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> For one thing, tenure can be replaced by higher salaries. Do you imply the universities will magically get more money somehow? >Who knows, maybe these unive

> For one thing, tenure can be replaced by higher salaries. Do you imply the universities will magically get more money somehow? >Who knows, maybe these universities will get more bang for their bucks that way. Scott Aarsonson knows. They won't. Also, everyone in the field does. There's a reason tenure exists. >After all, there are industrial research labs that play in the same league as the top research universities. Same league, a microscopic fraction of the scope. The bottom line is always there, and it guides which research gets funded. >And there are other forces that make people want to pursue academic careers. ...most of which are given by tenure. >Academics are very ego-driven, they measure their success in prizes, grants, publications, so if these universities give them the means to do that, they'll still attract top talent. As someone with a PhD in mathematics: absolutely not. All that aside, great research takes time and persistence, and culture, and environment, and working groups. All that disappears once your core is transient.

caddemon 4y ago
> As someone with a PhD in mathematics: absolutely not. I'm blown away by this statement. Maybe math is an amazing haven of curiosity, and if so that is good to know. But academic credit is half the damn currency of science, and it is 100% the main reason that many profs are willing to take a pay cut. This is something openly joked about by people at all levels in my department (biology), and of what I know from some physicists I am close to it is not great there either. Though this could also have some subfield dependence. In biology tenure is hardly a direct benefit anyway because there's nothing much you can do without grants, and no one wants to stop being thought of as productive/smart. People chill a little after getting tenure, but only because 50% of them are basically fired at that decision point. Tenured faculty absolutely still play the grantsmanship game hard in biosciences. I suppose in mathematics there is not as much impact that university status can have, because way less upfront money is needed.
- arghnoname 4y ago
  My area was computer science and from my personal experience I saw a lot of what you're talking about. These people are hyper competitive and sunk a good chunk of their young adult life in this stuff. It is at that part a big part of their identity. There are easier things to do, it's not like tenure at a state university salary is some big prize for someone who is competitive at a top department--they have the smarts and drive to have much better salary and plenty of job security elsewhere. I knew plenty of people who were total maniacs after tenure, it made no difference. Lots of people slowed down a little, but only because they were so fried. Most research I've observed is still safe and boring (IMHO) because it's more likely to land papers and grants. No one uses their tenure to really do anything daring hardly--you can't, you'd fuck your students. They still need publications! So we were all in a never-ending publishing grind. With or without tenure it never ends so long as you still have students and care about their future.
yodsanklai 4y ago
> Do you imply the universities will magically get more money somehow? Well, some universities are quite rich. The professors salaries aren't always constrained by the university budget.
latency-guy2 4y ago
> Do you imply the universities will magically get more money somehow? They appear to gain billions upon billions of guaranteed cashflow from the government from all of state, local, and federal in many forms every year. Further, the vast majority of US universities/companies raked in huge amounts of cash over the last few decades, exceeding quite a bit of other industries. I'm sure that's as magical as it gets. > > Who knows, maybe these universities will get more bang for their bucks that way. > Scott Aarsonson knows. They won't. Sucks for them, pay up, they've been able to afford it for decades. > Also, everyone in the field does. There's a reason tenure exists. Yes, its to entice their pool of 11,000 [1] and 16,000 [2] graduate students to fight over ~1500 [3] faculty positions across the US. And, the half that do go through to the PhD track will never finish, at best coming out with a MA/MS/MSE or whatever bullshit version of what is colloquially known as a "masters degree" they have invented at their company. > > After all, there are industrial research labs that play in the same league as the top research universities. > Same league, a microscopic fraction of the scope. The bottom line is always there, and it guides which research gets funded. What do you mean? If by number of topics an single institution can have, then sure, that's a given (lets see the psychology department reproduce their results though). If by the individual topic, then I would beg to differ quite heavily. Lets talk about all the national labs, and while given that some national labs are also owned by universities, these labs are still private, LANL as an example for A&M since we're on that topic. Their scope far exceeds any department A&M has, depth as well, much, much more. > > And there are other forces that make people want to pursue academic careers. > ...most of which are given by tenure. I don't think graduate students are quite that dumb, I'm sure plenty of them can figure out that tenure is not very likely, even if they first author 30 papers all of which get accepted into all of the top journals in their field. Unless they plan on getting rid of the competition somehow, AKA the existing faculty as well as other students and post-docs. I'd love to see that brawl. I'd pay a few thousand for a Ann Arbor grad to fight an OSU grad to the death. Maybe Berkeley, AA, and Harvard could start giving a few classes on how the Unabomber did what he did. [1] https://www.utexas.edu/about/facts-and-figures https://www.utexas.edu/about/facts-and-figures [2] https://www.tamu.edu/about/at-a-glance.html https://www.tamu.edu/about/at-a-glance.html [3] https://jobs.chronicle.com/jobs/faculty-positions/tenured-tenured-track/ https://jobs.chronicle.com/jobs/faculty-positions/tenured-te...

