Does academia attract crazy people?

Do you really have to ask?

Narcissists and backstabbers are a given. Plenty of assholes, climbers, and sociopaths to go around. They run roughshod over decent faculty and staff.

Nutty Profeesor

Assholes all of them. Those who can’t do, teach at Universities.

In the present day humanities, at least among the feminist or deconstructist ones, yes. They tend to be unmoored from reality and their work is shit. Also the more woke ones in the social sciences. Sciences and economics , no. The liberal arts are in a self created crisis and probably can only be saved by gutting certain disciplines and starting over. The next 10 to 20 years will witness the death of many small liberal arts colleges and departments.

r5 = Jordan Peterson

R4 I was thinking more of sociopathic deans, aggressive department chairs, checked-out chancellors, indifferent provosts, and sadistic administrative types, but there are asshole profs as well.

Moi?

yes

I think it attracts people that can't do anything else. My sister is mentally ill due to the trauma of being abused (we were both abused, but she got it far worse from both parents), and can't keep a job. She went to graduate school because she couldn't hold down a job and has apparently found something she can do and function on a respectable level. She's working on her PhD, and in addition to teaching undergrad classes at her university, also teaches as a community college.

What is her field, r10?

Thank you, r8. I was trying to remember her name.

I left academia just short of my doctoral degree because of the damage to my mental health. The environment was toxic and I regret wasting so many years "escaping the 9-5." Academia lures people in who already have depression/anxiety and then proceeds to amplify it. The student loan debt alone will heighten anyone's anxiety as will considering your job prospects.

R10 Literature with a focus in Film Studies. As she says, "Film is a text."

She spent our childhood hiding in her bedroom with her books and her movies, so it's a good field for her.

Elites

If we're generalizing I would say yes, academia attracts people with some of those traits , most notably pettiness and neuroticism. As far as narcissism, in my opinion journalists and reporters tend to be the biggest narcissists. On par with actors and actresses but more low key about their self adoration. Particularly the ones that cover politics.

That's a beautiful library in OP's post. Where is it?

R10, that was my area of study and concentration too. My family fully expected me to become a professor, but I'm very, very glad I didn't.

I'm a lawyer and law schools are replete with these kinds of bozos. In the legal world, the adage "for those who can't do, teach" really seems to ring true. The vast majority of tenured faculty of my law school was self-absorbed, name-dropping, narcissistic twats. One professor spent two entire class periods telling us how the SCOTUS referenced her article in one of their opinions (related to a topic not even remotely close to the class material). She was definitely the worst, but the other tenured staff weren't much better. They were all so involved in their own work that they basically forgot to teach. Part of that was because the admin put a great deal of pressure on them to produce publishable works, but there seemed to be an element of bragging, like they were trying to make up for the fact that none of them had successful careers in actual practice that ultimately kept them out of academia. My Civ Pro professor couldn't go one class without mentioning how he was also a very successful expert witness who charged thousands. Those people seriously derived no joy in educating those younger than them and seemed so bitter about teaching. And many of them had other issues, like alcoholism and getting DUIs, cancelling classes suddenly without informing students prior, unauthorized assistance to preferred students, etc.. I swear there were some who didn't even legitimately graded our actual work and haphazardly handed out grades (our valedictorian was a total air-headed bimbo, B. Spears was Nancy Pelosi next to her). With that said, the visiting, associate and adjunct professors were actually quite good and didn't have the same hangups because most of them had other priorities/work outside the class they lectured. But the tenured staff, Jesus Christ in Tampa they were so bad. I was a music student in undergrad and, although there were crazies there too, I remember my professors there so fondly and loved all of them. I never noticed the same problems there (granted I was younger and not likely paying much attention).

One word: Ronell Reitman lawsuit NYU. JACQUES DERRIDA chair in Philosophy. Look it up.

Harvard's Widener, r17

Many are on the autism spectrum. They can’t do anything else.

I should say yes! I agree with your observations, OP.

Or rather, academia shields from the real world those unable to deal with the real world. All you need is a reasonable ability to do research, and today, money from your parents or other connections. If you are of the unintelligent variety, you can just label stuff ad infinitum. There are entire chairs devoted to nothing more than labelling.

I think in the Humanities academia is chock full of sociopathic, disturbed people.

In the sciences, it is different. Academic scientists are focused on progressing their research and obtaining funding. While there are a lot of shenanigans, the scientists do not have the time to engage in most of the nonsense found in the humanities departments.

Science and economics, no R5? Excuse me? The only biologist I know is a sociopath, and I used to work in the same building as an economist whose only line of conversation was to list the statistics he knew about a given topic. Poor guy was single obvs. Another economist was a sex addict and was fucking one of my fucked-up colleagues on the sly.

How could we have forgotten Nimrod! DL covered this case extensively when it was still going to court.

Yummy!

R25 knows one sociopathic biologist and an economist on the spectrum! They, or at least the biologist, are doing work that benefits humanity. Your average humanist is writing articles on how Spinoza is not woke enough and getting other academics de-platformed or censured.

