The desired academy, nine years hence
September 12, 2016 10:35 AM Subscribe
“What change would you like to see in universities or in your academic field by 2025?” That's the question Heterodox Academy members answer, in honor of their initiative's first year anniversary.
(Previously)
(Previously)
I checked a couple of the law professors, all of whom ignored the real challenges in how legal training is organized, in favor of saying that there should be more conservative law professors, which seems to be the group's raison d'etre.
I was hoping for something more interesting, honestly.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:46 AM on September 12, 2016 [11 favorites]
I was hoping for something more interesting, honestly.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:46 AM on September 12, 2016 [11 favorites]
Of forty responses there are precisely two mentions of adjunct labor, one in service of an utterly retrograde call for "more flexible labor contracts" and the other as an ancillary point to a complaint about the "intrusiveness" of accreditation. But "we're not conservatives, we're diverse," LOL.
posted by RogerB at 10:47 AM on September 12, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by RogerB at 10:47 AM on September 12, 2016 [13 favorites]
The most effective single change I would hope for is simplifying graduation requirements. At my university, I wish the requirements were “120 hours of coursework, including a major.” Full stop. Forget the area requirements, flags, etc., that turn the university into a labyrinth requiring a vast team of professional advisers to navigate. Let courses and areas sink or swim on their own, and stop the faculty’s rent-seeking.Translation: "I am sick of teaching general-education classes."
Also, wow are there a lot of people convinced that political correctness is an existential threat to the academy.
posted by Etrigan at 10:48 AM on September 12, 2016 [10 favorites]
I'm waiting patiently to hear from the academics who are concerned about the dominance of free market capitalist theory in economics departments, or anti-union sentiment in business schools.
posted by mondo dentro at 10:54 AM on September 12, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by mondo dentro at 10:54 AM on September 12, 2016 [11 favorites]
The University of Chicago anthropologist is most concerned about IRB mission creep because you must get IRB approval for interviews with subjects (and they "routinely insist on trigger warnings when social scientists, humanists and legal scholars engage in investigative conversations or assumption questioning interviews"). I'm incredibly disappointed that that is the issue that the academic anthropologist uses his voice to support. In the era of the giant Neoliberal Business Construct of the university, with BLM and noDAPL and all the protests and challenges of power imbalances and all the ways that universities (and anthropologists) could and should be supporting people, the change he would most like to see is the limiting of ethical review boards? Ugh.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:56 AM on September 12, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 10:56 AM on September 12, 2016 [11 favorites]
Alex Small rocking a good answer re STEM:
Alex Small, physics, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
I would like to see people in natural science and engineering fields question more carefully why our “STEM” disciplines are placed on a pedestal by so many administrators and politicians, and what the hidden intellectual costs might be when we stand on that pedestal. I’d like them to question more carefully what sorts of hidden assumptions are embedded in narratives about “STEM shortages”, what agendas are served by those narratives, and whether the narratives are supported by reliable and dispassionately-collected data. I’d like people to question whether increasing the numbers of students pushed through STEM programs is always good for the students, good for society, or good for the Academy. I’d like people to take a hard look at the sustainability of a system where basic research is mostly produced in labs staffed by students, so that if you try to increase the output of research you must also increase the output of PhDs, who then seek jobs in which they produce more research and more PhDs. Finally, I’d like to see STEM faculty with an interest in studying educational issues realize that studying people is different from studying particles, and embrace the cautious experimental methods of good psychologists, the statistical rigor of the better longitudinal studies done in the social sciences, and the lessons of historians and humanists who examine the narratives that we humans weave around our activities.
