In my “Ethics in Science” course, we talk a lot about academia. It’s not that all the science majors in the class are committed to becoming academic scientists, but many of them are planning to continue their scientific training, which usually means pursuing a graduate degree of some sort, thereby putting them in contact with a bunch of academic scientists and the sociopolitical world they inhabit.
But, as we’re talking about the dynamics of the academic sector of the tribe of science, the students express some interesting, often charming, assumptions about how that world works. Two recent examples that stick with me:
- There is some mechanism (analogous to student evaluations of a course and its instructor at the end of the term) by which graduate students regularly evaluate their graduate advisors/lab heads. And, these evaluations of the advisor have actual consequences for the advisor.
- Getting tenure ensures financial stability for the rest of your life.
Would that it were so.
Some years ago I wrote a glossary of academic science jargon for the class. I’m on the verge of adding to it a brief description of a generic training lab (though maybe not properly a “typical” one, given the amount of local variation in labs), sketching out different career and training stages, levels of connection to the institution (with the financial security and power, or lack thereof, that go with them), and so on.
But now I’m tempted to get each new batch of students to tell me how they imagine it works before I point them towards the description of how it tends to be. Some of the features of the world they imagine are much nicer.
I have tenure and I’m about to turn 65 (in two days).
Could you tell me more about this “financial stability for the rest of your life”?
Is it something that University of California schools have that the rest of us don’t?
I couldn’t tell you about the situation in the University of California system (at least first-hand), but here in the California State University system tenure guarantees neither financial stability (on account of the fact that tenure itself does diddly to bring one’s salary into accord with the cost of living) nor even the permanence of one’s position (since departments are being “reorganized”, which makes it possible under the terms of the contract to eliminate positions held by tenured professors).
Given that the CSU budget is supposed to be cut by $500 million, I reckon that in addition to the elimination of departments, it’s not out of the question that some number of the 23 campuses in the system will be closed. So this “stability” seems to be largely hypothetical.
But, happy (early) birthday!
Darn. I was hoping that your students knew something that I didn’t.
So, what they said about lifetime financial stability isn’t true, right?
Well, now, that depends on the length of your lifetime, doesn’t it?
I used to live in that world as an undergrad too. It was so nice there.
Then I moved to the real world.
But now I’m tempted to get each new batch of students to tell me how they imagine it works before I point them towards the description of how it tends to be.
Oooh, this sounds like a rather fun writing assignment to grade. Imagine the daydreaming that would ensue…
I retired in 1997, before bad things started happening, on a wide scale, to tenured faculty. I do hope the State of Illinois can avoid bankruptcy for a few more years.
Graduate student evaluations of profs was for me when I was a grad student but not for thee when I am a prof!
When I was in grad school, we evaluated our advisers all the time, but we did so verbally. Our evaluations did have some impact, because it was often made clear to incoming grad students just what one was in for in working for certain advisers. The guy who berated his students for “only” working 80 hours a week? Yeah, he lost out on a couple of grad students.
Yeah, not really what your students had in mind, I know…