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Serfs of Academe

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Re: Serfs of Academe

#11

Post by zozbot234 »

Avicebron wrote: post #7
seibelj wrote: post #5

When I was 19 I worked at Dominos Pizza, and they offered me a management track position. I would attend Dominos University, a management training course where they would teach me the art of pizza restaurant management and advanced pizza making skills. The starting salary for management back in 2007 was $38k per year with 10% bonus, and included health insurance, paid sick leave, etc. I say this because - why do thes…

Because some people want to live in a world where we as a society can value things like medieval poetry and have thriving ecosystems around that. There's a seemingly endless line of people willing to enslave themselves to a broken system rather than fold and turn into a Dominos manager like the system wants.

Except that those same people do a terrible job of actually "valuing" these things. In the absence of things like community engagement/outreach, "society" is not going to care all that much about those topics. Building a "thriving ecosystem" around whatever scholarship/research you're doing can come later, community outreach should be a forefront priority.

Re: Serfs of Academe

#12

Post by luckylion »

seibelj wrote: post #5

When I was 19 I worked at Dominos Pizza, and they offered me a management track position. I would attend Dominos University, a management training course where they would teach me the art of pizza restaurant management and advanced pizza making skills. The starting salary for management back in 2007 was $38k per year with 10% bonus, and included health insurance, paid sick leave, etc. I say this because - why do thes…

My guess is that it's not just about being smart. Running a restaurant (=managing people), is quite a different beast than studying or teaching medieval poetry. The few people I know that have chosen to pursue an academic career aren't exactly happy to take on a challenge, tackle new problems as they arise and lead a team.

Re: Serfs of Academe

#13

Post by seibelj »

Avicebron wrote: post #7
seibelj wrote: post #5

When I was 19 I worked at Dominos Pizza, and they offered me a management track position. I would attend Dominos University, a management training course where they would teach me the art of pizza restaurant management and advanced pizza making skills. The starting salary for management back in 2007 was $38k per year with 10% bonus, and included health insurance, paid sick leave, etc. I say this because - why do thes…

Because some people want to live in a world where we as a society can value things like medieval poetry and have thriving ecosystems around that. There's a seemingly endless line of people willing to enslave themselves to a broken system rather than fold and turn into a Dominos manager like the system wants.

At one point do you get punched in the nose enough times to realize you aren't meant to be a boxer? These people clearly didn't make it in academia. As much as I want to be an NFL quarterback, sometimes you have to accept reality and try for a different goal.

Re: Serfs of Academe

#14

Post by cafard »

seibelj wrote: post #13
Avicebron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some people want to live in a world where we as a society can value things like medieval poetry and have thriving ecosystems around that. There's a seemingly endless line of people willing to enslave themselves to a broken system rather than fold and turn into a Dominos manager like the system wants.

At one point do you get punched in the nose enough times to realize you aren't meant to be a boxer? These people clearly didn't make it in academia. As much as I want to be an NFL quarterback, sometimes you have to accept reality and try for a different goal.

Well, what if you wanted to be an NFL quarterback, had all the skills, but couldn't find a job because Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway etc.--greats in their day--had tenure?

Re: Serfs of Academe

#16

Post by seibelj »

cafard wrote: post #14
seibelj wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point do you get punched in the nose enough times to realize you aren't meant to be a boxer? These people clearly didn't make it in academia. As much as I want to be an NFL quarterback, sometimes you have to accept reality and try for a different goal.

Well, what if you wanted to be an NFL quarterback, had all the skills, but couldn't find a job because Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway etc.--greats in their day--had tenure?

You can post on Twitter about how unfair it is, but I would rather take control of my own destiny and do something else. Living in my car outside the football stadium in the hope that someday I'll be hired would be naive. The same for the adjuncts.

Re: Serfs of Academe

#17

Post by sykick »

seibelj wrote: post #5

When I was 19 I worked at Dominos Pizza, and they offered me a management track position. I would attend Dominos University, a management training course where they would teach me the art of pizza restaurant management and advanced pizza making skills. The starting salary for management back in 2007 was $38k per year with 10% bonus, and included health insurance, paid sick leave, etc. I say this because - why do thes…

I understand the gist of what you are saying but consider this. Are there enough pizza management positions to absorb the number of adjuncts? I don't think so and I know you were just using Dominos as an example. If the set of all underpaid, abusive adjuncts suddenly entered the marketplace what consequences would there be? Are there enough positions? Would more less intelligent people be unemployed or have their wages decrease?

