3 ms·

> Of course. But I have to tell you, they skilfully sidestepped it by blaming an firing a TA, who I happen to know was entirely innocent. The actual culprit is

by patrec 4y ago

> Of course. But I have to tell you, they skilfully sidestepped it by blaming an firing a TA, who I happen to know was entirely innocent. The actual culprit is still a senior professor at that university. Would you or your friend still need to fear reprisals if you're naming names now? If not, given that normal channels have failed that all sounds sufficiently bad that at least naming the university and department might be worth considering. > there are ways of being cocooned and cloistered in academia which isolate one from conseqences found in the world of real business Given your experience, I'd be very curious to hear what the main mechanisms your witnessed for side-stepping consequences for psychopathic behavior actually were. Since academia only involves spending other people's money without any direct test against outside reality, it stands to reason that it would be much more vulnerable to capture by colluding bad actors than business, where beyond a certain point of organizational pathology the money stops flowing in. There's of course also at least one mechanism designed specifically to cocoon people, namely tenure. But my guess would be that the main way it encourages the psychopaths is not so much that tenure protects them, but that having veto power over other people's tenure is a very good tool to enforce compliance.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Would you or your friend still need to fear reprisals if you're naming names now? If not, given that normal channels have failed that all sounds sufficiently bad that at least naming the university and department might be worth considering. Not really. It is bad. But I've grown thick skinned to it now. It's water under the bridge, and in the scheme of things, small fry. But if I was feeling vindictive I'd get lawyered up with a great libel advisor and write a book about some of the nonsense I've seen, or personally been party to in "academia"; including extraordinary sexism and constructive dismissal of women lecturers, a university that conned people out of their property, lots of crooked real-estate deals (many UK universities are foremost property developers who happen to do some teaching and research on the side), obvious bribes from industry on ICT contracts, blatant fraud on QAA audits, students who were deliberately led to catch Covid during the pandemic to save a few quid on housing allocation... I could go on all day, that's just a few things off the top of my head. And I can speak freely about stuff that is already public. Just take a look at London Middlesex University and their record for shutting down whole departments on ideological grounds and turfing students who are still midway through studies out the door. It's cheaper to pay the compensation to the students who are brave enough to go through the months and years of formal complaints procedure. Academia is a well protected business. > > there are ways of being cocooned and cloistered in academia which isolate one from consequences found in the world of real business > Given your experience, I'd be very curious to hear what the main mechanisms your witnessed for side-stepping consequences for psychopathic behaviour actually were. This isn't the forum for deep discussion, or too much acidic denouncing, but I do suggest reading Ginsberg's "Fall of the Faculty" and some of Henry Giroux's work. Both would be labelled "shrill leftists", in a domain that ironically is already considered "too left liberal". However, that consideration of orthodox political spectrum strikes me as irrelevant in this age. What is the problem is the terrifying rate at which good people are being ousted, or taking early retirement, or jumping ship from quite senior academic posts to modest industry roles just to get away from the bullshit. Also terrifying is the rate at which real teaching and research is being set aside for cookie-cutter subsidised training for Big-Tech entry - a general decline in the intellectual quality of everything we teach. Even in traditional strong holdouts like Cambridge and Oxford I hear the same. I think we're in real crisis in the universities now.

by patrec 4y ago

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> Would you or your friend still need to fear reprisals if you're naming names now? If not, given that normal channels have failed that all sounds sufficiently bad that at least naming the university and department might be worth considering. Not really. It is bad. But I've grown thick skinned to it now. It's water under the bridge, and in the scheme of things, small fry. But if I was feeling vindictive I'd get lawyered up with a great libel advisor and write a book about some of the nonsense I've seen, or personally been party to in "academia"; including extraordinary sexism and constructive dismissal of women lecturers, a university that conned people out of their property, lots of crooked real-estate deals (many UK universities are foremost property developers who happen to do some teaching and research on the side), obvious bribes from industry on ICT contracts, blatant fraud on QAA audits, students who were deliberately led to catch Covid during the pandemic to save a few quid on housing allocation... I could go on all day, that's just a few things off the top of my head. And I can speak freely about stuff that is already public. Just take a look at London Middlesex University and their record for shutting down whole departments on ideological grounds and turfing students who are still midway through studies out the door. It's cheaper to pay the compensation to the students who are brave enough to go through the months and years of formal complaints procedure. Academia is a well protected business. > > there are ways of being cocooned and cloistered in academia which isolate one from consequences found in the world of real business > Given your experience, I'd be very curious to hear what the main mechanisms your witnessed for side-stepping consequences for psychopathic behaviour actually were. This isn't the forum for deep discussion, or too much acidic denouncing, but I do suggest reading Ginsberg's "Fall of the Faculty" and some of Henry Giroux's work. Both would be labelled "shrill leftists", in a domain that ironically is already considered "too left liberal". However, that consideration of orthodox political spectrum strikes me as irrelevant in this age. What is the problem is the terrifying rate at which good people are being ousted, or taking early retirement, or jumping ship from quite senior academic posts to modest industry roles just to get away from the bullshit. Also terrifying is the rate at which real teaching and research is being set aside for cookie-cutter subsidised training for Big-Tech entry - a general decline in the intellectual quality of everything we teach. Even in traditional strong holdouts like Cambridge and Oxford I hear the same. I think we're in real crisis in the universities now.