High-achievers in any field are often on the narcissist-psychopath spectrum.

Ronell Reitman is Iola Boylen's evil twin in academia.

As someone said when the story broke - Ronell is direct from central casting:

Nimrod Reitman is cute but that's no excuse.

Please raise your standards stat r32

No - it's mostly the Republican party that attracts crazy.

Egos

I'd love it if they had to work in a kitchen on a minimum wage salary, with a chef screaming at them daily. See how long they would last.

A lot of them are dumb and crazy, now. R5 is right if he means the "academic" third-wave "feminists" - they are dumb and crazy and that is all "academia" seems to hire in recent years.

You do realize, of course, that the vast majority of college teachers are just that--teachers, who do whatever scholarly research their teaching load permits. Most of us teach 3-4 classes a semester, usually introductory or skills classes, with the occasional more advanced class in some area of specialty. We also advise undergraduates, to help them think about which classes to take, how to graduate on time, how to study and balance school and life, and most of us serve on one or more committees needed to keep the governance of our institutions working (curriculum approval, benefits, things like that). The ones who get the most prominence and notoriety on DL and in the popular media account for a small fraction--just as the crazies in law, medicine, business, and so forth are a small fraction. Most of us just keep our noses to the grindstone and try to figure out how to engage students who have been raised to spend most of their time staring at screens.

How much do academic superstars make? Let's limit it to the humanities.

Talking about high-profile, published tenured professors teaching full time at the Ivies and other highly selective institutions.

It seems to me there can be no limits to superstar salaries in any field - they are outside the regular range for whatever it is that they do.

I was surprised to find some of the STEM adjunct professors in uni to be as nutty as the humanities profs, if not worse; sadistic and mentally unbalanced (one of them had a nervous breakdown during a lecture. Others have made younger students weep.)

Regardless, it’s not surprising that people with sucessful careers in STEM outside of academia have better ability, on average, to communicate and cooperate with their peers than the less successful ones who, due to personality defects, drug addiction, and mental disorders, end up moonlighting as college instructors.

She makes enough to have the smug, "I am better than you" expression.

Academics are by and large, harmless. You want crazy, look at the cops. Those fuckers are demented

I beg to differ, r43.

probably no more than a message board like datalounge attracts crazy people

I'm with you, r38. But this is Datalounge, where we extrapolate from a few examples to the entirety of the profession.

Had a professor who was a Hyper-Sexualized, Misogynisic, Narcissistic Freak. Yes, he deserved all those titles. Was married to a beautiful woman with whom he had children, until he had an affair with a student. This marriage lasted a few years until the cycle repeated. Student librarian would often commented that he would come in and check out his own books: if they were not checked out enough, they were removes from circulation. Naturally, the gentleman took care of his body, and showed it off as the adonis he was. Students who had the misfortune of sharing the gym with him or passing him running could nit miss him * flashing: he wore tge tiniest of gym shorts without benefit of either underwear or jock-strap. Not kidding.

I'm guessing he wasn't an English professor, r47?

Academia Nuts

Holy cripe, that's a lot of...let's say...typos.

Academics usually have a lot of problems with authority and respect. They demand it from students and colleagues, and become very angry if either is challenged.

Academia probably attracts people who like the power dynamic of teacher-student, people who want to fuck young, easily-impressed, nubile students.

Academia attracts people who are really interested in a topic and want to study it or want to teach it. The end.

That's simply not true, r52. Most academics still teaching today had it drummed into them back in graduate school that if they had affairs with students they would lose their jobs instantly. A very few still break the rules, but most academics know they'll lose ttheir jopbs if they're caught fucking students.

[quote] Most of us just keep our noses to the grindstone and try to figure out how to engage students who have been raised to spend most of their time staring at screens.

Thank you, R38. We've all encountered the crazies described on this thread, but our devotion to our subjects (for me, history) and our desire to share that devotion is what motivated us to pursue our degrees and teach. I have so many colleagues who go out of their way to help their students. The vast majority are caring, intelligent, and well-meaning.

R53 Nah, it attracts people who want to teach without the hassle of HS. College has become HS however, so there's the rub.

Didn't know BonniePrinceCharlie was a History teacher at university. You learn something new everyday.

Having been in academia almost my entire adult life, I can say that there are some nuts and some perfectly normal people. The both groups were equally distributed at elite, less selective, and open admissions institutions. One of the problems is tenure: people are rabid about getting it, understandably. However, few understand that it is a trap: you don't seek interesting choices in life because you are so seduced by the security that tenure brings. Sometimes, tenure brings out the worst in people: feelings of superiority and being unaccountable. Others remain committed to students' success. It's a strange place, too, because, unlike business where people are motivated by profit, you don't always know what motivates people in academia. The saddest thing I've seen is perfectly nice people who feel they were abused when they were junior faculty, who then decide when they become senior faculty to torture the junior faculty.

