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> top students, grants, researchers, etc.... Nobel Prizes LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DE

> top students, grants, researchers, etc.... Nobel Prizes LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). I'm sure there's an exception here or there, but even in those cases... Harvard/MIT have thousands of qualified candidates for every spot, and any of those people would do the job well. In a very real sense, Harvard/MIT/etc. pick who wins as much as the other way around. > It's a guaranteed death spiral for them. No, it's EXACTLY the other way around. The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars. Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology. Ie, the reason many institutions are requiring DEI has more to do with the fact that they're terrified they will run out of money and blink out of existence if they don't manage to start recruiting non-traditional student demographics between now and 2030, and right or wrong (imo wrong btw) they think DEI focus in faculty is crucial to recruitment of certain degraphics: https://www.capturehighered.com/how-to-climb-higher-eds-impending-demographic-cliff/ https://www.capturehighered.com/how-to-climb-higher-eds-impe...

adamsmith143 4y ago
>LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). So why play the kabuki game at all if it's all so pointless. >The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars. We're talking about the UC schools which have been top of the world generally and the DEI stuff seems to matter quite a lot there. >Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology. This doesn't map to reality because it's some of the most elite schools, with the most applicants, the largest endowments, the most Federal Research Money, etc. that have been pushing this the most aggressively, Harvard, Yale, the UC's etc.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  > So why play the kabuki game at all if it's all so pointless. That's academia. I'm really, really serious. You also submit, as a 20-something who has only ever been a student: 1. a multi-page research statement summarizing a five year research agenda, 2. a multi-page teaching statement (in some cases the candidate has literally just been a grader for one course and stretches that out for 2.5 pages), 3. three letters of reference (multiple pages, must be glowing with lots of anecdotes, preferably from senior and respected people in your field), 4. 5 page CV summarizing your first six years of work (at least one of which was just taking classes; lol), and 5. A diversity statement and/or statement of faith. That's before your first phone interview. After the phone interview you have a 2 day on-site interview that involves an hour long talk, one-on-one interviews with dozens of people, and every meal with a different group of stakeholders. They sometimes even pick you up from the airport, drop you off at the airport, and have you sleep in a university house that you are "always on" from touch-down to take-off. No shit: I heard an anecdote about a candidate that didn't get an offer because he left the bedroom messy. That's the process for an entry-level position that might only pay $60K. Faculty hiring is straight up insane, and DEI/Faith statements don't even make the top 10 list of reasons why. > We're talking about the UC schools which have been top of the world generally and the DEI stuff seems to matter quite a lot there. Are we? The article starts with a discussion of Berkeley, but quickly generalizes to the rest of the industry. Very few of the comments here are about the UC system in particular. By institution count, CA's public system is a teeny tiny fraction of the US's 4000+ colleges and universities. But I get it. For a certain mark, California gets the cortisol goin'. > ...pushing this the most aggressively, Harvard, Yale, the UC's etc. LOL no they're not. The push is FAR stronger at no-name tuition-dependent corn row colleges in the midwest who have snow white undergrad populations and are literally existentially threatened by the coming decline in white 18 year old midwesterners. But the Big Elite Coastal Schools are only institutions that people who lose their god damned brains over stuff like this ever want to talk about.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > You also submit, as a 20-something who has only ever been a student: Tbf the process is the same for senior candidate applications. It may seem like a lot for junior applicants but the bar is lowered significantly. But like you say, it’s competitive, so naturally the pageantry gets turned to 11.
goatlover 4y ago
WASP? You mean they don't have enough Catholics or Germanic students? You mean to tell me Harvard/MIT can't recruit foreigners? I see MIT's first year student survey shows Asian American as the highest group at 40%. Internationals are 11%.

adamsmith143 4y ago

>LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). So why play the kabuki game at all if it's all so pointless. >The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars. We're talking about the UC schools which have been top of the world generally and the DEI stuff seems to matter quite a lot there. >Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology. This doesn't map to reality because it's some of the most elite schools, with the most applicants, the largest endowments, the most Federal Research Money, etc. that have been pushing this the most aggressively, Harvard, Yale, the UC's etc.

thwayunion 4y ago
> So why play the kabuki game at all if it's all so pointless. That's academia. I'm really, really serious. You also submit, as a 20-something who has only ever been a student: 1. a multi-page research statement summarizing a five year research agenda, 2. a multi-page teaching statement (in some cases the candidate has literally just been a grader for one course and stretches that out for 2.5 pages), 3. three letters of reference (multiple pages, must be glowing with lots of anecdotes, preferably from senior and respected people in your field), 4. 5 page CV summarizing your first six years of work (at least one of which was just taking classes; lol), and 5. A diversity statement and/or statement of faith. That's before your first phone interview. After the phone interview you have a 2 day on-site interview that involves an hour long talk, one-on-one interviews with dozens of people, and every meal with a different group of stakeholders. They sometimes even pick you up from the airport, drop you off at the airport, and have you sleep in a university house that you are "always on" from touch-down to take-off. No shit: I heard an anecdote about a candidate that didn't get an offer because he left the bedroom messy. That's the process for an entry-level position that might only pay $60K. Faculty hiring is straight up insane, and DEI/Faith statements don't even make the top 10 list of reasons why. > We're talking about the UC schools which have been top of the world generally and the DEI stuff seems to matter quite a lot there. Are we? The article starts with a discussion of Berkeley, but quickly generalizes to the rest of the industry. Very few of the comments here are about the UC system in particular. By institution count, CA's public system is a teeny tiny fraction of the US's 4000+ colleges and universities. But I get it. For a certain mark, California gets the cortisol goin'. > ...pushing this the most aggressively, Harvard, Yale, the UC's etc. LOL no they're not. The push is FAR stronger at no-name tuition-dependent corn row colleges in the midwest who have snow white undergrad populations and are literally existentially threatened by the coming decline in white 18 year old midwesterners. But the Big Elite Coastal Schools are only institutions that people who lose their god damned brains over stuff like this ever want to talk about.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > You also submit, as a 20-something who has only ever been a student: Tbf the process is the same for senior candidate applications. It may seem like a lot for junior applicants but the bar is lowered significantly. But like you say, it’s competitive, so naturally the pageantry gets turned to 11.

goatlover 4y ago

WASP? You mean they don't have enough Catholics or Germanic students? You mean to tell me Harvard/MIT can't recruit foreigners? I see MIT's first year student survey shows Asian American as the highest group at 40%. Internationals are 11%.