and operate laboratories (which are spendy!).At smaller teaching schools rather than R1 research universities, what will get you tenure is more your teaching, your classroom performance, and doing committee work for the university. They will tend to de-emphasize research and want to see good teaching evaluations and a list of successful students you mentored who went on to successful careers with your guidance.Your sixth or seventh year of the position, you apply for promotion and tenure. Sometimes, that is bundled into one application, but other schools treat them as two separate applications. If you get tenure/promotion, you gain the rank of “associate professor” and a pay-raise. (Typically, academics only get promotion and accompanying pay-raises maybe three-times over the course of their career, which is a contrast with most other professions.)If you are tenured, this means you and the school have a commitment to each other. People mistakenly think this means you cannot be fired any more, but that’s not quite the case. Tenure typically means you cannot be fired for researching or teaching academically controversial material unless a vote from the faculty senate agrees to terminate you, which means it is a lot of hassle and trouble to get rid of you in that regard if you have the full support of your research colleagues or teaching colleagues.However, just like any worker outside academia, you can still be fired or disciplined by your Department Chair or higher-ups for (a) unprofessional conduct, (b) illegal activity, (c) financial distress for the college, or (d) neglecting your duties of teaching and research. Tenure is not a job for life!Step #8: Working up to Associate ProfessorAfter becoming an associate professor, you are now eligible to apply for a sabbatical once every seven years. A sabbatical means that, for either one full year or one full semester, you are freed from teaching duties and can instead focus full time on your research. Typically, at the end of the sabbatical, you are expected to reveal a new book you have written or some other substantive academic project. (If you don’t produce that, you might never have another sabbatical approved again!)Step #9: Becoming a Full ProfessorAs an associate professor, you will not be eligible for status as a “full professor” for another 7–10 years, depending on school policies. You continue teaching, publishing, and doing committee work, and after that you can apply to become a full professor, so it takes maybe 14 -17 years to earn that rank. To be granted it, you often have to demonstrate some sort of leadership in the college—such as serving as a Department Chair, heading a difficult committee, or participating in the Faculty Senate.The only rank higher than “Full professor” is “Professor Emeritus.” This honor is typically only given to professors the year before they retire. It comes with no additional duties or responsibilities because it is primarily honorific. Achieving that rank may be accompanied by a festschrift, i.e., a collection of research essays written by your former graduate students who publish it with a dedication to you and a letter of thanks for all you have contributed to the field.Conclusion:I love being a professor, but I encourage interested students to think long and hard about how much time, work, and money is involved. The odds are stacked against you, especially in my field of literature. In the late 1980s, for a single job opening as a literature professor, there might be 200–400 applicants apply for it. Even at small liberal arts colleges like the one where I teach, we might get 40–60 applicants for a single job. There’s no guarantee after doing all the work that you’ll ever be hired.So, if you love learning and love your topic, keep this challenge in mind. Graduate school isn’t for people who just love a topic. It’s for people who are obsessed with a topic and willing to work for years to achieve their goals. If that’s not you, don’t wander into it by default. Keep your eyes open about the odds, or at least keep in mind that you can do a lot of things with a Ph.D. besides becoming a professor.

Well.. let me tell you. An acquaintance of mine in High School back in the late 80’s had a similar situation.He was accepted for enlistment, and accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy. He had recommendations of five of his teachers in High School, including the NJROTC Naval Science Instructor, a Navy Commander. He had recommendation letters from two U.S. Congressmen, and one of our Senators.He had ASVAB scores in the top 5% nation-wide. They WANTED him. Badly. He was offered some significant bonuses for accepting the appointment to the Academy.Then, three months before he was to get on the plane, he and some buddies vandalized a phone booth (remember those?). He managed to drop his wallet in the process.Remember ALL those recommendations? ASVAB scores? Inducement contract worth tens of thousands of dollars? Know what all that meant? Fuck all.Six months later, he was working fast food and living with his girlfriend and her parents.Unless you recently saved the Secretary of Defenses daughters life, or something equally impressive, your chances of getting that waiver are pretty slim.But, you have nothing to lose by trying.I wonder what ever happened to that guy?

