6 ms·

If you don't plan on staying in academia forever, tenure vs no tenure shouldn't really matter.

by mkl95 3y ago

bsder 3y ago
Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching American history and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you had the temerity to talk about slavery. Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching English literature and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you have the temerity to point out that Chaucer's characters have the symptoms of syphilis. Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching biology and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you had the temerity to teach about DNA and evolution. Shall I continue? Yes, there is enough oversupply of PhDs that Texas will still fill the roles. They'll just have to fill them over and over as people will leave the first chance they get.
- drstewart 3y ago
  [flagged]
- natpalmer1776 3y ago
  I'm tired of responding to folks caught up on the wrong shit, so here's what I should have said in the first place: In my personal experience I've seen or heard of more professors espousing their personal views as fact than most online and academic discourse would have otherwise led me to believe possible. I think removing tenure is a net loss for research because professors now have to worry about politically motivated reprisal for their research, whereas I believe it to be a net gain for student education since professors can then be held accountable for failing their basic responsibility of teaching factual information to the best of their knowledge based on the available research in their field of study.
  - dctoedt 3y ago
    How often do your scenarios occur in real life?
    - natpalmer1776 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - drstewart 3y ago
      Oops, you meant to reply to the parent comment. It's a mistake on your part, you may want to clarify.
      - dctoedt 3y ago
        No, I was responding to a comment that now starts out, "I'm tired ...."
  - thebooktocome 3y ago
    In the real world of academia, CRT is a legal theory, not a biological one.
    - natpalmer1776 3y ago
      [deleted]
      - thebooktocome 3y ago
        The false positive rate for students reporting “my professor is teaching critical race theory!!!” is outlandishly high. CRT is also not “political pop science propaganda” so I’m not convinced you can recognize it either. It’s a legal theory. About law.
        natpalmer1776 3y ago
        [deleted]
        PuppyTailWags 3y ago
        > I don’t care what CRT is academically Wut? Aren't you explicitly talking about an academic context? Wouldn't that matter a heck of a lot what class your brother was getting taught? Like, hypothetically I can disagree with feminism but I'm just being stupid if I go to a feminism 101 class and get mad the professor is teaching feminist theories.
        natpalmer1776 3y ago
        [deleted]
        PuppyTailWags 3y ago
        I think using an example of {x} where x is an academic subject matter, and the complaint was that it was used in an academic setting, and is used as an example of a bad behavior involving academic institutions, it's worth inquiring if that example is valid! If I presented a mathematical proof in a math paper in a math journal, my proof being incorrect is kind of a big deal.
  - tombert 3y ago
    > actively retaliate against students who try to stand up for their faith. Outside of chain emails and the movie "God's Not Dead", has this really happened? Anecdata, but when I took an intro to philosophy course my professor was pretty open to religious people talking about their justification for stuff. For that matter, I took a "religious ethics" class, which spent a not-insignificant time talking about Christian ethics (in addition to a lot of other popular religions). It was actually a pretty interesting class. This was at a public school, evidently.
    - natpalmer1776 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - drstewart 3y ago
      >Outside of chain emails and the movie "God's Not Dead", has this really happened? As often as the OPs scenarios have happened, which you were strangely quiet on questioning the validity of. Just an oversight, I'm sure.
      - tombert 3y ago
        Ok, so are you saying that “never” is the answer to both?
        drstewart 3y ago
        Yes
        bsder 3y ago
        You would be wrong. I chose those scenarios specifically because I know the teachers and professors who had gadflies coming after them. My own father used to have to deal with things as a high school English and history teacher due to a local Catholic priest. Tiny-ass town, practically all Caucasian population, rural as hell. And even he had to deal with these kinds of idiots. Tenure meant he could effectively tell them to pound sand. I can't imagine the number of nitwits that college professors have to fend off. I guess we're about to find out.
  - petsfed 3y ago
    >Tenure hurts if you happen to be teaching biology and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you teach politically motivated Critical Race theory. Considering that CRT is a legal and historical theory, not a biology theory, I think that's a fair concern. Similarly, tenured European history professors should be called on the carpet for requiring reading and homework on perturbation theory in quantum electrodynamics. Your first point is not really coherent. Do you mean to say that some professor should be fired for overemphasizing slavery's role in American history? Or underemphasizing? An actual example that's come up: tenure hurts if a law professor is critical of a dominant industry in your state, and you want to fire her for saying so in a professional capacity[0]. I can't speak to the impact on STEM, but this will 100% hurt Texas' ability to operate law schools, and it will likely also impact its ability to provide basic general-studies curriculum as is generally considered necessary for a bachelor's degree. 0. https://www.hcn.org/issues/173/5582 https://www.hcn.org/issues/173/5582
    - natpalmer1776 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    The replacement for tenure track faculty is teaching only faculty, which is already happening across the world. Teaching only faculty have even less incentive and time to stay on top of research progress. 10 years out of their PhD, the teaching only faculty is hopelessly out of touch of the state of the art in any super active field.
    - ModernMech 3y ago
      Wouldn’t the incentive be to stay relevant?
      - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
        Always, ask what is the economics of things. Full time teaching faculty teach 3 courses every semester, for it to make financial sense to pay them for full time salaried role. Trying to teach a course well takes at least 12-15 hours of work every week, if not more. That's already more than 40 hours per week. Add a few hours of service requirements to this as well. Where is the time or the mental energy to learn new stuff? At best they will supervise an undergraduate thesis or two every year, where perhaps the students will teach them some new stuff. It's only the gifted, who are able to keep up. The average faculty member just falls further and further behind.
        ModernMech 3y ago
        As a full time teaching professor with a 3/3-course load, I can say there’s definitely time — the summer, when I’m off from the beginning of May to the end of August; and the winter, when I’m off from the beginning of December to the end of January.