posted by lalochezia at 11:05 AM on September 12, 2016 [28 favorites]
Alex Small, physics, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
I would like to see people in natural science and engineering fields question more carefully why our “STEM” disciplines are placed on a pedestal by so many administrators and politicians, and what the hidden intellectual costs might be when we stand on that pedestal. I’d like them to question more carefully what sorts of hidden assumptions are embedded in narratives about “STEM shortages”, what agendas are served by those narratives, and whether the narratives are supported by reliable and dispassionately-collected data. I’d like people to question whether increasing the numbers of students pushed through STEM programs is always good for the students, good for society, or good for the Academy. I’d like people to take a hard look at the sustainability of a system where basic research is mostly produced in labs staffed by students, so that if you try to increase the output of research you must also increase the output of PhDs, who then seek jobs in which they produce more research and more PhDs. Finally, I’d like to see STEM faculty with an interest in studying educational issues realize that studying people is different from studying particles, and embrace the cautious experimental methods of good psychologists, the statistical rigor of the better longitudinal studies done in the social sciences, and the lessons of historians and humanists who examine the narratives that we humans weave around our activities.
posted by lalochezia at 11:05 AM on September 12, 2016 [28 favorites]
Hey! applicants! Forget outstanding teaching. Forget publications. Just show us the political party you support or register for and we will consider you for a post. You are a Liberal and want a job in Accounting? Sorry, we have one liberal there now...conservative looking for position in contemporary literature in English Dept? We have 2 openings. Bring receipts for magazines you subscribe to.
posted by Postroad at 11:08 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Postroad at 11:08 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Jonathan Anomaly, philosophy, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill
Really should be in parapsychology over at Duke....
posted by thelonius at 11:17 AM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Really should be in parapsychology over at Duke....
posted by thelonius at 11:17 AM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh okay so this is the Jonathan Haidt Academy? I was also hoping this would be something, uh, a little more interesting.
posted by atoxyl at 11:25 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 11:25 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
On a quick count of its member listing this "heterodoxy" is approx. 140:10 or 93% male, in case that struck anyone else the way it did me
posted by RogerB at 11:31 AM on September 12, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by RogerB at 11:31 AM on September 12, 2016 [17 favorites]
Two mentions of race, and this one is definitely a dog-whistle: "Institutional commitments to judging individuals on the basis of how interesting they are, rather than their race or gender or political views."
Here's one of only two comments on gender: "I would like to see affirmative action phased out at my university by 2025.... I am a woman, and I’d want to be appointed for my career success and not my sex. At a university, nothing but merit should count; not age, gender, religion or ethnicity."
Oh, I almost missed this gem:
It's almost as if structural inequality is not a thing to these people.
posted by sockermom at 11:41 AM on September 12, 2016 [21 favorites]
Here's one of only two comments on gender: "I would like to see affirmative action phased out at my university by 2025.... I am a woman, and I’d want to be appointed for my career success and not my sex. At a university, nothing but merit should count; not age, gender, religion or ethnicity."
Oh, I almost missed this gem:
Academics should stop distorting the discourse and dodging inconvenient facts by reflexively denying agency and responsibility to the people in the proliferating number of groups who are deemed to qualify for protected “victim” status. For example, even though most members of Heterodox Academy are men, the imbalance should not be regarded as ‘our fault,’ nor does it reflect any deficiency on the part of Heterodox Academy. The responsibility for any gender imbalance rests with the women who choose not to join a group dedicated to embracing and defending key academic values of free thought and inquiry and diversity of viewpoint.Here, let me repeat the good part: "The responsibility for any gender imbalance rests with the women who choose not to join."
It's almost as if structural inequality is not a thing to these people.
posted by sockermom at 11:41 AM on September 12, 2016 [21 favorites]
Y'all, don't dig into the publications written by these people. There is some vile, disgusting stuff being propagated by the faculty members who associate themselves with this organization. Articles that say there is no such thing as being trans, articles that say that women do not have the innate cognitive reasoning abilities necessary for STEM, articles promoting Islamophobia... I could go on, but now I need to go take a walk; I feel sick.
posted by sockermom at 11:53 AM on September 12, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by sockermom at 11:53 AM on September 12, 2016 [15 favorites]
I think we should write our own interesting thing. Plenty of academics/people affected by the academy here.
