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University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

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Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#191

Post by karmakaze »

the_only_law wrote: post #124
mola wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the current mindset of american universities is commodification of the concept of higher education. Teaching, scholastic tradition and enlightment values are sidelined by values like customer satisfaction, marketing, and money making optimization.

In this case, just let me purchase the fucking credentials without having to follow curriculum at their speed or pay for any of the things that won't benefit me anymore

The other part is that a degree means you can stick with some 'thing' for 4 years. A quality employers value. I tried to focus on learning with my time, grades be damned.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#192

Post by kevinventullo »

lumost wrote: post #168
preommr wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for a long time now. Modern universities are a mix of two contradictory ideas. It's a place for "higher learning"; trying to fit the same role as institutions from hundreds of years ago where academic learning was much rarer and was fitted for the aristocracy. While simultaneously being something that you need for a job to make money. Oh, and also the people doing the teaching are more intereste…

From what I understand, a top-notch professor of philosophy at a first-tier university will teach 1-2 classes per semester to 300ish students per class for which they will earn no more than 300k per year ( although typically 3-6x less ). This works out to roughly $250 per student per semester. It's difficult to price the work of T.As as they are often students themselves, but assuming each student requires an average…

I started tutoring halfway through grad school to supplement my income. It was such easy money that it prompted me to do a similar calculation, based on my own observed income and the public salaries of professors at the university. This was at UCLA, a highly ranked school for math PhD’s, but for which very few profs were making anywhere close to 300k.

This epiphany acted as a catalyst for me to leave academia.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#193

Post by ficklepickle »

andreilys wrote: post #173
dls2016 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I disagree with your framing (only slightly), it has historically been the case that university is where the upper class spends their early 20s with the content of the education not really having a bearing on the direction of the students’ lives. I think we’ve done a pretty good job duplicating this model for the masses! Even down to the alternate justice model inside most universities. Perpetrate a drug or sex…

Even down to the alternate justice model inside most universities. Perpetrate a drug or sexual crime? No big deal, just switch schools and start over! Except when the police is involved which should be any time the law is broken. You make it seem like colleges are their own oasis of law and order.

Unless you are Brock Turner-esque, in which case "20 minutes of fun" shouldn't ruin your whole life.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#194

Post by proc0 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #12

I wonder if the end game of higher education looks like purely administrative bodies with enormous tuition that just provide the students with leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. I studied pure math in the Czech Rep. between 1996 and 2003. The administrative staff was about 10 per cent of the entire body of employees. Reading that administrators actually outnumber te…

The end game of higher education is to become churches, recruit followers, and teach a religion. It even includes original sin.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#195

Post by ficklepickle »

bilbo0s wrote: post #79
pydry wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's part of the MBAization of universities combined with typical company politics (the more people under you => the more important you are => the more you get paid). It's a recipe for a lavishly paid executive class running universities who try to run them like a business.

I'll just throw this out here to put some numbers on this so people understand it's more than just a political narrative. At the University that I went to, Wisconsin, there are 2200 academic staff. (Professors, TAs, Deans, etc). The total number of employees, however, is roughly 21000. Now I understand that this is due to large, operations level bureaucracies that are necessary to pull off something like a University…

I managed two weeks in university IT as a developer before I just had to leave and never come back. If it is anything like UBC IT, it is not worth losing math over.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#196

Post by ficklepickle »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #134
foldr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. This is a cheap shot and totally inaccurate. Do you really think UK universities are closing their maths departments so that they can spend more on the humanities?

Some people will only be happy when anything resembling a left-wing point of view is removed from education and the media. Some of the "ism" culture war teaching in academia is indeed trite and silly. But it's far less silly than Fox News and the entire right-wing media machinery - which most recently somehow managed to persuade tens of millions of Americans that a valid election was stolen, that Covid is a hoax, and…

That reminds me of my favorite saying: "-isms make schisms"

I heard it from a Rastafarian in a documentary and I have cherished it ever since.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#197

Post by holbrad »

bombcar wrote: post #115
barry-cotter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, my alma mater pays high-tooting faculty nearly a megabuck, pays typical faculty $180k, has $200 million building projects, yachts, and what-not. This is not relevant to the UK. Faculty do not get paid anywhere near this. They do not get paid lawyer or doctor money either, for the UK. Economics faculty who move from the UK to the US will come close to doubling their salary, as a lower bound.

To be fair to the UK/EU you’d need to compare total compensation and factor in the social net in Europe.

Even once you factor all of the that in, you receive far less money.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#198

Post by mathattack »

inglor_cz wrote: post #12

I wonder if the end game of higher education looks like purely administrative bodies with enormous tuition that just provide the students with leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. I studied pure math in the Czech Rep. between 1996 and 2003. The administrative staff was about 10 per cent of the entire body of employees. Reading that administrators actually outnumber te…

The selective schools can sell their signaling services and support massive bloated administrative groups. People will pay for the validation.

Non-selective schools (like Leicester, which admits 80%!of applicants, of which only 20% choose to attend) won’t be able to pull this off. The signaling value is too weak. They can’t get you an interview at a top company. If they can’t prepare you for it, how many parents will pay for a 4 year vacation?

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#199

Post by motohagiography »

tgb wrote: post #157
motohagiography wrote: post #123

A thought experiment that has a surprising amount of predictive power is to view the universities as a system of single-party rule on the scale of the CCP, where they vie for power internally among themselves, and use the real economy to fund their effective system of sinecures. Viewed this way, it is purging principled and quantitative thinkers because they can't keep them on as a risk for where the party is going.…

You're suggesting that the math department is out of line with the universities propaganda? Are you aware that they're also axing humanities departments? They're not axing applied science departments. Your "experiment" doesn't really match reality.

Are the universities a de-facto one party system? No. Does their aggregate behaviour resemble one? More often than you'd expect.

The change from, "a university should produce thoughtful and well rounded citizens and leaders to grow our society," to, "a university should produce activists to pose as experts and seize the means of production," has happened within the span of a single career cohort. I'd say that math itself isn't the target, but it does seem to have found itself in the way.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#200

Post by GrantZvolsky »

inglor_cz wrote: post #17
foldr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. This is a cheap shot and totally inaccurate. Do you really think UK universities are closing their maths departments so that they can spend more on the humanities?

No, but this is the kind of stuff that can keep students busy and not asking whether they get their money's worth. A very efficient distraction.

Having studied both in Prague and the UK I can attest that British students are getting their money's worth of leisure and luxury. An interesting side effect is that the same facilities enjoyed by the largely native undergraduate students attract foreign nationals who made up 54% of the postgraduate and 49% of the doctoral student population in 2018/2019, and on whom Britain depends for staying competitive in this local optimum of an education system.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

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