tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post4438976148432498187..comments2024-03-25T02:33:41.590-05:00Comments on FemaleScienceProfessor: Slate Takes On TenureFemale Science Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15288567883197987690noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-5154369595128950762010-09-28T07:28:13.247-05:002010-09-28T07:28:13.247-05:00I don't really believe in tenure, I don't ...I don't really believe in tenure, I don't really believe that I deserve to reach a point where I am not accountable for my performance. If I were offered a renewable contract, one that included research and service,and higher pay to compensate for the reduced job security I'd accept it in a heartbeat, because I am confident in my professional abilities and performance on the job.ali0482http://www.nrzee.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-83859622176879881882010-09-06T09:09:57.063-05:002010-09-06T09:09:57.063-05:00Now, take away the prize. How many people will sla...Now, take away the prize. How many people will slave away in grad school for a chance at a full-time professorship if full-time professorships have less security? How many people will accept low-paid adjunct positions to build their CV for a full-time position if the full-time positions have less security?ali0482http://www.nrzee.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-47078598954057616672010-08-24T21:34:50.207-05:002010-08-24T21:34:50.207-05:00About cost of hiring faculty -- as a tenured prof ...About cost of hiring faculty -- as a tenured prof I try to remember the last time we hired a freshly minted assistant prof for less money than I make. The answer to that is NEVER. Salary compression is rampant. From where I sit it looks like academic institutions, not the faculty, who exploit tenure.<br /><br />I won't say there are NO faculty who exploit tenure. Maybe 5%. But I've worked a lot of places and I've seen similar %s of problem employees elsewhere.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-90882950159097520472010-08-24T21:27:20.568-05:002010-08-24T21:27:20.568-05:00@bewilderedgradstudent, well, yes, you do sound bi...@bewilderedgradstudent, well, yes, you do sound bitter. Possibly a forum of other graduate students would be more ready to commiserate. <br /><br />My 2 cents: Think of your advisor like a boss. What's your job? Of course, it is to make your boss look good to your boss' boss.<br /><br />So it comes down to whether your advisor sees time training you as a good investment for his/her own career or not. Just like any boss.Gingeralenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-9534180827665081172010-08-22T10:33:55.758-05:002010-08-22T10:33:55.758-05:00I saw this a bit late (via Academic Jungle), so my...I saw this a bit late (via Academic Jungle), so my apologies if someone else made this point. <br /><br />I don't think you hit the initial paragraphs of the article hard enough. The analogy is not that <i>"The only catch is that all cooks or waiters would have to start out as dishwashers or busboys, for at least 10 years, when none of these protections would apply."</i> That is preposterous, and slanderous. Might as well say that all journalists at Slate start out carrying buckets of bits to pour into the Internet tubes. <br /><br />It also pretends that tenure is automatic. One thing I would add to your list is whether any of us work at a university where a Dean is not involved in the decision to hire us or grant tenure. <br /><br />The proper analogy would be where the chefs work for a decade, perhaps long hours that others don't want, at which point their boss decides whether to keep them around as long as possible or change the restaurant's emphasis to a new cuisine. <br /><br />Some of the data are also suspect. Many of the full-time faculty without tenure are on soft money. Similarly, it is bogus to treat a career's worth of income as pure expense without (a) breaking out the part that was untenured and (b) accounting for the external funds brought in by that person. <br /><br />Finally, it is an outright lie to pretend that professors set their own salaries or are responsible for publish or perish. I'll grant ignorance as an excuse (that statement about endowments paying professor's salaries at State U shows ignorance on the scale of Krakatoa), but I didn't see a disclaimer at the top that the author has no idea what he is talking about. Salaries and requirements for tenure are set by the college, as are teaching loads. There was no publish or perish in the tenure decision at my college.Doctor Pionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12513786840852469648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-48743254531846621532010-08-16T11:40:44.461-05:002010-08-16T11:40:44.461-05:00Public grade schools would definitely benefit in t...Public grade schools would definitely benefit in the bottom line and be more cost-effective if they got rid of those extremely expensive experienced teachers. They have to pay them so much more than a college grad just out of school, sucking the system dry.<br /><br />Of course, it would be even cheaper if we'd just eat the children filling up our schools and costing us so much money--and Daniel Defoe would be vindicated.<br /><br />Mark PAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-64663668354815648112010-08-16T10:20:25.812-05:002010-08-16T10:20:25.812-05:00I am curious: what is the occupation of Anon 8/16/...I am curious: what is the occupation of Anon 8/16/2010 04:07AM (who may be the same as Anon 8/14/2010 07:19 PM and 8/14/2010 10:26 PM)?GMPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17872461021953583473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-63000999653604319302010-08-16T04:07:34.536-05:002010-08-16T04:07:34.536-05:00You do poorly, you don't get a raise.
