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

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

#241

Post by JamesBarney » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:27 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #88

Centigonal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think nearly everyone who says "I want more freedom of expression" leaves out the quiet part, which is "...for people who think like I do." There are many, many examples of supposed "free speech advocates" trying to silence dissenting voices or criticism. Under that assumption, it makes perfect sense that Texas conservatives, believing colleges are liberal bastions that spread ideas they disagree with, would see an…

I don't disagree, but it's still a bit puzzling beyond the just "political theater"/"retributional politics" approach: * if they don't control the administration of the schools, this only serves to make it harder to hire anybody and easier to fire those who the administration doesn't agree with . Presumably conservatives. That's a net loss. * if they do control the administration (or have a path to getting that contr…

Yeah tenure probably protects conservative faculty more than liberal faculty at most institutions.

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

#242

Post by screye » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:28 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #196

bjt wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think he's right, I wonder if that might still be a tradeoff worth making. Or at least, a sane person could argue that it is. Competition between universities for rankings skews a lot of what happens in higher ed. The state of Texas could rationally think "we want to spend our tax dollars subsidizing the education of Texans, but we're not super interested in spending those dollars to fund the academic rat rac…

I struggle to see how this benefits Texas , though. Education is an investment in the future; encouraging the best professors to go elsewhere is like saying you want the future to happen elsewhere. Maybe that's what Texas wants, but universities usually bring startups and high-tech jobs along with them. It kinda reminds me of how Texas wanted to get in on the blockchain hype, so they passed legislation making it extr…

How does Texas's research output affect its ability to pull in top professionals from elsewhere ?

The mid-west has amazing public STEM schools in UMich, Wisc, UIUC, Purdue....and yet their economic centers are in free fall. On the other hand, none of Texas's top cities had a top public school (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio) and they got by just fine. Austin's rise fairly recent. If anything, the sad state of local economies near massive flagship universities like UMass, Penn State, UFl, TA&MU shows that top-graduates clearly do not care about "sticking around" near their university, and instead just work at whatever the actual economic center is.

Waterloo is one of the top tech schools of the world thanks to a well run co-op program, and their professors have little to do with it. Top universities are amazing thanks to getting the best students and amazing undergrad teachers, who often tend to be PhD students or lecturers. Neither have tenure, so I'm not too worried about their ability to keep the momentum going.

Hell, I'm not even sure that the research output itself will drop. It's not like the total funding for universities went down. We might even see $$ go towards more competitive areas, and a further increase in productive output.

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

#243

Post by drewcoo » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:30 PM UTC

nappy-doo wrote: post #175

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…

[flagged]

"City upon a hill" [1] is a Christian sentiment.

Given TX also wants to post "the ten commandments" (no note of which ten) [2], given the rather impressive dominionist [3] domination of the US courts at various levels [4], I don't see anything contrary to the "city upon a hill" at all. Unless we want to ague over sectarian differences, that is. The people in power today tend not to be Puritans.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill

[2] https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3963001-texas-state...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/25/roe-v-wade-abo...

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

#244

Post by marcusverus » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

nappy-doo wrote: post #175

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…

[flagged]

> There are those that want to regress society and cause harm just to cause harm…

Nope. It’s true that the US has split into two camps with competing worldviews, but the belief that your worldview is the one, true worldview, and the other worldview not only wrong but malicious is just dogmatic nonsense.

Out of an abundance of caution, I would advise against drinking the refreshments at your cult meetings.

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

#245

Post by romwell » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

edrxty wrote: post #37

satysin wrote: post #4

So the Texas Senate just passed a bill that makes it more likely that Texas faculty hires will be from a smaller and no doubt lower quality pool of candidates? Why take a job without the possibility of tenure vs anywhere else in the US that has the option available to you?

Getting rid of tenure is fine but they'll need to pay much more to stay competitive. The calculous is fairly simple. Tenure track and then have an easy work life but less money, or go to industry and make lots of money but work more. Nothing wrong with either but if you get rid of the upsides to academia expect to replace them with something. That's just how market economies work. The issue isn't stem so much as the…

>The calculous[sic] is fairly simple. Tenure track and then have an easy work life but less money, or go to industry and make lots of money but work more.

You have no clue what you are talking about.

Going from academia into industry, the work is much less stressful, and the pay is much higher.

"Easy work life" and being a research professor are mutually exclusive. Your work never ends.

>The issue isn't stem so much as the stuff where there isn't a highly paying industry sector. Those PhDs will have to go out of state f

Again, you have no idea how this market works. The absolute, vast majority of PhD holders and grad students come out of state to begin with.

They will simply avoid Texas, which is simpler than going out of state.

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

#246

Post by tombert » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:36 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #184

tombert wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Ok, so are you saying that “never” is the answer to both?

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

#247

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #242

nostrademons wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to see how this benefits Texas , though. Education is an investment in the future; encouraging the best professors to go elsewhere is like saying you want the future to happen elsewhere. Maybe that's what Texas wants, but universities usually bring startups and high-tech jobs along with them. It kinda reminds me of how Texas wanted to get in on the blockchain hype, so they passed legislation making it extr…

How does Texas's research output affect its ability to pull in top professionals from elsewhere ? The mid-west has amazing public STEM schools in UMich, Wisc, UIUC, Purdue....and yet their economic centers are in free fall. On the other hand, none of Texas's top cities had a top public school (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio) and they got by just fine. Austin's rise fairly recent. If anything, the sad state of local eco…

Austin is Texas's fastest growing city (and in the USA), and the metro is known as one of its richest. UTA has some role in fostering a tech scene that isn't as nice in Dallas or Houston (and doesn't really exist yet in San Antonio).

Seattle definitely benefits a lot from UW and its computer science department, but there is some cycle going on (Intel and Microsoft were heavy backers of UW CSE in the earlier years, and also took many of its graduates).

People do care about sticking around if they can. If the school is somewhere nice; e.g. in the Bay Area, Seattle, or Austin.

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

#248

Post by drstewart » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #246

drstewart wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Ok, so are you saying that “never” is the answer to both?

Yes

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

#249

Post by dgacmu » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #198

edrxty wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rid of tenure is fine but they'll need to pay much more to stay competitive. The calculous is fairly simple. Tenure track and then have an easy work life but less money, or go to industry and make lots of money but work more. Nothing wrong with either but if you get rid of the upsides to academia expect to replace them with something. That's just how market economies work. The issue isn't stem so much as the…

> Tenure track and then have an easy work life Most faculty works much longer hours than the private sector. It's not easy by any means. People become professors for exactly the same reason why some people become doctors and others real estate agents - they enjoy it or their personality matches the profession. Money is not everything.

One of my colleagues, Randy Pausch, used to quip that "academia is the best. You can work any 70 hours per week you want!"

There's truth in that, for better or worse.

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

#250

Post by karaterobot » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

KerrAvon wrote: post #134

karaterobot wrote: post #42

> Public-college boards would be able to create “an alternate system of tiered employment status for faculty members” that’s not tenure, the legislation states. But that system would require faculty members to go through an annual performance evaluation. That sounds closer to how most jobs work. Honestly, I've never understood the purpose of tenure; it seems like an archaic tradition. If it's to give professors freed…

The problem is, as others have said, this severely degrades Texas's desirability as a career destination for academics as long as only Texas is doing this and other states are not. Put another way, these are the people Texas doesn't want in the state: - LGBT+ - women - academics Are they trying to have a student population composed of just cis crypto bros and assorted incels? Because this is how you get there.

Given that universities already select which professors get tenure, how would removing tenure help or hurt any groups, relative to the present system?