Things I'd like to see change:
1) Pay people what they're worth. This means adjuncts, graduate student TAs, postdocs. This includes health care/retirement plans/etc. Reliance on adjuncts would go down (and be less reprehensible!) if they were actually compensated appropriately.
2) Charge people what they can afford. This means a combination of government support (for public state universities), private funding (if you have an endowment, perhaps x% of that should be spent on tuition reduction, either across the board or directed towards lower income). It does NOT mean loans that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
3) Alex Small (copied above) addressed this a bit, but I think it's more broad than a STEM issue: when production of research means production of PhDs, think about the future for those new minted PhDs. This means being honest with incoming students about their chances on the job market, both within and outside of the academy. It means getting mentors who know a thing or two about options outside the academy; most professors aren't qualified to help students get external jobs. It means building a career path for PhDs that doesn't involve a decade plus of underpaid postdoc/adjunct/extended studenthood, so that people of all means can have an academic career/ contribute to knowledge, without compromising their health/futures/family obligations. Hey, bonus, let's also make it so you don't have to move a zillion times.
4) This is external to the academy, but affects it strongly: end credentialism. That is, somehow convince companies to stop using a university degree as an easy way to toss out some percentage of job applicants. It's lazy and classist and contributes to students who feel they require a degree, despite having no interest/ability/means to get a university education. (Means should be fixed by (3), but absent that people get hurt by jumping through the college hoop and then paying it down for eons.) Also I think it contributes to people getting passed up the educational chain without actually having learned the basics (which then means supposedly university level classes have to cover those bases again, meaning they can't get to newer material, harming the people who need it).
5) Maybe coupled with (3), for state funded universities, return to the idea that the point is to educate the people in the state. (A better educated populace benefits everyone, from the people who get educated to the businesses who hire them to the democracy we all enjoy). Right now, with state funding for many such universities falling sufficiently far, the universities are under pressure to take private funding from possibly compromised sources, to take foreign students whose language skills aren't up to par and then not help them learn, even just to take out-of-state students who pay much higher tuition.
6) Build a real heterodoxy. Yeah, some diversity in political opinion is a good idea, but "I hate other people" is not a political opinion. Also diversity of class origin, of gender, of race, of sexual orientation and gender identity-- if you think any of these things is a solved issue in academia, then either your head is shoved under the sand/up your ass so far you can't see, or you have been profoundly lucky (and I haven't the slightest idea what field you're in, because no field I know has reached anything like equity even of opportunity much less of outcome for any of these issues). While we're at it there is something the Heterodoxy and I likely agree on: religious beliefs should NOT be considered, as long as they don't interfere with the job at hand (I'm an atheist, and I still think this). However, "I hate other people" is not a religious belief either..
7) Fix the way universities deal with rape.
8) Fix the way universities respond to harassment, be it sexual, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. If we're going to make tenure less strong (one suggestion listed in the original link), let's make it less strong for those whose actions and beliefs hurt their juniors and peers.
9) Ban guns on campus. I'm looking at you, Texas. I earnestly hope that law changes before someone gets hurt.
10) Stop the piss-poor attempts to quantify the unquantifiable. From student evaluations (hey we can *see* they're statistically biased against women and minorities! but we continue using the evaluations anyhow! Oh and also they're largely not correlated with success on learning outcomes!) to citation-based metrics (tend to favor senior people/people doing mainstream research/people who fit the group "norm") to standardized tests that don't correlate with actual student success. Metrics aren't the problem; blind adherence to them, and belief in their meaning (this number is bigger than that number! that means this person is better than that person!) is.
posted by nat at 11:59 AM on September 12, 2016 [15 favorites]
Things I'd like to see change:
1) Pay people what they're worth. This means adjuncts, graduate student TAs, postdocs. This includes health care/retirement plans/etc. Reliance on adjuncts would go down (and be less reprehensible!) if they were actually compensated appropriately.
