The Old Professor in action: a study in age and academia

It was a new phenomenon. One of us (GT) who lived in the US noticed it. Professors were getting older. They were no longer forced to retire at 65. They were all around. He thought that such a new phenomenon should be brought to the attention of the general public in America. The second one of us (LS) came into the picture as a frequent visitor to the US, and a man having an interest in the changing social picture of academia on both sides of the Atlantic. (Besides, GT and LS have had a long history of interactions, starting with playing junior chess in Hungary in the 1930s.) As electronics engineers we decided to publish our observations in the Proceedings of the Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which had a Section called “Point of View”, allowing members to comment on wider issues.

Nine years have passed since then. Discrimination on the basis of age has stopped being an exclusive American concern. It has also taken root in the British Isles. Having an Old Professor here and there in the UK is no longer a rarity. We believe it is time that we shared our knowledge, acquired on both sides of the Atlantic, with the British public. We have asked the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers to allow our paper, published in 2013, to be republished in TheArticle in a slightly modified form. This permission has been very kindly granted. The modification comes mainly from the vocabulary used and dropping topics which are likely to be less interesting for a British audience.

We have no desire to get bogged down in arguments for or against abolishing compulsory retirement age. The main purpose of this article is to point out the differences between the activities of Old Professors (OPs) and Regular Professors (RPs). To be comprehensive is impossible. We must confine our analysis to a few important aspects, like the style of the OP’s lecturing, his approach to being on Committees, and to supervising graduate students. We are highly qualified to provide such information, since we are both in our early nineties , and both are still active at our respective universities in England and the United States.

The OP in the lecture room
Although it may not be claimed universally that all professors love lecturing, we would maintain that by the time the OPis past official retirement age his fondness of lecturing duties is likely to be at maximum. Why? First, because it is a jobwhich they find easy to do. When you have lectured on the same topic for years and years it is no great effort to give the same lectures again. The second reason is that all their accumulated store of jokes must have an outlet. If you give a lecture to, say, second-year students, then it follows from the nature of the things that in a year’s time most of the second-year students will be different, so you can deliver the same joke with the same wooden face, and you may expect in the samemanner the wave of laughter that follows. As we all know, the age of student revolution is over. Today’s students, at least in the Sciences, are quite willing to laugh at the Professor’s jokes. In fact, they are willing to laugh at the Professors’ jokes,whether they are in the OP or RP category. There is, however, a difference. Most RPs believe (rightly or wrongly) thatthey have to refresh their repertoire each year. OPs do not feel such urge.

We must also mention anecdotes. They are extracted from the same store where jokes reside, and they are of the same kind, but there is a difference. Jokes are short and poignant, while anecdotes can be long. Jokes are age neutral; anecdotes might be neutral too (in the sense that age is not a factor) when told by RPs. Here is, for example, the well-known anecdote about Faraday and Gladstone that might be delivered by an RP: ‘‘Would electricity be of any use in the future?’’ Gladstone asks Faraday. He replies with prescience: ‘‘Yes, sir, one day you will tax it.’’

But the anecdotes an OP might deliver are of a different kind. He himself will be the protagonist in all of them. And all of them will serve some purpose. They are designed to demonstrate that the OP is not a tottering old man, not a bumbling idiot. No, he is as smart as ever, and he has a grandiose past. He will tell stories about the great scientists and engineers (most of them Nobel Prize winners) whom he knew in person, and he would emphasise that for getting the Nobel Prize one needs luck as well (clearly, he was unlucky). The stories will be reminiscences embellished without danger, because the Great Men are usually no longer around to contradict the narrator.

He might also tell anecdotes which show that some other OPs (not him!) might have become somewhat absentmindedwith age. There is the famous story of Prof. Theodore von Karman (pictured above, centre), who was one of the founders of the discipline of aeronautical engineering. (Born in Hungary, made his name in Aachen, moved to the United States when the Nazis came, resided in the Pentagon during the war, and lectured until late in his life at the California Institute of Technology.) The anecdote concerns the early morning lecture which Dr. von Karman delivered to his class in German. According to the legend, when he realised what he was doing and apologised, a kind student reassured him, ‘‘Professor, don’t worry. Itmakes very little difference.’’

Lecture- room technology
Let’s face it: OPs are not good at it. We use media that are behind by at least one generation. Our PowerPoint softwareis in great need of update, but we are afraid of downloading anything new from the Internet, in case we cannot handle it. So we soldier on, and when suddenly the integral equation disappears from the screen and is displaced by the birthdayparty of our youngest grandchild (or something worse), we turn to the class and with genuine humility ask for help. Invariably, help is offered quickly and efficiently. The present generation of students is kind and helpful. The integralequation is made to reappear in no time.

The Old Professor as a University Administrator
Some OPs have strong views about some truly important matters, e.g., to keep the area behind his building available for parking. In case there is a proposal in front of the Committee to build on that car park, the clever Chairman will put it as the last-but-one item on the agenda. Not the last one, because by some inner clockwork, the OP always wakes up when the last item is discussed. During the last-but-one item, he is, as a rule, soundly asleep and harmless.

The Old Prof as supervisor of graduate students
Since the OP has mellowed over the years, he is now regarded as a kindly and considerate person. As such, he is sought after by prospective research students who prefer a quiet life to an exciting adventure. He will not get the crème de la creme but, anyway, he is no longer interested in the top cream. An overly bright graduate student is often a nuisance, who needs time and energy, and might even cause some embarrassment. No. He wants those slightly below the top. The topics he hands them out will be similar enough so that the students can talk to each other, but different enough so that each topic can count as a separate Ph.D. The output he produces, three or four Ph.Ds a year, is of good quality, and are quickly picked up by industry. This may cause occasional tension with some RPs who are less successful in placing their Ph.Ds. These same RPs are often heard to mumble, ‘‘why doesn’t Old Smith retire?’’

Why doesn’t the Old Prof retire?
To succeed in most professions requires a long-term focused commitment. In return, the profession presents you with exciting challenges, and also allows close involvement with your students, as well as with your peers locally and worldwide. You definitely feel relevant to your students, to your colleagues, and to the world in general, while you are in practice. The thought of giving this all up while you are still in full possession of your abilities (or at least so you hope) is scary. Abandoning your half-finished students, papers, and books, as well as research projects seems to be irresponsible, and the thought of hundreds of future days without organised activities is horrifying. Also, the consequences of the ‘‘use it, or lose it’’ rule are threatening. So you soldier on, and hope for the best. You also hope thatyou give something worthwhile to humanity by doing so, which will survive you, and thus extend your effective life by at least a little.

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