There were a couple of incidents I've previously recounted in past posts that come to mind, relevant to whether I cared about my students. One was a UWM student protest when we raised undergraduate MIS major requirements from 3 to 6 3-hour courses. (I think there was a grandfather clause for existing student majors.) Three courses were a joke, and business recruiters weren't fools. We had a sister campus, UW-Whitewater, which not only required 21 hours but had an IBM mainframe on campus. Recruiters were all over UWW graduates, and our penny-wise, pound-foolish graduates simply weren't competitive. No, this wasn't some nefarious plot to hire more MIS faculty; I think in many schools, 3 courses are barely a minor, never mind a major. I was more surprised my 4 senior faculty colleagues were taking the lead on this. For us, we had an obligation to our graduates in the job market; we knew from other faculty and recruiters, never mind struggling graduates, what was going on. Maybe this is a case of "tough love".
The other is one interview I had with a teaching (vs. research) university recruiter towards the end of my career. The market had drastically changed since the white-hot MIS market in the mid-80's. I was #16 ABD in my UH program and I leapfrogged over a dozen predecessors to graduate #4, one week behind #3. (You actually earn your PhD after a successful dissertation defense.) A lot of predecessors took advantage of a 5-year period to write the dissertation to go back to work full-time; I worked on the dissertation, teaching a couple of classes on the side to make ends meet. What happened after I graduated, my school, as well as others, started cracking the whip and threatened to enforce the period, requiring procrastinating doctoral students to retake comprehensive exams (take my word for it: nobody wants to do that). So several ABD's graduated over the next 2 years. Many state schools griped they couldn't attract candidates, and Indiana University ran a summer program to retrain PhDs from other disciplines. Finally, we saw a peaking of enrollments; whereas over 30 students in a class was the norm when I started, I started seeing those drop to the mid-20's while at UWM.
Towards the end of my career, the job market had flipped. Schools which used to attract maybe a dozen candidates were now getting flooded with 80-plus resumes, including computer science PhD's who normally wouldn't be caught dead in a business school. We went from 12 positions for every applicant to 1 job for every 4 applicants. Schools started focusing on specific common niches, like hiring female candidates or network computing specialists, which,despite my having my degree in hand, an above-average publication record and years of teaching core courses, worked against me. It was actually humiliating, in some cases with certain school hotel suites set up almost like speed dating, interviewing candidates concurrently. I was having to pay my own way and having to fight to fill my dance card with schools I probably wouldn't have returned calls from 5 years earlier. And to this day, I seriously believe I was the best area professor at the 3 universities I worked at (I'm sure my former colleagues would take offense, and I didn't sit in on their classes, but I knew about their lower standards and assignments, the fact they recycled course preparations: in part it made things more difficult for me because students had certain expectations based on the behavior of other faculty. (Even bright students: I remember my best friend while attending the University of Texas, now a medical doctor. He knew he needed a high GPA for med school. Even though he was a bright guy, he would study professor grade distributions before registration, maximizing his opportunity for straight A's.) There's a myth that students like tougher profs. Well, maybe that's true for senior (tenured) faculty who could put in a good word for graduate school or had influence with top corporate recruiters, but it's almost a death wish for a young junior professor.
Still, there were times I put my foot down and said, "This is not happening on my watch." Two examples from my year in hell at UTEP. I had one student, a senior MIS major, who had never written a computer program on his own. Then there was the time when I was going over linked lists, review material for my database course. My course had a prerequisite of data structures, and yet less than 10% of the class had a clue what I was talking about. (The popular instructor of that course did not teach data structures and in fact didn't even require computer assignments. He was running his own agenda.) So I stopped at that point and spent the next 3 weeks teaching data structures. Students were grumbling they were getting two courses and twice the work, and they were not that appreciative, at least while they were going through it. How many faculty would have done that? Nobody I've ever met. I certainly didn't get support from the students or the administration. It would have been so much easier to go with the flow. If I didn't care about the students, I could have easily just ignored what was going on, putting my career over poorly educated college graduates facing the inevitable day of reckoning. I didn't need the extra workload, having to clean up after an incompetent instructor and the corrupt administration that had hired him and either didn't know or care that this bozo was running his own agenda, which I saw as a form of academic fraud.
