More comfort than surprises in life on the other side To relieve stress and avoid burnout, the city editor of a small daily (circ. 22,500) and a journalism professor at the local university decided to trade places for a semester. The professor left the stress of chairing a department of 14 faculty and 250 majors and never being able to accomplish all the projects hanging over her. And the city editor left the stress of deadlines and constant worry about accuracy in content and grammar as she got out a newspaper each day. Because each took over the other's duties, the exchange cost nothing to the newspaper or the university. This dialogue details the problems they faced, the discoveries they made and the benefits they found from such an exchange. Professor turned editor: An hour after reporting for work as assistant city editor at The Leaf Chronicle, I looked up from my terminal as editor Doug Ray breezed by. When he asked, Are you overwhelmed yet? I could only manage a weak nod. What had seemed like a great idea only a month before, as city editor Patricia Ferrier and I planned our exchange, was beginning to form a lead ball in my stomach. In my real life, I chair the communication department at a small state university where I am a professor of mass communication. In addition to her work as city editor at The Leaf, Ferrier also serves as an adjunct professor for reporting and editing classes. When a flier on a stress management seminar came through the departmental mail, she and I had joked that we were too stressed out to take time off to attend the seminar. Then a light came on. Maybe a change of pace for both of us would reduce that stress and benefit our students at the same time. My dean, vice president, and president saw exciting possibilities and supported a straight exchange. Publisher Gene Washer was concerned about libel and other legal liability problems but was cautiously optimistic. Over several months we worked out solutions to anticipated problems. Ferrier would teach four journalism classes in order to provide a newsroom professional with up-todate skills in the classroom full time. I would serve as assistant city editor at the newspaper. That would update my skills and give me a chance to check out how helpful my lectures are to graduates coping with first jobs. The university would continue to pay my salary; the newspaper would do the same. For the duration of the exchange, The Leafs assistant city editor Terry Hollahan would move up to city editor, and two faculty members in my department would take over the chair's administrative duties. Editor turned professor: How could teaching two journalism classes a day be anything but a vacation from the stress of supervising a six-reporter news section for a daily newspaper? How could teaching two classes a day be anywhere near as stressful and tiring as coping with angry readers, frustrated reporters and the demands of getting a newspaper out on time every day? It couldn't possibly be, I thought when Kanervo suggested that we switch jobs for a semester. I would be a full-time university instructor, and she would be a full-time city editor for a daily newspaper. I looked on it as a vacation from stress and felt guilty that I was sending Kanervo into the newsroom while I prepared to bask in the sun of academia where, I was convinced, people are always rational and filled with the love of learning and no one ever loses patience or tempers. While I worked quietly in an office with a door that I could close, with my own computer, with a telephone that wouldn't ring constantly, Kanervo would be working in a chaotic newsroom from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. three days a week and from 2 p.m. until whenever (probably after midnight) on Fridays and Saturdays for the entire spring semester. I, on the other hand, would be teaching two classes a day, grading papers and talking to students, and I'd be home early enough that starting to cook dinner at 7:30 p. …