Interesting perspective, r58

[quote] They tend to be unmoored from reality and their work is shit. Also the more woke ones in the social sciences. Sciences and economics , no.

The Sciences and Economics are full of unhinged assholes. They might not be guilty of "wokefulness" but they are usually both assholes and insane. Anyone who says otherwise knows nothing about US academia and should confine herself to arguing with other shutins on Twitter.

They spent their lives in an institution, away from the real world and it makes them crazy - like Charles Manson.

All male English profesdors are bisexual.

These schools would probably be better if they fired the crazy and abusive people.

Or gay R62.

Then why are there so many spelling and grammar mistakes on DL?

As R58 said, there are all kinds. Back when I was in my doctoral program, our faculty was actually reputed for being nice and they were. They had lives and families apart from their careers were low key and, with one exception when I was completing my degree, there were no feuds. This one was a doozy that resulted in a lawsuit, but it did not affect the parties' graduate students).

The worst example of faculty egregiousness a pediatric psychologist new to the department. She was incredibly careerist and self-absorbed and had to have it all, including an equally careerist husband and two adorable but insecure kids under the age of five. (how did we know they were insecure? The five year old was able to verbalize "I don't feel secure without mom around." ) They moved here from Canada and within a few weeks the couple needed to leave for some conference and tried to hustle grad students to babysit. Imagine that new house, new country and mom and dad need to disappear leaving them with strangers. Fortunately, the couple who watched them were really great.

Other incident with her. About a year or two later, the oldest caught chicken pox just as mom had to be at an important conference to present. It was to be part of a family vacation, as well. Well, that wasn't going to stop her. She was bound and determined to take the contagious kid on the plane and announced her plans or was overheard. One of our dept. secretaries called the airline to inform them anonymously. Imagine a sealed tubed recirculating air to a couple of hundred people, many of whom never had CP. This was a pediatric psychologist.

R19, but why is Jesus Christ in Tampa?

My best friend from our undergrad years became a lawyer and then a law professor--very shocking to me because I didn't think she had the hostile personality required, plus she was stupendously bright. Anyway, when I looked at her "Rate My Professor" reviews, her students complained about exactly the same sort of tics that R19 did. But she was not like that when I knew her. Something that happened during her actual lawyering years must have made her that way because she was always pretty humble and helpful (even though remarkably intelligent) and kind when I knew her.

^R67, my tangential point being that sometimes I think people are made crazy by their surroundings. She wasn't a crazy person when she went into academia.

R66, did the airline stop the kid from boarding? What happened?

Don't leave us hanging.

I don't know the exact resolution, whether the airline cancelled the ticket and got a hold of the family or if she was blocked at the gate, but the child didn't go. I believe a sitter was found. Don't recall exact details it was about 25 years ago.

R70, thank you for finishing the story. (BTW, that's insane.)

Friends, please remember there are people reading your posts. Cliffhangers hurt.

Eh, I just reread my post and realize I forgot to include that the egregious psychologist was involved in the feud and lawsuit. The feud was because the two faculty didn't respect each other's research. I have no idea what the basis for the lawsuit was since it was very hush, hush. I was hightailing it out of there and never bother to find out.

Two words: Academic Librarians

r73 FTW! I work for a research institute housed in an academic library. One may easily spot the librarians on campus well before they approach the building.

R74, how might one recognize a librarian easily? I’m curious, TIA!!

r75: she will make you softly announce that, well, you never in all your life!

I'm an tenured professor at a research university, and agree that many of my colleagues are difficult people. That said, some of these "difficult people" think I am "difficult."

I think the basic reason is that we don't really have contact with each other. We don't teach together. Members of the department rarely serve on the same committee together. When you never really spend time working collectively with others, egoism, narcissism, etc become wearing.

Also academics care deeply about notions of prestige and status, far more than other professions, as we are comparatively underpaid (though I would argue that we are overpaid for the work we do). It is normal to see people routinely dismissed as dumb and now reactionary (pseudo-racist), in the identity-driven politics of the university. Some people compensate for this by being "nice" in a way that is unnerving.

R77 makes a pretty good description of the academic psyche. It's all fucked up!

Liberal arts especially attracts the loonies. Science & Engineering - only occasionally.

In the arts, many or most of us worked out in the real world before turning to teaching. The demands of tenure and promotion require us to continue to work in the real world maintaining our careers in addition to teaching.

I have noticed that arts faculty are different than humanities and STEM who usually have not worked in a profession outside academia, and whose tenure/promotion requirements have them working on research projects within the university.

Arts professors might be crazy but those others are batshit crazy and very ignorant about how business and politics work. Talking to them is like visiting another planet.

A long time ago I was considering getting a PhD. But my psychologist talked me out of it. She said getting a doctorate is very very hard. You have to have the ability to think critically to get into academia. Basically only a few beautiful minds can achieve this.

It is the PhD process that makes academics so nutty? The less crazy arts profs usually have MFAs rather than PhDs. Is that why they seem to be more eccentric than crazy?

