6 ms·

I read the whole article and it's very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article's claims. Most importantly, it's hard to judge the most important t

I read the whole article and it's very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article's claims. Most importantly, it's hard to judge the most important thing: the author's own research. However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things. The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department. Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were granted tenure, the process is mostly fair, but of course most people are going to want to do everything they can to maximize their chances. What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can't measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee. As someone in industry, I see academia as somewhere where people can make immense contributions to human knowledge, that cannot be done elsewhere, but they have to jump through certain hoops to do so. Outside of academia there is very little opportunity to do research. Industry is conservative, and prefers to implement and refine known techniques.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
blazespin 10y ago
"I interpret as .. doing things that might piss off people on the committee." Sounds like obedience to me. There's a great HBO tv show, "The Wire". It's all about how an institution can consume personalities of those who belong to it. I'm pretty sure tenure is the same way. I see this happening to people who work in corporations for a long time. Their personalities change as they become the sort of person who can succeed in such environments. That being said, I suspect standout researchers get tenure and get to be themselves, just as talented people can succeed in corporations and still be themselves. They are generally the exception rather than the norm, however.
- kevhito 10y ago
  Hi, although I'm new here and all of you have been teaching here for 20 years on average, let me tell you why everything you have done with the curriculum is terrible and should be completely rewritten in my style. And of course, I'll have to do all of this myself, since you are all incompetent. And I better teach the first round myself too, because I can't trust you with that either. So yes, there is a difference between not pissing off people on the committee and "obedience".
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    Just because someone has been doing something for twenty years doesn't mean that what they're doing can't be improved. It doesn't even mean they're necessarily competent. The professional response to a newcomer isn't to have a snitty fit of tutting and hissing, but to consider the possibility that maybe the younger newcomer has something to offer. If they're just being Dunning-Kruger-ish then fine - snipe away. But it's not at all a given that the situation is that simple - especially when they've been employed as a prospect in the first place, which suggests that at least an entire hiring committee met them and considered they had promise.
    - kevhito 10y ago
      No, you are right, I was perhaps too harsh. But it takes some modesty and humility to pause and consider why the system ended up the way it has, and why the elder's are resistant to change. The author shows no sign of modesty or humility, so it isn't at all clear to me that the elders were snitty or tutting and hissing. In fact, it sounds like there were other issues the author was deliberately ignoring. Finite resource allocation, campus-wide priorities, an MS program, etc. Being able to convince others, win allies, balance priorities, and just get along with others are important skills, and the author seems to excel at none of these. At least, judging by this post. Elsewhere in this thread, a student suggested that there may really have been some nasty infighting happening, in which case this poor guy may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
      - simonster 10y ago
        As a student who has participated in some decisions regarding changing courses at my institution, I think classes here are usually bad because no one really cares. It requires tact to say "this course is garbage and you don't care about it anyway; let me handle it" without bruising egos. But I think it's bullshit to say that not bruising egos is an important skill, especially in science. The kinds of scientists whose egos are easily bruised are the kinds of scientists who Max Planck was talking about when he said "science progresses one funeral at a time." People who refuse to acknowledge constructive criticism unless it's sugar-coated will continue to pursue the same ideas even after others have proved them wrong. This is a systematic issue. Science is full of people with big egos. When scientist A criticizes scientist B's idea, ideally scientist A would think really hard about scientist B's criticism and either say "yes, you're right" or "no, here's what you're missing" (ideally with experiments). Scientists with big egos don't do this. They reject other scientists' criticism out of hand, and they criticize people based on feelings rather than ideas. The problem is contagious: Scientists with big egos attract more scientists with big egos, since those are the people who continue to believe they are great despite the barrage of nonsensical criticism. And egos tend to grow larger, not smaller, as people rise in rank. Appropriately weighing others' evaluations of your ideas is really hard. It requires the technical skill necessary to come up with those ideas in the first place; the social skill to distinguish between sycophantic praise and true positive evaluation; and the emotional control to ignore anger or disappointment that might result from negative evaluation and focus on the content instead. In my experience, people who can do these things make much better scientists, and are much better to work with. They are less guarded when brainstorming ideas and more willing to change their minds in the face of superior evidence. But in modern science, there are relatively few incentives that favor accurate self-evaluation, and many that favor persistence above all else. In a world where ~5% of incoming graduate students go on to become tenured professors, people who aren't great and know it (or are great but don't know it) drop out early, and the people looking for positions end up being a combination of great people and mediocre people who think they're great.