Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by professorthread » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

palijer wrote: post #145

orange_joe wrote: post #9

I’m skeptical that tenure is good for students, I knew so many teachers that just didn’t much care for their work and probably would have been fired if not for tenure. I understand the arguments in favor of tenure, particularly when it comes to recruitment, but given the bloated pipeline into academia, I’m not sure they hold.

How important is teacher performance for students though? What are we even measuring when something is good/bad for students? Obviously anything akin to directly abusing students would be bad for students, but I imagine we're talking about the quality of the education they get based on the quality of their professor's teaching ability. If we are just talking about learning qualities, isn't the selection of students i…

The heuristic often repeated by folks in the profession is that you've got a top 5% of students who match your description of students who've proven they're good at learning, a bottom 5% who is entirely unprepared for university life and who knows how they got admitted, and the rest whose understanding of the subject matter is influenced by the performance of the teacher.

Post-COVID, lots of us (and you can find articles about this by conducting a simple search) have noticed that the top 5% hasn't changed, but the bottom 5% seems to have gotten significantly larger--10%, sometimes 15% of students in introductory level courses seem unprepared for university. I've seen functional illiteracy in some of my students at my good R1, for the first time ever. Our university is also on a huge enrollment drive, and are constantly hinting that faculty need to grade more easily to keep students happy.

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

#232

Post by HarryHirsch » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

robwwilliams wrote: post #176

mgbmtl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prof jobs might be researched-focused, teaching-focused, or a mix of both. Some universities really pushed research, in order to go for grants and donations. It also helps attract grad students. They usually make less enjoyable undergrad experiences. Then again, having profs that only teach, not research, can become very disconnected after a while. You may as well have a grad student repeat from the book. I know a fe…

Agree. One major difference is between: 1. Technical TRAINING to do job X (rote-style) 2. Conceptual LEARNING to think creatively about solving problems and asking and answering novel questions—big or small. Many of us on Hacker News understands the huge difference between this teo modes that has been so elegantly captured in Richard W Hammings “The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn”. If you wan…

You can imagine my reviews as a professor. Who is at fault?

It's the system that's at fault. Remember the noncanonical version of the Monty Python Dead Bishops skit? The murderer admits the crime to the police (in fact the Church Police), saying "It was me, but the system is at fault." The police proceed to question everyone else: "Excuse me, are you part of the system?" - "Yes." - "Come with me then!"

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

#233

Post by ls612 » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

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.

Assistant professors (tenure track) in decent public business schools start at $300k salary. And this is in the Midwest. And I know that the top private business schools pay more, just that it isn’t public information like it is at the public universities. Now obviously those people would likely be paid higher salaries in the private sector (even CoL adjusted) but the economics of it ensures that pay for professors of fields in demand in the private sector will be at least somewhat decent.

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

#234

Post by professorthread » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

kashunstva wrote: post #137

orange_joe wrote: post #9

I’m skeptical that tenure is good for students, I knew so many teachers that just didn’t much care for their work and probably would have been fired if not for tenure. I understand the arguments in favor of tenure, particularly when it comes to recruitment, but given the bloated pipeline into academia, I’m not sure they hold.

> I’m skeptical that tenure is good for students, I’m more skeptical of the motives that animate these decision makers. After all, these are the same people who ban books, insist on revisionist history in Texas school textbooks, and engage in all manner of opposition to free inquiry. Perhaps by some stroke of luck, it will be a net positive for students in Texas institutions of higher learning, but of all the ways of…

Right. I'm surprised at the comments here that seem to be missing the bigger picture. If ultra-conservative proto-Gilead Texas is going after tenure, then that must mean the values we associate with a progressive good society are being incubated in academia, protected by tenure. Hence, tenure is good.

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

#235

Post by haweemwho » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

robwwilliams wrote: post #194

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opportunity cost is still likely 100k/yr for the rest of your life, even with the FAANG salary to assistant professors. consider this: You can be a new grad, get hired at Apple, and earn an entry-level salary[0]. Let's say we won't include the bonus and you get 130k/yr. You colleague is a new grad and goes to a PhD program at Duke University[1] where they earn 33k/yr. In your first year, your PhD program colleagu…

Great analysis and arguably much too conservative. But the assumption is that positions in industry are equally stable. In the world of startups not so much. And Google and Facebook making even FAANG look volatile.

That academia job is less stable. Bring in grants or go home. Compete with others to climb a pyramid that gets more and more narrow at the top.

Even if you are laid off at Google or Facebook, with those on your resume, anybody will take you, unless you are some weird incompetent fluke. If you didn't get a new grant, you'll have a hard time in academia. Good luck switching institutions once you are unsuccessful in the grant game.

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

#236

Post by dctoedt » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:08 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #179

dctoedt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often do your scenarios occur in real life?

Oops, you meant to reply to the parent comment. It's a mistake on your part, you may want to clarify.

No, I was responding to a comment that now starts out, "I'm tired ...."

