tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post8364909478647452107..comments2024-03-22T01:06:23.845-07:00Comments on Confessions of a College Professor: NYT Is Clueless on EducationDoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-64943825535366293622014-03-03T22:11:08.945-08:002014-03-03T22:11:08.945-08:001. This isn't true. I concede some politically...1. This isn't true. I concede some politically connected people get it, but I've known quite a few tenured professors with no political connections to get it as well. It would make more sense to work to stop the abuses than eliminate it for all. Just because some people use steak knives as weapons doesn't mean nobody should have steak knives, right?<br /><br />2. So, now you're talking union fees of some sort? I was a permanent faculty, too, and never paid such fees. Unions are a different matter entirely. I'm unaware of any special monthly fees for having tenure.<br /><br />3. This could be, but it doesn't mean tenure is bad. NAMBLA and various Fascist groups are vociferous about free speech, but this doesn't make free speech bad, either.<br /><br />4. This is the same argument as 3. Tenure being sometimes improperly awarded for the wrong reasons doesn't make all tenure everywhere bad.<br /><br />I make no argument that tenure is perfect, and "job for life" strikes me as a bad idea in principle...but having seen tenure slow down what's happening in higher education, it seems to do more good than harm.Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-16056710045141443192014-03-03T17:49:46.718-08:002014-03-03T17:49:46.718-08:00By the way, tenure does allow one to show up for w...By the way, tenure does allow one to show up for work the next day but doesn't guarantee that one has a job when one goes home.<br />Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-51129045761268810112014-03-03T17:48:35.173-08:002014-03-03T17:48:35.173-08:00Tenure/permanent status is worse than having nothi...Tenure/permanent status is worse than having nothing at all.<br /><br />1. It gives people the false hope that it will protect them from being canned. That protection, in reality, is applied selectively. Only the politically well-connected receive it. The rest take their chances.<br /><br />2. It is legalized theft. Each month, I paid my staff association fee and that staff association promised to work on my behalf. It did very little for me while I was being bullied and knew about how my rights as an instructor were being violated when illicit material was put in my personnel file.<br /><br />3. It is academic welfare. Often, the staunchest defenders of tenure are those who least deserve it. They want the promised protection in order to do whatever they like without being held accountable for it.<br /><br />4. It is false elitism. Some of the most vociferous on the matter are working in the more frivolous fields, such as the numerous "XXX-Whatever Studies" programs. Are they so vital to academe or society that their jobs must be protected? Will society collapse if all those doing work in, say, Coleslawvanian clog dancing, were laid off? It might if universities abolish programs devoted to cancer research.<br /><br />So why continue the falsehood?<br />Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-63638135174473729242014-03-03T08:48:07.942-08:002014-03-03T08:48:07.942-08:00Tenure doesn't even "guarantee" allo...Tenure doesn't even "guarantee" allowing to come to work the next day (see SLU's treatment of tenured faculty in the French department, among many other examples). It helps a little, and I trust you'll at least concede tenure status is better than adjunct status?<br /><br />The link is certainly an interesting read(been a long time since I've read Lorenz), and explains some really vile behavior I've seen from some faculty...but academic mobbing is not tied to tenure, except that tenure might protect, a little, from such inane activity.<br /><br />Do you have a better way to protect from this type of insanity? Tenure may be pretty feeble protection, but I'm reluctant to abandon it for...nothing at all.Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-10912473538007219882014-03-03T08:13:40.668-08:002014-03-03T08:13:40.668-08:00(Note: at the institution where I used to teach, ...(Note: at the institution where I used to teach, "tenure" was a forbidden word because it sounded too much like university-speak. Instead, we had permanent status.)<br /><br />In my case, permanent status was useless in preventing my administrative enemies from attempting to have me leave under duress. My reputation and my authority were constantly undermined, contrary to whatever regulations and codes of ethics existed at the time. Permanent status didn't prevent people from putting information in my personnel file which was not only false but added without my knowledge, thereby preventing me from reviewing it and writing a rebuttal.<br /><br />Shortly after I started teaching, my institution took over another one in the region. The latter establishment opened several years after mine did and was supposed to be a competitor, of sorts. It also offered studies in areas that the one I was at didn't. As it turned out, the administration ran that place into the ground and, so, my institution was allowed to pick over the remains and take what it wanted.<br /><br />When all of that went on, at least one well-established department at my institution was closed down, partly to make room for the people coming over from the now-defunct place and because the senior administration thought that what was taught by that group could be handled by the "private sector". (As it turns out, many people in that business thought the graduates from those private colleges weren't as good.)