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  "That being said, I suspect standout researchers get tenure and get to be themselves, just as talented people can succeed in corporations and still be themselves." In Academia, they have no fear of being themselfs after tenure is granted. I had a chemistry teacher who literally tried to ruin me. I really thought I was to blame. I realized he had a some mental malady when he pick up the stack of formal complaints he received from the administration on behalf of students; while he was yelling at me in his office. He used to love to bring me into his office regularly. He used two hands on that stack of complaints. I can still picture those hairy little arms lifting that stack. Yea--really. I wasen't the type to complain, but went to a guidance counselor. Before I mentioned the teacher, he said, "Dr. Besergian?". I was floored. I asked how did you know? He said, "I literally almost got into a fist fight with that guy, and never, never met anyone like him. There is something wrong with him. It's not you. Drop the class, and take it at a community college." I dropped his class, and took chem at a community college. The following year, I was finishing my last Organic Chem semester. He saw me, and was shocked. I thought--how many students lives did this jerk ruin? He saw I was chewing gum. He slithered up to me, and told me to spit it out. He was holding a trash can. I spit the gum in his face. He just walked back slowly. All that bravado was gone. He knew I figured him out. He had no control. I liked tenure, but after this joke--I started to question it. (This jerk is probally still harassing, mainly young men, somewhere. Don't let him ruin your plans. Everyone knows he's horrid, little man, but has tenure.)
kevhito 10y ago
I agree with this. But research isn't everything. And there are at least some hints and signs that this person doesn't know how to get along with colleagues. > I worked really hard to bring an exciting and rigorous operating systems class to UB. Why did this effort require working "really hard"? Was it because of obstructionist, jealous, or stupid colleagues? Or people who wanted a boring and unrigourous course instead? Or were there perhaps legitimate reasons why others didn't want to change the existing course? > I led a complete overhaul of our department’s undergraduate computer science curriculum. It includes two new exciting introductory programming courses that I spent a great deal of time designing. Let me guess: the existing curriculum was terrible, boring, not at all rigorous, and there was no reason to keep any of it, and the author made sure everyone knew it. And why did the author have to spend a great deal of time? Because no one else in the department was capable of doing as good a job? Because nobody else could comprehend this grand vision? Everything listed under "speaking out" gives me the same vibe. It doesn't seem to have crossed this person's mind that there are reasons why other people have different approaches to teaching, research, administration, hiring, etc., beyond others being obstructionist, brainwashed, or just stupid. I'm reminded of the parable reminding us [1] to not take down a fence until we have truly understood why the fence was erected in the first place. And really... bringing a dog to work in violation of a clearly stated campus policy, repeatedly, even after having been warned, then encouraging a student petition and getting your name in a local paper about the incident? That's just asking for trouble. (Full disclosure: I'm coming up for tenure myself, and one lesson it has taken me 5 years to understand is that people who disagree with me on campus aren't doing so out of spite, stupidity, or carelessness, they often just have different priorities than I do. Just because our department absolutely needs more resources to do a good job handling our rapidly growing student population, doesn't mean the college should make this a priority over other things.) [1] http://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/ http://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/
- SolaceQuantum 10y ago
  > Why did this effort require working "really hard"? Was it because of obstructionist, jealous, or stupid colleagues? I was one of the students at UB while this took place. It took a lot of effort, partially because the rewriting involved a lot of student feedback and there was also a massive e-mail discussion (accidentally?) sent to the entire computer science undergraduate mailing list of one of the senior faculty chastizing a more junior faculty over how student feedback was used in remaking the program. I can't say for anything else (including the dog situation, since I know other faculty in other departments also bring their pets to school), but I know there was some severe and public obstruction from senior faculty to more junior faculty going on during the remaking.
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
>What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can't measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee. I'd be astonished if any academic committee in any university anywhere in the world had any idea how to measure the value of research objectively. As for not pissing people off - I'd imagine it's impossibly hard to do truly original research without pissing at least some people off. There will be petty jealousies, back-biting, gossip, and all the usual nonsense. Too much, too soon, and hackles will be raised. It's very sad. Academia seems to have become stifling rather than expansive. My working definition of organisational dysfunction is when politics and status become primary motivators, and quality of output - and pride in that quality - become secondary. From the outside, that seems more true of academia now than it should be.
- sdenton4 10y ago
  Yep. The academic job market is mind bogglingly brutal, meaning that academic departments have no reason to go out on any limbs. As a result hiring and tenure processes are extremely conservative and, as the author points out, normative. I completely sympathize with the author; the promise of such shenanigans in the academic career path were part of my motivation for passing a job offer and instead take a software engineering job.
rdtsc 10y ago
> I see academia as somewhere where people can make immense contributions to human knowledge The problem is just like the industry (or even more so), academia is plagued with infighting, personal vendettas, skewed incentives and lots of politics. I think many believe academia is more pure, more rational and calm environment where it is all sharing, and peaceful pursuit of knowledge and so on. The reality is very different from it. > but they have to jump through certain hoops to do so The hoops are part of the problems. It seems he cared for focused more on teaching and administration instead of sucking up to other faculty or just cranking out publications like crazy. The most important bit is probably him trying to improve things. Improving things mean undoing something that is already there. Due to tenure and length of time people with tenure hang around in academia, the status quo was established by many of the tenured people there. Saying "I want to improve that" was read as, "what you did sucked, I will make it better". That stuff is never acknowledged publicly but come voting time, it won't be forgotten either.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

