It would be better get decent funding from the legislature, which would then be supplemented by grant money. Right now, no matter how we move the numbers around with our indirect costs, there just isn’t enough money to pay for all the things that research faculty quite legitimately need and deserve. Everyone gets very unhappy with each other and tries to assign blame, but the fact is that there simply isn’t the cash because our appropriate state funding has been eroded and eroded.

[Understanding grant economics] would strengthen some individuals’ self-advocacy and even out the playing field between disciplines; it is not precisely difficult information to come by.

I should have added that I’m an administrator of a small program, and so my name is automatically attached to the independent study option. Most of our students aren’t looking for a circumvention of the schedule. They have an idea for a research project, and they want to work closely with me or someone else on it. I have about 2 a semester.

In my case, this isn’t technically uncompensated labor, then, because I get some modest $ for serving as director.

And no, this shouldn’t ever be passed along to grad students. What a revolting idea!

But still, for highly motivated students who want to work on a designed research project – derivative or otherwise – I think we’re bound to say yes. If a student wants to skip around a requirement, or have a light Friday class schedule, then forget it. But if they want to work on something with you, because they’ve had you in class or even (gasp) read your stuff, then this is all pre-professional, and I’d feel obliged to say yes. Even if I wasn’t compensated. Indeed, I’ve done this for as long as I’ve been teaching.

Your institution’s much-complained-about 40-60(!)% grant overhead rate is assessed and set by federal government audits of your university’s operations. Every university resource and physical space is allocated according to its proportion of instructional, public service (if applicable), and research use. This goes for the library, the farm, the lab, the faculty office, the collider, and yes, the dense administration layer that daily thwarts visionaries.

Humanities ARE different (though their research does tend to make use computers and library collections). They certainly get screwed by the grant system — in large part, it should be said, by having deans who never had to bother learning about modern grant economics.

As you might guess, however, every unit can make a uniqueness claim. The humanities don’t get the benefit, so they shouldn’t be charged as much. The STEM disciplines bring in all the money, so they should get to say how it’s spent. The public service departments in land-grant institutions improve broader state economics and the university’s political power come appropriations time, so they should have district earmark money to hand out.

One alternative to the system where there are audit-based, federally-monitored set rates for the research “tax” (as it is often called) applicable to nearly every grant is to let certain funders/units negotiate their own fees. How do you think that will work out for NEH v. Cargill? Industry’s already winning, of course, but while a flat tax isn’t a fair tax, it beats the hell out of an explicitly regressive one.

Or you have an advisor who takes on independent study (or undergraduate thesis) students and then shunts all that work onto hir graduate students instead of doing it hirself. I guess showing that I’ve successfully mentored undergrad theses is a good thing if I want to head to a teaching school, but I think having a few more publications might actually be better.

Independent studies, in contrast, produce nothing more than a regular course (so, say, a derivative 10-15 page research paper) and usually happen at the last minute when a student needs to fill in a gap in order to graduate on time.)

I entirely disagree that independent studies are “what we do.” In my department, we are not compensated for them, they factor not at all into the evaluation of our teaching or performance review (I mean, we can list them, but doing them or not is totally meaningless), and, for the most part, I do not believe that the vast majority of undergraduates have developed their ideas on the topics that I teach that they just can’t find what they need in the courses that I offer. As Roxie wrote, independent studies are often used by students to get a more convenient schedule. I, for one, think that if the university wants me to offer students that sort of convenience, they can compensate me for it.

BUT. This is really what I think the problem is about saying no to independent studies as a rallying point. It’s not that faculty who are inexperienced or uninitiated say yes to them or are exploited or manipulated by students. It’s that faculty who have been around the block take these students on, thinking that these students are worth more than “the hat-wearing, slumbering, beer-stinky boyz.” Further, at least in my context, the people who do the majority of independent studies do no research anymore (if they ever did) and they don’t do the heavy lifting when it comes to service. They’re too busy with offering uncompensated individualized learning to their acolytes, while the rest of us scramble to take care of all the stuff that they actually do pay us to do.

(Note: I am not saying that this necessarily reflects Lance or all people who takes on independent studies, but this is what it’s like in my department, and so Lance’s comment about this work being our raison d’etre riled me up.)

Here, we have eight external reviewers, and a tenure process that freaks every single junior faculty member out. We produce 6 cubic feet of paper. And each page is clad in a plastic sleeve. Think of the waste!

After all that, we tenure roughly 98% of those who go up.

A timesink, this is.

As for independent studies, though, this is what we do, isn’t it? I mean, the single student petitioning for a focused research project or readings class is the quintessence of individualized learning. If if we start to say no to the students who actually want to learn and want to work with us, well, then, what is the point of teaching the 100 frat dudes in survey 101? I don’t mean, what is the point to the U. I mean, what is the point to us? I’ll keep my 2-3 searching learners, and give you the hat-wearing, slumbering, beer-stinky boyz, thank you very much.

On an unrelated note- I notice in the list of survival tips, there is nothing about restricting the amount of hours your work. Now, in Europe cause of our fancy left-wing agenda, we have a nominal maximum of 39 hours on the working week- and you have the right to refuse to work more than this (although it doesn’t prohibit you from doing so). The fact that refusing to work more than this can kill your career is not really mentioned. But, while in reality academic contacts do not specify the number of hours work- they say ‘as many as takes to do the job’- when we want to work to rule, we (theoretically) do not do more than 39 hours. If you want to be really mean about it, if you contract specifies 40% research, 40% teaching and 20% service- then you divide up your working week along those lines (taking into account that teaching doesn’t always happen all year). So, when you have done your x hours of service, and x hours of teaching for the week, you stop. And if stuff doesn’t get done- tough. And, that becomes a way of refusing to take up the slack for lack of other tenured staff- there isn’t enough hours in the week, sorry- employ someone else.