Pursuit of Tenure Suppresses Truth

[mahagonny]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCX71sk_MU&t=495s

By now we all know the 'woke' culture is a menace.

DIscuss.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Pursuit of tenure does compromise truth, mostly through p-hacking.

[polly_mer]

It's not tenure versus non-tenure that's ruining higher ed's pursuit of truth.

It's people who agree to teach one-off courses with no other responsibilities to the academic endeavor.  Professors mentor majors, do research in their specialties, and contribute to the running of the college through shared governance.

The woke police wouldn't have the little power they do if most people in the humanities were professors instead of one-off teachers disengaged from academic pursuits.  Paying adjuncts more won't fix the problem of not being invested in one institution to contribute to shared governance and mentoring of students outside the classroom.

[mahagonny]

It's not tenure versus non-tenure that's ruining higher ed's pursuit of truth.

It's people who agree to teach one-off courses with no other responsibilities to the academic endeavor.  Professors mentor majors, do research in their specialties, and contribute to the running of the college through shared governance.

The woke police wouldn't have the little power they do if most people in the humanities were professors instead of one-off teachers disengaged from academic pursuits.  Paying adjuncts more won't fix the problem of not being invested in one institution to contribute to shared governance and mentoring of students outside the classroom.

I don't follow your logic at all. Tenure track profs are politically to the left of adjunct faculty. Furthermore, you want to blame higher education's demise on powerless, low paid, temporary outsiders that the academy itself decided to rely on? Do you have any idea how pathetic that sounds?

[Sun_Worshiper]

People I know on the tenure track (including me) worry a lot more about hitting top journals and presses than they do about pissing off some undergrad SJW. This is why p-hacking for pubs is the real threat to "truth."

And even if you buy that tenure track folks are terrified of the woke police, getting rid of tenure will only make it easier to fire them for saying something off color.

[mahagonny]

People I know on the tenure track (including me) worry a lot more about hitting top journals and presses than they do about pissing off some undergrad SJW. This is why p-hacking for pubs is the real threat to "truth."

And even if you buy that tenure track folks are terrified of the woke police, getting rid of tenure will only make it easier to fire them for saying something off color.

Any possibility it's more complex than that? McWhorter's impression was that there is so much at stake in securing tenure that everyone minds their P's and Q's, some to excess.

[Sun_Worshiper]

People I know on the tenure track (including me) worry a lot more about hitting top journals and presses than they do about pissing off some undergrad SJW. This is why p-hacking for pubs is the real threat to "truth."

And even if you buy that tenure track folks are terrified of the woke police, getting rid of tenure will only make it easier to fire them for saying something off color.

Any possibility it's more complex than that? McWhorter's impression was that there is so much at stake in securing tenure that everyone minds their P's and Q's, some to excess.

Sure of course, you have to be careful not to piss off senior faculty or create headaches for chairs/deans. Students can create headaches, so better to keep them at arms length and keep your political opinions to yourself (whether those opinions are liberal or conservative). But the real danger is underproducing, not saying something that someone takes out of context. I can count on one hand the number of people I've heard of for failing tenure because they were too vocal or not vocal enough about social issues (only name off the top of my head is Norman Finkelstein at DePaul). On the other hand, every year people fail because they don't publish well enough.

Again though, the whole premise of this thread is bunk because tenure makes it more difficult to fires someone over speech.

[Parasaurolophus]

Pursuit of tenure does compromise truth, mostly through p-hacking.

You forgot HARKing!

Any possibility it's more complex than that? McWhorter's impression was that there is so much at stake in securing tenure that everyone minds their P's and Q's, some to excess.

Where research is concerned, I can think of a few instances of this among my friends and acquaintances with T or TT jobs--but for them, it's that they avoided pursuing low-status topics in their research, and were finally able to pivot when they got tenure. In philosophy, I'm afraid that the 'low-status' topics mostly coincide with what you'd call 'far left' stuff like feminist or critical race theory. (I'm sorry to say that the religious stuff is actually quite high-status, thanks to the US and the UK and the history of the university in those places.)

Where classroom or extramural speech are concerned, things are different. The righties among us often complain--loudly, and at length, in very visible places--about how much they censor themselves, poor dears. I haven't heard of anyone holding back in the classroom, or being sunk because they didn't. Unless by 'being sunk because they didn't hold back in the classroom' you mean that they sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped someone.

I'm not tenured or on the track (we don't have tenure here, just union protections, and I'm not regularized yet), and I'm not at all worried about my classroom or extramural speech (or the work I do in my research, for that matter). Sometimes I misstep, but I'm not a total dick about it, so it's okay.

[mahagonny]

Again though, the whole premise of this thread is bunk because tenure makes it more difficult to fires someone over speech.

Except the life of the tenure track person includes seven years pre-tenure in which the phenomenon McWhorter talked about is going on.