2) Charge people what they can afford. This means a combination of government support (for public state universities), private funding (if you have an endowment, perhaps x% of that should be spent on tuition reduction, either across the board or directed towards lower income). It does NOT mean loans that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
3) Alex Small (copied above) addressed this a bit, but I think it's more broad than a STEM issue: when production of research means production of PhDs, think about the future for those new minted PhDs. This means being honest with incoming students about their chances on the job market, both within and outside of the academy. It means getting mentors who know a thing or two about options outside the academy; most professors aren't qualified to help students get external jobs. It means building a career path for PhDs that doesn't involve a decade plus of underpaid postdoc/adjunct/extended studenthood, so that people of all means can have an academic career/ contribute to knowledge, without compromising their health/futures/family obligations. Hey, bonus, let's also make it so you don't have to move a zillion times.
4) This is external to the academy, but affects it strongly: end credentialism. That is, somehow convince companies to stop using a university degree as an easy way to toss out some percentage of job applicants. It's lazy and classist and contributes to students who feel they require a degree, despite having no interest/ability/means to get a university education. (Means should be fixed by (3), but absent that people get hurt by jumping through the college hoop and then paying it down for eons.) Also I think it contributes to people getting passed up the educational chain without actually having learned the basics (which then means supposedly university level classes have to cover those bases again, meaning they can't get to newer material, harming the people who need it).
5) Maybe coupled with (3), for state funded universities, return to the idea that the point is to educate the people in the state. (A better educated populace benefits everyone, from the people who get educated to the businesses who hire them to the democracy we all enjoy). Right now, with state funding for many such universities falling sufficiently far, the universities are under pressure to take private funding from possibly compromised sources, to take foreign students whose language skills aren't up to par and then not help them learn, even just to take out-of-state students who pay much higher tuition.
6) Build a real heterodoxy. Yeah, some diversity in political opinion is a good idea, but "I hate other people" is not a political opinion. Also diversity of class origin, of gender, of race, of sexual orientation and gender identity-- if you think any of these things is a solved issue in academia, then either your head is shoved under the sand/up your ass so far you can't see, or you have been profoundly lucky (and I haven't the slightest idea what field you're in, because no field I know has reached anything like equity even of opportunity much less of outcome for any of these issues). While we're at it there is something the Heterodoxy and I likely agree on: religious beliefs should NOT be considered, as long as they don't interfere with the job at hand (I'm an atheist, and I still think this). However, "I hate other people" is not a religious belief either..
7) Fix the way universities deal with rape.
8) Fix the way universities respond to harassment, be it sexual, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. If we're going to make tenure less strong (one suggestion listed in the original link), let's make it less strong for those whose actions and beliefs hurt their juniors and peers.
9) Ban guns on campus. I'm looking at you, Texas. I earnestly hope that law changes before someone gets hurt.
10) Stop the piss-poor attempts to quantify the unquantifiable. From student evaluations (hey we can *see* they're statistically biased against women and minorities! but we continue using the evaluations anyhow! Oh and also they're largely not correlated with success on learning outcomes!) to citation-based metrics (tend to favor senior people/people doing mainstream research/people who fit the group "norm") to standardized tests that don't correlate with actual student success. Metrics aren't the problem; blind adherence to them, and belief in their meaning (this number is bigger than that number! that means this person is better than that person!) is.
posted by nat at 11:59 AM on September 12, 2016 [15 favorites]
Oh while I'm at it, we should also restructure the entire funding system for nationally funded research, so academics who are grant supported spend more time doing the supported work than they do looking for support.