Big de...<i>You do poorly, you don't get a raise. </i><br /><br />Big deal. In most other jobs, you do poorly you lose your job. And just because you've done well for 7 years doesn't mean you're safe thereafter.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-50818684848525511322010-08-15T19:23:57.707-05:002010-08-15T19:23:57.707-05:00@Anon 9:40 "What's to motivate more talen...@Anon 9:40 "What's to motivate more talented PhDs from going into industry if universities can't even offer job security?"<br /><br />Too late it's already happening. I know so many smart and talented PhDs who think the system is broken. Many have decided that industry is the only option. <br /><br />Even small teaching schools, which once were seen as a viable alternative, are no longer attractive. This is because they state upfront to t-t applicants that you will have to teach 3-3 and get external funding. Are they kidding - compete with R01 institutions but have a higher teaching load and no support? <br /><br />T-T positions are less and less available and less and less attractive.<br /><br />Alex is right. Once the carrot (tenure) goes, there will be no more horses.unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05949487275042211766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-59719133207411248372010-08-15T15:20:59.613-05:002010-08-15T15:20:59.613-05:00Basically this article and many of the comments bo...Basically this article and many of the comments boil down to lack of respect and understanding of the job that professors do. I can only speak regarding STEM fields (as a full FSP); but, what I can say is that the 'deadwood' is rare in my experience at several private and public universities AND if a department has more than one professor designated as deadwood, then there is a problem with the institutional and/or departmental leadership. At my current institution, ALL faculty at all levels are evaluated yearly. There are teeth to this evaluation: faculty with lower grant money, for example, are given assistance initially in order to facilitate additional grant writing but after 2 yrs begin expanded teaching and service loads (in addition to loss of salary due to having no outside funding). Similarly, faculty who get bad teaching evaluations are counseled, evaluated and assisted in improvement by a central teaching resource facility and, if performance does not improve, then they are out (I have seen this happen to one full, well-known professor in my time at my current institution). Overall my colleagues care deeply about the research and education mission of our department and this evaluation process helps us all continue to strive for improvement.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-8222452970261312242010-08-15T11:18:33.353-05:002010-08-15T11:18:33.353-05:00I don't agree the $10 million is ridiculous.