<br /><br />Many of the instructors in that department had permanent status. That did not prevent the institution from giving them the boot. For that matter, I don't recall that any of them were offered different jobs. They were simply tossed out with the day's trash. Some of them took legal action, but it did them no good.<br /><br />The only thing that tenure (or permanent status, whichever is applicable) guarantees is that whoever has it is allowed to come to work the next day the establishment is in operation. Others than that, it is useless and administrative vapourware.<br /><br />For more on how useless tenure is, take a look at what Ken Westhues says on the matter, particularly with regard to academic mobbing:<br /><br />http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/index.html<br />Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-38980055834054292282014-03-02T21:53:47.074-08:002014-03-02T21:53:47.074-08:00I'm pretty ambivalent about tenure...I totally...I'm pretty ambivalent about tenure...I totally grant without forced retirement, the current tenure system has a painfully deep flaw. I acknowledge it has potential for abuse, but the real abuse again comes not from faculty, but from administrators who give it to themselves (the president of Penn State would have stepped down to a 600k a year tenured position...he technically still has it, but the Sandusky thing might take it away).<br /><br />Without tenure, what protection is there from the administrative abuse you/I/everyone in the system has endured? Tenure is a small amount of such protection, and I've only seen tenured professors try to stand up to the corruption of the system in a meaningful way. Every institution I've seen that does not have tenure is totally corrupt. A few tenure-using institutions still have a few dashes of integrity.<br /><br />I'm hard pressed to argue for it, but I sure can't argue against it.Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-89547102571525029182014-03-02T18:14:49.641-08:002014-03-02T18:14:49.641-08:00Tenure is detrimental to the educational system an...Tenure is detrimental to the educational system and should be abolished. It is a mirage, an illusion.<br /><br />I've seen first-hand how damaging it is. It protects the politically well-connected. I know of professors and instructors who were bone idle or completely inept but still kept their jobs because they were mates with the "right" administrators. Tenure for those people was a license to loaf.<br /><br />Tenure also means one doesn't have to be accountable to anyone. I personally knew of a prof who, frankly, didn't give a rat's patootie about what he worked on. Relevance or worth were of no consequence to him--he had tenure and could do whatever he liked, so long as someone else paid for it.<br /><br />Tenure does not mean one can't be fired. It offers no protection whatsoever from bullying, harassment, or coercion if an administrator has no intention of respecting it.<br /><br />At the institution I taught at, I had permanent status, but that didn't stop certain administrators from engaging in under-handed methods to undermine my authority, prevent me from doing my job properly, and, generally, making my life miserable. The last dean I answered to likely encouraged that campaign. Most of the presidents of the staff association did nothing to allow me to have a fair hearing, let alone speak on my behalf. (I know for a fact that one of them was part of the conspiracy.) I may as well have been on my own.<br /><br />For some other comments regarding tenure and its abolition, look at:<br /><br />http://100rsns.blogspot.ca/2013/09/91-downward-mobility-is-norm.html<br />Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-76051909968778195522014-03-01T12:49:35.320-08:002014-03-01T12:49:35.320-08:00"little to no" isn't the same thing ..."little to no" isn't the same thing as "good researchers are bad teachers". I certainly acknowledge it's possible. If I just want to learn basic stuff everyone knows, it doesn't matter. But if I want to learn cutting edge concepts, I'd be willing to risk having a bad teacher in exchange for the massive gain of learning from the only one with something new to say.<br /><br />That said, I do agree there's an issue in mathematics. I found math textbooks basically unreadable until well into graduate school. Now, I really appreciate even a basic algebra book...but I couldn't follow the discussion of such books when I was in high school. The reason is that the textbooks are being written by professors with insanely deep knowledge of the subject. If you see "obvious" in a textbook, you knew you were in for a whole weekend of study...after which, it was, indeed, "obvious."<br /><br />Anyway, I'll put that book on the agenda. Thanks.Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-52545794552386270712014-03-01T09:17:35.954-08:002014-03-01T09:17:35.954-08:00I agree with you overall but the loathsome NYT is ...I agree with you overall but the loathsome NYT is making a valid point when it says there's little or no relationship between being a good researcher and a good teacher. The good researchers just can't be bothered to teach properly, to communicate clearly, to spend time on students. They might be effective as research advisors for PhD students -- but they're not to be trusted with undergrad or first-year grad students. Morris Kline wrote a persuasive book on this about thirty or more years ago -- "Why the Professor Can't Teach: Mathematics and the Dilemma of University Education."AAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13242448989166177843noreply@blogger.com