(She says, procrastinating on writing a grant.)
posted by nat at 12:00 PM on September 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
(She says, procrastinating on writing a grant.)
posted by nat at 12:00 PM on September 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
Jonathan Chait : Jonathan Haidt :: Jonathan Franzen : Jonathan Safran Foer
(Or is it the other way around?)
posted by atoxyl at 12:01 PM on September 12, 2016
(Or is it the other way around?)
posted by atoxyl at 12:01 PM on September 12, 2016
It's a phenomenan of Jonathons.
posted by atoxyl at 12:09 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 12:09 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
While we're pie-in-the-sky-ing, how about reducing the labyrinthine bureaucratic apparatus that has fastened itself, leech-like, upon the university, and rerouting some of that executive pay toward things like hiring new faculty? Or libraries? Or tuition offsets?
Along with that (perhaps one is symptomatic of the other), why not treat students as students and not as consumers?
posted by Bromius at 12:18 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Along with that (perhaps one is symptomatic of the other), why not treat students as students and not as consumers?
posted by Bromius at 12:18 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Main change I'd like to see by then are the people more senior than me who currently have tenure retired.
posted by Jimbob at 1:40 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Jimbob at 1:40 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
While we're pie-in-the-sky-ing, how about reducing the labyrinthine bureaucratic apparatus that has fastened itself, leech-like, upon the university, and rerouting some of that executive pay toward things like hiring new faculty? Or libraries? Or tuition offsets?
On a only slightly more serious note, this absolutely has to happen in order for the academy to remain viable as a respected, valuable institution. But this will never happen unless academics fight for it.
posted by Jimbob at 1:44 PM on September 12, 2016
On a only slightly more serious note, this absolutely has to happen in order for the academy to remain viable as a respected, valuable institution. But this will never happen unless academics fight for it.
posted by Jimbob at 1:44 PM on September 12, 2016
That is, somehow convince companies to stop using a university degree as an easy way to toss out some percentage of job applicants. It's lazy and classist and contributes to students who feel they require a degree, despite having no interest/ability/means to get a university education.
That's a tough one; a lot of the reason they use them has to do with discrimination law. An IQ test is expected to have a disparate impact, and at any cutoff you wish to apply, your firm is required to have supporting evidence. IQ scores are known to correlate with job success, but given the fuzzy nature of IQ tests, any number you pick can be challenged for being one point too high.
College degrees, by contrast, have a very binary state: has a degree, does not have degree. They're focused, often on areas relevant to the employer. And transitively, students who graduate from highly selective schools are expected to have high SAT scores that correlate with high IQ.
Basically, this is more systemic than individual companies' behavior, or academy, and you have to satisfy quite a few separate constituencies. So understandably, nobody looks forward to putting their proposed bell on that particular cat.
posted by pwnguin at 1:52 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
That's a tough one; a lot of the reason they use them has to do with discrimination law. An IQ test is expected to have a disparate impact, and at any cutoff you wish to apply, your firm is required to have supporting evidence. IQ scores are known to correlate with job success, but given the fuzzy nature of IQ tests, any number you pick can be challenged for being one point too high.
College degrees, by contrast, have a very binary state: has a degree, does not have degree. They're focused, often on areas relevant to the employer. And transitively, students who graduate from highly selective schools are expected to have high SAT scores that correlate with high IQ.
Basically, this is more systemic than individual companies' behavior, or academy, and you have to satisfy quite a few separate constituencies. So understandably, nobody looks forward to putting their proposed bell on that particular cat.
posted by pwnguin at 1:52 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
I’d like people to take a hard look at the sustainability of a system where basic research is mostly produced in labs staffed by students, so that if you try to increase the output of research you must also increase the output of PhDs, who then seek jobs in which they produce more research and more PhDs.
It's a Ponzi scheme.
It really is. Look at any academic science research group. It has a PI (a tenured PhD) and a gaggle of grad students and post docs. Only one of them can possibly climb up the ladder and replace that PI when he retires.
That didn't matter in earlier decades when academia was expanding. But when the expansion stops, the PI and his charges all have to take into account that only one of them can possible take the PI's place. Everyone else has to find some other application for his training. And yet hardly anyone in academia wants to confront it.
posted by ocschwar at 1:53 PM on September 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's a Ponzi scheme.
