It’s weird how blogs go in cycles– I’ll blog nothing but science for a while, and then flip into Academic Mode, as I have this week, and blog about nothing but tenure issues and academic politics. But, that just seems to be how things work, and the stories catching my eye recently are all about academia.
Such as this disturbing tale from Baylor. It seems that they’re trying to boost their status in academia, but the latest attempt has caused a little controversy:
That’s because, several university officials said, senior administrators have come to believe that departmental standards were not rigorous enough and so applied new standards, which have never been shared with faculty leaders, let alone with those who submitted tenure portfolios under the old standards. Largely as a result, tenure denials at Baylor this year — which have been about 10 percent annually in recent years — shot up to 40 percent.
Twelve of the candidates were denied tenure this year, and while some are always denied, two statistics are raising particular concern at the university:
- Nine of the 12 rejected candidates had the support of both their departments and the universitywide faculty committee that reviews candidates after the departmental evaluation. In the past at Baylor, it has been rare for the president to overturn recommendations that had solid backing at all the levels of faculty review.
- The rejection rate was particularly high for women. Of the nine women up for review, six were rejected.
How charming. I guess there just wasn’t enough mystery in the process as it was, so they needed to add a bit more.
The next level of this is obviously to apply the Monte Carlo method: each tenure candidate will be evaluated on their performance in the areas of scholarship, teaching, and service, with the minimum standard for each determined by rolling dice at the time of the review. It’s cheap, easily adaptable to different types of institutions (A Research I school could use 1d20 to determine the minimum number of publications, and 1d4 for the minimum average teaching evaluation, while a teaching-focussed college might go with 1d8 for the publications, and 1d6 for the teaching evaluations (on a five-point scale, of course…). Yes, I’m a dork), and best of all the faculty will never know what to expect. They’ll be so motivated by their utter terror of the process, that they’ll scale heights of scholarship never seen before.
Or, you know, leave in disgust. One of the two.
You didn’t include a D12.
No one includes a D12 🙁
(Seriously, this is deplorable, and hopefully the Administration gets their act together in time for the appeals. It’s amazing any committee could sit with a straight face and agree this would be a good strategy.
But the D12 joke was required.)
Do you want your managerial productivity bonus for efficient operation? Is The Deerhunter in your B-School casebook? Choose the nascent tenured via successive rounds of Russian roulette played with a semiautomatic pistol. In the worst case scenario Deans exit the student health center.
Uncle Al must be a bot. There can be absolutely no other explanation.
What the hell does that rant of consciousness (if the term can be applied to a bot) mean?
Auntie Al, the auntie-bot
1) Management is about process not product. A successful manager absolutely imrpesses the rules whether or not they make sense in context – or any sense at all. (FEMA eventually shipping $millions in mobile homes to New Orleans followed by FEMA prohibiting their entry because manufactured housing is barred from flood zones. FEMA storing said housing for more that its original cost, then destroying it for violating formaldehyde emission rules in the perpetual damp.)
2) Watch The Deerhunter, the prison camp escape scene.
3) Do you know what Russian roulette is? Do you know how a semiautomatic pistol works? All rounds fire in sequence in the latter.
4) Load blanks where you want retained faculty, and take care with queueing.
5) Unwanted faculty who survive having ther brains blown out are now qualified for Administration.
6) Mass-energy is locally conserved, stupidity like photons is unbounded,
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/sapient.jpg
7) Instructions are short, explanations are long, hence the military – the model for professional management. goto (1).
The process could be improved yet further by making the tenure-track faculty to sign five pages of a legalese dribble – a binding agreement aknowledging that they can be denied tenure for/without any concievable reason at moments notice and henceforth they shall waive their rights to sue the university, demand a compensation, complain about it in public and/or in private and further that they promise not to mention the very existence of this agreement.
The D12 doesn’t get enough love, I agree. It’s the stigma of the Barbarian class I think; no player with aspirations to intellectuality wants to roll a die associated with Conan.
Ummm… thanks, Uncle Al. Crystal clear. Message received loud and clear – 5 by 5, baby.
I’ll summarize for the less intellectually gifted:
People who survive Russian Roulette in fictional North Vietnamese prison camps will destroy mobile homes with formaldehyde unless they are stupid in which case mass-energy will be preserved, presuming the military understands its long explanations.
Why didn’t you say so in the first place?
Auntie Al
PS – Sorry Chad, the Auntie Bot will slink back into its cave now.