...<i>I don't agree the $10 million is ridiculous. </i><br /><br />I did the math and it is totally ridiculous. On current dollars, assuming reinvested endowment funds (which is a dubious assumption already) it comes to $6.5 million.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-82108386414614672822010-08-15T10:02:53.740-05:002010-08-15T10:02:53.740-05:00I think the deadwood problem mostly applies to ten...I think the deadwood problem mostly applies to tenured faculty who stop contributing to teaching and administrative activities.<br /><br />A reasonable reform might be to explicitly tie getting a "hard money" salary to teaching and administrative activities, even after tenure, such that professors who don't continue their institutional responsibilities at least aren't a drain on finances. That way, tenure prevents firing for your controversial research or run-ins with the administrators, but you can't get paid from the pool of money explicitly meant for teaching and service to augment your research dollars or otherwise act as deadweight (book writing, etc.).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-59419777260932256102010-08-14T22:26:01.080-05:002010-08-14T22:26:01.080-05:00@GMP: I know a lot of deadwood profs that decided ...@GMP: I know a lot of deadwood profs that decided to start a family after tenure and slowly their research faded. It starts by not writing as many grants, not taking in as many students and spending less time in the office. It is a drug, the less work you do, the less you want to do. As I said before a lot of females (and males too) use the 'family' card to justify this lack of production. <br /><br />I actually don't care about profs that lose motivation or production, but I don't like the excuses usually given. Tenure is the American dream.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-75131456114704925142010-08-14T21:01:47.067-05:002010-08-14T21:01:47.067-05:00@Anon at 7:19 PM
I hate it when a female gets ten...@Anon at 7:19 PM<br /><br /><i>I hate it when a female gets tenure, then decides to start a family and their production in teaching, research and advising goes down.</i><br /><br />I most certainly do not know of a single tenured female who turned into permanent deadwood due to childbearing. If research productivity suffers at all, it's for no more than a few months. Most of the time, since tenured academic women have established research programs that run uninterrupted during their absence, you would not even see a glitch in the womens' research records due to childbearing. <br /><br />As for being absent from teaching and advising, many women take no time off. Those who do, work extra beforehand or after they come back, or arrange for colleague coverage which they return later. <br /><br />I hate comments such as Anon's, because they basically state that academia -- a 30+ year committment for academics -- should never make any accommodation for anyone’s life challenges. God forbid any academic, male or female, should be allowed to temporarily slow down for a birth, death, or illness in the family.GMPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17872461021953583473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-81357399472988152682010-08-14T19:19:08.507-05:002010-08-14T19:19:08.507-05:00I hate it when a female gets tenure, then decides ...I hate it when a female gets tenure, then decides to start a family and their production in teaching, research and advising goes down.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-18313465766897740752010-08-14T18:28:38.444-05:002010-08-14T18:28:38.444-05:00@Maggie, I thought I was passionate about research...@Maggie, I thought I was passionate about research and interested in science when I applied to graduate school. Since then I have discovered being passionate about research means being expected to work in lab 80 hours a week, to collaborate with a mentally unstable, verbally abusive lab partner, and to basically be told I am stupid and lazy to my face by my (now ex) advisor... so I guess it turns out I'm not as passionate about research as I first thought. <br /><br />Since I am not willing to put up with these things and I actually want to be able to have some semblance of a life while studying for a Ph.D., I am evidently not research professor-material. Still, I would like to finish my program so I can have the credentials to apply for other jobs. I am just finding that potential advisors are not at all friendly to the idea of taking a student who is willing to work hard but doesn't want to spend every waking moment slaving away on their thesis for the unlikely possibility of one day getting tenure at a research institution. Well, in any case, excuse my bitterness.bewilderedgradstudentnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-68896582021773356852010-08-14T11:46:44.105-05:002010-08-14T11:46:44.105-05:00I have worked in industry and as a tenured profess...I have worked in industry and as a tenured professor in academia. It's easy to criticize tenure as obsolete, inefficient, and rigidifying, in contrast with the labor mobility and dynamism of industry, but the facts are much more nuanced than that. Unless a company self-destructs, its R&D division can accumulate politically effective but relatively unproductive members as well as a badly-run academic department accumulates deadwood. Conversely, a well-managed academic department can avoid the alleged negatives of tenure by maintaining a strong culture of productivity and quality. The questions I would ask those who want to abolish tenure are: 1) what urgent problem are you really trying to solve; 2) are there deeper causes for the problem than tenure; 