University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty • Hacker News Board

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#201

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

rblatz wrote: post #137

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics This seems like a smear of people who care about social justice by implication. Why do you suppose they are not interested in education and research?

I think the key word is “hot”. Focusing only on shallow hot topic issues like who uses which bathroom feels good, but universities should be exploring the depths of social justice issues from a more holistic place. I went to university and never had to take a women’s studies class or an African American history class, so I didn’t take one. In fact no courses on diversity were required, I believe that has been to my d…

> shallow hot topic issues like who uses which bathroom

This is only shallow because you have made it so. I could also say “shallow hot topic issues like bra burning”. Drop the strawman.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#202

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#203

Post by prirun » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

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…

IMO, the main problem with university finances is the easy loans and the fact they survive bankruptcy - the only loans I'm aware of with this status. Without this easy money, colleges and universities could not have raised tuition like they have, because most people couldn't pay it.

But with the loans, colleges and universities are flush with cash, so they build extravagant dorms, hire way too many administrators, VP's, etc.

My idea to fix this is to make the universities provide the loans. Then they have an incentive to make sure students graduate and have a career path that makes sense (and money!)

We have allowed and encouraged an entire generation to screw themselves with these outrageous loans.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#204

Post by hntrader » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:34 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #163

hntrader wrote: post #13

The part about synergy between faculties is accurate. Having strong pure math academics helps out the various applied math departments in indirect ways that I've seen. This is a shame. Pure math is a discipline with the most out of whack discrepancy between public positive externality and private benefit, even more than in physics. Pure math discoveries often have unexpected downstream benefits decades later as they…

Tao is arguably one of the most famous mathematicians on earth, I'm pretty sure he's on a decent salary.

He's on about 500k/year. It's not enough. That's a not uncommon total package for a reasonably experienced SV engineer, it's not fitting for one of the foremost pure mathematicians of our generation. It's because most of his output is positive externality, his employer capturing little of his value creation except for the prestige & teaching output, which must be less than 10% of his current value proposition to society.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#205

Post by pasttense01 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

dls2016 wrote: post #182

andreilys wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was trying to be factual with a little sarcastic flair. My personal belief is that there shouldn’t be an alternate justice system within the university.

There should be an alternate justice system for academic crimes such as cheating.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#206

Post by anticristi » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 11:06 PM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #160

kleiba wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's skip the twenties part. That's a relic of the hyper-competitive academic system. Normality is you start college at 17/18, finish college around age 21/22, and finish a Ph.D around 26. At that point, you take an academic job if you want one and appear qualified. You spend 7 years having fun as an assistant prof, doing what you love, and then, unless you've messed up, you have tenure. And now the German ver…

The really sad part of this journey is that most of those people, beyond youthful idealism, had no idea whether that dream was for them. Because there is very little mobility into academia, MANY people land on the wrong side of the pond. You can't try industry and go back. One more difference is that colleges once wanted people with decades industry experience, and many older people saw going back to teach young'uns…

It's actually worse. The current generation of professors is completely out-of-touch with industry, due to them living during a huge academic shortage. Now you hear them say:

- "I never wrote a patent and I turned out great. Why should we bother giving an innovation course to our PhD students?" - "This person had a 10-year break in their academic career. I can't evaluate them."

So it's not only that there is a lack of mobility between industry and academia, rather this gap is actively fueled.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#207

Post by tgb » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #199

tgb wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 it…

Your theory is, at best, completely orthogonal to event in the tweet. Dropping the medieval literature department is secretly a plot to produce activists who seize the means of production by purging quantitatively minded people? I would seriously reconsider the underpinning of my world view if it led me to such a conclusion.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#208

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

bazooka_penguin wrote: post #181

qzw wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if this attitude is a cause or an effect of the failures in the American education system. In many other countries, especially in Asia, teachers are respected if not outright revered. Their status is often comparable to medical doctors and other professional classes. So people who choose to teach are not seen as unfit to engage in other endeavors. But in America there’s this undercurrent of contempt for…

Doctors in the US make 2 to 3x what doctors in Asia make so thats not a good comparison. American schools are some of the best funded in the world so I'm not sure where the stereotype that teachers aren't appreciated enough comes from

Doctors in the US are unnecessarily overpaid and supply is artificially constrained. Their station in the US should not be considered a litmus test compared to other nations and their healthcare systems.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#209

Post by rualca » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #169

waterhouse wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yes, Minister" has an episode about a hospital with 500 employees and no patients: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAk448volww The show's creators said: "After inventing this absurdity, we discovered there were six such hospitals (or very large empty wings of hospitals) exactly as we had described them in our episode, notably one in Cambridgeshire in which there was only one patient: the Matron (head of nursing staf…

2019: all these empty hospitals with too much staff and no patients?! Let's close them down, save some money! 2020: why is our medical system running at 90% capacity in normal times ?! Why don't we have some idle capacity for emergencies (natural disaster, pandemic, war)?

Baseline capacity and the ability to scale up to withstand peaks are two separate things.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#210

Post by haihaibye » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 12:15 AM UTC

medium_burrito wrote: post #147

kleiba wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's skip the twenties part. That's a relic of the hyper-competitive academic system. Normality is you start college at 17/18, finish college around age 21/22, and finish a Ph.D around 26. At that point, you take an academic job if you want one and appear qualified. You spend 7 years having fun as an assistant prof, doing what you love, and then, unless you've messed up, you have tenure. And now the German ver…

Perhaps we can establish a nonprofit research institution where people can do research. There are whole towns for sale in various places, we could get one for free probably. Get an endowment together, a few million, that could pay for a bit of food and refurbishment. Brew beer or some sort of herbal liqueur, might cover some expenses.

Most grants require you belong to a university.

Removing this requirement would allow competition (even from independent researchers in coffee shops).

Good luck trying to change this!