If you don't plan on staying in academia forever, tenure vs no tenure shouldn't really matter.

by mkl95 3y ago

If you don't plan on staying in academia forever, tenure vs no tenure shouldn't really matter.

Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching American history and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you had the temerity to talk about slavery. Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching English literature and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you have the temerity to point out that Chaucer's characters have the symptoms of syphilis. Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching biology and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you had the temerity to teach about DNA and evolution. Shall I continue? Yes, there is enough oversupply of PhDs that Texas will still fill the roles. They'll just have to fill them over and over as people will leave the first chance they get.

drstewart 3y ago
[flagged]
natpalmer1776 3y ago
I'm tired of responding to folks caught up on the wrong shit, so here's what I should have said in the first place: In my personal experience I've seen or heard of more professors espousing their personal views as fact than most online and academic discourse would have otherwise led me to believe possible. I think removing tenure is a net loss for research because professors now have to worry about politically motivated reprisal for their research, whereas I believe it to be a net gain for student education since professors can then be held accountable for failing their basic responsibility of teaching factual information to the best of their knowledge based on the available research in their field of study.
- dctoedt 3y ago
  How often do your scenarios occur in real life?
  - natpalmer1776 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - drstewart 3y ago
    Oops, you meant to reply to the parent comment. It's a mistake on your part, you may want to clarify.
    - dctoedt 3y ago
      No, I was responding to a comment that now starts out, "I'm tired ...."
- thebooktocome 3y ago
  In the real world of academia, CRT is a legal theory, not a biological one.
  - natpalmer1776 3y ago
    [deleted]
    - thebooktocome 3y ago
      The false positive rate for students reporting “my professor is teaching critical race theory!!!” is outlandishly high. CRT is also not “political pop science propaganda” so I’m not convinced you can recognize it either. It’s a legal theory. About law.
      - natpalmer1776 3y ago
        [deleted]
        PuppyTailWags 3y ago
        > I don’t care what CRT is academically Wut? Aren't you explicitly talking about an academic context? Wouldn't that matter a heck of a lot what class your brother was getting taught? Like, hypothetically I can disagree with feminism but I'm just being stupid if I go to a feminism 101 class and get mad the professor is teaching feminist theories.
        natpalmer1776 3y ago
        [deleted]
        PuppyTailWags 3y ago
        I think using an example of {x} where x is an academic subject matter, and the complaint was that it was used in an academic setting, and is used as an example of a bad behavior involving academic institutions, it's worth inquiring if that example is valid! If I presented a mathematical proof in a math paper in a math journal, my proof being incorrect is kind of a big deal.
- tombert 3y ago
  > actively retaliate against students who try to stand up for their faith. Outside of chain emails and the movie "God's Not Dead", has this really happened? Anecdata, but when I took an intro to philosophy course my professor was pretty open to religious people talking about their justification for stuff. For that matter, I took a "religious ethics" class, which spent a not-insignificant time talking about Christian ethics (in addition to a lot of other popular religions). It was actually a pretty interesting class. This was at a public school, evidently.
