Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse • Hacker News Board

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#161

Post by hardtke » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

dasmoth wrote: post #22

“If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to…

The one place where the University and the Professor are perfectly aligned is the summer salary. Most professors are paid for only 9 months by the University. They need to pay the remaining portion out of their grant. This gives the Professor and the University a mutual incentive to secure one or more grants. The Professor gets paid and the University gets their overhead tax on the grant.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#162

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

nickpinkston wrote: post #100

wpietri wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a worrying trend of treating staff as equally capable but untrusted cogs in a wheel, and metricising performance. That's a great way of summing up what I've heard called "managerialism". There's a theory behind, e.g., the MBA that a competent manager can manage anything. That what one manages makes no difference as long as you're a real manager. One of the corollaries of that theory is that all one has to…

I tend to find people with your view have never been an executive managing the managers, or even a manager. When you are (like myself) then you see that good managers / leadership (including tech team leads, etc.) really do make a massive difference in performance with the same people. Things like metrics, values, and re-orgs might seem like Dilbert-esque corporate speak (a view I used to share), but they're incredib…

True, to borrow the metaphor there are 10x as well as 1x and -1x managers.

The problem however, is that they all tend to be absurdly compensated whereas logic would support paying only the first group in that manner.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#163

Post by jessriedel » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 3:55 PM UTC

pdelbarba wrote: post #113

jessriedel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, preventing public school teachers from unionizing will simply allow the government to exploit them. What are the examples in modern liberal democracies where governments exploited non-unionized workers? The arguments for unions assume an adversarial relationship between employer and employees. But they don't go through for governments. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/02/bu...

Probably more abstract than you were hoping, but look at the controversy surrounding public education in the US right now. It's always been a politically 'hot' area and each new administration wants to de-regulate or re-regulate the sector in some new and ever more confusing way. If it wasn't for the unions, I'm sure some administration would come up with the idea of firing the bottom 10% of teachers based on standar…

My criticism of that example isn't that it's abstract, it's that it's purely hypothetical. I'm claiming there's no evidence to back up the assertion that there would be bad effects without public sector unions, so yet another assertion of this does not really change anything.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#164

Post by goatlover » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

kylebenzle wrote: post #128

dleslie wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread reads like an argument on the merits of standardized testing in school. I suppose if you value employees who are trained by rote and operate in a manner reflecting that training...

I think this argument against "rote learning" is basically defunct. The bottom line is unless we want to live socialistalically and force roles on children like in Germany we need to teach ALL the stuff to ALL the children, and the only way to do that is to blast through the material with tons of homework, rote learning, after school tutoring, standard testing, etc. So it is a choice we make, tell everyone what to do…

Sarcasm? I hope.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#165

Post by Jhsto » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #120

I think we need to rethink what we consider academically important which should be taught at universities and then what should be taught as self studies. I can't help but thinking that one of the real problems is that a lot of academia isn't that valuable anymore as a field of study. Don't get me wrong I consider ex. philosophy as one of the most important fields but I also feel like it doesn't belong as an indiepend…

> That way the fields are put to good use rather than being self servant.

I am a student and the way I see is that this is the writing on the wall. The university (and BSc in specific) gives you the basis to develop yourself into the direction you feel passionate about. You can take computer science and mathematics if you want to become a great software engineer or you can mix computer science with communications and psychology to develop yourself into more of a bridge-builder between industries rather than a hard skilled engineer. Whether people figure this out in the midst of alcohol-centric student life and handling odd jobs is another thing.

> I think we need to rethink what we consider academically important which should be taught at universities and then what should be taught as self studies.

In the Nordic welfare state I live, the three main objectives of universities are written in the law (advance research and education, give education based on research, educate students to serve the country and humankind). However, there are many points on what people see valuable and what they do not. Where I live in, the laymen think the mission of higher education is to produce capable and internationally competitive professionals. In Finland in specific, we had Nokia, thus many people see that universities should be teaching students to start new Nokias. The contradiction is that professors in universities are oftentimes so closed in on the academic circles that they start to think the only thing which matters is how competitive researchers the university produces. That tends to fall into the trap laid in the OPs post. I once read a paper from a professor of mine which had the outcome of this:

> In today’s heavily competitive game market, it has become very important to make a game that stands out from the other games. Even though the game design might not be very unique, a game can still offer a better playing experience by having a better usability than a similar game with worse usability.

I believe that when you need a 20-page whitepaper to prove this something is clearly wrong in the way the researchers are incentivized.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#166

Post by taway_1212 » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #60

johan_larson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to need some sort of controls, if only to kick out the folks who retire in place.

