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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#11

Post by dkrich »

Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view?

My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career.

But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research, etc. as it relates to getting tenure, but if your only focus is jumping through hoops with the end goal of getting tenured there are probably a lot easier ways to get job security and at higher pay. My point is that I would hope that those who go into a career in academia as a professor have a major interest in teaching and aren't just there to get the next promotion.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#12

Post by mdwelsh »

impendia wrote: post #9

At Harvard it really is easy to stop worrying, if you have an open mind. As a mathematician, I know excellent academics who narrowly missed getting tenured at MIT and Princeton. They were highly in demand, and are now happily working at other top-20 universities. (ed: I am in math, and described what I observed. I see elsewhere in the thread that mdwelsh observed the opposite.)

You are right that being a mathematician at Harvard, it hardly matters if you get tenure or not. (In fact, for a long time you basically had to win the Fields Medal to get tenure in math at Harvard). Harvard is nowhere near as well known in Computer Science, and is more of a "top 20" rather than "top 5" school.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#13

Post by mdwelsh »

sidww2 wrote: post #8
mdwelsh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true in computer science at Harvard - I speak from experience, having gone through the tenure process there myself. Being denied tenure in CS at Harvard is about as bad as being denied tenure anywhere else; people don't usually end up in very good jobs afterwards. In my 8 years at Harvard, we awarded tenure to 5 junior faculty, and denied tenure to two.

By good, do you mean faculty positions elsewhere or is it hard in general to even get say senior jobs in the industry after being denied tenure?

People denied tenure in CS at Harvard have gotten senior (tenured) jobs elsewhere, but not in my opinion at places anywhere near as good.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#14

Post by mdwelsh »

dkrich wrote: post #11

Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view? My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career. But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research…

The problem is that no promotion = no job. So if you care about teaching, you need to get tenure.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#15

Post by jamesaguilar »

dkrich wrote: post #11

Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view? My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career. But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research…

People optimize for the metrics they are set. To the degree teaching is rewarded, they will focus on teaching.

I know a number of PhDs with aspirations of tenure. Not one has said they went into it to teach.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#16

Post by bobbles »

dkrich wrote: post #11

Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view? My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career. But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research…

Thanks for my first laugh out loud moment for today.

Out of the 20-30 or so lecturers I can remember from my degree in computer science, there was only maybe two I can think of that had any interest at all in actually communicating ideas and teaching students.

The vast majority of the lecturers were objviously focused on their research and even student questions about assignments / exams / any issue at all were directed to the tutor (who would often be the tutor for 6-7 subjects and be completely swamped by the workload).

The tutors have since been removed from that university due to budget constraints so I feel sorry for the students going there.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#17

Post by opminion »

dkrich wrote: post #11

Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view? My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career. But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research…

She doesn't mention any teaching, but I wouldn't take that as not caring about teaching. She discusses the things that she needs to assign a priority to, and risk creeping in (or out).

Not knowing any particulars I would guess that teaching, albeit time consuming, does not pose that risk.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#18

Post by impendia »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #15
dkrich wrote: post #11

Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view? My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career. But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research…

People optimize for the metrics they are set. To the degree teaching is rewarded, they will focus on teaching. I know a number of PhDs with aspirations of tenure. Not one has said they went into it to teach.

> Not one has said they went into it to teach.

I (a tenure-track assistant professor of math) didn't go into academia primarily to teach. But I enjoy teaching, value it, agree that it is important work, and make an effort to do it well.

Re: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty Life

#19

Post by jpatokal »

dkrich wrote: post #11

Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view? My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career. But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research…

Uhh -- the article is mostly about not jumping through hoops to get tenure, and instead considering postdoc a 7-year job and an end to itself.
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