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A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

president.mit.edu

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Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#751

Post by mnbpdx »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #327
brianjlogan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of historical precedent for an intellectual elite ignoring the perception and needs of the common folk leading to an uprising. I'd imagine every great(in scale/importance) uprising/political tumult had some aspect of "but they're ruining everything!" Everything for intellectuals and people with ties to the system that was functioning for that minority. Coal miners don't care that international students aren't co…

The professors, graduate students, and staff (not admins) are all working class. They are not some kind of elite in society. The median professor makes less than, say, an electrician. I am a professor in a good school, and I could probably triple my pay by going to industry. This propaganda needs to stop.

Yeah, I agree:

"academic/intellectual/educated person" != "owner class"

I feel like that's the big misunderstanding between working class libs & working class conservatives.

I'm (working class liberal who went to college) not the one oppressing you (working class conservative). We make basically the same money and hold the same power, lol.

Clever of the (actual) conservative elites (1%, billionaires) to shift the blame to the intellectual class, when we don't own shit. We just piss you (working class conservatives) off at Thanksgiving with "new ideas" so we're an easy target.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#752

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

EvgeniyZh wrote: post #483
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are simply too many candidates and not enough roles to fill and certainly not enough money for research. This is great for the universities but it's awful for grad students and assorted post-grads/docs/whatever. Now you have a bunch of assistant professorships and adjunct spots where you get paid like shit and you have no chance of tenure. There is nothing an employer likes more than a pool of candidates willin…

There can't be enough roles unless we either grow academia indefinitely or reduce grad school spots to like 1 per tenured faculty

There are too many grad students, is my point. Like, obviously, not all grad students go into academia, but that is the main career track for a graduate degree in a lot of fields.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#753

Post by EvgeniyZh »

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #752
EvgeniyZh wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can't be enough roles unless we either grow academia indefinitely or reduce grad school spots to like 1 per tenured faculty

There are too many grad students, is my point. Like, obviously, not all grad students go into academia, but that is the main career track for a graduate degree in a lot of fields.

What I'm saying is that it can't be qualitatively different.

You can't guarantee every IC they will become a manager (which a professor essentially is) in any area and academia is no different. Larger number of students is what allows both the scientific progress and better filtering of potential professors.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#754

Post by 1-more »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #738
1-more wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to what? Von Neumann was part of Europe's elite scientific brain drain to the US in the 20th century, that's all.

Whether to help an existing accomplished researcher change address because their home country is not an option, is not similar to the question of whether to educate chinese students who plan to return home.

Never said they were, just said it's a good book about a pretty unique set of circumstances and the biography of one guy in the middle of it.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#755

Post by kenferry »

coffeemug wrote: post #467
magicalist wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value absolutely is there. The NSF and NIH were both very cheap and have had huge ROI. The cuts to academic funding have been monumentally stupid.

Brass tacks, if an institution has an overwhelming political leaning toward faction X and works to undermine faction Y, is it really surprising that when Y gets into power it attempts to damage the institution? This is precisely why publicly funded institutions should maintain agnostic political posture.

I mean, is it political when you write a paper that concludes that vaccines are effective or that fish die when streams are polluted?

The answer seems to have become "yes", so this is a rhetorical question, but ideally _information_ would be apolitical.

We also see the current administration politicizing things like the federal reserve, which has tried VERY hard to be apolitical.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#756

Post by greenie_beans »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #732
greenie_beans wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i guess you haven't been seeing the news of all the southerners fighting the redistricting efforts after they gutted the VRA

You mean Southerners like me in Virginia who are actually doing that “fighting” and it’s making absolutely no difference whatsoever is that who you’re talking about? I’m literally 10 toes down on the ground trying to do exactly the thing that everybody says should be happening which is democratizing community development and nobody gives a fucking fuck they will show up when you give them resources but never step up…

yeah i'm sure you're doing this: https://mississippitoday.org/2026/05/20/mississippi-redistri...
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