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It sounds like you are saying that there aren't enough professorships for how many people want to do (and can do) research. Blaming the professors seems mispla
by lonelappde 7y ago
It sounds like you are saying that there aren't enough professorships for how many people want to do (and can do) research. Blaming the professors seems misplaced.
The biggest criticism in the comment is that... professors enjoy doing the work they are paid to do?
- mattkrause 7y agoI would amend this to “not enough [stable] research jobs” At the moment, a faculty job is pretty much the only stable job in academic research, so if you want one....that’s what you’re doing. The problem is that training students (and post docs) is part of a faculty job, and some of those will also want faculty jobs, and so on. Increasing the number of professorships just kicks the exponential-growth can a bit down the road. However, it doesn’t have to be like this. We could make more staff scientist positions that have a bit more responsibility for doing and managing research (and the job security to match), but aren’t expected to train students. I think this would be a win for everyone: it would reduce churn in the lab, enable harder research projects (since these people would have experience), and there’s even data suggesting trainees fare better in labs with more senior-but-not-PI staff. The NCI is now funding a few of these, as is the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, so hopefully it’ll catch on in other fields too.