It really is. Look at any academic science research group. It has a PI (a tenured PhD) and a gaggle of grad students and post docs. Only one of them can possibly climb up the ladder and replace that PI when he retires.
That didn't matter in earlier decades when academia was expanding. But when the expansion stops, the PI and his charges all have to take into account that only one of them can possible take the PI's place. Everyone else has to find some other application for his training. And yet hardly anyone in academia wants to confront it.
posted by ocschwar at 1:53 PM on September 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
From the rest of that website, explaining the orthodoxies that they want to challenge. Namely, that
(2)-(4)? I don't even know what to do with this it sounds like they're just saying they want to challenge the orthodoxy of not being a racist.
posted by dis_integration at 1:53 PM on September 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
I don't think many people hold a strict committment to (1), but certainly the trend is to view human nature as part biological, part historically constructed through language and culture. If that's orthodoxy it's because it's true.
- Humans are a blank slate, and “human nature” does not exist.
- All differences between human groups are caused by differential treatment of those groups, or by differential media portrayals of group members.
- Social stereotypes do not correspond to any real differences.
- Affirmative action is highly effective at advancing the interests, success, and status of oppressed or underrepresented groups
(2)-(4)? I don't even know what to do with this it sounds like they're just saying they want to challenge the orthodoxy of not being a racist.
posted by dis_integration at 1:53 PM on September 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
Affirmative action is highly effective at advancing the interests, success, and status of oppressed or underrepresented groups
Isn't the purpose of this organization to create affirmative action programs for conservatives?
posted by Sangermaine at 2:41 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Isn't the purpose of this organization to create affirmative action programs for conservatives?
posted by Sangermaine at 2:41 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
Ugh these people. Well at least this post allows me to check my initial impression of them from back when they first formed and didn't have so many members: it does in fact turn out that "viewpoint diversity" in their terms means only hearing, with a very few exceptions, from older white males.
Speaking as a professor myself I don't think it's possible to take them seriously as a jumping off point for a discussion about what academia should or shouldn't be like in 2025.
posted by advil at 2:45 PM on September 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
Speaking as a professor myself I don't think it's possible to take them seriously as a jumping off point for a discussion about what academia should or shouldn't be like in 2025.
posted by advil at 2:45 PM on September 12, 2016 [3 favorites]
Why does being a "public conservative" always mean trying to cosplay life in a 1950s that never existed?
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:26 PM on September 12, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:26 PM on September 12, 2016 [7 favorites]
1. Humans are a blank slate, and “human nature” does not exist.
2. All differences between human groups are caused by differential treatment of those groups, or by differential media portrayals of group members.
3. Social stereotypes do not correspond to any real differences.
4. Affirmative action is highly effective at advancing the interests, success, and status of oppressed or underrepresented groups
I don't think many people hold a strict committment to (1), but certainly the trend is to view human nature as part biological, part historically constructed through language and culture. If that's orthodoxy it's because it's true.
(2)-(4)? I don't even know what to do with this it sounds like they're just saying they want to challenge the orthodoxy of not being a racist.
(1) and (2) I think practically nobody respectable would say are 100% true or 100% false. They would probably say "well, it's complicated..." - mostly because it is, but certainly you can get in trouble for trying to be too specific one way or the other. But while I have more sympathy for e.g. sociobiological ideas than some people on MeFi might I find these guys' claims of oppression tiresome. You might not be the toast of the sociology department, Stephen Pinker, but you are aware you're a best-selling and internationally distributed writer?
(3) By one of the people on this list. Haven't read it. Actually kinda interested in the premise though?
(4) does not seem like an orthodoxy - it seems like a long-and-intensely-contested issue!
