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Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

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Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#181

Post by thebooktocome »

natpalmer1776 wrote: post #146
thebooktocome wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The false positive rate for students reporting “my professor is teaching critical race theory!!!” is outlandishly high. CRT is also not “political pop science propaganda” so I’m not convinced you can recognize it either. It’s a legal theory. About law.

[deleted]

Why bother removing it? You're not under the impression that misrepresenting your brother's anecdote matters.

I'm happy we drilled down and got to what really happened, which as far as I can tell was something along the lines of, "my professor said something about race once and it hurt my feelings." In Florida (and probably in Texas, too, or soon enough I imagine), I think that's a felony now!

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#182

Post by techsupporter »

linuxftw wrote: post #162
ano-ther wrote: post #140

Scott Aaronson who has tenure in Texas describes the effect as this: > […] it would be the end of UT Austin and Texas A&M as leading research universities. More precisely, it would be the immediate end of our ability to recruit competitively, and the slightly slower end of our competitiveness period, as faculty with options moved elsewhere. This is so because of the economics of faculty hiring. Particularly in STEM f…

This comment presumes that public universities are the proper venues for this type of research. They're not. The only reason people are foregoing higher salaries to work at universities is because universities have pushed private research almost completely off the map. And even if public research is necessary, it doesn't need to be part of the university system. Ever heard of the NSA? They do research, yet somehow th…

> This comment presumes that public universities are the proper venues for this type of research. They're not.

Why aren't they? It reads to me like you are making the same presumption, just in the other direction, without the support you see as lacking in the original quote. Please forgive me if I've missed something vital.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#183

Post by giantg2 »

Alupis wrote: post #152
threeseed wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US government should focus on making higher education more affordable. In Australia for example college debt is managed through the taxation system allowing people to invest in the careers in the early days and then pay off their debt when their taxable income reaches a high enough threshold.

There's an awful lot of students that held no job during college, and instead relied 100% on student loans to buy Taco Bell, pay rent, and put gas in the car. The huge numbers you see tossed around almost always include living expenses. "$120k for a state school!" sort of thing. The failure in reporting is those living expenses would have been incurred regardless if the person attended university or not. As a society…

While I agree that the high numbers are often because people are ill informed or even irresponsible about the loan, I don't think dragging out schooling is the best answer either, especially if you have higher earning power once you get a degree.

Also keep in mind the current system incentives - aid is inversely correlated with income and balances are forgiven in some cases. Why work harder if it means getting a worse deal? If one really wants it for "free" then there's always the military route.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#184

Post by drstewart »

tombert wrote: post #94
natpalmer1776 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tired of responding to folks caught up on the wrong shit, so here's what I should have said in the first place: In my personal experience I've seen or heard of more professors espousing their personal views as fact than most online and academic discourse would have otherwise led me to believe possible. I think removing tenure is a net loss for research because professors now have to worry about politically motiva…

> actively retaliate against students who try to stand up for their faith. Outside of chain emails and the movie "God's Not Dead", has this really happened? Anecdata, but when I took an intro to philosophy course my professor was pretty open to religious people talking about their justification for stuff. For that matter, I took a "religious ethics" class, which spent a not-insignificant time talking about Christian…

>Outside of chain emails and the movie "God's Not Dead", has this really happened?

As often as the OPs scenarios have happened, which you were strangely quiet on questioning the validity of. Just an oversight, I'm sure.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#185

Post by uberman »

aborsy wrote: post #6

Honestly, it may not be a bad thing. Tenure was meant to protect the academic freedom, and pursuit of the long-term scientific research. Today, most academics chase money, grants, trends, citations and status. It’s a job like any other, and doesn’t need protection, at cost to those outside the ivory tower (unless perhaps for a very small subset).

Are you aware that most non tenured positions require you to reapply every year for your job? Every 3 years if you are lucky. This in not a simple annual review like a normal job, this is you are fired at the end of your 1 year contract and now let's talk about the possibility of a new one year contract.

This in my opinion is really what tenure is about, getting out of the yearly firing that adjuncts and lecturers face.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#186

Post by robwwilliams »

nextos wrote: post #83
tiedieconderoga wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with tenure, you would need to be extremely passionate about education or research to go into academia in fields like software or mech/chem/EE. The opportunity cost is easily 6 figures/yr, for your entire career. The hours are long, the pay is laughable, the kids are not alright, you must publish or perish...maybe these universities are intentionally selecting for professors who will have a high tolerance for ab…

Note some good US universities pay entry-level FAANG salaries to assistant professors. If you can negotiate a low teaching load, it might be OK in some cases. Nonetheless, I agree with what you say. I'd add there is a ton of nasty politics, bullying, etc. which might be hard to avoid while you are on tenure track chasing tenure.

I doubt that. What does UCLA pay entering STEM AI faculty?

FAANG salaries for MS in CS at or above $300k. Starting salary in genomics, stats, ML and AI in a very well funded medical college with PhD and 4-year postdoc is less than half that.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#187

Post by gammarator »

fn-mote wrote: post #151
Someone1234 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If tenure goes away, then you have to pay more to compensate. If you're getting rid of tenure while keeping wages low, you'll still have bad teachers but for that reason instead. A lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too: No tenure AND low wages. It won't work out.

> A lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too: No tenure AND low wages. It won't work out. Sure you can. That's what the current system of adjuncts is like. The problem is that you lose the people who are the most competent. Those who know what they are doing, have valuable skills, etc.

My own hypothesis is that many adjuncts work under such poor conditions due to an irrational belief that it will lead to a tenure track position some day. Without that carrot the whole market destabilizes.

Tenure is the key incentive in the academic tournament model. Other fields that do “out or up” (consulting, Big Law) offer major $$$ to the winners.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#188

Post by yodsanklai »

aborsy wrote: post #81
tristor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The change in academia is largely correlated with the fall-off of tenured positions in favor of adjunct faculty and the explosion of administration. I don't think it indicates that there is no need for tenure, but rather that tenure provided a bulwark against the very outcomes we now are seeing.

In some sense, everyone is adjunct. People who work in industry have fixed-term renewable contracts. If job security is to be offered, extend it to other professions as well, as French do (with their CDI contracts). The main point is, professors don’t need life-time protection in many fields where research is increasingly focused on obtaining results in short term, and has become money driven. The gap between the typ…

> If job security is to be offered, extend it to other professions as well, as French do (with their CDI contracts).

A French CDI contract doesn't mean job security. You can be fired for low performance, or for economical reasons. You'll get a few months salary in the process, a couple of months notice, but they'll fire you if they want too.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#190

Post by gammarator »

giantg2 wrote: post #168
uberman wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adjuncts and lecturers dont do research nor do they typically do service. If one wanted to be educated by lecturers then they could attend a community college. That is of course a viable option but no tenure will be the kiss of death to any institution who thought they were going to do research at the R1 level.

"If one wanted to be educated by lecturers then they could attend a community college." I'd argue that the vast majority of classes at a state school (what this rule affects) are already taught by non-research personnel.

Correct. But universities want researchers because they bring in research grants (which provide the university 50%+ in overhead: slush funds).
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