<story><title>The Best Way to Not Get Tenure</title><url>https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu/posts/2016-10-22-the-best-way-to-not-get-tenure/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>code_sardaukar</author><text>I read the whole article and it&amp;#x27;s very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article&amp;#x27;s claims.  Most importantly, it&amp;#x27;s hard to judge the most important thing: the author&amp;#x27;s own research.&lt;p&gt;However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things.  The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department.  Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were granted tenure, the process is mostly fair, but of course most people are going to want to do everything they can to maximize their chances.  What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can&amp;#x27;t measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee.&lt;p&gt;As someone in industry, I see academia as somewhere where people can make immense contributions to human knowledge, that cannot be done elsewhere, but they have to jump through certain hoops to do so.  Outside of academia there is very little opportunity to do research.  Industry is conservative, and prefers to implement and refine known techniques.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kevhito</author><text>I agree with this. But research isn&amp;#x27;t everything. And there are at least some hints and signs that this person doesn&amp;#x27;t know how to get along with colleagues.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I worked really hard to bring an exciting and rigorous operating systems class to UB.&lt;p&gt;Why did this effort require working &amp;quot;really hard&amp;quot;? Was it because of obstructionist, jealous, or stupid colleagues? Or people who wanted a boring and unrigourous course instead? Or were there perhaps legitimate reasons why others didn&amp;#x27;t want to change the existing course?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I led a complete overhaul of our department’s undergraduate computer science curriculum. It includes two new exciting introductory programming courses that I spent a great deal of time designing.&lt;p&gt;Let me guess: the existing curriculum was terrible, boring, not at all rigorous, and there was no reason to keep any of it, and the author made sure everyone knew it. And why did the author have to spend a great deal of time? Because no one else in the department was capable of doing as good a job? Because nobody else could comprehend this grand vision?&lt;p&gt;Everything listed under &amp;quot;speaking out&amp;quot; gives me the same vibe. It doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to have crossed this person&amp;#x27;s mind that there are reasons why other people have different approaches to teaching, research, administration, hiring, etc., beyond others being obstructionist, brainwashed, or just stupid. I&amp;#x27;m reminded of the parable reminding us [1] to not take down a fence until we have truly understood why the fence was erected in the first place.&lt;p&gt;And really... bringing a dog to work in violation of a clearly stated campus policy, repeatedly, even after having been warned, then encouraging a student petition and getting your name in a local paper about the incident? That&amp;#x27;s just asking for trouble.&lt;p&gt;(Full disclosure: I&amp;#x27;m coming up for tenure myself, and one lesson it has taken me 5 years to understand is that people who disagree with me on campus aren&amp;#x27;t doing so out of spite, stupidity, or carelessness, they often just have different priorities than I do. Just because our department absolutely needs more resources to do a good job handling our rapidly growing student population, doesn&amp;#x27;t mean the college should make this a priority over other things.)&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chesterton.org&amp;#x2F;taking-a-fence-down&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chesterton.org&amp;#x2F;taking-a-fence-down&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Best Way to Not Get Tenure</title><url>https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu/posts/2016-10-22-the-best-way-to-not-get-tenure/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>code_sardaukar</author><text>I read the whole article and it&amp;#x27;s very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article&amp;#x27;s claims.  Most importantly, it&amp;#x27;s hard to judge the most important thing: the author&amp;#x27;s own research.&lt;p&gt;However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things.  The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department.  Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were granted tenure, the process is mostly fair, but of course most people are going to want to do everything they can to maximize their chances.  What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can&amp;#x27;t measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee.&lt;p&gt;As someone in industry, I see academia as somewhere where people can make immense contributions to human knowledge, that cannot be done elsewhere, but they have to jump through certain hoops to do so.  Outside of academia there is very little opportunity to do research.  Industry is conservative, and prefers to implement and refine known techniques.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheOtherHobbes</author><text>&amp;gt;What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can&amp;#x27;t measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d be astonished if any academic committee in any university anywhere in the world had any idea how to measure the value of research objectively.&lt;p&gt;As for not pissing people off - I&amp;#x27;d imagine it&amp;#x27;s impossibly hard to do truly original research without pissing at least some people off. There will be petty jealousies, back-biting, gossip, and all the usual nonsense. Too much, too soon, and hackles will be raised.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very sad. Academia seems to have become stifling rather than expansive.&lt;p&gt;My working definition of organisational dysfunction is when politics and status become primary motivators, and quality of output - and pride in that quality - become secondary.&lt;p&gt;From the outside, that seems more true of academia now than it should be.</text></comment>