So I'm being interviewed by this one teaching (vs. research) school; he took one look at my long list of publications and said, "You know, I could have publications, too, if I took away from the time I devote for my students." You have to remain professional and smile, while you secretly want to kick his presumptuous ass. I always came to lecture with typewritten lecture notes; I had changed textbooks in courses where textbooks are often obsolete by the time of publication; I was almost always on campus for unscheduled office hours; I required more/more challenging computer assignments than my colleagues and probably debugged dozens, if not hundreds, of student programs. This prick, who didn't even know me, was making a judgment about how I managed to have a decent publication record. How did I manage to do it? Not a zero-sum over a 40-hour workweek. I never went on a date while I was a professor, and I was working 70 hour weeks (no exaggeration). Never mind the sink hole of job searching during my last 3 years of academia and academic politics, dealing with frivolous complaints, etc.
No, I didn't do it for the money. In fact, I went on a campus visit (expenses-paid job interview) to Providence College, knowing the position would get capped at $35K (significantly lower). Many students would make more than I did, without my advanced degrees or experience, within 5 years of employment. I loved all parts of being a professor--including research and teaching. I even surrendered one of my beloved graduate classes (DSS) to teach undergraduate COBOL at UWM; at first, the Administration was ecstatic--the first time a professor taught that service offering. It was probably one of my worst decisions ever. Nearly 2 years later, I was moving my books from my office to my car in the process of moving out of Milwaukee when I nearly tripped over COBOL printouts scattered over the elevator floor. Not my problem anymore!
My favorite student evaluation of my teaching of all time was from UWM: "I've learned more during Dr. Guillemette's class than any class I've ever taken. But he deserves none of the credit, because I did it all by myself..." So getting more out of him than any other professor/teacher made me a "bad teacher"?
One of his paranoid colleagues wrote: "Dr. Guillemette is deliberately trying to get us to drop the course so he has fewer tests and assignments to grade." False! Nobody ever dictated to me the nature and extent of tests and assignments. I know teachers who basically distribute pseudocode assignments, which were little more than typing exercises. If I wanted to lower my workload, I could lower my workload requirements. When I took FORTRAN programming in undergraduate school, I had to turn in a program every week, and I got a 3-day turnaround on submitted assignments, meaning I had 2 shots to get it right. My students got 3 or 4 weeks per assignment, and I never gave an assignment which I couldn't do myself in under 30 minutes.
But I loved teaching, and I know I was good at it, but usually your teaching is evaluated by ratings given out at the end of the semester: that was little more than a popularity contest. It was like evaluating your dentist after going through a root canal. I suspect if they gave out those questionnaires 5 or 10 years later, my ratings would vastly improve. I've only met or heard from a handful of former students from more than 20 years back. Just before I left UWM, I got a surprise phone call from one of our new doctoral students, a Wisconsin Bell executive, who told me that he had heard some great things about my systems analysis course, and he regretted he wouldn't be able to take it. I've also mentioned one of my female (Asian) students in the human factors course I taught at Illinois State. Easily my favorite course of all time; I would undergo the hell of Illinois State again just to do that again. She wrote me a detailed, single-space course review, raved about all the work I put into the course, and attached a copy of this McManus quote from an old Cadillac ad:
The Penalty of Leadership
By Theodore MacManus This text appeared as an advertisement in The Saturday Evening Post, January 2nd, in the year 1915. Copyright, Cadillac Motor Car Company.
In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction.
When a man's work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone — if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you, unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius.
Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by.
The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy — but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant.
from Sunrise magazine, January 1952; copyright © 1952 Theosophical University Press)
There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions — envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains — the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live — lives.
So I always resented condescending college "teaching" professors questioning my commitment to the classroom and my students. I spent countless hours over 8 years preparing and delivering lectures for several courses; I know I was good at it, even though I never won an award and got a lot of lousy student ratings over the years. I had had the blessings of some good teachers and professors over the years and I tried to live up to my own perfectionist ideal of a great professor. It had been my dream job since I was a 16-year-old college freshman; truth be told, I would probably go back in a heartbeat. But I got my last offer over 20 years ago and I turned it down. Why? I had struggled reestablishing a professional IT career (a lot of recruiters felt we were overqualified and wanted to use them before the academic market improved). The Louisiana college, for whatever reason, had delayed getting back to me for several weeks, no interim contact; I was between jobs, and I had finally gotten the decent DBA job that I had sought since leaving academia. It wasn't the money; in fact, they offered me $15K over what I was making in my new job and at least $10K over my previous best academic offer.