3) how would you feel about tenure if you had done everything right in teaching and research, but your particular specialty had become unfashionable to cost-conscious, trend-chasing administrators?Fernando Pereirahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05849361902113771573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-70789990836197279632010-08-14T09:17:57.612-05:002010-08-14T09:17:57.612-05:00Tenured professors do not have complete job securi...Tenured professors do not have complete job security. There are still some things they can't do. It is just an increase in job security. One should also keep in mind that there are other professions with something like tenure. Roman Catholic Church clergy have this. On another blog I read that law firms with partner systems, K-12 teachers, architecture firms with partner systems, some private medical practices, and American civil servants have a tenure system.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-65033053075124304812010-08-14T07:40:39.717-05:002010-08-14T07:40:39.717-05:00Take away the prize, and suddenly there are fewer ...Take away the prize, and suddenly there are fewer aspirants willing to work for cheap on their way to the top.ali0482http://www.nrzee.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-91916004326516947952010-08-14T07:04:30.695-05:002010-08-14T07:04:30.695-05:00It is really simple: when education is the "p...It is really simple: when education is the "product" serving the students who are "customers", why would the administration care about professors who are merely "employees"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-88025233247081415912010-08-14T03:43:59.706-05:002010-08-14T03:43:59.706-05:00I agree that tenure should be abolished. A system ...I agree that tenure should be abolished. A system based on tenure (where after 6 or 7 years you either win total job security for life or get fired) means that there are too few sustainable academic job positions available (not counting postdocs - note I said "sustainable" positions), which means there's too much at stake for anything a junior academic does or doesn't do, and therefore the contortions and politics and B.S. that junior academics need to partake in to even stay in academia increases. Achieving tenure - doing the 'right' things, being associated with the 'right' crowd and obtaining recognition from the 'right' sources - becomes the goal in and of itself, not the actual contribution to knowledge that should be the focus of an academic's work. Once tenure is achieved, the tenured professor is now all-powerful and can do whatever he/she wants to build their little empire including exploiting postdocs and students because they can't be fired.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-37391743662722075912010-08-13T20:00:35.899-05:002010-08-13T20:00:35.899-05:00Yeah, the minute tenure's abolished is the sam...Yeah, the minute tenure's abolished is the same minute I quit academia. Also, <br /> "I honestly don't know what a lot of academics do a lot of the time," says Taylor.<br /><br />WHAT??? You are the CHAIR of your department! What do YOU do all day that you don't know this? My mind is so boggled right now.<br /><br />Bewilderedgradstudent, why on earth did you apply to grad school if you're not passionate about research? I am so, so confused.Maggiehttp://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-35812371410451753432010-08-13T19:17:26.063-05:002010-08-13T19:17:26.063-05:00I second MathProf's comment
I never thought ...I second MathProf's comment<br /><br /><i> I never thought that "tenured = unaccountable" Every year we submit the updated vita and the list of achievements for the year to get the raises. </i><br /><br />The people whom you want to tenure are those who will not slow down after getting tenure. We too have annual review and evaluation, based on which salary increases are calculated. You do poorly, you don't get a raise. Also, every tenured faculty has a very big review every 5 years. So there is quality control in place. We have people retiring who still have federal funding, which means they pulled in the dough and advised students actively for good 30+ years. I don't know who are these deadwood faculty of which some speak?GMPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17872461021953583473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-3536726004832784372010-08-13T18:43:29.482-05:002010-08-13T18:43:29.482-05:00I find it interesting that this article was writte...I find it interesting that this article was written by a columbia professor but did not mention one of his own colleagues, astrophysicist David J. Helfand, who famously turned down tenure over two decades ago. I have not read all the comments in the thread or the slate article (just skimmed it) because I am on vacation and would rather look at the ocean. But I think it is interesting that this guy didn't reference one of the most famous instances of tenure rejection at his very own institution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-37957452854713571002010-08-13T18:01:19.956-05:002010-08-13T18:01:19.956-05:00I don't agree the $10 million is ridiculous. ...I don't agree the $10 million is ridiculous. If I take my starting salary plus a rough estimate of the value of my benefits and project a 4% cost-of-living raise each year for 30 years, the total comes close to $10 million. When you consider that the university could've taken that and put it in an interest-bearing annuity instead, it easily passes $10 million. (I realize it's already making some interest for them, but it could be making more.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com