I think it was Robert Lowell who said academic feuds are vicious because the stakes are so low.

Very true r83

This country is full of degree snobs. I know a family that considers academia the end all and be all of status. They mocked my brother who got a degree in geology. They all have doctorates in ridiculous fields and barely make a living, meanwhile my brother makes six figures a year and travels around the world. They were also all in school forever incurring serious debt and living as “professional students” way past the appropriate age.

I guess they are too intellectual for money. The women in the family also have the disdain for looking attractive thing going on.

r85 I know a professor and his wife (also a professor). They are both in the humanities. When his father died, the obituary listed them as "Dr. John Doe and Dr. Jane Doe."

I thought it was freakin' ridiculous. You're NOT an MD.

Is there an actual study on the rates of autism or Asperger's syndrome in academia? Seems like one of these academics should study this.

Asperger's for sure. It's almost a requirement.

[quote] You're NOT an MD.

Good thing that's not what they claimed.

I always crack up at the ones who say “that’s DR” as if we are supposed to be impressed. I always give them a “yeah, whatever” look.

Reminds me of the attorney who refused to attend the company holiday party because, in his words, he didn’t go to law school to associate with the “help”.

The vast majority of PhDs I know don't refer to themselves at "Dr", r89 -- except among undergrads, and not always then. They respect there is a big difference between a PhD and an MD.

You don't hear lawyers with a juris doctor calling themselves "Dr."

[quote] They respect there is a big difference between a PhD and an MD.

Again, no one who has a PhD thinks he or she is a medical doctor.

Ugh. That's not what I claimed, r92.

Disparaging PhDs for calling themselves doctors and implying that they are trying to claim some sort of glory reserved only for medical doctors is the same sort of anti-intellectualism that gave us Trump. Being called doctor or using the title doctor is entirely reasonable and logical.

I suspect r94 et al is an insecure academic who demands others call her "Dr."

You'd be wrong, r95.

Outside of a professional setting, I don't see the point R94.

[quote] Outside of a professional setting, I don't see the point.

Yeah, that's where most PhDs use it. Sure, there are the exceptions who make a big deal of it off campus, but most don't.

r98 seems obtuse -- perhaps an academic on the spectrum?

That *was* my point at r86. Why mention that you and your wife are "doctors" in an obituary? Why use the title at all? If they were medical doctors, known in the community as such, I could see using "Dr." But two academics? It stinks of insufferability.

Does Dr. John have a PhD in funk rock? If not, I’ll call him “Mr. John” from now on, because facts don’t care about your feelings, southern blues guitarists!

So to use part of a person's name in an obituary "stinks of insufferability"? That's really all on you. It's just the person's name.

r101, you sound like a DELIGHT at parties.

Oh god - I want to WW R51 10 times. My condo president is a retired, tenured professor who is used to deference from students for 40 years. He is a true nightmare from hell to have in a position of authority over where I live.

Your one sentence encapsulates the personality to a T - though I could go on for several paragraphs. He's completely bat-shit insane, petty, vengeful, and also incompetent at running things - yet thinks he's above everyone else's intellect. I understand HOAs attract these types, though as well.

Sure. That's a reasonable response, r102. Because this topic comes up at parties so much...

People objecting about doctors calling themselves doctors is anti-intellectual bullshit. A doctor calling himself doctor doesn't mean he thinks he is better than you. It doesn't mean he is maligning you.

But whatever.

I do find that they may be book smart but have poor coping skills and lack basic common sense and street smarts.

Outside a professional context, *no one* needs to be called Doctor (whether MD, PhD, etc.). If someone wants to be formal (i.e. Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr), then it's appropriate.

But this MD vs PhD thing is bullshit. It's a title. People earned it, whether in a medical field or in a university.

I met a PhD candidate once, the poor guy was desperate to get laid. He used academic language and reasoning to express how he was interested in sexuality but couldn't figure out how to start, let alone achieve intercourse with somebody else. He wasn't attractive of course, but that wasn't even the point.

He sounded like he was stranded on some island and wasn't even sure if he wanted to leave that place. Mighty glad I didn't pursue a PhD, that's not enviable in any way, shape or form.

I spent 5 years getting a PhD & regret it big time. Part of my decision to go, like someone else mentioned, was to get out of the 9-5 rat race. I thought I'd be able to contribute to society with research, and I actually liked doing research as an undergrad. However, as a PhD, doing research on anything other than a marginal step beyond my advisor's work proved impossible. Publishing was all that mattered, and I was late to the game on this - largely due to the structure of my program being so class-heavy, unlike most other PhD programs. So, by the time I met my peers at other schools who had 2-3 journal articles underway, I just finally finished my required classwork & one tiny publication that didn't matter to anyone. The main focus of the first 2 years was to pass the comprehensive exam before I could work on "real" research (which is not how most schools do it). The problem is that research takes a lot of time to conduct, write up, submit for review, and publish.

