Two items from academia. First, a serious one. Following up on my post about academic freedom a couple of days ago, Michael Bérubé argues that the Nona Gerard case at PSU and the suspensions at USM are quite different, because there was a formal review process at PSU whereas the USM President just acted like an autocrat. I agree with Michael that the USM case seems wholly indefensible on its face, so maybe it shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the Gerard case, which just looks highly suspicious. As I said before, there just isn’t enough information available to make a judgment. But I think the bar for revoking tenure is pretty damn high. It took Yale a couple of years to fire Antonio Lasaga, and he’d pleaded guilty to specimen charges of sexual abuse and possession of child pornography. Of course I don’t mean that this is the minimum required to get fired, and Yale didn’t handle that case very well. But it reinforces Michael’s argument that “The Penn State decision should be pursued, and the grounds for Gerard’s dismissal made available for broader review,” so we could make up our minds about what kind of case it is.
Meanwhile, via Invisible Adjunct, the Chronicle carries a piece by David Lester, who wants people who complain about the stress of academic life to shut up. It’s a marvelous essay. He starts out sounding like just the kind of straight-talking no-bullshit kind of guy you could have a beer with, but then — just after he tells you about his 300 articles and his third wife — he says “I have made some decisions over the course of my career that have allowed me to be productive, yet not feel overwhelmed,” and suddenly all the wheels come off. Read it yourself and see. He ends up sounding a bit like Dr Johnson in Blackadder III:
Dr. Johnson: Where is my dictionary?
Edmund: And what dictionary would this be?
Dr. Johnson: The one that has taken eighteen hours of every day for the last ten years. My mother died; I hardly noticed. My father cut off his head and fried it in garlic in the hope of attracting my attention; I scarcely looked up from my work. My wife brought armies of lovers to the house, who worked in droves so that she might bring up a huge family of bastards. I cannot—
Actually, from the very first paragraph the guy seemed more like someone over whose head I’d like to pour a beer.
God, what a prick. I’ll bet his colleagues (and his ex wives) love him.
Invisible Adjunct really goes off on David Lester’s article, criticizing his “capacities for sympathetic imagination” and calling it “a remarkable instance of self-absorption and self-promotion”. I think that Lester’s prose style could certainly use some work, but I don’t see that much odd about liking one’s work and trying to get out of faculty politics as much as possible.
Is it really wise to just blow off the coal mining comparison that Lester repeatedly makes? I agree that some people might find any particular job stressful, because people vary, and in that sense Lester is being self absorbed in generalizing from himself. But it doesn’t seem wrong to say that objectively there is more stress involved in coal mining, and in many other blue collar occupations, than in academia, and to advise people to consider this in their own complaints and behavior.
I’d like to connect this with a recent thread here on the hoary old subject of bias against conservatives in academia. Annoyed, I suggested that maybe liberals really should discriminate against conservatives in academia, in part as a gesture of social solidarity toward the unionized workers that conservatives discriminate against, and advocate discriminating against, everywhere else. Needless to say, if people replied to the point at all, they replied with bromides about academic freedom, the unbiased pursuit of pure knowledge, etc etc. (No academic can afford to go on record as favoring discrimination against conservatives, as this would immediately be used by the conservative attack machine, so I’m not sure whether this was really the general opinion or reflected a wise concealment of agreement).
Well, all of these repeated claims about bias against conservatives in academia aren’t just accidentally coming up over and over, they are part of a push to get liberals out of academia and conservatives in. That goes hand in hand with general attacks on tenure, which always include the “Marxist professors” meme, and individual cases of attacks on tenured professors, of which the large majority are against liberals or leftists.
So is there any reason for coal workers to be concerned? Social solidarity goes both ways, of course; is there any reason why unionized workers elsewhere should be concerned about attacks on liberal academia, or should they just shrug and tend to their own interests? Something in the attitude of blowoff towards the idea that maybe coal workers really do have it worse suggests to me that perhaps non-academics shouldn’t invest any effort in this.
