ABSTRACT
The academic profession is at the heart of the university. Without a well-qualified, committed, and adequately compensated professoriate, no academic institution can be fully successful. The professors teach, do research, and through their activities define the university. Their work is, in essence, the university. Everything else-administrative structures, laboratories, libraries-exists to assist the academic profession in the basic tasks of teaching and research. Universities are highly complex institutions that have multiple roles in society and, in the contemporary context, the central role of the professoriate is sometimes forgotten. This chapter seeks to discuss the role of the academic profession in the university and to focus on some key characteristics of the profession in a period of considerable turmoil. At the center of this consideration is the conviction that the professoriate is the most important element in the university. 1