caddemon 4y ago

> As someone with a PhD in mathematics: absolutely not. I'm blown away by this statement. Maybe math is an amazing haven of curiosity, and if so that is good to know. But academic credit is half the damn currency of science, and it is 100% the main reason that many profs are willing to take a pay cut. This is something openly joked about by people at all levels in my department (biology), and of what I know from some physicists I am close to it is not great there either. Though this could also have some subfield dependence. In biology tenure is hardly a direct benefit anyway because there's nothing much you can do without grants, and no one wants to stop being thought of as productive/smart. People chill a little after getting tenure, but only because 50% of them are basically fired at that decision point. Tenured faculty absolutely still play the grantsmanship game hard in biosciences. I suppose in mathematics there is not as much impact that university status can have, because way less upfront money is needed.

arghnoname 4y ago
My area was computer science and from my personal experience I saw a lot of what you're talking about. These people are hyper competitive and sunk a good chunk of their young adult life in this stuff. It is at that part a big part of their identity. There are easier things to do, it's not like tenure at a state university salary is some big prize for someone who is competitive at a top department--they have the smarts and drive to have much better salary and plenty of job security elsewhere. I knew plenty of people who were total maniacs after tenure, it made no difference. Lots of people slowed down a little, but only because they were so fried. Most research I've observed is still safe and boring (IMHO) because it's more likely to land papers and grants. No one uses their tenure to really do anything daring hardly--you can't, you'd fuck your students. They still need publications! So we were all in a never-ending publishing grind. With or without tenure it never ends so long as you still have students and care about their future.

yodsanklai 4y ago

> Do you imply the universities will magically get more money somehow? Well, some universities are quite rich. The professors salaries aren't always constrained by the university budget.

latency-guy2 4y ago

> Do you imply the universities will magically get more money somehow? They appear to gain billions upon billions of guaranteed cashflow from the government from all of state, local, and federal in many forms every year. Further, the vast majority of US universities/companies raked in huge amounts of cash over the last few decades, exceeding quite a bit of other industries. I'm sure that's as magical as it gets. > > Who knows, maybe these universities will get more bang for their bucks that way. > Scott Aarsonson knows. They won't. Sucks for them, pay up, they've been able to afford it for decades. > Also, everyone in the field does. There's a reason tenure exists. Yes, its to entice their pool of 11,000 [1] and 16,000 [2] graduate students to fight over ~1500 [3] faculty positions across the US. And, the half that do go through to the PhD track will never finish, at best coming out with a MA/MS/MSE or whatever bullshit version of what is colloquially known as a "masters degree" they have invented at their company. > > After all, there are industrial research labs that play in the same league as the top research universities. > Same league, a microscopic fraction of the scope. The bottom line is always there, and it guides which research gets funded. What do you mean? If by number of topics an single institution can have, then sure, that's a given (lets see the psychology department reproduce their results though). If by the individual topic, then I would beg to differ quite heavily. Lets talk about all the national labs, and while given that some national labs are also owned by universities, these labs are still private, LANL as an example for A&M since we're on that topic. Their scope far exceeds any department A&M has, depth as well, much, much more. > > And there are other forces that make people want to pursue academic careers. > ...most of which are given by tenure. I don't think graduate students are quite that dumb, I'm sure plenty of them can figure out that tenure is not very likely, even if they first author 30 papers all of which get accepted into all of the top journals in their field. Unless they plan on getting rid of the competition somehow, AKA the existing faculty as well as other students and post-docs. I'd love to see that brawl. I'd pay a few thousand for a Ann Arbor grad to fight an OSU grad to the death. Maybe Berkeley, AA, and Harvard could start giving a few classes on how the Unabomber did what he did. [1] https://www.utexas.edu/about/facts-and-figures https://www.utexas.edu/about/facts-and-figures [2] https://www.tamu.edu/about/at-a-glance.html https://www.tamu.edu/about/at-a-glance.html [3] https://jobs.chronicle.com/jobs/faculty-positions/tenured-tenured-track/ https://jobs.chronicle.com/jobs/faculty-positions/tenured-te...