So why didn't I jump at the offer? In part, I felt a moral obligation to my new employers who had given me my best professional opportunity in the 3 years since leaving academia. For all I knew, I was in another short-term contract without a tenure commitment and being unemployed again. I felt I needed a solid 2-3 years to protect myself if my return to academia didn't work out. The Louisiana college had not recruited me well. I thought they had moved on with other candidates; maybe they were battling bureaucracy trying to put an offer together. I certainly didn't realize at the time that it would be my last academic job offer. Actually, a few years later, I was recruited by a DC-area Catholic college and it looked like an offer was imminent; I suspect that I was blackballed by former Illinois State colleagues. (During our phone screen, she had mentioned meeting a married couple faculty members from ISU at a past conference.) The conversation had gone so well that she said she was going to waive the whole campus visit process. Instead of getting an offer weeks later, I got a form letter saying they had decided to pass on making an offer now to any of their current applicants, but they would reopen the position in the fall and I should feel free to reapply. BULLSHIT! It was clear something had gone very wrong in the interim, and there was no reason to believe if they didn't hire me now, why they might change their mind later. I confronted the chairperson (who of course wasn't going to admit I had been blackballed) who left things at "I was just trying to be nice".
[There was a situation at Illinois State where I was on a one-year, nonrenewable contract. I think I've discussed it in more detail in a previous post. The department chair, under pressure from senior faculty (maybe including the couple in question, betrayed me in the fall semester. [They were unhappy I was allowing students to submit programs in a computing language of their choice vs. mandating PL/1. The department chair had known about this all along and in fact assigned a student grader; I wrote in several computing languages but not PL/1. Since ACS had a PL/1 prerequisite for the course, I expected most students would choose that language anyway.] I wasn't happy about what happened, bur I was more worried about getting a new job offer; in fact, the business school was persistently trying to recruit me (the appointment was in a fusion applied computer science department) over their own vacancy when all of a sudden they refused to take my calls (I think the position was little more than teaching the service courses, e.g., Intro to MIS, but I would have been able to stay in academia). The department chair made an unexpected office visit, and I shit you not, openly threatened to strip me of my classes if I filed a complaint against him. Like I wrote, I don't know where this threat was coming from. I had had no intention of filing a grievance and had never discussed what had happened in the fall with anyone. Maybe it was paranoia on his part, maybe someone was spreading a false rumor--not sure. But to be honest, I was in a tough spot, because a prospective employer would likely go to him for a reference. When he threatened me, however, it was counterproductive. I immediately went to the administration. They didn't exactly take my side but they made it clear if LE took adverse actions, they would review them. LE screamed like a stuck pig, arguing they were violating his managerial discretion. I would later file academic freedom charges against LE which would eventually be backed by a faculty investigation (long after I had left ISU, of course). I was more determined that no one following me would go through the same thing.
So I don't know what the DC chairperson heard (she never had the integrity to discuss any allegations with me), but the facts were on my side. I've been contacted by a couple of universities over the past decade. The University of Phoenix wanted to discuss an adjunct (part-time) position but lost interest when I pushed on a full-time position. Another university presented some new economy type position where I would be the subject-matter expert for their Big Data curriculum. I'm not sure at my age, which is close to retirement age for many professors. they're going to consider me for a tenure-track position. Maybe I'll can my own courses and sell access like Tom Woods.
But really, the preceding was setting the context for a broader point. Just as others misread my love of research as a zero-sum game with the interests of my students, some may read my embrace of the liberty movement as some sort of a sellout to moneyed interests. It's nonsense. No one has ever given me a penny for writing this blog. I would prefer to eat in a diner than a 4-star restaurant. The blue book value of the car I drive is under $400. I don't think I've bought a computer costing over $1000 in decades or a smartphone over $100. When my late uncle's estate would pick up my expenses for going to the funeral, I drove vs flying to Fall River, and I stayed at a hotel at least 40% cheaper than anyone in the family. (Well, my Mom stayed at her cousin's house.) When I bought my flat-screen TV, it was because my cable/Internet provider in Arizona didn't support the coaxial cable connection to my cheap portable color TV. So I went to Walmart and bought the cheapest model on sale (for about $130). My prescriptions are genericI could go on and on. I wouldn't say that money isn't important, but the idea that I would sell out my integrity is offensive. Life for me would have been much easier if I had gone with the flow, brown-nosed senior faculty, etc. For example, when I allowed students to program their data structures assignments in a computing language of their choice at ISU, I didn't really care--I wasn't teaching a computer language class. I wanted them to think data structures, not programming syntax. Now to be honest, not one of the senior faculty troublemakers addressed their concerns with me. But if I had known this would cost me another faculty job at ISU and a DC college job years later, being unemployed for 9 months, etc.? What if I had given into the handful of UWM malcontents demanding an assignment extension weeks in advance? Little did I know they would sabotage my contract renewal hearing. The point here being that my own decisions affected my work career, compensation, etc. If I stood my ground then, why would I sell out politically, for a blog which hasn't earned me a penny over 10 years, never led to paid speaker invitations, book contracts, etc.?
