Economists
have a tool called Ricardo's Rule for Comparative Advantage. This rule states that instead of each
country's trying to become self-sufficient in the production of all goods, it is better for each
country to specialize in the production of those products where it possesses a
material or cultural advantage.
Simply
put, it is better for all three countries if Italy
produces fashionable clothes, if Argentina produces meat products, and if Japan
makes electronics. In an open market,
through specialization, each country would be able to afford more purchases of
all three products than if each country tried to become self-sufficient in all
three. The reverse is just not practical—it
is difficult to imagine any gaucho pants-wearing multitudes driving their
Lamborghinis to drive-thru restaurants named Jap-In-The-Box for orders of Kobe
beef to go.
Ricardo’s
Rule works and it has applications far outside the world of international
economics. I propose that, since
universities are also large businesses, it is time for small cash-strapped
states to apply this rule to their state universities. Let me explain....no, there is too much. Let me sum up..
Universities
employ two types of professors: tenure track and adjunct. Tenure track professors are employed to teach
classes, to conduct research and to publish their research. It doesn't matter if the professor is a
chemist or a choir director, an engineer or an English professor—they all have to conduct research, publish
their research, and teach. After 6
years, a committee of their peers reviews their work to see how well all these
jobs have been done.
If
the committee approves, the faculty member is given tenure—meaning he or she has
a lifetime employment contract. This is to ensure that every tenured faculty
member can maintain academic freedom.
That is, the tenured faculty is freed to pursue knowledge, publish, and
teach without fear of being fired for publishing or researching
"politically incorrect" ideas.
Of
course, it is also common knowledge that having "politically incorrect
ideas" is the surest route to failing to obtain tenure these days, so the
issue of having politically incorrect ideas AFTER gaining tenure is actually
pretty much a moot point. Even more to
the point, no one cares what any professor says in a classroom anymore.
The
other type of professors—adjuncts—are hired sołely to teach. They are not required to do research or to
publish, and they have no job security whatsoever. While they are incredibly poorly paid, they
teach their asses off: they frequently
teach twice as many classes (with often a larger class size) than the average
tenure track or tenured professor teaches.
In their non-existent free time, they scavenge through supermarkets in
search of Bottom Ramen.
This
is the model that is followed by most universities, both public and private. But should it be like this? A state agricultural college in a poor state
may want to excel in all fields, but can it afford to?
Mention
university research to someone not employed at a university, and what comes to
mind is probably the mad scientist in a test tube-filled laboratory, working
through the night to breed a mosquito that will suck fat instead of blood. The truth is closer to someone who's sitting
in an office, writing yet another article on how many angels can dance on the
head of a pin. (An article that almost
no one will ever read.)
Last
year, in just the sciences, over 1.5
million scholarly articles were published in 23,500 journals. Remember, that astonishing number is just for
the scholarly science articles. This doesn't count the articles written about art, history, anthropology, sociology, etc. There are other journals for those
articles.
Last
year, over 1500 scholarly articles
were written about "Hamlet", alone. How many baby seals would have died and how
much of the polar ice caps would have melted if society were missing just one
of those articles? (How many trees were
sacrificed to print those articles?—Alert the Druids!)
Let’s
take a hypothetical example: Professor
Carrabosse does research on popular culture.
After she was hired, she began a lengthy period of research on the
historical inaccuracies found in Disneyland’s Frontierland. It turns out that the Magic Kingdom’s version
of Davy Crockett is not an accurate representation of the American West.
Eventually,
with the help of a kindly editor who just "happened" to be her
brother, Professor Carabosse published her research in a thin volume. Despite the fact that there are about as many
albino dwarves playing in the NBA as people who actually read her book, she was
given tenure and a hefty pay raise.
Twenty
years later, she is still teaching (though judging by the relatively few
students in her class, somewhat badly).
Sadly, this does not really matter, as her annual evaluations are based
mainly on her continued research.
And
her sole book? It turns out to be one of
the most expensive books ever purchased by the state of New Mexico. In salary, pensions, and employment benefits
to Professor Carabosse, it cost the state well in excess of two million
dollars.
This
is roughly the same amount that Christie's received the last time it auctioned
off an entire Gutenberg Bible. Save the
funds from two such professors and you can buy a First Folio Shakespeare. And it will even include "Hamlet".
And
since Professor Carabosse is not a talented teacher, she influences relatively
few students. Nor could the department
afford to replace her, she is tenured.
Does
every department in a state university need to hire research professors?
Can
New Mexico really afford this? Does an agricultural college in an
impoverished state have to pretend it is Harvard? Does every faculty member have to be a
researcher?
The
sad truth is that no one who has worked in academia has ever
heard of any professor—at any university—who has been denied tenure on the
basis of bad teaching. Nor has anyone ever heard of a professor's being tenured for good teaching. Sadly, there is no
connection between good research and good teaching, either.
Every university claims that teaching is important, that it is respected, and that those who do it are rewarded, but this is more of a mantra than a statement of fact. Sadly, teaching is one of the least important activities at a university. If tenure must be given, then is time to hire some professors whose only goal is to teach, to tenure the outstanding ones, and to pay them adequately.
Every university claims that teaching is important, that it is respected, and that those who do it are rewarded, but this is more of a mantra than a statement of fact. Sadly, teaching is one of the least important activities at a university. If tenure must be given, then is time to hire some professors whose only goal is to teach, to tenure the outstanding ones, and to pay them adequately.
Critics
of such a change would lament that I am proposing to turn research centers into
trade schools. Possibly. Or perhaps, I am just saying that it is time
for a fiscally constrained state to stop purchasing what it doesn't need.
Poor
states like New Mexico need universities: they need them to help lift their
citizens out of poverty and to create the economic opportunities that other
states enjoy. This means that the state universities should focus on education first, not research—at least not in every department with every
faculty member.
Let
New Mexico universities excel in those areas where they naturally have an advantage: agriculture, energy, international business,
and border studies, among others.
And if New Mexico isn't a world-renowned center for research on "Hamlet" and that one extra scholarly article is never written? Then I guess we will just have to let the ice caps melt and allow the baby seals to die.
And if New Mexico isn't a world-renowned center for research on "Hamlet" and that one extra scholarly article is never written? Then I guess we will just have to let the ice caps melt and allow the baby seals to die.
Bravo! I read once that the surest way to fail to get tenure at Harvard is to win the student voted "Teacher of the Year" award. That's just sad! I looked into journalism classes with an eye to a PhD and possibly a college teaching career and found most journalism schools were looking for socialist propagandists with phones and pens rather than honest news hounds and truth-telling journalists. I went to work in the nonprofit sector instead, where I could do some real good. Taught a few kids to write while I was at it. I would have gotten myself in so much trouble in academia. Much better doing real work.
ReplyDeleteFrom THE WEEK (February 6, 2015).
ReplyDelete"It was a bad week for: Believing in medical studies, after a Harvard researcher used a random text generator to write a phony study and had the gibberish accepted for publication by 17 medical journals. The study's title: "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs"."