blazespin 10y ago

"I interpret as .. doing things that might piss off people on the committee." Sounds like obedience to me. There's a great HBO tv show, "The Wire". It's all about how an institution can consume personalities of those who belong to it. I'm pretty sure tenure is the same way. I see this happening to people who work in corporations for a long time. Their personalities change as they become the sort of person who can succeed in such environments. That being said, I suspect standout researchers get tenure and get to be themselves, just as talented people can succeed in corporations and still be themselves. They are generally the exception rather than the norm, however.

kevhito 10y ago
Hi, although I'm new here and all of you have been teaching here for 20 years on average, let me tell you why everything you have done with the curriculum is terrible and should be completely rewritten in my style. And of course, I'll have to do all of this myself, since you are all incompetent. And I better teach the first round myself too, because I can't trust you with that either. So yes, there is a difference between not pissing off people on the committee and "obedience".
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  Just because someone has been doing something for twenty years doesn't mean that what they're doing can't be improved. It doesn't even mean they're necessarily competent. The professional response to a newcomer isn't to have a snitty fit of tutting and hissing, but to consider the possibility that maybe the younger newcomer has something to offer. If they're just being Dunning-Kruger-ish then fine - snipe away. But it's not at all a given that the situation is that simple - especially when they've been employed as a prospect in the first place, which suggests that at least an entire hiring committee met them and considered they had promise.
  - kevhito 10y ago
    No, you are right, I was perhaps too harsh. But it takes some modesty and humility to pause and consider why the system ended up the way it has, and why the elder's are resistant to change. The author shows no sign of modesty or humility, so it isn't at all clear to me that the elders were snitty or tutting and hissing. In fact, it sounds like there were other issues the author was deliberately ignoring. Finite resource allocation, campus-wide priorities, an MS program, etc. Being able to convince others, win allies, balance priorities, and just get along with others are important skills, and the author seems to excel at none of these. At least, judging by this post. Elsewhere in this thread, a student suggested that there may really have been some nasty infighting happening, in which case this poor guy may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    - simonster 10y ago
      As a student who has participated in some decisions regarding changing courses at my institution, I think classes here are usually bad because no one really cares. It requires tact to say "this course is garbage and you don't care about it anyway; let me handle it" without bruising egos. But I think it's bullshit to say that not bruising egos is an important skill, especially in science. The kinds of scientists whose egos are easily bruised are the kinds of scientists who Max Planck was talking about when he said "science progresses one funeral at a time." People who refuse to acknowledge constructive criticism unless it's sugar-coated will continue to pursue the same ideas even after others have proved them wrong. This is a systematic issue. Science is full of people with big egos. When scientist A criticizes scientist B's idea, ideally scientist A would think really hard about scientist B's criticism and either say "yes, you're right" or "no, here's what you're missing" (ideally with experiments). Scientists with big egos don't do this. They reject other scientists' criticism out of hand, and they criticize people based on feelings rather than ideas. The problem is contagious: Scientists with big egos attract more scientists with big egos, since those are the people who continue to believe they are great despite the barrage of nonsensical criticism. And egos tend to grow larger, not smaller, as people rise in rank. Appropriately weighing others' evaluations of your ideas is really hard. It requires the technical skill necessary to come up with those ideas in the first place; the social skill to distinguish between sycophantic praise and true positive evaluation; and the emotional control to ignore anger or disappointment that might result from negative evaluation and focus on the content instead. In my experience, people who can do these things make much better scientists, and are much better to work with. They are less guarded when brainstorming ideas and more willing to change their minds in the face of superior evidence. But in modern science, there are relatively few incentives that favor accurate self-evaluation, and many that favor persistence above all else. In a world where ~5% of incoming graduate students go on to become tenured professors, people who aren't great and know it (or are great but don't know it) drop out early, and the people looking for positions end up being a combination of great people and mediocre people who think they're great.
icantdrive55 10y ago
"That being said, I suspect standout researchers get tenure and get to be themselves, just as talented people can succeed in corporations and still be themselves." In Academia, they have no fear of being themselfs after tenure is granted. I had a chemistry teacher who literally tried to ruin me. I really thought I was to blame. I realized he had a some mental malady when he pick up the stack of formal complaints he received from the administration on behalf of students; while he was yelling at me in his office. He used to love to bring me into his office regularly. He used two hands on that stack of complaints. I can still picture those hairy little arms lifting that stack. Yea--really. I wasen't the type to complain, but went to a guidance counselor. Before I mentioned the teacher, he said, "Dr. Besergian?". I was floored. I asked how did you know? He said, "I literally almost got into a fist fight with that guy, and never, never met anyone like him. There is something wrong with him. It's not you. Drop the class, and take it at a community college." I dropped his class, and took chem at a community college. The following year, I was finishing my last Organic Chem semester. He saw me, and was shocked. I thought--how many students lives did this jerk ruin? He saw I was chewing gum. He slithered up to me, and told me to spit it out. He was holding a trash can. I spit the gum in his face. He just walked back slowly. All that bravado was gone. He knew I figured him out. He had no control. I liked tenure, but after this joke--I started to question it. (This jerk is probally still harassing, mainly young men, somewhere. Don't let him ruin your plans. Everyone knows he's horrid, little man, but has tenure.)