One of the points I want to stress about my academic background is I never saw research and teaching as zero-sum. I think they are synergistic. Students can learn a lot from people who create original scholarship; it can enhance their critical thinking abilities in dealing with semistructured situations in life.
This poisonous Politics of Envy is morally reprehensible. I really don't give a damn how many houses or apartments Trump owns, how much money he has in the bank, what's in his stock portfolio, if he has a private plane, doesn't need a reservation to eat at the finest restaurants. Ir doesn't take anything away from me living in a comfortable apartment, eating a preferred, nutritional meal, saving towards my retirement, working in an interesting job with decent pay. Yeah, I suppose if I developed a serious disease like cancer, Trump's wealth might help me to see the best doctors, have a private doctor, not worry about bills that could put me into bankruptcy. But that's the purpose of REAL insurance--to share the risk of low-probability events.
The private sector is truly what satisfies people's wants and needs. .Let's recall that over 80% of jobs are outside the government. There are more government jobs than manufacturing jobs--and the government only produces rules and regulations vs. real-world widgets or services the people need (an argument can be made for public safety and defense, although one can argue that common defense does not require an 800-base foreign empire with peaceful nations to our north and south and we don't need the police prosecuting victimless crimes).
Leftist politicians claim that liberty folks want sick people benefiting from government healthcare to "hurry up and die" (never mind the well-known failure of the government VA hospital system). As Ron Paul and others have noted, senior citizens were not abandoned before LBJ's Medicare introduction. For examples, doctors often treated the elderly retired at discounted rates, and a number of private (e.g., Catholic) hospitals did charity work for those with limited resources.
I've seen some evidence that private charity, even in the age of social welfare, amounts to over half of government program expenditures and up to 75% of government spending goes to overhead, including high-paid bureaucrats (whom one could argue have a vested interest in sustaining a permanent underclass).
Do libertarians really don't care about people?
- We advocate voluntary transactions, including charitable ones. Unlike the government monopoly, we don't rely on force, we do not restrict competition or opportunities through laws.
- We do not intervene in the economy or foreign affairs.We aren't responsible for unintended consequences for limited competition, public waste and incompetence, and unsustainable problems. It's not just the excessive spending on unproductive missions outside of core competencies, but the opportunity costs of originally earned income being deployed more effectively in the private economy.
- We argue for an open economy, for competition/choice in goods and services, not only domestically but internationally, enabling comparative advantage and specialization of labor. Increased supply/competition supports a higher standard of living, mitigates inflationary pressures in the economy and makes for more globally competitive outputs.
- Government restrictions and regulations often limit options to consumers. For example, government often requires unnecessary healthcare options and drives costs by mandating unnecessary coverage; the end result in sector inflation which directly relates to bad public policy. We see restrictions in terms of pooling risk groups across states. Patients are not vested in consumer decisions.
- Lower-income people are often hobbled by trade restrictions, zoning and/or rent-control lows that discourage investment and additional supply, and occupational licensing or minimum-wage policies which limits their bargaining power and lower-wage opportunities.
- Government policy often creates economic uncertainty. This can exacerbate trends in a struggling economy.
- Government social welfare programs are morally hazardous, foster conditions for a permanent underclass and discourage risk-taking and taking advantage of work opportunities. Lower-income people find that bureaucrats and policies limit their choices.
The idea that government, which often makes corrupt bargains with Big Business, "helps" the poor is self-serving hubris. Government, if anything, limits choices (consider consolidation of vendors for ObamaCare). Political whores and unaccountable bureaucrats are not a substitute for the voluntary transactions of hundreds of millions of consumers.