I also started to hate my field. My school paid for me to go to a conference in Montreal, and I went to a few talks but mostly invited guys over from Manhunt (back in the day) to fuck around in the hotel. I remember the guys still - not a single word of the talks. The whole thing was so painfully boring. I think that conference also woke me up to just how stupid the field was.

The vast majority of the faculty were completely self-absorbed and unwilling to help students publish (even though that was our only hope of getting a job). We were required to get faculty approval to do any research, but very few faculty wanted anything to do with grad students. I was lucky I found one single faculty member to be my main advisor & I couldn't even fill my dissertation committee up with the other two! So, I went outside of my school to another one for my 2nd chair of my committee. My third chair is relatively infamous for studies that nobody could replicate. Back then, she was still "famous" for this work, and she showed up on every CNN & media platform she could find.... except my email inbox. She honestly never emailed me back in 8 months, despite agreeing to be on my committee & agreeing to sign off on my research. My chair even had to try to force her to email me, which didn't work. Imagine my feeling when she was later exposed as a huge fraud (years after I graduated). She's still employed there but will never be viewed the same way again. Looking back on her, she reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes for a number of reasons.

R91 and R92, my doctoral program is at research university, while I teach at a teaching university. I have found that the academics at the large, research universities introduce themselves by their first names, have their graduate students call them by their first names, and do not have hang-ups about being addressed as "Dr." My colleagues at the non-research oriented university in contrast insist upon being addressed as "Dr.," even by their Master Degree students.

There have been articles in journals ("The Chronicle of Higher Education" for example) that underscore the importance of being addressed as "Dr." among PhDs who are from minority groups. I remember one professor in grad school said that you do not have to insist on the address because in higher education it should be assumed. He said that he insisted on being addressed as "Professor" by undergraduates to emphasize the difference between higher and secondary education.

I'm from a family of doctors (all MDs), and they by and large insisted upon it except for an aunt who never minded being addressed as "Mrs."

It's rather ironic when you find the American academic who insists on being addressed as "Dr.," considering the supposed egalitarian world of the intellect in which they work.

Thanks r109 -- that was kind of the point I was making at r86.

The professor couple in question are both white, fwiw.

Dr Susan Gottlieb-Yamamoto, Associate Professor of Sociology, wears only Eileen Fisher, takes her euro-style reading glasses on and off as she lectures, and let's her colorful chunky bangles click clack against the lectern.

Eileen Fisher ain't shit.

R112 is a jealous anthropology professor.

How it works through out the world:

(Physicians have doctorates in medicine, attorneys are Juris Doctors, etc)

Hell, didn’t you see the documentary Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf, OP?

R42 Hey, that's my hero, erh, heroine.

I have a PhD and refuse to let anyone call me Dr. None of my professors used that term. Only "professor x" - never doctor. When I interviewed at a pharma company, they DID call them doctors, and it was a little odd. I thought they would've wanted more distinction between MDs and PhDs there in particular - but they did say Dr. X for PhDs there in research. It makes me slightly uncomfortable because I am not a medical doctor and couldn't treat anyone or do anything if someone was sick. My only medical skill is euthanasia from boredom of the topic I work with.

OP, maybe because they tolerate it.

PTs are going to need PhDs, will they insist in being called dr?

Ph. D. here (history), and former adjunct/visiting assistant professor. Never got a tenure-track job, so left the profession. Wasn't ever important enough to harass, but they didn't necessarily acknowledge my presence.

[quote] I'm a lawyer and law schools are replete with these kinds of bozos. In the legal world, the adage "for those who can't do, teach" really seems to ring true. The vast majority of tenured faculty of my law school was self-absorbed, name-dropping, narcissistic twats.

Tiger Mom teaches Law at Yale. Bill Clinton taught law, so did Obama. I don’t any did much time in a courtroom.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Economics, history, sociology and all those faux classes like women's studies, gay studies and so on are taught by totally crazy "professors"

Case in point. Alan Dershowitz

r123 sounds like a right-wing troll.

Watch the beginning of this video and decide for yourself.

I am going to watch this with delight.

I feel I am in for a treat.

R69 The plane crashed killing all onboard. Thankfully all corpses were chicken pox free due to an anonymous tip-off.

R126 I feel triggered by the plastic water bottles. Don't they have drinking glasses at Centre Pompidou???

R127, I'm "in the academy." Tenured, nearing retirement. No preventions about my abilities. Published ok papers over the years to get hired, retained, tenured. I'm no star. That video disgusts me. Partly because I was educated by truly thoughtful professors, especially as an undergraduate. Some of whom were women, in history and classics, and they were so superior to those frauds who have done great harm.

I was a student in the humanities in the late 90s and that shit was already taking place. Not taken to the levels of that video, obvs.

Being a lesbian, I've come across both their types and know to run for the hills. No way in hell are these good in bed, either.

If you are not respected by your peers for your research hypothesis and methodology, than you may resort to other tactics, whether petty or destructive, to get ahead. These negative tactics can be found in any work place though. If you are not respected by your peers, you may take it out against other colleagues or students.

