Meaning, if you want to work hard early in life so that you can rest on your laurels after, it’s a much safer bet to go into a reliably lucrative career path like engineering or finance and save enough to retire by 40, rather than gamble on the academic track where you /might/ get tenure by 40.
Visited a big art college in London with a group of students from our FE college in Edinburgh. Chatted to the professor of illustration and asked about their teaching methods. He said “the students all have my phone number. If they need me they can call and I’ll come in and react.” 😶 In other words a healthy salary for doing hee-haw, other than a massive disservice to the students under his tutorage. Can’t help feeling there are many of his ilk in academia.
I teach at a community college. This is completely alien from my experience. The teaching load is 5/5, although because the salary is so low most faculty teach overloads and summers. In addition to a high teaching load, we do have service and research expectations. When enrollment dipped because of the pandemic, the administration found that they could eliminate entire academic programs and use that as a back door way to lay off tenured faculty. I do enjoy my job. And it does have a flexible schedule. But isn’t a bed of roses. From my experience at conferences, things aren’t much better at many small four-years colleges too. The R1s are a different matter.
Ah yes, academia….the most flexible 70 hour a week job I ever had. And when I got tenure? Teaching and research expectations remained the same and service expectations increased. So more work, not less. Still, probably important to note that different disciplines have different expectations, different pay scales, and different opportunities. It’s going to depend on where you are. I think there are a lot of generalities here and not nearly enough consideration of institutional context. Tenure policies seem pretty ambiguous across contexts, for sure, and the politics are a nightmare for many. What I think was missed here was the importance of a good fit. Fresh PhD’s are likely thrilled to get any offers without understanding the complexities of that decision. I just turned down an academic job and while I feel anxious that another year without a job could be the end for me, it’s better than a bad fit. I did that for a decade.
Nice work. Not sure if I agree with this though: “an assistant professor, give him six years, and then promote him. It could instead hire an already tenured associate professor directly from another university. “
This feels like bad logic.
Does the same argument not sound much more shaky if you rewrite it as :” take an assistant professor with 6 years experience, promote him. Or hire an already tenured associate prof”.
There are multiple benefits to hiring some new to the field with adequate experience.
Apologies if you are in fact arguing against this stance also. I couldn’t tell
I suspect pursuing FIRE may be both higher-EV and less socially corrosive than gaming tenure.
TOO MANY acronyms for me. KWIM?
FIRE=Financial Independence, Retire Early.
EV=Expected Value.
Meaning, if you want to work hard early in life so that you can rest on your laurels after, it’s a much safer bet to go into a reliably lucrative career path like engineering or finance and save enough to retire by 40, rather than gamble on the academic track where you /might/ get tenure by 40.
Thanks, Logan.
This sounds very much like all of the negative stereotypes of academia, and nothing at all like my actual experience in academia.
How do both differ?
Visited a big art college in London with a group of students from our FE college in Edinburgh. Chatted to the professor of illustration and asked about their teaching methods. He said “the students all have my phone number. If they need me they can call and I’ll come in and react.” 😶 In other words a healthy salary for doing hee-haw, other than a massive disservice to the students under his tutorage. Can’t help feeling there are many of his ilk in academia.
I teach at a community college. This is completely alien from my experience. The teaching load is 5/5, although because the salary is so low most faculty teach overloads and summers. In addition to a high teaching load, we do have service and research expectations. When enrollment dipped because of the pandemic, the administration found that they could eliminate entire academic programs and use that as a back door way to lay off tenured faculty. I do enjoy my job. And it does have a flexible schedule. But isn’t a bed of roses. From my experience at conferences, things aren’t much better at many small four-years colleges too. The R1s are a different matter.
Ah yes, academia….the most flexible 70 hour a week job I ever had. And when I got tenure? Teaching and research expectations remained the same and service expectations increased. So more work, not less. Still, probably important to note that different disciplines have different expectations, different pay scales, and different opportunities. It’s going to depend on where you are. I think there are a lot of generalities here and not nearly enough consideration of institutional context. Tenure policies seem pretty ambiguous across contexts, for sure, and the politics are a nightmare for many. What I think was missed here was the importance of a good fit. Fresh PhD’s are likely thrilled to get any offers without understanding the complexities of that decision. I just turned down an academic job and while I feel anxious that another year without a job could be the end for me, it’s better than a bad fit. I did that for a decade.
<<I already have my dream job for life, and I still couldn’t put it down.>>
Yes and you are a hypocrite for holding that job because as you say, higher education is a corruption of tax payer money.
You blew the whistle on tenure and now you can gtfo. You need to resign asap.
GTFO? Go to fuck off? I HATE acronyms. KWIM?
I wish the link to the "insider-outsider model" worked. I'd like to know more about it.
Nice work. Not sure if I agree with this though: “an assistant professor, give him six years, and then promote him. It could instead hire an already tenured associate professor directly from another university. “
This feels like bad logic.
Does the same argument not sound much more shaky if you rewrite it as :” take an assistant professor with 6 years experience, promote him. Or hire an already tenured associate prof”.
There are multiple benefits to hiring some new to the field with adequate experience.
Apologies if you are in fact arguing against this stance also. I couldn’t tell
As an associate professor who will not go up for promotion to full professor, I agree. It's a great life.
Thanks Bryan! I’ll pick it up