Quote of the Day
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon,or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length,
the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
Henry David Thoreau
Image of the Day
 |
| Courtesy of Carpe Diem |
I was a junior (untenured) professor for 5 years. In theory, tenure, on the university level, is to protect the independence of scholars expressing their professional judgment, studies, and conclusions, which are not necessarily consistent with populist sentiment. (Think, for instance, of scientific conclusions at odds with a literal interpretation of Genesis.) It's difficult to see that in academia today for most scholars; probably the closest might be global warming skeptics or say rogue theologians at Catholic universities. Certainly you don't have the luxury of being an intellectual gadfly as a junior professor since quite frequently you have to establish professional credentials to win tenure through scholarly contributions. It's almost impossible to get published in a preferred scientific journal if you are, say, a climate alarmist skeptic. I remember wanting to publish a note critical of how MIS academics implemented and reported use of applied psychological measures (e.g., of user satisfaction), and the negative reviews, instead of focusing on my arguments and evidence, were largely personal in nature. To give some examples, I was criticized for not being a constructive critic and presenting my own measure, for not introducing state-of-the-art psychometrics, etc. The problem with that reaction is the fact I was the boy noticing the emperor was wearing no clothes; to the best of my knowledge, no critique remotely like mine had appeared in any scholarly MIS journal, and my fellow researchers were using dubious measures and practices, with spuriously high reliability figures. These measures had become de facto discipline standards. My sole purpose was to start a discussion, not take cheap shots at fellow academics. Other researchers needed a more balanced perspective on choosing to use available measures. I have little doubt my paper was reviewed by academics with vested interests in the very measures I was criticizing.
I never got tenure, a decision usually made in the sixth year. My issue was not professional productivity but nasty university politics. At UWM, I got threatened over tenure in my very first semester. I had befriended a doctoral student whom, for some reason, refused to discuss his upcoming dissertation proposal. He intended to go on the job market as an ABD ("all but dissertation"). His refusal was a clear red flag, but the rules are the proposal must be frozen and available for interested faculty a week or two before defense. What I read shocked me; his chair had a consulting relationship with a regional Bell and hoped to convince them to do a field test (e.g., using employees as subjects). His backup plan (far more likely) was to use student subjects. His hypotheses were nebulous assertions of the type "managers will make better decisions with better information". There was scant discussion of study resources, statistical power or analytical methods and tests, no discussion, say, of the dubious inference of students to managers. I honestly thought he would be shredded at his defense; I urged him to withdraw his proposal and beef it up. Not a chance.
I got a response a few days later. The student's chair had organized a dog-and-pony show at the regional Bell. Another doctoral student drove me to the event, a big mistake. They did tours in shifts, and of course I was separated from my ride home. I was in the last group, and (surprise! surprise!) everyone was gone by the time my group finished--except the student's chair and me. He "volunteered" to drive me home. On the way back he mentioned that Dave had shared my critique of the proposal with him, and he paid lip service to the idea I had raised some important points and Dave should address them. But the main thrust was to deliver two points: (1) he had recruited a well-respected org behavior professor to sit on Dave's committee, and the professor would be running interference and return fire (i.e., making me, not Dave, the issue) if I did so much as open my mouth at the defense, and (2) was I aware I had no vote in my own tenure process? Now this is so off-the-charts unethical I hardly feel the need to comment on it. I am not intimidated by other scholars; I'm sure that his hired gun had to know the proposal was a piece of excrement. But if I counter-attacked a respected professor, I was done. The School of Business at the time was undepartmentalized, and the senior faculty were the real power. Without the support of my own senior faculty and others, it didn't matter how good my pubs and teaching were--I would never win tenure, and the chair knew it.
I knew at that point, not even the end of my first semester, that not only would I never get tenured, but even a routine contract renewal was dubious. My whole motivation for accepting UWM's offer was their graduate school program. During the remaining time--even though I had been accepted to the PhD faculty within a year (at the time, one of the earliest ever--they subsequently relaxed the criteria), I was never asked to sit on a single student's committee. My idealistic notions of academia were forever shattered.
Sour grapes? No. I have confidence in my abilities and contribution; I didn't need the crutch of a job for life. I just don't think university professors are entitled to any more security than the people sponsoring their employment. Faculty should be hired or retained based on merit of performance.