kevhito 10y ago

I agree with this. But research isn't everything. And there are at least some hints and signs that this person doesn't know how to get along with colleagues. > I worked really hard to bring an exciting and rigorous operating systems class to UB. Why did this effort require working "really hard"? Was it because of obstructionist, jealous, or stupid colleagues? Or people who wanted a boring and unrigourous course instead? Or were there perhaps legitimate reasons why others didn't want to change the existing course? > I led a complete overhaul of our department’s undergraduate computer science curriculum. It includes two new exciting introductory programming courses that I spent a great deal of time designing. Let me guess: the existing curriculum was terrible, boring, not at all rigorous, and there was no reason to keep any of it, and the author made sure everyone knew it. And why did the author have to spend a great deal of time? Because no one else in the department was capable of doing as good a job? Because nobody else could comprehend this grand vision? Everything listed under "speaking out" gives me the same vibe. It doesn't seem to have crossed this person's mind that there are reasons why other people have different approaches to teaching, research, administration, hiring, etc., beyond others being obstructionist, brainwashed, or just stupid. I'm reminded of the parable reminding us [1] to not take down a fence until we have truly understood why the fence was erected in the first place. And really... bringing a dog to work in violation of a clearly stated campus policy, repeatedly, even after having been warned, then encouraging a student petition and getting your name in a local paper about the incident? That's just asking for trouble. (Full disclosure: I'm coming up for tenure myself, and one lesson it has taken me 5 years to understand is that people who disagree with me on campus aren't doing so out of spite, stupidity, or carelessness, they often just have different priorities than I do. Just because our department absolutely needs more resources to do a good job handling our rapidly growing student population, doesn't mean the college should make this a priority over other things.) [1] http://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/ http://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/

SolaceQuantum 10y ago
> Why did this effort require working "really hard"? Was it because of obstructionist, jealous, or stupid colleagues? I was one of the students at UB while this took place. It took a lot of effort, partially because the rewriting involved a lot of student feedback and there was also a massive e-mail discussion (accidentally?) sent to the entire computer science undergraduate mailing list of one of the senior faculty chastizing a more junior faculty over how student feedback was used in remaking the program. I can't say for anything else (including the dog situation, since I know other faculty in other departments also bring their pets to school), but I know there was some severe and public obstruction from senior faculty to more junior faculty going on during the remaking.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

>What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can't measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee. I'd be astonished if any academic committee in any university anywhere in the world had any idea how to measure the value of research objectively. As for not pissing people off - I'd imagine it's impossibly hard to do truly original research without pissing at least some people off. There will be petty jealousies, back-biting, gossip, and all the usual nonsense. Too much, too soon, and hackles will be raised. It's very sad. Academia seems to have become stifling rather than expansive. My working definition of organisational dysfunction is when politics and status become primary motivators, and quality of output - and pride in that quality - become secondary. From the outside, that seems more true of academia now than it should be.

sdenton4 10y ago
Yep. The academic job market is mind bogglingly brutal, meaning that academic departments have no reason to go out on any limbs. As a result hiring and tenure processes are extremely conservative and, as the author points out, normative. I completely sympathize with the author; the promise of such shenanigans in the academic career path were part of my motivation for passing a job offer and instead take a software engineering job.

rdtsc 10y ago

> I see academia as somewhere where people can make immense contributions to human knowledge The problem is just like the industry (or even more so), academia is plagued with infighting, personal vendettas, skewed incentives and lots of politics. I think many believe academia is more pure, more rational and calm environment where it is all sharing, and peaceful pursuit of knowledge and so on. The reality is very different from it. > but they have to jump through certain hoops to do so The hoops are part of the problems. It seems he cared for focused more on teaching and administration instead of sucking up to other faculty or just cranking out publications like crazy. The most important bit is probably him trying to improve things. Improving things mean undoing something that is already there. Due to tenure and length of time people with tenure hang around in academia, the status quo was established by many of the tenured people there. Saying "I want to improve that" was read as, "what you did sucked, I will make it better". That stuff is never acknowledged publicly but come voting time, it won't be forgotten either.