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The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

blue.cse.buffalo.edu

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Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#31

Post by SolaceQuantum »

skosuri wrote: post #27
gsylvie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He obviously pissed off his department, and so they voted with an aim to punishing him. He's a fool not to appeal it, though. If he appeals then the decision will be made by people outside of his department who won't have the same emotional stakes in the decision. Rage quit after you win your appeal, if you must! $3,000,000 in funding, most of it still active is astonishing ( https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu/proposals/ )…

It looks like he also flipped classrooms and was active within the department service-wise. That's a pretty crazy decision not to tenure him from the outside.

It was really crazy in the department too, at least among undergraduate students. His lab is very well known as a great place to learn about the development of mobile devices, which is basically not offered in any courses and difficult to be formally educated in otherwise.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#32

Post by kevhito »

blazespin wrote: post #21
code_sardaukar wrote: post #14

I read the whole article and it's very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article's claims. Most importantly, it's hard to judge the most important thing: the author's own research. However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things. The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department. Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were…

"I interpret as .. doing things that might piss off people on the committee." Sounds like obedience to me. There's a great HBO tv show, "The Wire". It's all about how an institution can consume personalities of those who belong to it. I'm pretty sure tenure is the same way. I see this happening to people who work in corporations for a long time. Their personalities change as they become the sort of person who can suc…

Hi, although I'm new here and all of you have been teaching here for 20 years on average, let me tell you why everything you have done with the curriculum is terrible and should be completely rewritten in my style. And of course, I'll have to do all of this myself, since you are all incompetent. And I better teach the first round myself too, because I can't trust you with that either.

So yes, there is a difference between not pissing off people on the committee and "obedience".

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#33

Post by psyc »

Kind of hilarious how many comments in this thread already echo the mentality he's opposing. Get in line. Don't rock the boat. Don't complain about your lot. And you probably deserve what you got, because it's what you got. (Aka Just World Fallacy.)

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#34

Post by sseagull »

stablemap wrote: post #18
gregmac wrote: post #7

Why is Tenure still a thing? It's basically a lifetime employment contract. It seems the only argument for tenure is academic freedom.. a tenured professor can pursue an avenue of research without fear of reprisal for it being controversial or not yielding results (though really, even experiments that 'fail' actually serve to prove that it's not the way to go). It seems to be me like this is a problem that can be sol…

Another part of the argument is that the security of tenure somewhat offsets the low salaries of academia relative to industry.

Sort of. Depends on what you mean "low". I know salaries in that field can be skewed by large salaries from tech companies, but tenured professors at UB tend to make at least $100k, which is a very good salary in areas such as western NY. "Superstars" can make around $250k.

As a side note, since UB is a state school, salaries are public information[0]. He was making over $100k, even before tenure.

[0] http://seethroughny.net

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#35

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

code_sardaukar wrote: post #14

I read the whole article and it's very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article's claims. Most importantly, it's hard to judge the most important thing: the author's own research. However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things. The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department. Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were…

>What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can't measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee.

I'd be astonished if any academic committee in any university anywhere in the world had any idea how to measure the value of research objectively.

As for not pissing people off - I'd imagine it's impossibly hard to do truly original research without pissing at least some people off. There will be petty jealousies, back-biting, gossip, and all the usual nonsense. Too much, too soon, and hackles will be raised.

It's very sad. Academia seems to have become stifling rather than expansive.

My working definition of organisational dysfunction is when politics and status become primary motivators, and quality of output - and pride in that quality - become secondary.

From the outside, that seems more true of academia now than it should be.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#36

Post by analog31 »

gregmac wrote: post #7

Why is Tenure still a thing? It's basically a lifetime employment contract. It seems the only argument for tenure is academic freedom.. a tenured professor can pursue an avenue of research without fear of reprisal for it being controversial or not yielding results (though really, even experiments that 'fail' actually serve to prove that it's not the way to go). It seems to be me like this is a problem that can be sol…

I don't think it's the underlying reason for tenure, but it's my guess that if you eliminate it, the faculty will simply unionize. For instance, K-12 teachers have tenure as a benefit written into their union contracts.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#37

Post by sseagull »

This article is somewhat resonating with me, and where I am in my life right now. After a few years of postdoc, I'm at a crossroads of where I want to go. In some sense, I'm a lot like the author, and I'm not really doing enough of what "they" want. I love research and tackling tough problems. But becoming a full professor just isn't about that.

I'd much rather stay in my office and work out a problem than go to a conference and "network". Or waste time writing a paper about my incremental progress (I could just wait and write about the whole thing!) That makes me a terrible "scientist", I guess.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#38

Post by flowereaterz »

kevhito wrote: post #28
gsylvie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He obviously pissed off his department, and so they voted with an aim to punishing him. He's a fool not to appeal it, though. If he appeals then the decision will be made by people outside of his department who won't have the same emotional stakes in the decision. Rage quit after you win your appeal, if you must! $3,000,000 in funding, most of it still active is astonishing ( https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu/proposals/ )…

> All university departments are filled with miserable gossips. They are also filled with people who think their own vision and priorities for the intro programming course, operating systems course, networking course, "entire" undergrad curriculum, department and college resource allocation, and campus dog policy, are obviously the only correct and rational choice, and anyone who disagrees is a miserable gossip.

Sounds like everyone in any career, including the OP or people on Hacker News.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#39

Post by reledi »

kevhito wrote: post #26
code_sardaukar wrote: post #14

I read the whole article and it's very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article's claims. Most importantly, it's hard to judge the most important thing: the author's own research. However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things. The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department. Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were…

I agree with this. But research isn't everything. And there are at least some hints and signs that this person doesn't know how to get along with colleagues. > I worked really hard to bring an exciting and rigorous operating systems class to UB. Why did this effort require working "really hard"? Was it because of obstructionist, jealous, or stupid colleagues? Or people who wanted a boring and unrigourous course inste…

> people who disagree with me [...] aren't doing so out of spite, stupidity, or carelessness, they often just have different priorities than I do

This is an interesting perspective that I'd like to try. Thanks for sharing.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#40

Post by joeclark77 »

apathy wrote: post #8
muglug wrote: post #5

Most people, when passed over for promotion, don't write about it publicly. One has to wonder what sort of spirit possessed this author.

That's not how tenure works. Up or out -- you get tenure or you hit the road. So this is actually fairly common in academia. Sort of a parting shot, if you will.

Yes, but he's now trying to take his show on the road and get a job at another university. The reason this "parting shot" is risky is that it may get him pre-emptively ruled out by a lot of other hiring committees.
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