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He's not a professor in the classical definition, he's a lecturer. (Both from his title on paper - Principal Lecturer - and from his actual work - teaching intr

by geofft 7y ago

He's not a professor in the classical definition, he's a lecturer. (Both from his title on paper - Principal Lecturer - and from his actual work - teaching intro CS classes for the purpose of training students to work in wage labor, not guiding researchers.) He's an employee just as much as I am. It's true that professors should have independence from those who oversee them, and there's a mechanism for that: it's called tenure, and he doesn't have it. It's certainly reasonable for him to want to be a "professional," and from his teaching statement and his desire to teach honors classes about Haidt instead of intro classes about programming, that seems like exactly what he wants. I, too, would like to be a "professional." But he doesn't get to just be one merely because he wants to be one, any more than I can.

kragen 7y ago
I understand that you are not aware of this, but freedom of inquiry protects non-tenured lecturers and even, thanks to Humboldt, students. I suggest that you read at least the introductory section of https://www.britannica.com/topic/academic-freedom https://www.britannica.com/topic/academic-freedom so that your opinions are no longer based on complete ignorance of the issues at hand. It is true that tenure is a much more effective protection, and this is perhaps a major reason that managerialists have shifted more and more of the teaching load to adjunct faculty over the last four decades. Unquestionably someone designing a new introductory course, as the author claims to have done, would have been tenured or tenure-track faculty at any US University in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s. That is, as defined by his teaching responsibilities, he is very much a professor or assistant professor according to the traditional definition. It does seem to be correct that he is in fact vulnerable to political interference with his freedom to teach. But what we are debating is whether it would be better if he were more vulnerable to it or less so. Your position seems to be that it would be better if he were more vulnerable to it because that would make him more like you. My position is that it would be better if he were less vulnerable to it because historically that kind of thing has led to disasters like Lysenkoism and the failure of the Nazi atomic bomb program.
- geofft 7y ago
  And someone who was teaching at any US university in those eras would have been generally preparing people for what you call a "professional" role, not to become an ignorant peon like me working a wage labor job. Teaching people how to program (honestly, even calling it introductory "computer science" is a polite fiction) does not require inquiry at all, freedom or otherwise. It's a well-established course, much like high school algebra is well-established, and the concept of "freedom of inquiry" for the high school algebra teacher doesn't make much sense. If a university wishes to have senior faculty design such a class, that's certainly reasonable, but it doesn't fundamentally require innovation. Which gets to the heart of the problem: there isn't a meaningful sense in which any of the decisions he objected to were related to a "freedom of inquiry" about computer science or even about programming. It would be one thing if he said, I don't think we should be teaching students this programming language or this material or this approach to concepts, I think we should be teaching another way. (For instance, he could have written something like https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-javaschools-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-java... .) I would agree with you that such decisions should be the purview of a tenure-track professor and not school administrators, and I would even agree with you that the growth of adjunct roles is an attempt to take such decisions out of the hands of professors. His objections were of a different category entirely. He objected to how he perceived universities to be coddling students, to how he doesn't recognize certain words as part of the English language, etc. It's a pretty motte-and-bailey argument to say that academic freedom also protects a professor's right to ignore any direction about teaching from university administration. Suppose a tenured professor says, I don't think students learn well in the mornings in a classroom setting, I wish to teach at 10 PM at the pub, and I don't care what time and room these managerialists have assigned me to. Students will meet me where I say they'll meet me, or they'll fail the class. Would you say that the professor (who may genuinely believe this is a better teaching environment) is protected in this decision by "freedom of inquiry"?

by geofft 7y ago

kragen 7y ago

I understand that you are not aware of this, but freedom of inquiry protects non-tenured lecturers and even, thanks to Humboldt, students. I suggest that you read at least the introductory section of https://www.britannica.com/topic/academic-freedom https://www.britannica.com/topic/academic-freedom so that your opinions are no longer based on complete ignorance of the issues at hand. It is true that tenure is a much more effective protection, and this is perhaps a major reason that managerialists have shifted more and more of the teaching load to adjunct faculty over the last four decades. Unquestionably someone designing a new introductory course, as the author claims to have done, would have been tenured or tenure-track faculty at any US University in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s. That is, as defined by his teaching responsibilities, he is very much a professor or assistant professor according to the traditional definition. It does seem to be correct that he is in fact vulnerable to political interference with his freedom to teach. But what we are debating is whether it would be better if he were more vulnerable to it or less so. Your position seems to be that it would be better if he were more vulnerable to it because that would make him more like you. My position is that it would be better if he were less vulnerable to it because historically that kind of thing has led to disasters like Lysenkoism and the failure of the Nazi atomic bomb program.

geofft 7y ago
And someone who was teaching at any US university in those eras would have been generally preparing people for what you call a "professional" role, not to become an ignorant peon like me working a wage labor job. Teaching people how to program (honestly, even calling it introductory "computer science" is a polite fiction) does not require inquiry at all, freedom or otherwise. It's a well-established course, much like high school algebra is well-established, and the concept of "freedom of inquiry" for the high school algebra teacher doesn't make much sense. If a university wishes to have senior faculty design such a class, that's certainly reasonable, but it doesn't fundamentally require innovation. Which gets to the heart of the problem: there isn't a meaningful sense in which any of the decisions he objected to were related to a "freedom of inquiry" about computer science or even about programming. It would be one thing if he said, I don't think we should be teaching students this programming language or this material or this approach to concepts, I think we should be teaching another way. (For instance, he could have written something like https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-javaschools-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-java... .) I would agree with you that such decisions should be the purview of a tenure-track professor and not school administrators, and I would even agree with you that the growth of adjunct roles is an attempt to take such decisions out of the hands of professors. His objections were of a different category entirely. He objected to how he perceived universities to be coddling students, to how he doesn't recognize certain words as part of the English language, etc. It's a pretty motte-and-bailey argument to say that academic freedom also protects a professor's right to ignore any direction about teaching from university administration. Suppose a tenured professor says, I don't think students learn well in the mornings in a classroom setting, I wish to teach at 10 PM at the pub, and I don't care what time and room these managerialists have assigned me to. Students will meet me where I say they'll meet me, or they'll fail the class. Would you say that the professor (who may genuinely believe this is a better teaching environment) is protected in this decision by "freedom of inquiry"?