dagblog - Comments for "Local Scrip and Hard Currency: The Academic Life"

That was exactly how I took

Verified Atheist — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:57:42 +0000

That was exactly how I took it.

PS: My "How would someone

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:05:50 +0000

In reply to How would someone have direct

PS: My "How would someone know" wasn't meant as a challenge. It was meant as a lead-in to an explanation of why I myself can't/won't specify how I know certain things.

I don't disagree that many

Doctor Cleveland — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:04:05 +0000

In reply to How would someone have direct

I don't disagree that many poor or mediocre teachers do get tenured. One of the problems is that the bar is good enough teaching, and what counts as good enough might be pretty weak. Certainly, the good teacher with a weaker publication record being denied tenure is the classic tenure-denial story.

My only objection, and it's a pretty small one, is the folk wisdom that says professors are never refused tenure over teaching issues. I don't know how often it happens, and likely no one else does because it's not public information. But it's not never.

How would someone have direct

Verified Atheist — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 19:50:11 +0000

In reply to Thanks, VA.It is true that

How would someone have direct knowledge of the reasons someone was denied tenure, threatened with tenure denial, or refused promotion?

Fair enough, and although I have some friends who were denied tenure who were quite forthcoming about the reasons (and I trust them), I'll readily admit that it's going to be the rare faculty who admits that the reason s/he didn't get tenure was because his/her teaching sucked. That said, I've seen some extremely good teachers with great research publications and great service contributions (I'm not sure about grant moneys) not get tenure while I've seen poor teachers with excellent research publications and phenomenal grant writing skills get it. On the bright side, the department usually doesn't want them teaching too much, so they can spend more time bringing in grant money (which helps everyone). In one case, I know a professor who wrote a seminal text book (it's still the dominant text book in its subfield of computer science, which says a lot, considering how quickly this subfield changes) not get tenure because he didn't have enough journal articles. Although he had many (and in the best journals), it wasn't enough. That one was the straw that broke the camel's back for me and convinced me I'd never even want to try to join the tenure track race. (Kudos to those that make it and thrive, but I know my limitations.)

Thanks, VA.It is true that

Doctor Cleveland — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:25:00 +0000

In reply to A good piece overall, Doc,

Thanks, VA.

It is true that different departments have different standards, although I was also thinking about different colleges and especially different types of colleges having different standards. A small liberal-arts college is usually going to set the teaching bar higher than a big research university will, although your mileage will vary from school to school.

And it's also true that engineers and other hard-scientists often get more leeway with teaching because some of their hard currency comes in the form of actual currency. They bring in big external grants, and schools take a cut of that grant money for "administrative overhead." Humanities types bring in fewer and smaller grants; even biggies like the Guggenheim or an NEH grant generally fund one faculty member's salary for a year, and the school's savings/profit from that will be in the low five figures.

You're right that this kind of variation makes the existence of standards, if not meaningless, at least useless for someone trying to make a decision about programs. Everyone is applying some kind of standard, but it's almost impossible to see what that standard is from the outside.

But even STEM faculty do sometimes run into career trouble because their teaching isn't good enough. I know much more about cases in the humanities, but I can say that science/technology/math/engineering professors can be denied tenure, denied promotion, or have tenure difficulties because of their teaching. I just can't tell you who, or where.

If I'm free to talk about a case, I don't actually have direct knowledge of it, and I'm just gossiping. If I do know something for a fact, I can't discuss it. This is one of the reasons you've never heard of anyone being fired for being a lackluster teacher; no school who's fired someone for that reason is going to give that reason in public. If you want to fire someone because they haven't published anyting since the Clinton Administration, you can admit that, because publications are, by definition, public. No one can say you've hurt your former employee by revealing that they didn't publish a book last year. But if you call your former employee a godawful teacher, you've damaged their future employment prospects, exposed your school to a lawsuit, and made sure that the rest of your faculty don't trust you. Colleges want to get rid of teachers who don't clear the teaching bar, but they have all kinds of reasons not to humiliate them or keep them from getting a job somewhere else.

(How would someone have direct knowledge of the reasons someone was denied tenure, threatened with tenure denial, or refused promotion? You could have read the person's confidential personanel file, or participated in the decision to deny. You could have received a job application from someone who was denied somewhere else. And someone who was denied could have confided in you personally. And were I to receive information in any of those ways, it would fall squarely into the "I'm not saying jack about this," category.)

A good piece overall, Doc,

Verified Atheist — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 13:09:20 +0000

In reply to Local Scrip and Hard Currency: The Academic Life

A good piece overall, Doc, but I'll argue a bit with this part:

This has profound effects on academia works, but for now I'll stick to three points. 1) Everyone is expected to teach well; 2) contrary to popular mythology, teachers who cannot demonstrate competence (wherever their school sets that bar) get denied tenure or blocked from promotion: and 3) teaching excellence by itself can't advance your career. You're in trouble if you can't teach, but to get ahead you need to teach well and show strength in another area.

On one hand, if you allow that schools (or more aptly departments) set the bar for "teaching well" and "competence" differently, then the statement is somewhat meaningless. On the other hand, if you assume some reasonable bar that no department can set their bar beneath, then I'd suggest that you haven't seen the innards of many engineering departments. I realize you're writing from a liberal arts perspective, but it seems you have had some experience from my perspective, since you're mentioning NSF grants. I'm just not sure how much. It's always difficult to convey emotive intent correctly via the internet so please understand that this is a minor nit-pick and overall I found your piece very thought provoking.