ADVICE TO A POSTULANT-PROFESSORnby Jacob NeusnernIf I could tell every first-year graduate student in Americanone thing, it is this: The campus is not a calling, it is justnanother career.nIf university teaching serves your purposes, come andnjoin us. If not, follow your star in a different firmament. Inngraduate school, learn in order to sell your knowledge andnmake a living. And make your living in ways that sustainnyour interest. The challenge of life to people with intellectualngifts is to avoid boredom, to remain engaged. Others donnot need what you do. That is what has drawn you forwardnto graduate school, that curiosity and a will to know. Then,nif it serves your personal purposes to get a Ph.D. and go onnto work as a professor, do it.nWhen I aspired to life as a professor, it was for threenreasons: to learn, to teach, to share. The learning wentnbetter than I hoped, the teaching much less well, and, withnfew exceptions, I have known little sharing. If you see thenlife of teaching and scholarship as a mode of service, as annexpression of idealism, your vision discerns what is notnthere. That calling—a vocation to civil debate and discussionnabout matters of reason, and that commitment to teachnthrough discovery and to impart knowledge through engagementnof mind to mind—those ideals out of a distant,ngentle past today do not serve. They are not even wanted. Ifnyou do come to the campus with that calling to reasonedninquiry, you will suffer derision and finally destruction.nAt this season in graduate schools all over America,ntomorrow’s generation of college and university professorsntake up the tasks of first-year graduate students. Let me tellnthem how things look from the other end of an academicncareer. You are in your early 20’s, I am in my middle-50’s.nYou are starting out, I am nearly finished.nBefore me I see young men and women who havencompleted first-class B.A.’s and have therefore gained anvision of themselves as future scholars and teachers, professorsnto the coming generation of students. They havenchosen to prepare for a life of teaching and research,nkeeping to the path they chose when they entered college asnfreshmen. Clearly, the first four years, when they finishedntheir initial education, made them want more. So thesenyoung people, in their early 20’s, choose to go forward,ntoward the Master’s and then the Ph.D. Thirty-seven yearsnago I entered college, and I never left—or wanted to leave.nAfter nearly four decades of university life and nearly threendecades of teaching and publishing research of my own,nwhat have I to offer as advice to the next generation?nThe universities and colleges you will inherit are not thenones we came to build, and, it follows, the way we shapednour lives should not be yours. We shaped our careers tonserve three causes: scholarship, teaching, collegial citizenship.nWe deemed success the writing of books, the raisingnup of a new generation of thoughtful students, and thenJacob Neusner is Ungerleider Distinguished Scholar ofnJudaic Studies at Brown University.nsharing of common responsibilities in the building of ancampus community of intellect and heart. We measurednsuccess by our capacity to contribute to knowledge in somenspecific way, to share knowledge with others, both innwriting and in the classroom, and to learn from others andnjoin with others in a common life of intellect. We did notnsucceed all the time, or even very often. But these formednthe royal way, the golden measure: scholarship and learning,nteaching and sharing, citizenship and caring. It was angracious ideal, a nourishing and caring faith of the academynand in the academy. We formed that faith not within ournown minds alone but in what we saw in the generation thatnhad brought us up.nOur ideals were right for the time in which we shapednthem. They are wrong for your time and will not serve innthe universihes that you will soon inherit. We—many ofnus—wanted to continue a life of learning, which meant tonpursue a curiosity that led us we knew not where or why. Sondo you. And if you wish to conduct your own research andnscholarship, in our day and society, most of you can do itnonly in universities or colleges. There is no living to benmade outside of the academy in most academic fields. True,nin engineering, many of the hard sciences, and mathematics,nyou can hope to pursue research not supported bynteaching—hence as a professor in a college—but supportednin research institutes, corporations, government, and thenlike. In the social sciences, sociology, political science, andneconomics, for example, there are research inshtutes innwhich you can make your way. But unless you haveninherited money, on a full-time, lifelong basis, you cannotnstudy Greek and Roman literature or medieval history ornEnglish literature or religion or other of the humanities,nunless you get a Ph. D. and work as a college professor. Andnif that is what you want to do, then you should get thenPh. D. and follow that curiosity that draws you forward intonthe field of your choice.nTo state matters bluntly: if you have to teach in a collegenin order to pursue the research you wish to undertake, thenngo, teach. Otherwise, pursue learning in some othernsetting. Universities these days are not led by scholars andneducators, and they do not value teaching or scholarship.nWriting a book will make you many enemies, but it will notnwin you much appreciation for your gifts to your field.nTeaching through engagement with your students will makenyour students hate you, and it will not gain for you thenrespect and appreciation of anyone on the campus or oflF.nCommitment to the life of your department and university,nservice on committees, devotion to excellence in thenconduct of the life of the academy—these supererogatoryntasks will win for you the enmity of those with whom younwork and the appreciation of no one.nThe things we thought mattered when our generationncame on the scene—scholarship, publication, an engagementnwith students’ minds, commitment to excellence innour campus—these no longer find a place on the campus.nnnSEPTEMBER 1987 123n