This invites exploration of Judaean history in the early decades of the modern era. Nearly all the Questions on this broad topic are invitations to confirm faith, something in which I have no interest; my corresponding Answers will mean nothing to them. Those who kindly read my Answers expect something more substantial.First, I must mention that pretending to be Jewish was quite the thing two millennia ago:Hypsistarians: “i.e. worshippers of the Hypsistos (Greek: Ὕψιστος, the "Most High" God), is a term that appears in documents that date from around 200 BC to around AD 400, referring to various groups mainly in Asia Minor (Cappadocia, Bithynia and Pontus) and the Black Sea coasts that are today part of Russia.”Some modern scholars identify the group, or groups, with God-fearers, non-Jewish (gentile) sympathizers with Second Temple Judaism.[1][2]Now, on to Judaea and missionary-led conversions.According to Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, xix. 9. § 1:Drusilla (daughter of Herod Agrippa) “She was six years of age at the time of her father's death at Caesarea in 44. Her father had betrothed her to Gaius Julius Archelaus Antiochus Epiphanes, first son of King Antiochus IV of Commagene,[1] with a stipulation from her father that Epiphanes should embrace the Jewish religion.[2] The prince in the end refused to abide by his promise to do so, and the marriage had still not been contracted on her father's death.”Once Drusilla's brother, Herod Agrippa II, had been assigned the tetrachy of Herod Philip I (along with Batanea, Trachonites and Abila) in around 49/50, he broke off her engagement to Epiphanes and gave her in marriage to Gaius Julius Azizus, Priest King of Emesa, who, in order to obtain her hand, consented to be circumcised.[2] Herod also at around this time married Mariamne to her betrothed, Julius Archelaus Epiphanes.She then married a freedman of Antonia Minor - an explicit Chrestian (according to a Roman inscription):It appears that it was shortly after her first marriage was contracted that Antonius Felix, the Roman procurator of Judea, met Drusilla, probably at her brother's court (Berenice, the elder sister, lived with her brother at this time, and thus Drusilla probably did too). Felix was struck by the great beauty of Drusilla, and determined to make her his (second) wife.She was about nineteen years of age when she appeared at Felix's side, during St. Paul's captivity at Caesarea - the Book of Acts 24:24 reports her thus:"Several days later Felix came [back into court] with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess."The works of archaeologist Robert Eisenman inspired this essay by Andrew Gould, Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, which describes that meeting:Synopsis of The New Testament CodePaul is put on trial. Although Acts does not make very clear the charges, Felix, the governor, keeps him under house arrest (probably actually protective custody). Felix and his wife Drusilla (not identified as such but actually the sister of King Agrippa II) carry on conversations with Paul over the course of 2 years(!) about theological and perhaps other matters. At this point (60 C.E.) Festus succeeds Felix and is pressed by “the Jews” once again about Paul, whom Festus then gives a new trial. Again, the charges are not clear. Paul demands an appeal to the emperor Nero, a request that is granted. Before he can depart, however, Festus introduces Paul to King Agrippa II and his sister/mistress Bernice, to whom Paul delivers a chapter-long speech recounting his own conversion. The king say “You almost persuade me to become a Christian”, (Acts 26:28) and says that Paul would have been set free immediately had he not appealed to Nero (Acts 26:32).Actually, the term is Chrestian, as we see used in the oldest Bible:We are therefore learning of the conversion of kings, queens, royal courts and nations local to Judaea, at the same time as Chrestians are plotting and scheming to counteract themNone of these had such an impact as that the conversions of the king and queen described by Josephus as Izates and his mother, Helen. Josephus goes into this in great detail, however:No such people exist in the historical, or archaeological record; they are not rulers of Adiabene.Instead, Izates is:Abgar V: “Abgar V the Black or Abgarus V of Edessa (Arabic: أبجر الخامس أوكاما‎, translit. ʾAḇgar al-kḤəmiš ʾUkkāmā,Syriac: ܐܒܓܪ ܚܡܝܫܝܐ ܐܘܟܡܐ‎, translit. ʾAḇgar Ḥəmišāyā ʾUkkāmā, Armenian: Աբգար Ե Եդեսացի, translit. Abgar Hingerord Yedesatsi, Greek: Ἄβγαρος Abgaros) (BC 4 – AD 7 and AD 13–c. 40) was the historical Arab[1][2][3][4][5] ruler of the kingdom of Osroene,[6] holding his capital at Edessa.[7]”Eisenman’s The Sociologogy of MMT and the Conversions of King Agbarus and Queen Helen of Adiabene and follow-up papers describe correspondence between James, the Teacher of Righteousness at Qumran, with ‘Izates’, “Abgarus”, meaning ‘Great King’. The letter instructs the king on how to rule as a good, Observant Jew. This is parodied in the Christian, textual tradition with the Letter of King Abgar to Jesus.It was such conversions to Judaism, during the rule of the patriotic Herod Agrippa (who supported James and his community known as The Poor) that frightened the imperial cult of Chrestianity, which was concerned with protecting imperial clients from local rebels.This is why Acts of the Apostles celebrates the death - probably assassination by poisoning - of Herod Agrippa:On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to them.22 The people kept shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a mortal!”23 And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.Chrestians feared that he was building up the defences of Jerusalem and Judaea, in preparation for a war of independence.Meanwhile, The Poor wrote The War Scroll.The First Jewish-Roman War was looming.