Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 236 posts

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#211

Post by majewsky »

rualca wrote: post #209
tomp wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This may apply to equipment and even buildings to a certain extent, but qualified nurses are not something you can just purchase off the shelf like a new rack of servers when demand is high. This applies doubly so for intensive care, which even regular (i.e. non-ICU) nurses are not qualified for without prior training. Where are those people going to come from when demand peaks?

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#213

Post by stjohnswarts »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

The Administrators make their power play: declaring faculty redundant. They no longer want pesky faculty thinking about things that don't earn money , so the math faculty has to go. The end goal is clear: a University is a business, being sold to students and Alumni, for the purpose of profit.

No doubt their excellent move for efficiency will result in higher tuition fees.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#214

Post by stjohnswarts »

renewiltord wrote: post #146

This is good. Too long have universities maintained the illusion that all subjects are worth studying. They are not. And we have a valuation mechanism - pay. The truth is that some subjects need far fewer participants than others. You don’t need the marginal new mathematician or historian or geographer. We do need the marginal electrical engineer or software engineer. It is crucial that we signal to students their pr…

You are entirely wrong on this. Mathematics and logic are the core of science.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#215

Post by stjohnswarts »

glapworth wrote: post #34

I used to work as an Lecturer in the other University in Leicester and I have lots of friends and colleagues working in various departments at Leicester University. It looks like the financial situation at the University is quite bad, and this isn’t the first time the executive has threatened to close this department. I feel for the people working there at the moment. Sad times.

But why is the situation bad? has student population dropped off?

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#216

Post by LatteLazy »

d-lowl wrote: post #136
LatteLazy wrote: post #18

People should note that: * this is a UK university, tuition is limited to about 30k GBP for a (UK standard) 3 year degree. That's 30k total, not per year. Accommodation is extra. * Leicester isn't a particularly good university. It's ranked 77th out of 121. 50th out of 68 for maths [0]. * The department has been put on notice a few times that it needs more to up its income (get more students, get more research grants…

> foreign students (who they can charge more) The amount of money the uni gets is the same. Overseas pay the full price, domestic students are subsidised and only pay £9k, but the uni gets it in full anyway. And, no, they still take overseas students (with remote studies it's not more difficult, than domestic ones). Imperial's Chem department even filled more places for 1st year than usual.

I don't think you're correct about that.

About 10% of teaching income is from the government, but that's to cover courses that cost more to teach (medicine, physical sciences, engineering etc). There is no per-student subsidy as far as I am aware? Unis get the 9k a year, either cash or from the slc.

Also, international fees are unregulated. They're totally down to the uni and the student. Central government doesn't touch them. This is why there has been a big push to take on foreign students in most universities over the last 20 years.

Source:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

I'm glad to hear Imperial Chem is doing well. Exeter Chem was closed when I was there back in 2004.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#217

Post by MisterSandman »

bzbarsky wrote: post #187
canjobear wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look up the salary of any UC employee here. https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/ Yes, Terence Tao is doing pretty well.

Just looking at UCLA employees sorted by gross pay is interesting; Tao ends up around #192 on the list. Mostly due to the medical school, plus some people with titles like "INTERCOL ATH HEAD COACH EX" and "INTERCOL ATH COACH AST EX". The top 3 (and #5) are all "HEAD COACH".

Super hot take here but I genuinely find it disgusting how many money American Universities spend on sporting events and sports, while also somehow not paying their student athletes.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#218

Post by crb002 »

jancsika wrote: post #145
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…

> events on the currently hot social justice topics. Namespace collision detected: 1. a lecture series or seminar by a researcher specializing in social justice movements, civil rights leaders, abolitionists, etc. Possibly focusing on insights from newly discovered primary documents. 2. events hosted by any political college organization whose participants may be painted with the derisive term "social justice warrior…

#3, which is close to #2 - vigilantism. It's ugly and leftists on campus have embraced it.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#219

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

thethought wrote: post #188
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first place Facebook opened an AI research centre was Paris. They certainly didn't pick it for the food ;) I think if you look at where the researchers are, Europe does really well. As per usual though, this is poorly commercialised.

In France software companies classify software development as R&d which I think has major tax upside for US companies with RD in France.

Let's be clear. They set up the office in Paris because Yann LeCunn had really good colleagues and students there.

This would seem to militate against a notion that Europe doesn't do AI.

Now, Europe definitely doesn't commercialise AI well, but that's a different point.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#220

Post by esyir »

qzw wrote: post #162
hedberg10 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, administrate.

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…

I'm not sure which part of Asia you're in. Respected, perhaps. Not nearly on the same level as a doctor /lawyer /engineer, social status wise, but not horrible. Revered? I don't think I've seen this where I am.

Do note that I'm fitting this to pre university, though the constraints are relaxed a bit once you bring in the higher statused tenured profs.

Post reply on HN