Rich:
Nobody’s blowing off the coal miner point, though it’s a histrionic overreading by Lester of much more specific complaints by academics about aspects of their institutional lives. Nobody’s nailing themselves to the cross at the level that Lester implies, though yes, there has been and will probably continue to be a level of self-pity in academia that is totally out of synch with the pleasant actuality of work conditions in the profession—though we also ought not to forget that at the worst end of the scale, where people carry 5/5 loads and get paid $20,000/year for it, often after having invested six years in obtaining professional credentials, the conditions of work are pretty well about as bad as white collar labor can be.
What everyone is teeing off about in Lester’s article is his frank admission that he doesn’t actually do a significant part of his job, and uses this to explain how it’s possible to live what he regards as a good life while being an academic. Sure. But it’s because people like him misuse tenure as a way to shirk collective obligations that others end up bearing more than their fair share of the stress-load. It’s rather like a coal miner who has managed to fake a disability so as to get some kind of minor managerial job on the surface talking about how coal mining really isn’t so hard.
It seemed to me from the article that Lester is still teaching and writing. Isn’t he doing his job?
My impression was that Lester’s point is that faculty politics makes up the majority of what often makes academic life unpleasant and stressful and his solution is to disengage from it. That squares with my observations and his solution strikes me as quite practical.
A professor’s job has three components — research, teaching, and service (things like being on committees that help to run the institution). Lester admits to shirking the service component. A faculty member at my department recently got denied tenure for doing that.
I have seen some damn good professors not gain tenure because of not having the proper scholarship. Oh, sure, maybe Dr. Wright started the Southern Women Writers Confrence, but do we really count that as scholarship? Hell, I’d like to know the date of this guy’s last paper and how much he actually wrote of it.
“Isn’t he doing his job?”
He readily admits (but admits is the wrong term: I should rather say he brags) that he hasn’t attended a faculty meeting since 1972. He doesn’t answer the phone, rarely reads his email, and avoids as much service work as he can.
What’s bizarre is that he actually acknowledges any number of demands which might make faculty feel overwhelmed, only to boast of how he has managed to avoid and evade just such demands. If everyone in his department behaved this way, what would be the result? But everyone wouldn’t, because some people will feel a sense of responsibility — and these people will have to pick up the slack for the David Lesters of the academy.
No, this guy’s quite a role model. His philosophy of enjoying the privledges that everyone else but him fights for is terrific. Why safeguard your own rights if others are willing to do it for you? Brilliant idea. And I’m sure he appreciates it. If others weren’t doing all that work, he might actually have to attend some of those pesky meetings. But right now he’s got it made. It’s so much better when you can pretend to float above everyone else.
I can’t help but read Lester’s post and think to myself “good on him.”
In fact, the best run departments I’ve been in have had a number of faculty like him, a few that are slightly more engaged, along with a couple that like handling admin stuff more than doing research. A sort of division of responsibilities thing - it doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you do it well. The worst run ones have overworked their professors with everybody being forced to be on various committees, along with solid teaching loads, and high expectations of research as well. That’s the sort of thing that puts people off academic jobs in the first place (overworked, and underpaid).
There’re a couple of famous professors at my current university that don’t have email, or don’t attend meetings, or don’t teach. Of course, being famous has it’s perks.
PS. I didn’t mean “good on him” for the 3 wives thing. That alone suggests to me he’s probably not a great person to live with (and as such why would you want him on a committee anyway).
3 wives in 32 years isn’t so bad, is it?
Lester’s compromises with academia seem pretty reasonable to me. At a university with a 4-4 load where I have friends and colleagues, most of the faculty make their compromises in the opposite way. They abandon research for do-nothing committee naps (service!). They “eye-ball” grades, and cancel weeks of classes for “voluntary” student conferences (which I had always imagined was what office hours are for). They provide only the most cursory of comments (if any) on papers. They try for that rarest of all pleasures, the once-a-week three hour seminars scheduled for Mondays (since that’s the day with the most holiday cancellations). And they fill the time they are no longer spending on students in the pursuit of grudges over grievances real and imagined, individing the campus into factions, and in scheming to put sand or grease the gears of the promotion process for their fellow faculty members.
Oh, and let’s just make clear, for the record, that being on a committee or attending a committee meeting is not at all the same thing as doing any of the work the committee was convened to do (if, even, the committe had real goals to accomplish).
Huh. Was I the only one who read that piece as satire?
I’m not sure how to add a trackback, but I have a new post on this issue that disagrees with most of these comments …
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review