There is a serious problem within academia in the USA, not many good professors are getting Tenure, even if they are on this track. Yale University fired a well respected and well liked Anthropologist because he is a political economist. The London School of Economics picked him up.

R81, you got some bad advice from that psychologist. Thinking critically is the only thing taught in law school. Good ones, anyway. Anything that doesn't look on its surface to be about critical thinking really is, if you think about it critically.

The practice of law absolutely depends on critical thinking. It's not a gift bestowed on a few who are then swept by the Hand of God into a grateful nation's elite colleges and universities. It's a skill that can be taught to a reasonably intelligent person.

Law school and grad school are different things r134

You need help with critical thinking, R135. R81's post might be written with sarcasm, but it was not dripping with sarcasm, so one cannot be sure. In any event, the post quoted specious nonsense about critical thinking which is a skill required by most professions and which can be taught for all of them.

You need help with clear, concise writing, r134/r136

The difference between answering to a laid-paid dean and a micro-managing sociopathic dean is HEAVEN and HELL. Just to be a misogynist cunt, I will add that I've never met a very bad male dean. Checked out an ineffective is about the worst it gets with men in that post.

Also if you dig just a little you will see that the sociopaths fail up, miraculously, through. a couple different institutions or jobs. Very very bad energy, these people, so its a mystery of humanity how they were ever rewarded.

I can make an introduction, R138, if you are interested.

Of course, at my school all the deans are male.

Sociopaths always fail upwards. It's a mystery as to why. I'm guessing others give them what they want so as to get rid of them. Hence the professional success (the private lives of sociopaths are another story).

Every profession attracts crazy people.

Some more than others, r142

Not like academia, R142.

I went to university in the early ‘90s. I’d wanted to be an English professor since I was little. I got into my dream college, then the English honors program. I wrote a senior thesis that required advisors and got my favorite professors to fill the role. To a one, the professors I liked and respected warned me away from academia. None of them were happy.

They saved me. The university has gotten even worse since then, with increasing reliance on underpaid and overworked adjuncts with tons of student debt. I ended up teaching part time in a small junior college, which I loved.

[quote]Sociopaths always fail upwards. It's a mystery as to why. I'm guessing others give them what they want so as to get rid of them. Hence the professional success (the private lives of sociopaths are another story).

Life in a Jewish World.

I work in academics in the sciences. Many of my colleagues are fine but a few are sociopaths. In general, your success does not depend on the success of your colleagues. You are not rewarded for getting along with others or being helpful. So there is no team mentality. There is a lot of backstabbing and frontstabbing.

WTF R145?

R147, please don’t ask that troll to answer you. . Just post “I see the lunatic Datalounge antisemite has weighed in. Let’s ignore him and he will talk to himself for a bit, then go somewhere else.”

He is a tiresome troll and gains steam when people are outraged by him and demanded explanations,etc.

[quote] all those faux classes like women's studies, gay studies

These are now all "gender" studies

[quote]. You are not rewarded for getting along with others or being helpful.

You do not have to get along with anyone. And they can't. That gets you fired in the real world.

[quote]Sociopaths always fail upwards. It's a mystery as to why. I'm guessing others give them what they want so as to get rid of them. Hence the professional success (the private lives of sociopaths are another story).

This is actually true.

You have to pick sides. Or, in these cases, just your side will do.

R151 I should know, my own sister's a sociopath. She's mellowed over the years, but god forbid she shouldn't get what she wants, preferrably over somebody else.

[quote]I'm guessing others give them what they want so as to get rid of them.

This happens in government, too. Another place where you cannot fire the insane and incompetent.

Yes

[quote] As a community of scientists, we contest that defining a person’s sex or gender is “grounded in science” or is “objective.” We affirm that both gender and sex are not determined at birth, not defined by genitals or genetics, and not exclusively binary. Furthermore, the institution of science, particularly the field of genetics, has a long history of being used to justify the infliction of violence on marginalized communities.

Isn't it insane that anyone in any field related to science signed on to that social contagion ignorance?

Meanwhile, the people who actually know something about science are bullied into silence. How long is this going to go on?

I'm at a major west-coast university after spending decades in big tech. The faculty coddling is unreal. Whiny, stubborn and egos detectable from Mars..

And the Dean is just mentally unstable. Lies constantly, blames others for her mistakes, hides money, gossips, pits people against each other, says cruel shit to people, and is the most negative person I've ever encountered.

I used to work in admin at a well-known NYC university. My job brought me into regular contact with professors. I'd say 90% were certifiable in their own special way. I met hoarders, paedophiles, serial cheaters, an actual bigamist, a man who took a sabbatical in order to transition but then changed his mind and just lived in Greece for six months - without his wife and young children. We had one who was going through a divorce and would regularly break down and cry during classes. The PhD candidate who had an extramarital affair with a Hollywood celeb when she was an extra in a film he was shooting near the campus. my favorite was the professor who wanted to lead an exchange trip to France because she could get an abortion there without her husband finding out.

