You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
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Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#2Just a quick note: 'Dual Affiliation' is being used here differently than in most academic contexts, so the headline's a bit odd.
Normally, it means having a joint appointment in two academic departments (e.g. Linguistics and Cognitive Science at State U, or in the Department of Linguistics at State U, with an appointment at the Head-and-Neck surgery program at the local med school). This is a well-known and common practice, and although it can be tricky (particularly with even splits, where there's not one true home), it's not a 'harmful' thing.
As the author explains in the article per se, he's talking about an industry/academic split. This is much harder, for the reasons he's outlined, and as an academic, I too am skeptical. It could be a nice idea in moderation, and it'd be great to have more bridges between Academia and industry, particularly given the brutality of the Academic Job Market.
But I can easily see that a professional administrator somewhere deciding that it's cheaper to stock departments with 20% appointees than to actually hire career professors and educators. And as any adjunct-heavy institution will tell you, a department full of moonlighters is no place to make a life. Perhaps more damning, 20% of anybody's life isn't enough to support all but the weakest of teaching, even for a single course, so over-reliance on this will just further damage the instructional core of universities.
So, one or two in a department could be nice, but I don't think it's a great model for the future.
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#3I find this a bit silly.
80/20 is more like "Somewhere between 60/40 and 100/0"
I had a boss ask me not to take a second university class, this was smart for everyone involved.
There are busy times and work and boring times at work, to push that it unrealistic to manage a structured life outside of work is silly.
Ive worked with professors that let me take 2 weeks off for Work Travel.
I've had to cut out of work because I had a class. I came in early the next day and prepared for my meeting, things were fine.
I'm a big fan of moderation, and this article claims an extreme situation that is temporary and often unlikely.
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#4Just a quick note: 'Dual Affiliation' is being used here differently than in most academic contexts, so the headline's a bit odd. Normally, it means having a joint appointment in two academic departments (e.g. Linguistics and Cognitive Science at State U, or in the Department of Linguistics at State U, with an appointment at the Head-and-Neck surgery program at the local med school). This is a well-known and common p…
Dual affiliation meaning industry/academic split is unambiguous here since that's the word Facebook AI Research choose to use [1][2] and the authors are explicitly responding to Facebook's model.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-yann-lecun-dual-aff... [2]: https://www.facebook.com/schrep/posts/10156638732909443
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#5Article says two masters which implicitly assumes industry would be some new master pulling professors in some new direction. But right now professors have multiple masters. Undergrads, grads, administrations, grants/funding, etc. The idea that the previous master was "curiosity driven research" and now it will be "shareholders" is an exaggeration. I could cynically say the previous master was "least publishable unit."
It seems more likely to me this article assumes zero sum competition where there are actually positive sum gains to be had. It's good Facebook wants to pay for PhDs to do real market driven work instead of these people starving as adjuncts somewhere.
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#6I find the idea odd. if you want to contribute to academic research create a grant(s) with your budget.
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#7Seems more like 80% industry 20% spy to me.
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#8Seems more like 80% industry 20% spy to me.
As a person working like 40% academy, 60% industry, I'd say it is in reverse: you get to 'spy' on industry's knowledge and practice and transplant it into academic setting, where it is very likely publishable.
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#9The bulk of academic work is chasing grants, not "curiosity driven research". If universities want professors not to leave in droves to tech companies that will consistently give them funding and cut away the bullshit that eats up the majority of a professor's time, they should try competing, rather than bemoaning that professors are no longer following the sacred path of academic asceticism.
Re: You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
#10I find the idea odd. if you want to contribute to academic research create a grant(s) with your budget.
That's a big can of worms. This dual employment may have its drawbacks (I think mostly due to the fact that this is a mega-corp; for a small bootstrapped company it's only good, I think), but consider the following two topics:
* People would work in academic institution XOR your company: you cannot give the grant to the best in your field and still have him work for you, so you'd always want to hire the best you can, and give the grants to the rest;
* Grants most often support publications, not working solutions. At least with government-sponsored grants it's best when the academic analysis and publication is sponsored from a grant, whereas industrial involvement guarantees that the work is relevant and the published solution actually works.