CHE Article: "Title Policing and Other Ways Professors Bully the Academic Staff"

[writingprof]

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Title-PolicingOther-Ways/247917?cid=wcontentgrid

This is a very interesting article, in part because the author is so clearly deceiving himself about the biographical statement that got him into trouble.  "Senior academic advisor to the history department" means one thing.  "Senior academic advisor in the history department" means something else.

In any case, a worthwhile read.

[mahagonny]

Well, he is advising the history department at university of Minnesota; it just that he's doing it in his spare time.

[Hegemony]

The author just really proves at considerable length that he doesn't get why job titles matter.  But they do matter, and not just in academia. In fact, probably less in academia than in many jobs.  In any case, I'm skeptical that being corrected on his job title is the equivalent of "treating staff members like bed bugs."  This guy likes the view from his high horse, and he's not getting off it.

[mahagonny]

The author just really proves at considerable length that he doesn't get why job titles matter.  But they do matter, and not just in academia. In fact, probably less in academia than in many jobs.

Can you name another type of work where the majority of the employees are identified as 'something added to the main thing, but not part of it?'

[Hegemony]

Mahoganny, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking, or how it relates to the situation.

[mahagonny]

I didn't think so.

[mahagonny]

Mahoganny, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking, or how it relates to the situation.

"Professors have been policing status in formal and informal ways since at least the invention of the modern university. Their weapons of choice: job titles,..."

This is obviously correct. Whether you want to pin the policing on the tenured or the dean and the chancellor, or all together, could be open for debate. Regardless, job titles are used for the organizational, practical purpose of communicating what everyone does, and what they don't do, but also to keep people in their place. If this were not true you wouldn't have 'adjunct' faculty as your job title. Adjunct literally means 'something added to the main thing, but not part of it.' Which the liberals call 'othering' and they get genuinely bothered by the tactic in certain situations, but not, for some reason, this one. Duplicity. Still, what he's complaining about in the CHE piece, what was done to him, doesn't earn a lot of sympathy from me, because he got creative with his credentials, and I wouldn't do that. That's asking for trouble.

[Parasaurolophus]

This is a very interesting article, in part because the author is so clearly deceiving himself about the biographical statement that got him into trouble.  "Senior academic advisor to the history department" means one thing.  "Senior academic advisor in the history department" means something else.

Yup. I was expecting a more interesting kvetch, not one about an instance where he misrepresented himself and his relationship to his department. That's just really sloppy.

[Wahoo Redux]

Perry does have excellent credentials.  Why he didn't just email the "senior professor" back and say 'bite me' I don't know...except that he got another piece of journalism out of the deal.  Good for him, actually.

[marshwiggle]

Perry does have excellent credentials.  Why he didn't just email the "senior professor" back and say 'bite me' I don't know...except that he got another piece of journalism out of the deal.  Good for him, actually.

It's not clear whether his use of "to" was just sloppiness, or intentional. (The difference is clear if you talk about "the ambassador in a country" vs, "the ambassador to a country".)

[tuxthepenguin]

Perry does have excellent credentials.  Why he didn't just email the "senior professor" back and say 'bite me' I don't know...except that he got another piece of journalism out of the deal.  Good for him, actually.

It's not clear whether his use of "to" was just sloppiness, or intentional. (The difference is clear if you talk about "the ambassador in a country" vs, "the ambassador to a country".)

At least "ambassador" generally means the same thing in both cases. Whether it was sloppy or intentional, the positions in this case are very different.

[writingprof]

Perry does have excellent credentials.  Why he didn't just email the "senior professor" back and say 'bite me' I don't know...except that he got another piece of journalism out of the deal.  Good for him, actually.

It's not clear whether his use of "to" was just sloppiness, or intentional.

He actually addresses that, in a completely disingenuous parenthetical aside:

(I suppose the preposition "in" might have been clearer than "to." But honestly, I didn't spend a lot of time pondering correct prepositional deployment, as it didn't seem like something that might undermine the whole edifice of academic history.)

I call bulls--t. This guy's a writer. He knew exactly what the effect of each preposition was. He chose the one that would make him sound better, and he got caught. No, he didn't "undermine the whole edifice of academic history," but that's not what he's being accused  of, so that part of his essay comes across as yet more assholic prevarication. 

[Wahoo Redux]

Probably the only person in the whole country who noticed or cared about the deceptive preposition was the "senior professor on the west coast."  Tempest in a tea kettle.

[mythbuster]

I don't get what the hubbub is. But then again, in my department the adviser is a valued member of the department.

[marshwiggle]

Probably the only person in the whole country who noticed or cared about the deceptive preposition was the "senior professor on the west coast."  Tempest in a tea kettle.

To use my example above, someone describing himself as "ambassador in the United Sates" vs. "ambassador to the United States" is not trivial. Being the ambassador of some country to Liechtenstein while visiting the US is way different than being the ambassador of said country to the United States.