Overall, though you are right. There is way too much participation in graduate school in relation to the job market for those skills. However, this fact does not justify treating people poorly and this is where labor market regulation comes into play. Unfortunately we Americans, in the form of our elected officials, have decided that such regulation is too burdensome.

Re: Serfs of Academe

#18

Post by seibelj »

sykick wrote: post #17
seibelj wrote: post #5

When I was 19 I worked at Dominos Pizza, and they offered me a management track position. I would attend Dominos University, a management training course where they would teach me the art of pizza restaurant management and advanced pizza making skills. The starting salary for management back in 2007 was $38k per year with 10% bonus, and included health insurance, paid sick leave, etc. I say this because - why do thes…

I understand the gist of what you are saying but consider this. Are there enough pizza management positions to absorb the number of adjuncts? I don't think so and I know you were just using Dominos as an example. If the set of all underpaid, abusive adjuncts suddenly entered the marketplace what consequences would there be? Are there enough positions? Would more less intelligent people be unemployed or have their wag…

There aren't enough pizza management positions but unemployment is at an all-time low - even if adjuncts find manual labor beneath them, there are plenty of restaurants, paralegal, office labor, and other semi-skilled / unskilled jobs that they would be fit for.

My critique is that adjuncts see university employment as the One True Path when there are a multitude of other careers available, if only they would give up their teaching dreams.

Re: Serfs of Academe

#19

Post by sykick »

seibelj wrote: post #18
sykick wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the gist of what you are saying but consider this. Are there enough pizza management positions to absorb the number of adjuncts? I don't think so and I know you were just using Dominos as an example. If the set of all underpaid, abusive adjuncts suddenly entered the marketplace what consequences would there be? Are there enough positions? Would more less intelligent people be unemployed or have their wag…

There aren't enough pizza management positions but unemployment is at an all-time low - even if adjuncts find manual labor beneath them, there are plenty of restaurants, paralegal, office labor, and other semi-skilled / unskilled jobs that they would be fit for. My critique is that adjuncts see university employment as the One True Path when there are a multitude of other careers available, if only they would give up…

Yes, I understand that to be your point and I overall agree with it. However if all of those people tried to gain employment elsewhere there are side effects.

A friend of mine with a Ph.D. in math and a Master's degree in electrical engineering works in industry in data science. He once told me that he would not want to hire people with a Ph.D. to do non research. He said they just have a hard time fitting into an environment where most other people aren't as insightful/perceptive.

Can people with the minds/attitudes/skillset of adjuncts fit into the workplaces you mention? Even if they could would it be useful? What side effects happen to the less intelligent who also compete for such jobs.

Whatever the answers are to this it does nothing to obviate the need for better labor market regulation.

Re: Serfs of Academe

#20

Post by pmyteh »

gnicholas wrote: post #15

A warning seen on Twitter today says: don't enter a PhD program unless you are given full funding (or have a trust fund). Honestly, even if you get full funding, you should consider the opportunity cost. https://twitter.com/megankatenelson/status/12319359557010513...

I think this is generally excellent advice - and for one reason beyond the obvious 'don't get crushed by massive debt'.

In many academic fields, there are many more new PhDs than there are available careers. Just think - in order to maintain a steady academic state each tenured professor needs to turn out only a couple of trained successors over their whole career. But it's common to have several at any given time, and generating dozens of potential academic replacements over the course of a career is not unusual.

Competition at the postdoc level is grim, and it gets even more brutal if you try to get on the tenure track. To succeed you normally have to be both excellent and lucky.

The competition for PhD funding is a first signal as to a prospective student's place in the career race. It's also a very cheap signal: you get it up front rather than investing several years of your life and then finding out you can't find a post, or falling into a cycle of underpaid and overstressed adjunct appointments resulting in burnout and resignation.

So if you can't get PhD funding, you should also be asking yourself 'am I well placed for five years time?' The answer isn't always 'no', but it should prompt some serious thought.

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