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[lightningstrike]

Bitter wannabes who couldn't get jobs, disgraced scholars who didn't get tenure, disgruntled graduate school dropouts--there are more of them than us--love anti-faculty articles. It keeps them coming back to this site and keeps the tabloid press for academics going strong.

[grasshopper]

The Chronicle has learned what sites like Huffingtonpost and Foxnews already know: page views and clicks make money.

That would make sense if the website had a lot of advertising, but the Chronicle doesn't. A couple of sidebar ads from universities, and that's pretty much it.

[euro_trash]

Great questions, niceday.  Chrony editors?  Who are you in bed with?

My guess is The University of Phoenix and their ilk.

[mdwlark]

Bitter wannabes who couldn't get jobs, disgraced scholars who didn't get tenure, disgruntled graduate school dropouts--there are more of them than us--love anti-faculty articles. It keeps them coming back to this site and keeps the tabloid press for academics going strong.

Ouch.  I see you are going to be very popular around here. 

[farm_boy]

But what would you do in the following situation:

You're a tenured professor, and you come to question the validity of your discipline.  In fact, you come to realize that it is a sham, and that administrators and some teachers are to blame.

Do you:

A.  Write an exposé, alienating yourself from your colleagues
B.  Write an exposé under a pen name
C.  Just shut up and play the game and continue to mislead students
D.  Quietly leave academia and never say anything
E.  Take drugs
F.  ??

[t_r_b]

It's just a sign of the times. We're all lazy, selfish, terrible teachers who just want tenure so we can have garden parties and sip sherry.

There's sherry?

[embitteredhistorian]

But what would you do in the following situation:

You're a tenured professor, and you come to question the validity of your discipline.  In fact, you come to realize that it is a sham, and that administrators and some teachers are to blame.

Do you:

A.  Write an exposé, alienating yourself from your colleagues
B.  Write an exposé under a pen name
C.  Just shut up and play the game and continue to mislead students
D.  Quietly leave academia and never say anything
E.  Take drugs
F.  ??

If it takes you that long to question the validity of your discipline, you shouldn't trust your judgment.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

But what would you do in the following situation:

You're a tenured professor, and you come to question the validity of your discipline.  In fact, you come to realize that it is a sham, and that administrators and some teachers are to blame.

Do you:

A.  Write an exposé, alienating yourself from your colleagues
B.  Write an exposé under a pen name
C.  Just shut up and play the game and continue to mislead students
D.  Quietly leave academia and never say anything
E.  Take drugs
F.  ??

F. Grow up, accept that the 90% of the fault is with you and not your colleagues and institution, and stop whining. - DvF

[cranefly]

F. Grow up, accept that the 90% of the fault is with you and not your colleagues and institution, and stop whining. - DvF

++

[farm_boy]

Good morning!  Y'all certainly didn't disappoint me with your replies to my "hypothetical" situation.

[farm_boy]

t_r_b: 

Booze is overrated (I quit it years ago), and especially sherry.  I once visited Jerez de la Frontera in Spain and sipped their samples, but it all tasted like Vicks Formula 44D to me.

embittered historian:

Some of us are slow learners.  At first, I thought it was just me.  Since there were dozens of professional organizations in my “discipline”, thousands of professors, hundreds of degree programs, I thought surely it must be true that millions of young American adults go to college and learn to speak Spanish there.  It took a while for reality to sink in.

But actually, if you look at the authors of most critiques of higher ed (except for Charles Sykes types), they are older folks who have done their time and have reached their conclusions by personal experience.
For example, the authors of the new book _Higher Education?_ appear to be much older than I am.

daniel_von_flannagan and cranefly:

So you have chosen option C: “Just shut up and play the game and continue to mislead students.”

Typical.

I ‘m supposed to say the king’s new clothes are gorgeous, right?

Daniel, It’s hilarious that you tell me to “stop whining.”  Have you any idea where you are posting this?  This is the Chronicle Forum, an anonymous 24-hour-a-day whinefest! 

Or is it that when you don’t agree with someone’s post they are “whining?”

[niceday]

G- Hijack every thread with endless complaints about Spanish education. Feel validated when people get tired of the endless personal complaints about Spanish education in higher-ed.

Ok. We get it. College education in Spanish sucks. Higher-education is not just about Spanish. Farm_boy, please start a thread about how Spanish education in higher education sucks. ::crosses fingers:: I'm talking about something different. These people don't have the same complaint you do. (i.e. Higher education in Spanish sucks. Got it. Really.) They think that highly-paid professors at Ivy leagues should teach instead of do research and extrapolate from that to the whole institution of higher-ed.

I'd really like to have a discussion about the current anti-faculty zeitgeist. Book, articles, news pieces, etc. At the same time, we know working conditions for faculty are eroding. Yet, after tenure, faculty do have intellectual freedom -- a precious prize in this day where fewer people have any kind of autonomy at work. Is that what's drawing all this ire?

[navydad]

I'm not sure why the Chronicle is running so many "anti-faculty" articles. I avoid speculating about motives, especially the "motives" of complex organizations, in the absence of strong evidence. The question and many of the comments here seem to criticize the Chronicle for running these articles. Assuming that the various "anti-faculty" opinions and proposals reported by the Chronicle are real and not fantasies or exaggerations, what should the Chronicle do? Ignore them? Minimize them? Dismiss them? I'd say the Chronicle should report them so we can understand and respond to them. Of course I live near the beach and I am well aware of the dangers of placing one's head in the sand, so maybe my view is skewed.

[farm_boy]

Niceday, my complaints will most likely end when I die, although they will have achieved some degree of immortality in my book.

But I'll try to get more on topic.  Let's talk about tenure.  In my grad program, in a class that was supposed to be about lit crit, my newly-tenured professor made us watch videos on her favorite religious guru.  "Look at his eyes and you can see his divinity" she'd tell us.  Then she'd brag that she couldn't be fired because she had tenure.  A colleague of hers, also who had recently received tenure, held one hour of office hours per week (the legal minimum).  At the end of the hour she would close her door and tell those in line outside to come back next week.  She was mentally unstable and ridiculed students frequently in class, also.  Of course, she was prolific at publishing.  

Fast forward 10 years.  I am awarded tenure, and I feel dirty because it was a reward for 6 years of inflating grades and kissing ass.  It didn't even give me any "freedom" because the admin. constantly threatened to cut my program unless I rpoduced more numbers (i.e. inflated grades even more).

So yes, I believe tenure needs some tweaking.  In the humanities most research is worthless anyway.

[euro_trash]

In the humanities most research is worthless anyway.

Speak for yourself.