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I've always wondered about academia's habit of pulling its administrators from its ranks. I guess it makes some sense (similar to how an athlete might become a

I've always wondered about academia's habit of pulling its administrators from its ranks. I guess it makes some sense (similar to how an athlete might become a coach), but given that higher ed is essentially a government entity in the US, it seems to make more sense to bring in professional civil servants and administrators. It may create a different set of problems, of course, but academia's tendency to view itself as a thing apart, a thing it's not -- an independent, strictly scholarly entity -- seems to actually hurt its goals.

dragandj 10y ago
The formal, professional administration might be one of the sources of the problem. How is a professional administrator going to distinguish people? By looking at formal requirements, of course. So, how many papers does person X have? 3? Want to beef up the resume? Some hundreds/thousands of dollars invested and here you are - the same person with 78 papers.
- HarryHirsch 10y ago
  What you really need is a sensible process that isn't administered by those subject to it. Else you have all the tenured faculty sitting in a circle, handing an easy job to the person on their right, and all the hard work that's left is dropped onto the untenured faculty. Or you have senior tenured faculty in their mid-50s dumb as nuts (because when they entered working life anyone with a pulse could find a nice job in industry) holding back junior faculty and progress in general, for fear that their achievements would throw shade on them. You can't rely on a sense of duty and community, that train left the US when Reagan came in. The citation problem you already have. In a previous workplace the materials science people would push for a publication count. Of course they would! In that field the bar for a viable publication is much lower than in the life sciences.
DashRattlesnake 10y ago
I don't really agree. I'm not an academic, but it's my understanding is that academia's function is to advance human understanding of various topics. I would think injecting "professional civil servants and administrators" into the process would simply push the focus away from scholarship and towards more quotidian things that the government and the administrators are interested in. Lists like Beall's seem like the way it ought to be done. The academic identify and compile lists of shoddy publications and their peers can treat those journals an as persona non grata.
- stinkytaco 10y ago
  What, exactly, are the quotidian things that the government and administrators are interested in? My point is that academics are already absurdly political, both internally (the fight for tenure and academic domain) and external (budgets and priorities). The people who run academia are already basically professional administrators, once you've set on an administrative path, research is very hard to undertake. Why continue with the charade? In my experience, most administrators just want to do their job. I think it's easy to underestimate the number of workaday government administrators that run water treatment plants, streetlights, engineers, etc, that just want to do their job efficiently.
  - dragandj 10y ago
    The point is that scientific process requires personal integrity and independence. The role of scientist is more similar in that regard to the role of a judge that to the role of a water treatment engineer.

dragandj 10y ago

The formal, professional administration might be one of the sources of the problem. How is a professional administrator going to distinguish people? By looking at formal requirements, of course. So, how many papers does person X have? 3? Want to beef up the resume? Some hundreds/thousands of dollars invested and here you are - the same person with 78 papers.

HarryHirsch 10y ago
What you really need is a sensible process that isn't administered by those subject to it. Else you have all the tenured faculty sitting in a circle, handing an easy job to the person on their right, and all the hard work that's left is dropped onto the untenured faculty. Or you have senior tenured faculty in their mid-50s dumb as nuts (because when they entered working life anyone with a pulse could find a nice job in industry) holding back junior faculty and progress in general, for fear that their achievements would throw shade on them. You can't rely on a sense of duty and community, that train left the US when Reagan came in. The citation problem you already have. In a previous workplace the materials science people would push for a publication count. Of course they would! In that field the bar for a viable publication is much lower than in the life sciences.

DashRattlesnake 10y ago

I don't really agree. I'm not an academic, but it's my understanding is that academia's function is to advance human understanding of various topics. I would think injecting "professional civil servants and administrators" into the process would simply push the focus away from scholarship and towards more quotidian things that the government and the administrators are interested in. Lists like Beall's seem like the way it ought to be done. The academic identify and compile lists of shoddy publications and their peers can treat those journals an as persona non grata.

stinkytaco 10y ago
What, exactly, are the quotidian things that the government and administrators are interested in? My point is that academics are already absurdly political, both internally (the fight for tenure and academic domain) and external (budgets and priorities). The people who run academia are already basically professional administrators, once you've set on an administrative path, research is very hard to undertake. Why continue with the charade? In my experience, most administrators just want to do their job. I think it's easy to underestimate the number of workaday government administrators that run water treatment plants, streetlights, engineers, etc, that just want to do their job efficiently.
- dragandj 10y ago
  The point is that scientific process requires personal integrity and independence. The role of scientist is more similar in that regard to the role of a judge that to the role of a water treatment engineer.