(complaining about students is just blehhh)
posted by atoxyl at 4:42 PM on September 12, 2016
I was utterly unsurprised to see a bunch of Evo Psych people on that list.
posted by mhoye at 4:45 PM on September 12, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 4:45 PM on September 12, 2016 [6 favorites]
Biggest thing I can think of for Biology is that there probably needs to be a limit on the number of applicants so the field isn't flooded and there aren't any jobs or funding for anyone. Also, they should probably do at least some straight-to-master's or straight-to-doctoral programs because a bachelor's degree or less is nearly useless.
posted by Mitrovarr at 4:45 PM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitrovarr at 4:45 PM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
I would like it if my university would stop shifting undergraduate financial aid away from being need-based and towards being merit (or "merit")-based. Financial aid should be about giving people the opportunity to go to college, rather than being a tool for recruitment. We're currently using all sorts of data analytics bullshit to figure out who is most likely to be swayed by financial aid offers and targeting those students, who often are not the students who need aid the most. But I very much suspect that's the kind of thing that these folks don't care about at all. Probably, they don't even notice.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:56 PM on September 12, 2016
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:56 PM on September 12, 2016
Not a single English or History professor? Nicely done. And Stephen Pinker just needs to shut up already.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:49 PM on September 12, 2016
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:49 PM on September 12, 2016
So I guess this is some right-wing project? Better watch out for it then... for all its shortcomings, the right wing is good at projects.
Such a limited collection of fields! I would have guessed more economists (or at least a single economist), but the glut of lawyers and political scientists isn't surprising. Somewhat surprised at all of the psychologists and philosophers, but I really don't know much about those academic cultures. I guess I can see that they might be politically fraught. No artists, no duh. A single hard scientist, and no engineers. These guys need to look harder at the engineers, but I guess they might be turned off by them because so many of them are conservative because they come from other, more traditionally socially conservative, cultures.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:12 PM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Such a limited collection of fields! I would have guessed more economists (or at least a single economist), but the glut of lawyers and political scientists isn't surprising. Somewhat surprised at all of the psychologists and philosophers, but I really don't know much about those academic cultures. I guess I can see that they might be politically fraught. No artists, no duh. A single hard scientist, and no engineers. These guys need to look harder at the engineers, but I guess they might be turned off by them because so many of them are conservative because they come from other, more traditionally socially conservative, cultures.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:12 PM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Isn't there only about 3 or 4 political scientists on there? I bet they're theorists if there are
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:34 AM on September 13, 2016
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:34 AM on September 13, 2016
A creeping crisis that I see is the financially-driven push to teach more students with fewer faculty. You can't effectively teach first-year calculus to a class of a thousand with no graded homework and only multiple-choice exams.
How can you tell whether your students have learned to integrate when they just differentiate the four multi-choice answers on the test?
posted by heatherlogan at 6:11 AM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
How can you tell whether your students have learned to integrate when they just differentiate the four multi-choice answers on the test?
posted by heatherlogan at 6:11 AM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
"Roy Baumeister, personality and social psychology, Florida State University
I would really like to see the end of “political correctness” in the sense that it entails suppression of free speech and free intellectual inquiry, especially mediated by vicious moral intimidation and suppression of politically unwelcome views."
lol sure
posted by Itaxpica at 10:40 PM on September 13, 2016
I would really like to see the end of “political correctness” in the sense that it entails suppression of free speech and free intellectual inquiry, especially mediated by vicious moral intimidation and suppression of politically unwelcome views."
lol sure
posted by Itaxpica at 10:40 PM on September 13, 2016
Baumeister is on my radar for a different reason, and when I saw him on that list I was a bit surprised. His large body of research was recently the subject of a large failure to replicate. It's not clear to me whether he views the replication as "a vicious moral intimidation" of if the entire ego-depletion effect is part of a larger set of beliefs he feels he must suppress on the job.
But at least the response to the question isn't additional vitriol but a commitment to run another experiment.
posted by pwnguin at 7:32 PM on September 17, 2016
But at least the response to the question isn't additional vitriol but a commitment to run another experiment.
posted by pwnguin at 7:32 PM on September 17, 2016
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posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:45 AM on September 12, 2016 [7 favorites]