On Being an Emeritus Professor > IDEAS & IDEALS

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One of the most frequent questions being asked of me recently by some of my close friends is what exactly the emeritus professor is. They know that I have retired recently as a professor of English, but they also know that I am not entirely severed from the university work. They know I still have some business with the university and continue to frequent the campus. They know I am no longer a professor, but act as somebody like it. They hate it.

     They have heard of the emeritus professor, and they know I am the one. They are curious whether it is better with the word "emeritus" or without it. They seem to know that the title looks and sounds good, nay, even better, but empty and hollow in practice and reality. Anyway, they are dying of curiosity.

     I try to explain as broadly and generally as possible at first. The title 'emeritus' in Korea is just an honorary one given almost automatically to the retired professors who have worked more than twenty or twenty-five years for the university, although the required conditions or standards vary slightly depending upon the universities. Some nod as a sign of understanding, but more remain silent in doubt and suspicion, as if I am withholding some vital information from them. I know that they have more specific questions to ask concerning the mysterious title I have.

     "What is the benefit and the obligation, then, with the title?" Someone gets directly into the heart of the matter. "None. Almost nothing. It is nothing but a mere title," I reply with my tongue in my cheek. Still the questioner looks dissatisfied with my answer. I try to convince him with the following punch-line: "The only benefit or the privilege I enjoy with the title is a course of lecture allotted to me in a semester for the time being. I get paid only for the three hours I teach in a week. In other words, from a full-time professor, I have become a part-time lecturer with the pompous title of the emeritus."

     In nine cases out of ten they cease to inquire more about this matter, but some are always more dogged and persistent than others. "Can't you teach more if you want? Do they pay more per hour than the ordinary part-time lecturers? Do they give you an office-room? How long can you hold the title?"

     Let me answer the questions one by one. Of course I want to teach more hours if they allow me to, but they rarely do for many reasons. I get paid a little bit more per hour than the other ordinary, young and poor part-time lecturers who have just started their academic career in the universities. I can use the title until I die, but in my case I cannot prolong the length of extra teaching more than five years. It depends upon the decision, precedence, or caprice of the department. No office-room is provided. Any more questions? No? Good! I sigh with relief.

     Wait! According to my long experience in the classroom the best question comes last, and it is usually the most difficult one to answer. It is even very pedagogical as well as philosophical. "Isn't it improper or unreasonable for the Korean universities to produce so many emeritus professors every year throughout the country so that they make the honorable title virtually useless, nay, meaningless? Shouldn't there be high standards for selecting the emeritus professors so that they would be respected and honored both in name and reality? In other words, shouldn't the noble title be issued to only those outstanding worthy few, such as Nobel prize winners in physics, chemistry or in something?"

     He is right. I can not help but agree with him. But very unfortunately I remain silent with my mouth shut, simply because I cannot answer the last question. You know, as I said, I am the one who belongs to the category of the emeritus professors whom the last questioner castigates indirectly. I am an emeritus professor without any particular academic achievement or distinction. My only asset for becoming one is the tenacity. I feel guilty and ashamed.

     I know most of these questions posed above arise originally from the envy of and the contempt for me. They are envious of me who continue working after retirement. They are contemptuous of me who am unable to be satisfied with my long period of work and cling to it as if a full gown-up boy clings to his mother's nipple as the sucking babies do. They are telling me that there are no reasons for me to work any more. They definitely feel pity for me who do not know when to stop working and how to enjoy life as they are doing now.

     I understand them well enough, simply because I had the same opinion and feeling towards my colleagues who lingered around the campus after their retirement. I thought they had had it enough. And there were no reasons for them to trespass on the university campus any more. They were not so financially pressed as to earn some extra money by teaching hours. They were, on the contrary, rich enough to go abroad to golf during the vacation when they were on the work. Nor were they so invaluable in scholarship as not to be replaced by any other persons. Hardly. Why, then, did they trouble themselves by haunting the old school campus like ghosts and being seen by the young students and youthful former colleagues with their wrinkled face, stooped back and white hair? Now I am the very ghost that I detested so much.

     August is half past already, and September is just around the corner. Come September, the new semester will start again without fail. The ghost in me, like Dracula rousing himself with the coming of darkness, is listening to the call coming from the old campus. It is a wild call and clear call that may not be denied. Only it will be a slightly different ghost from the one you saw last semester. I have yielded to the tenacious exhortation of my wife and married children and decided to have my white hair dyed black, lest I should frighten my students and old colleagues less.  
     (August 15, 2007)