Comments on: “A lot of money would make things better.”

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:35:01 +0000

I know. Take out a loan to finance research, even get a group of your colleagues together to do this collectively. But execute some murky secondary documents pledging the building in which your department is housed as collateral to secure this loan, and do it through one of those obscure re-fi enterprises. Then invite your dean to a luncheon in the department, to be paid for by the faculty out of their suddenly-deeper personal pockets, to celebrate the new research initiative. Name the initiative after the dean, if you really want to have some snarky fun.

By: Tony Grafton

Tony Grafton — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:40:52 +0000

Dear all,

David Bell’s wonderful review of Taylor is at http://www.tnr.com/book/review/mark-taylor-crisis-campus-colleges-universities

Best,

By: Z

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 07:14:16 +0000

Well, this is why I should change my blog title to Alice In Wonderland. I have been thinking about that for 20 years or so. Notice how Alice, listening to amazing things entities such as the Caterpillar and the Mad Hatter say, responds aside: “O.” There’s nothing more to say but “O.”

By: Historiann

Historiann — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 05:57:40 +0000

What everyone else said about Z’s chair. Something useful responsible chairs might do is point out to the Dean and Provost that faculty in hir department can’t make ends meet without either teaching extra courses or doing research on their own dime, and so make vigorous and persistent arguments about the urgent need for better salaries and funds to support research.

It’s stories like this that make me feel like pulling my tinfoil hat down below my eyes and ears.

By: Comrade PhysioProf

Comrade PhysioProf — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 01:37:18 +0000

Chair sounds like a fucken wacko.

By: undine

undine — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 01:20:39 +0000

Z: Just chiming in to say that Perpetua is right. If your chair is angry about those two things, she is being entirely unreasonable.

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:40:54 +0000

Perpetua got it right, though, that even if it’s not that baldly phrased, typically we do “eat some of our research costs.” Cash is better to eat, I have to say.

By: quixote

quixote — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:32:13 +0000

This is kinda tangential to Historiann's post, but I have to dive in to say that every time I hear dispatches from the front lines of universities and research these days, I'm left gasping. Expected to take out personal loans for research? Say what? I came away from my stint on the front lines convinced that the two most exploited classes of workers are farmworkers/domestics and non-tenured faculty/staff at research universities. After hearing this, the academics beat out the farmworkers. Nobody tells them to pawn their phones so they can buy boxes for the produce they pick.

By: Matt_L

Matt_L — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:24:16 +0000

Z: What Perpetua and rustonite said.

Plus, taking loans out to do your research is baloney. I took some out to help pay for grad school and some research trips. It was a dumb thing to do as a grad student, but I knew whatever I ended up doing after grad school, it would pay more than I earned as a TA or RA, so a student loan was not completely insane. To take out a personal loan as a professor to pay for things the university used to help cover is economically irrational.

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:08:43 +0000

Z: Here are my two cents on both of these. The chair who is angry over these issues is unrealistic and kind of a douche.

1) If the university/department requires faculty to engage in research, particularly research that requires funding, it should do everything in its power to provide opportunities for funding, not limited to but including a) support to gain outside funding; b) fund-matching for those who get outside fellowships; c) individual research budgets for faculty, even if they are small; d) opportunities for applying for internal funding, like summer research grants. No faculty should ever be EXPECTED to take out loans to cover part of their job. We all know funding is tight and most of us don’t have the resources we need. We all eat some of our research costs. But it is ridiculous to be angry at faculty for *wanting to work harder to make more money to be able to perform their jobs better*. My belief – although I doubt any university would agree with this – is that if research cannot be funded on any level, it ought not be expected.

2) There is nothing unethical or even unusual about being on the job market. We can be on the job market whenever we want. Many people view the place where they currently teach as a stepping stone. The university has no legal obligation to grant their faculty salary raises or tenure or promotion of any kind; faculty likewise have no obligation to stay at a university.