I'm not tenured or on the track (we don't have tenure here, just union protections, and I'm not regularized yet), and I'm not at all worried about my classroom or extramural speech (or the work I do in my research, for that matter). Sometimes I misstep, but I'm not a total dick about it, so it's okay.

You'd better watch yourself with those middle-of-the-road ideological left comments. You might be conspicuously compliant.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Again though, the whole premise of this thread is bunk because tenure makes it more difficult to fires someone over speech.

Except the life of the tenure track person includes seven years pre-tenure in which the phenomenon McWhorter talked about is going on.

Sure, but adjuncts and lecturers don't have even as much job security as tenure track folks, so why aren't we talking about how much they have to hold their tongues?

And as always, I'd love to see some evidence that this is actually a problem for people, whether TT or non-TT.  As I said above, if you are actually worried about tenure track and "truth," you should look at how pressure to publish incentivizes unethical research approaches that compromise the integrity of actual science. If you just want to complain about how academics are liberal, then keep doing what you are doing.

[mahagonny]

Again though, the whole premise of this thread is bunk because tenure makes it more difficult to fires someone over speech.

Except the life of the tenure track person includes seven years pre-tenure in which the phenomenon McWhorter talked about is going on.

Sure, but adjuncts and lecturers don't have even as much job security as tenure track folks, so why aren't we talking about how much they have to hold their tongues?

Because nobody cares.

Again though, the whole premise of this thread is bunk because tenure makes it more difficult to fires someone over speech.

Except the life of the tenure track person includes seven years pre-tenure in which the phenomenon McWhorter talked about is going on.

Sure, but adjuncts and lecturers don't have even as much job security as tenure track folks, so why aren't we talking about how much they have to hold their tongues?

And as always, I'd love to see some evidence that this is actually a problem for people, whether TT or non-TT.  As I said above, if you are actually worried about tenure track and "truth," you should look at how pressure to publish incentivizes unethical research approaches that compromise the integrity of actual science. If you just want to complain about how academics are liberal, then keep doing what you are doing.

Did you watch the John McWhorter video?
Black Americans are more religious than white Americans. You want more black people on the tenure track, don't you? What would it take to make them feel more comfortable in academia? Of course you could answer academia does not really want diversity of thought, and I probably wouldn't argue.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Again though, the whole premise of this thread is bunk because tenure makes it more difficult to fires someone over speech.

Except the life of the tenure track person includes seven years pre-tenure in which the phenomenon McWhorter talked about is going on.

Sure, but adjuncts and lecturers don't have even as much job security as tenure track folks, so why aren't we talking about how much they have to hold their tongues?

Because nobody cares.

Sorry but this whole thread is incoherent. I think you are arguing that tenure process incentivizes untruth because people are afraid of failing tenure, but NTT are just as vulnerable, so tenure itself is totally irrelevant to the suppression of "truth" as you understand it.

Again though, the whole premise of this thread is bunk because tenure makes it more difficult to fires someone over speech.

Except the life of the tenure track person includes seven years pre-tenure in which the phenomenon McWhorter talked about is going on.

Sure, but adjuncts and lecturers don't have even as much job security as tenure track folks, so why aren't we talking about how much they have to hold their tongues?

And as always, I'd love to see some evidence that this is actually a problem for people, whether TT or non-TT.  As I said above, if you are actually worried about tenure track and "truth," you should look at how pressure to publish incentivizes unethical research approaches that compromise the integrity of actual science. If you just want to complain about how academics are liberal, then keep doing what you are doing.

Did you watch the John McWhorter video?
Black Americans are more religious than white Americans. You want more black people on the tenure track, don't you? What would it take to make them feel more comfortable in academia? Of course you could answer academia does not really want diversity of thought, and I probably wouldn't argue.

Try to stay on topic, Mahagonny. This point you are trying to make is entirely irrelevant to the thread topic and to my posts.

[mahagonny]

And as always, I'd love to see some evidence that this is actually a problem for people, whether TT or non-TT. 

I don't think adjunct faculty having their employment discontinued because they failed to sufficiently flatter their department chair and his coterie tends to get reported, for reasons I bet you are already aware of.

[Sun_Worshiper]

And as always, I'd love to see some evidence that this is actually a problem for people, whether TT or non-TT. 

I don't think adjunct faculty having their employment discontinued because they failed to sufficiently flatter their department chair and his coterie tends to get reported, for reasons I bet you are already aware of.

Gotcha. So, as I suspected, you have no evidence to support your argument (whatever your argument actually is, because honestly who can tell what you are trying to say).

[mahagonny]

And as always, I'd love to see some evidence that this is actually a problem for people, whether TT or non-TT. 

I don't think adjunct faculty having their employment discontinued because they failed to sufficiently flatter their department chair and his coterie tends to get reported, for reasons I bet you are already aware of.

Gotcha. So, as I suspected, you have no evidence to support your argument (whatever your argument actually is, because honestly who can tell what you are trying to say).

I think John McWhorter is my new hero. Not sure if that's an argument or just a statement.