Should a graduating doctoral student "care" about his or her advisor's tenure considerations? I am a doctoral student in a large state university in the eastern US. I'm in my final year of work and will likely defend my dissertation shortly. I already have a job in "industry" (i.e. non-academia) lined up. 

My advisor would prefer that I stay for another semester to finish up another publication with him. My contributions to the publication are relatively minimal now, but I am the last remaining person on the project that knows any of the details about it. My advisor, while topically knowledgeable about the subject, would need to put in significantly more time to produce the paper. 

Because I anticipated this, I wrote a document to allow for a transfer of knowledge to anyone who joins the project when I leave. It assumes the person is familiar with Python, R, or MatLab. My advisor knows none of those languages, so he cannot immediately pick up the work himself. 

Long story short, my advisor wants me to stay and finish up one last project with him so he can include it in his portfolio for tenure. If I leave before the project is complete, he will likely be unable to complete the project in time to have it considered for his tenure evaluation. This would weaken his tenure application and could also lead to the loss of a grant.

As such, he offered me a small stipend of $5000 or so to stay on and complete the paper with him. I would need to turn down a job offer that would likely pay four times that, plus an offer that would place me in a long term job in a field I want to be in. I would also have to go without dental and vision insurance for another semester. 

Is there a tactful way to tell my advisor I really couldn't care less if he doesn't obtain tenure because of this? It's not that I hate my advisor, but I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of still having to work under him. (Especially for a quarter of the salary.) It's nothing personal, it's just that I don't want to write a paper for the advisor just so that he can obtain tenure. 

In all, how much I care about my advisor obtaining tenure?



Added While it may be feasible for me to contribute to the project while also working in a full time position, this is not a desirable outcome. To be blunt, my advisor should have figured this situation out before now. He has had several opportunities to become involved in this project more fully. He has resisted learning the necessary theory and technology relevant to the project. As can be inferred by his current pursuit of tenure, we are not talking about someone who technology has passed by. If you got a PhD after 2010, yet cannot deign to learn new technology....it's hard for me to feel very inclined to continue to help you write a paper that you should be able to oversee on your own. Ultimately, I am wondering how I should go about telling my advisor that I am not going to become more involved in a project at the very end of my work with him, when I in fact want to distance myself from working with him in the future.
I think your approach to this situation is a bit misguided. Yes, you should absolutely care about your advisor’s success (and he should care about yours). But “caring” doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice your own career and self-interest to the cause of helping your advisor, just as, by the same token, I wouldn’t expect your advisor to sacrifice himself for you either. Thus, the way you frame the question as a dichotomy between the extremes of “couldn’t care less” and “will do anything to help my advisor get tenure” is a false dichotomy.

The truth lies somewhere in between those extremes, but broadly speaking I tend to agree with your assessment that the advisor is unreasonable to have an expectation that you will defer the launch of your career for a semester and give up money, health insurance and professional opportunities to stick around and help him finish a project that is no longer a priority for you, for whatever reason. You need to stand up for yourself and explain what your priorities are. But do it in a civil and polite way that shows that you are grateful for the mentoring and other help he has given you (and may yet give in the future through letters of reference etc). Don’t say you don’t care (and better yet, don’t even think it). Do say that you would be willing to make reasonable efforts to ensure a smooth handoff of the project, as you seem to have been doing already. And finally, as @aeismaeil said in his answer, don’t mention the tenure or the grant, since they are simply irrelevant to the discussion. Good luck!