One of my nieces got laid off as a public school teacher (based on evil seniority preference rules) in her home state early in the Great Recession. She is now teaching elementary education in another state and expects to win tenure in the next year or two. Let's point out, as Reason does here, there's a world of difference between college and K-12 tenure. Tenure at the university level typically requires original research, teaching and service (which covers a number of unpaid contributions, e.g., as a journal or conference reviewer, university committees, etc.) and requires twice as long to earn.
But let's face it: the teaching profession enjoys far more job security than almost any other profession, certainly in the private sector. And teachers have been a key beneficiary to a huge amount of money thrown at education over the past 4 decades with little to show for it in student performance. Not to mention they are one of the strongest interest groups. Quick, who was the last politician whom did not pay lip service to the "low" compensation earned by teachers? I think people have mixed feelings, e.g., they hate all politicians except their own; their kids' teachers are great and "underpaid". Hearing hypocritical "progressives" like Matt Damon and Barry Obama send their kids to private schools while voicing solidarity with public school educators is nauseating. Don't get me wrong; there are a number of very competent educators like my nieces and my landlady's daughter whom sometimes pays for necessary supplies out of her own pocket. But there is also the deadwood of incompetent colleagues whom are protected by unions and anachronistic seniority layoff rules over the best and brightest young talent.
Facebook Corner
(Illinois Policy Institute). Following once again in New York City’s tradition of petty nanny statism, a new ordinance proposed by aldermen Edward Burke and Anthony Beale seeks to ban horse-drawn carriages in Chicago.
According to Burke, “Carriage rides have outlived their usefulness in Chicago in 2014.” But what is “useful” should be a matter of what consumers actually want.
Come on over to Indianapolis to ride a horse drawn carriage through our beautiful downtown.
I was in Indianapolis in 1985 for a December doctoral consortium and saw exactly what you're describing. I found it quite picturesque and charming, and it left me with a positive image of my visit and the city. In fact, when I read this story, I immediately remembered my Indianapolis experience.
As to why this elitist alderman wants to ban romantic carriage rides for sweethearts, I don't get it. Maybe he fell down from a pony when he was a little boy...
Political Cartoon
 |
| Courtesy of Henry Payne and Townhall |
Joshua Kadison, "Jessie". I remember when this song was released, my favorite single of 1994; critics were calling Joshua the new Elton John of his era. I'm not quite sure that he's lived up to that comparison, but over the past 20 years, I've bought maybe 2 or 3 CD or cassette singles, and this was one of them. (I recently featured one of the others--"Sand and Water" by Beth Nielsen Chapman. Of course, that was before widely available digital downloads, but most of my digital downloads are not current hits.) Joshua's theme is timeless: we men sometimes fall for the wrong women. I was attracted to a petite yeoman I worked with while assigned to the JAG office before leaving the Navy: probably a little obvious given the fact that her girlfriend once said to her in front of me, "Tell him to get us some ice cream." (She never used me that way.) She was involved with a married guy on the West Coast, and she openly despised my Catholic faith. Although she was attractive, it was more a matter of personal chemistry. In my head, I understood that we had differing values and the relationship wouldn't work, but my heart didn't care.
Where this relates to Josh's song was a year or so later after leaving the Navy, my best two Navy friends were getting married in Orlando. I must have mentioned it to my yeoman whom had remained in contact on an irregular basis. I wasn't the kind to fly off halfway across the country for a weekend wedding (in fact, I was never invited to a wedding of any friend from college). Then one Saturday morning, maybe about 6:30 AM, I was awakened by a rare personal phone call; I don't even remember having given her my number. She wanted me to come for the wedding and stay over her place; she would be my date for the wedding (but, for whatever reason, not the reception). She was there to pick me up and all it took was a split second looking down into her warm brown eyes for my heart to skip a beat...
I got her own wedding invitation a year or two later--it was postmarked after the event. At least she had broken things off with the married guy from the People's Republic of California. I think she got married to a military veteran returning to his Southeast farm (listen to Bread's "Dear Diary" for a good take on how I felt). (To be honest, I never pictured her as a farmer's wife, but she was/is a very interesting woman, full of surprises.) I last heard from her after she had given birth to her first and only child; she mentioned that she thereafter had a hysterectomy.