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

#237

Post by caddemon » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:09 PM UTC

romwell wrote: post #217

yodsanklai wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More precisely, it would be the immediate end of our ability to recruit competitively, I wonder. For one thing, tenure can be replaced by higher salaries. Who knows, maybe these universities will get more bang for their bucks that way. After all, there are industrial research labs that play in the same league as the top research universities. And there are other forces that make people want to pursue academic caree…

> For one thing, tenure can be replaced by higher salaries. Do you imply the universities will magically get more money somehow? >Who knows, maybe these universities will get more bang for their bucks that way. Scott Aarsonson knows. They won't . Also, everyone in the field does. There's a reason tenure exists. >After all, there are industrial research labs that play in the same league as the top research universitie…

> As someone with a PhD in mathematics: absolutely not.

I'm blown away by this statement. Maybe math is an amazing haven of curiosity, and if so that is good to know. But academic credit is half the damn currency of science, and it is 100% the main reason that many profs are willing to take a pay cut. This is something openly joked about by people at all levels in my department (biology), and of what I know from some physicists I am close to it is not great there either. Though this could also have some subfield dependence.

In biology tenure is hardly a direct benefit anyway because there's nothing much you can do without grants, and no one wants to stop being thought of as productive/smart. People chill a little after getting tenure, but only because 50% of them are basically fired at that decision point. Tenured faculty absolutely still play the grantsmanship game hard in biosciences.

I suppose in mathematics there is not as much impact that university status can have, because way less upfront money is needed.

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

#238

Post by Alupis » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:10 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #183

Alupis wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wors…

In my experience, most recent college graduates are effectively useless anyway. I say that as a once-recent graduate.

It's often thought, incorrectly, that university teaches you how to do a certain job. People go to university to learn how to become an X.

University isn't supposed to teach you how to do a job... it's supposed to teach you how to think critically. Along the way you learn, in varying depth, knowledge about specific fields of study, but that's not the same as learning a job.

Recent graduates are often immature (barely 21, who can blame them), limited in both depth and breadth of knowledge, and inexperienced. Most new hires have to be trained within industry for at least several months if not longer before they become productive for any business/organization.

Having students work part time, or preferably full time jobs while attending university would be a net gain for all of the above.

Working a job teaches teamwork and responsibility. Employees gain life experience, learn skills (learning a skill is the point, not what the skill is), discipline, and how to interact with others professionally and maturely. Basically everything university is not capable of teaching.

Working a job is complementary to an education, under this idea. The notion that university should be completed in four years needs to change - maybe it should take 6-8 years after all. The quality of an average graduate would be immense, and future earning abilities would be equally increased.

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

#239

Post by tombert » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:16 PM UTC

stainablesteel wrote: post #147

tombert wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not college, but my wife is wrapping up her teaching certification soon. We have both considered moving to Florida (we both have family that live there), but there is no chance in hell that we are moving to Florida and teaching; the infamous "Don't Say Gay" bill is so broad and idiotic (and she would be teaching biology ), that Florida is a complete non-starter for us since neither of us really have any desire to be…

you should definitely move to a state that suits your political background, its fair to say you might not like florida. but that "don't say gay bill" is really just a "don't teach sex ed til 4th grade" bill. i'm understanding of people who don't like it nonetheless but there's other place for you to go, there's plenty of blue states and big cities that support left-wing agendas over right-wing ones, just go there ins…

I think this is a pretty stupid argument; I think this is an idiotic law, and I would even if I did agree with the bizarre LGBT grooming conspiracies.

It’s poorly worded, likely to be abused, and also not just K-3 anymore like people keep incorrectly asserting. Even if I did think that there was some grooming conspiracy, I wouldn’t want to teach in Florida because I don’t want to be sued by some parent who has a relatively risk-free way to get free money by claiming I mentioned some LGBT agenda.

Also, you understand that “move to a blue city” only gets you so far right? This will (and to some extent already has) lead to a shortage of decent teachers in Florida, because a lot of teachers who can move to a more hospitable state have (or will).

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

#240

Post by caddemon » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:20 PM UTC

nextos wrote: post #41

quantified wrote: post #2

Not the law yet, but as Scott Aaronson (I'm positive along with others) has pointed out, this would make their universities vastly less attractive to various incoming faculty. Whether that would be as impactful in STEM as in the humanities or human-interest areas like law remains to be seen.

IMHO, right now, tenure is the only edge Academia has in many areas of STEM compared to industrial labs. Other countries have suppressed tenure in the past, Denmark comes to mind, and this scared tons of great faculty.

The main edge is freedom in research topic (at least to the extent of what granting agencies are willing to fund), and freedom in publishing your ideas and results as you see fit.

Tenure is a ridiculous gamble right now. Getting a tenure track position at a major research university in most fields if you do everything right is something like a 10% chance after multiple years of dreadfully paid and generally poorly treated postdoc. Then it's only 50/50 or so whether you get fired after ~5 years. You don't know if you will be tenured until you're pushing 40, and in bio you'd be lucky to know by then.

The EV of going for tenure these days is fucking awful. Besides, almost anyone capable of getting tenure in a STEM department at UT is super employable in the corresponding industry and definitely does not need tenure to protect their job like a random grade school teacher. The only place it's helpful is if you start really questioning people or pushing buttons, but that just goes back to intellectual freedom being the real perk, not the job security.

Might be different in something like ML where DeepMind and OpenAI can systematically take talent, but seriously the job market to get tenure track professorship currently is brutally competitive, to the point it is straining the whole academic system.