  - natpalmer1776 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - drstewart 3y ago
    >Outside of chain emails and the movie "God's Not Dead", has this really happened? As often as the OPs scenarios have happened, which you were strangely quiet on questioning the validity of. Just an oversight, I'm sure.
    - tombert 3y ago
      Ok, so are you saying that “never” is the answer to both?
      - drstewart 3y ago
        Yes
        bsder 3y ago
        You would be wrong. I chose those scenarios specifically because I know the teachers and professors who had gadflies coming after them. My own father used to have to deal with things as a high school English and history teacher due to a local Catholic priest. Tiny-ass town, practically all Caucasian population, rural as hell. And even he had to deal with these kinds of idiots. Tenure meant he could effectively tell them to pound sand. I can't imagine the number of nitwits that college professors have to fend off. I guess we're about to find out.
- petsfed 3y ago
  >Tenure hurts if you happen to be teaching biology and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you teach politically motivated Critical Race theory. Considering that CRT is a legal and historical theory, not a biology theory, I think that's a fair concern. Similarly, tenured European history professors should be called on the carpet for requiring reading and homework on perturbation theory in quantum electrodynamics. Your first point is not really coherent. Do you mean to say that some professor should be fired for overemphasizing slavery's role in American history? Or underemphasizing? An actual example that's come up: tenure hurts if a law professor is critical of a dominant industry in your state, and you want to fire her for saying so in a professional capacity[0]. I can't speak to the impact on STEM, but this will 100% hurt Texas' ability to operate law schools, and it will likely also impact its ability to provide basic general-studies curriculum as is generally considered necessary for a bachelor's degree. 0. https://www.hcn.org/issues/173/5582 https://www.hcn.org/issues/173/5582
  - natpalmer1776 3y ago
    [deleted]
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  The replacement for tenure track faculty is teaching only faculty, which is already happening across the world. Teaching only faculty have even less incentive and time to stay on top of research progress. 10 years out of their PhD, the teaching only faculty is hopelessly out of touch of the state of the art in any super active field.
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    Wouldn’t the incentive be to stay relevant?
    - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
      Always, ask what is the economics of things. Full time teaching faculty teach 3 courses every semester, for it to make financial sense to pay them for full time salaried role. Trying to teach a course well takes at least 12-15 hours of work every week, if not more. That's already more than 40 hours per week. Add a few hours of service requirements to this as well. Where is the time or the mental energy to learn new stuff? At best they will supervise an undergraduate thesis or two every year, where perhaps the students will teach them some new stuff. It's only the gifted, who are able to keep up. The average faculty member just falls further and further behind.
      - ModernMech 3y ago
        As a full time teaching professor with a 3/3-course load, I can say there’s definitely time — the summer, when I’m off from the beginning of May to the end of August; and the winter, when I’m off from the beginning of December to the end of January.