I doubt that any working person would happily agree to term
employment if it implies that after N years the employer has no
obligation, legal or moral, to retain that individual. It puts most
people, especially those over 50, in a very precarious position. How
many of the people on this list would like to have their term up this
month and face the prospect of looking for a job in the current
environment? Employment is a relationship between employee and
employer that generally goes beyond term contracts. I don't think
that reducing it to something as limited as that is a good idea.
-- Russ
On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 1:35 PM, George Duncan <gtdun...@gmail.com
<mailto:gtdun...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Based on my experience at Carnegie Mellon for 34 years, I can
agree with many of the recommendations. In particular, I see
merit in replacing tenure with term contracts, emphasizing
interdisciplinary programs with a problem focus, more sharing of
teaching across institutions, and providing alternatives to the
traditional thesis.
However, I see no way that any of these will ever come about
through regulation (does he really think that the federal
government could take this on?),
Some of these will perhaps come about through internal moves by
various universities. For example, Carnegie Mellon which is
perhaps the most flexible university in responding to a changing
environment, does have a remarkable array of interdisciplinary
programs and emphasizes opportunities for doctoral students to
cross departmental boundaries. It still has tenure, and I have
thought for decades that the impetus for change there come from
state legislatures that would abolish it in their state
universities. But despite periodic noises it hasn't happened,
perhaps never will. The moves by various universities like MIT,
Stanford and Carnegie Mellon towards more on-line courses and
expanding their availability, will think over time lead to more
sharing of teaching resources. Why should a dozen universities
offer advanced PhD courses in say Galois fields each with three
students, when one could do it with 36 students and the best
teacher of the topic? Why should every undergraduate institution
want a high-level professor of physics, when they can import a
course with the top lecturer in the country and provide the
personal interaction with students through lecturers who care
about students and earn perhaps $40K a year? Some universities do
already provide alternatives of varying sorts to a traditional
thesis, especially in more professionally oriented doctoral
programs, such as those in social work or education.
I cannot agree with the negative tone of the article about
preparing for the academic life. If a person is successful at it,
academia provides a remarkably fulfilling career. Name another
profession where you mostly get to do what you want to do, work
in a pretty pleasant envirionment with intelligent colleagues and
students to chat with, and if you are a full professor at
Columbia you make a pretty decent salary. So not all who aspire,
make it. What percentage of Carnegie Mellon's drama graduates
make it to Broadway or Hollywood? What percentage of graduates of
art school ever sell a painting? The responsibility, I think, is
for schools to do the best job they can to support the student's
highest aspirations while at the same time providing a decent
education for fallback positions.
Last of all, the piece neglects the fact that most graduate
students are not PhD students but instead are enrolled in
professional degree programs. They can have their problems too
but at least they have to be fairly directly responsive to a
market--most are paying some $50K in tuition plus the opportunity
costs of non-employment.
On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<nickthomp...@earthlink.net <mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>>
wrote:
I think everybody who thinks about higher education ought to
have a look at this article, not because it is necessarily
correct but because it suggests great opportunities for
institutions -- such as the "City University of Santa Fe" or
Clark University -- which by reason of their small size could
re-organize quickly to respond to these realities.
I have to admit that I am ambivalent about tenure. If, over
the last 40 years, tenure had seemed to foster intellectual
courage and a willingness to speak one's mind and invest long
term in the institute, then I would continue to favor it
unequivocally. But since the onset of Academic Reaganism,
tenure seems only to meant that most faculty members have
allowed themselves to be manipulated by ever more trivial
incentives -- the merit raise or the honorific reception with
bad wine, stale cheese and crackers. Time to read Fromm's
ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM again, i fear.
And I have to deplore the implication that the only way you
get people to pull their weight is by threatening them with
financial sanction. On the contrary, the entire faculty of
Clark University was subjected to bad pay for all the years I
worked there, and it never changed anybody's behavior. No.
I think the failure has been in our unwillingness to speak
directly and from the heart and in person to colleagues about
what we need from them. True collaboration requires honest
critique in the absence of power; what we have had, over the
last four decades, is the application of power in the absence
of honest critique.
n
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu
<mailto:nthomp...@clarku.edu>)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
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Heinz College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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