The Dean of the (very prestigious) College where that petition at R155 originated was a physicist herself, married to a (same-sex) biologist; apparently she taught about "micro-aggressions" and "implicit bias" alongside wave mechanics for her Physics 101 classes.

Sad to say, she seems to have been fired from the Dean position for mysterious reasons, but she kept her teaching position. Because physics students need to know how they are being aggressed, or something.

My mother got her PHD in education in the 90s, after years as a teacher in elementary and middle schools. I remember her telling me once she reached the level of Professor of Education that the ability to move up within the academic world had very little to do with her performance in the classroom as an actual teacher, but was weighted far more heavily on her ability to promote herself through published works, and to create a name for herself. She found the whole system frustrating, and hypocritical particularly within the world of professional education. Telling teachers of future teachers that teaching shouldn't be their first priority is more than a little odd.

I wonder how much isn't just the people that are drawn to a life of academia, but how people in academia are sort of coaxed into a strange level of expectation in order to keep attaining greater success.

Education is a whole other thing, r160.

At my university, the graduate school imposed a policy: students had to wait at least nine months after passing their quals before defending their dissertations. This was because in the education department, students were writing their "dissertations" in a couple of months.

I worked for 42 years at one university and retired in 2014. In general I found the male English faculty the most brittle; they were most covetous of respect and deference. The History profs seemed the most "normal". The Psychology folks seemed quirky, i.e. neurotic. The only egregious example of craziness during my tenure was when a female Biology prof. attacked the female Chair of the department with a baseball bat. I confess that I thought the batter was less obnoxious that the battee and had probably been goaded to respond violently. I used to attend departmental meetings and seeing the interaction among members was a revelation. The Maths Dept. members joked and laughed and seemed to be comfortable with each other while there was a real tension in the air with the Biology group. Of course, this is an impression based on my limited experience with a single institution. I found the female faculty less "crazy" in general that the males (the above mentioned example excepted), but again this is specific to a time and place.

Was the biology professor Amy Bishop r162?

No it wasn't.

Our Amy "Boom Boom" Bishop threads were epic.

Those were the days.

That’s DOCTOR Amy Bishop, you bastard!

That’s DOCTOR Amy Bishop, you bastard! Of HARVARD!

One crazy thing about academics is that people become department chairs because they made a name in research or publications, not because they have any social, administrative, or managerial skills. My own chair had zero prior administrative experience before leading a department with over fifty faculty members and a multimillion dollar budget. He is not crazy but very introverted, has no idea how to make others feel valued, and is extremely susceptible to brown nosing because the only people who ever talk to him voluntarily are people who want something from him. He has a tendency to pass off any significant decisions to the staff administrators, who make decisions based on what creates the least work for them. Students/education/faculty are all irrelevant to the staff decision-makers, who try to do the least amount possible with the least amount of expense so they can get a bonus for being under budget.

It’s pretty bad but it’s not a whole lot different at many other places.

For r167

Rhode Island School of Design now offers a course in trans-racialism - 'bout time.

[quote] Transracial Bodies, Transracial Selves

Thanks to the work and lives of transgender people, we now have room to understand our bodies in radically unbounded ways. Technological advances in surgery, hormonal therapy, psychiatry, cultural warfare, are catching up to the transgender presence: the gendered body is not necessarily that with which we were born, but one that can be crafted to match the real body of our psyche, our dreams. However, one's racial self remains tethered to biology. Blackness, Whiteness, Asianness, Latinness, the whole rainbow of racial identification, is still construed as biologically inescapable and inevitable. To speak of "transracialism" is to evoke self-delusion and community betrayal. But this cultural reaction is contrary to the everyday experience that actually finds racial identification as a process that is always transracial: declaring ourselves racially, we all cross restricted zones in becoming ourselves. In this course, we will use the discourse of transgenderism to build an alternate vocabulary of race.

r168 why don't colleges/universities just do what they do in the business world: let the secretary or junior assistant who knows everything run it behind the scenes. That person gets a hefty bonus, or another 'informal' (but legal) quid pro quo. The dept. head or ambitious career Dean will check in once in a while, but the interaction with others, and technical operations are left to the excellent underling.

That way, the King of the Aspies, or Our Lady of Perpetual Cuntiness can withdraw, or just go to fundraisers, or whatever front facing bullshit they want and everyone is happy.

"Dire Learning" could be the title of your book.

Economists are paid whores for the 1% and if they refuse to follow the corporate line, they don't have a career. They are the single worst group in academica.

r173 Isn't all of academia now an access lackey based tool of the 1% ? Seriously.

I also thought biomedical academics would actually be the worse ethically--Big Pharma, people's lives, etc.

r174 I would say academic feminism (which is now "gender studies" - third wave) has done a lot of damage.

The problem in Gender Studies is people with lowish "high" IQs were too dumb to weed out the bullshit, and were rewarded.

r79 quality, not quantity.