Retiring in place is actually quite boring, and the feeling of uselessness that results is depressing. People won't actually do that unless the alternative is worse. If you hire people who are passionate about whatever it they were hired to work on, they might not do work that is profitable, but they'll do work that is interesting and has some benefit.

Most of Polish professors are actually retired in place. They do the minimum required amount of teaching and put their names on (usually completely unoriginal) papers of their subordinates. Most of them didn't do any significant original research in decades. To pass the time (and to gain power to protect themselves from being kicked out etc.), they take on administrative functions such as deans, heads of units etc.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#167

Post by metaphorm » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #159

metaphorm wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just because a pathology is widespread does it not mean it isn't pathological.

pathological != "in crisis". And in any case, if your only criticism of a field is a characteristic that is shared by many fields, then you should either assert that your preferred fix is general to all of them, or explain why it's specific to academia. (For instance, it is not enough so say that medicine should be socialized because of imperfect information alone since imperfect information exists in many other indu…

"in crisis" is the end state of a pathology, where it has gone untreated for far too long and begun to have ruinous consequences. Academy is in crisis. Other fields suffering from the same pathology are at different points in their breakdown. Some of them will never breakdown, others will enter their own crises sometime soon if they haven't already (and many of them already have).

surely I'm allowed to criticize and highlight social issues without having a "preferred fix" that I'm promoting. I'm not nearly so arrogant as to think I even know what fix would work.

there is a crisis in our society though, and it has many social pathologies underlying it, and it manifests variously in disparate fields that yet suffer from similar pathologies. in the case of academia I feel that it is acutely important to address because of the role the academy plays in shaping elite culture and practices. in the modern world we've elevated the academy to the place that used to belong to Bishops and church scholars. The shaping of beliefs and all of the cascading effects that has on society is now in a state of breakdown and malfunction.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#168

Post by ThomPete » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 4:03 PM UTC

trishume wrote: post #150

ThomPete wrote: post #120

I think we need to rethink what we consider academically important which should be taught at universities and then what should be taught as self studies. I can't help but thinking that one of the real problems is that a lot of academia isn't that valuable anymore as a field of study. Don't get me wrong I consider ex. philosophy as one of the most important fields but I also feel like it doesn't belong as an indiepend…

It's really easy to make punchy-sounding arguments about why a certain field isn't as important to teach, so we should be rather reluctant to go along with them. For example your argument about psychology could equally applied to almost any field and physics. "I feel the same way about (Computer Science|Biology|Chemistry) which to me is even more problematic as it is based on the premise that we can learn about (comp…

I know which is why I said it with some reluctance. But your rubutals aren't good examples.

Physics, Computer Science and Chemistry still have many still unanswered questions and provide clear benefits and ways to uncover those.

In psychology we have a much better way into the human mind through neuroscience. Asking humans about their own behavior is filled with the very bias that we try to battle through the scientific method.

Comparing philosophy with the lightbulb doesn't make much sense as the value of the lightbulb doesn't need to be peer reviewed to show it's value.

The problem with many of these old fields is that they have become self-referential. Their contribution to society the last many decades aren't warrenting the popularity of them.

We aren't studying alchemy anymore either because we have found more and better ways to study chemistry all I am saying is that perhaps it's time to park some of these fields in the alchemy department.

Edit: Ironic that someone disagreeing with me on this very important discussion didn't find much more argument than a downvote :) Oh well.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#169

Post by pdimitar » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 4:04 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #152

pdimitar wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really though, what is there in an university that justifies a dedicated team of managers? One person in power (say, the dean) is enough to make sure grants are coming on time, and negotiate those beforehand. They need one accountant to make sure salaries, taxes etc. are in the legal bounds and people receive what they were promised. Honest question: what else is needed? Most of the managerial work I've witnessed in…

>Really though, what is there in an university that justifies a dedicated team of managers? Conflict resolution, as one example. Plenty of faculty members ready to screw their students. If you spend enough time there, it is really scary how much power professors have to screw their students over.

That's a fair point -- provided the managers aren't in the same bed with the professors.

Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse

#170

Post by csneeky » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #146

csneeky wrote: post #17

All employers want their employees to "do the job to the best of their ability". But the freedom given to you to decide how your success is measured is proportional to your experience and past performance. There are those in both academia and private industry that get a lot of freedom to do their work/research. But there is a hierarchy to this just like everything in nature. The exceptionally strong and bright animal…

> But there is a hierarchy to this just like everything in nature do you truly believe that everything in nature is hierarchical?

Yes, as far as life is concerned I do.

Everything we or other life forms do comes from an attempt to make an improvement. Be it selfish or altruistic, it is always to alter some state of the world for a perceived benefit.

But our competence varies. So we all fall on some spectrum of competence in any given endeavor no matter how small. From this variation and rank we can derive hierarchy.

This transcends all species and their traits.