WRITE THAT BOOK R158!

Before you forget everything

There are people who want to do the research. There are people who are there because they love to teach. Then, there are people who want the power and status, and they make everyone's' life miserable. However, these types of people can be found in any work setting.

R171, that is exactly how academia works.

For several years I dated a tenured faculty member of a small, but well known, Northereastern college. He was brilliant in that particularly clueless academic way, but ultimately too damaged psychologically to function in a serious relationship with anyone but himself. Through him, I met a number of his colleagues. To a greater or lesser degree, each seemed to need to impress, either through good behavior, or through bad behavior. But they were always "on." Having worked in the theater, it reminded me of being surrounded by actresses, perhaps in the waiting area at an audition. Always "on."

Tenure is, of course, the root of the problem. They can't be weeded out. Except for fucking the students, no bad behavior is prohibited. That's an acceptable trade off, if the professor is actively doing research and publishing. We all benefit from that. To some degree. At least indirectly. The tenure is the insurance for academic freedom which, in turn, paves the way for independent research. But there is no reason to maintain tenured status for professors who teach two classes a semester, serve on one committee, and collect a full time salary for doing an easy part-time job. If a professor wants to maintain tenured status, s/he has got to do more than drop acid on break and go every year to Burning Man. Even for a professor in the Humanities, we all know Burning Man is about the drugs, not the purported 'art.'

Thought I'd share my favorite academia story. At my first position, one of my colleagues had cancer and was receiving chemo (she later made a full recovery). She collapsed in the department office, which doubled as the mailroom. Before anyone could help her, an older asshole (forget which one, there were a lot of them) came in to pick up his mail. He stepped over her, got his mail, and stepped over her again on his way out.

Postmodernism is a cancer.

Aside from the fields which demand right-wing political correctness, usually the fields society needs (economics, STEM, some sciences), academia is a pink collar ghetto. TPTB are fine with humanities in the grip of crazy lefties, as they view it as a ghetto disconnected with the life of society, just as the idyllic campus in a "college town" safely exiles potentially explosive youth from the life of the cities and possible political or labor organizing. Academics are crazy by design, because it helps prevent them from having any real say in society.

Nope, that's too neat R184. Very structural. One could say Althusserian.

The real story is that water-down post-structuralism and deconstruction was clung to, far too long, by mediocre young minds, and a generation and half of scholarship in the USA has been wrecked. Most European departments had shrugged this off by the 90s.

It's a travesty. And a pity because it was good in it's moment.

I'm buying R184.

It's a long road to tenure though. Professors should be excellent researchers and/or be great teachers with a proven record, when tenure is granted. IF someone is shit with students, then they should really have a strong track record with successful research projects and the highest level of peer reviewed science grants and peer reviewed journals, in their fields. This is because a high-level grant has high overhead, and the university can cover the cost of an adjunct professor (lecturer) based on the sums of money a brilliant researcher is bring in.

Ability to teach has nothing to do with tenure. Tenure is all about research.

There are plenty of good and great teachers in academia, but the majority are in non-tenure positions.(Which is not to say that no tenure-track people are good teachers.)

The meritocracy would be fine with the high level of critical thinking and general pleasantness of Liberal Arts grads up until the 90's. There was and is NO demand for the freak show SJWs the colleges are producing now.

[quote] Ability to teach has nothing to do with tenure. Tenure is all about research.

That's not true everywhere. I have a tenured position at a liberal arts college where tenure is based as much on teaching as it is on research.

R185, not one American PhD in 1,000 knows who Jacques Derrida was. That hasn't changed in thirty five years.

But in the humanities, and in particular English and comparative literature departments, r191?

Teaching is a consideration in granting tenure. Somebody has to take the goddamned classes assigned to the newly tenured professor. While that professor is riding that tenure track, class evaluations are being studied carefully. If students complain loudly enough and if they consistently try in large numbers to avoid that teacher's classes, that is definitely enough to keep tenure from being granted in all but the most exceptional research stars.

It's a conservative trope, like all lefties are fans of Saul Alinksy or some stupid shit that was proposed here years ago. Deconstructionism has nothing to do with special snowflakism. Money does. Teachers who are answerable to all students in a very real way is responsible for it.

Check out the guy who's teaching the Trans-Racial course at Rhode Island School of Design mentioned at R170.

He appears to be White/Asian but here's his description of himself:

[quote] I’m a girl who loves red lipstick... oh, sorry...I sometimes forget...I’m a boy who loves red lipstick, a boy who also loves to love boys. But I’m also a Korea-born, Midwest-bred, Virginia-groomed, Bay Area-harvested faggotte who is above all a black feminist.

Right. As if anyone in his or her right mind would submit to be graded by this "Bay Area-harvested faggotte." We can see from the dreary photos above that this professor's judgment is excreable.

r195 is frightening

R193 what law or rule requires class evaluations to be kept? I'm asking b/c I knew someone who refused to give the course evaluations to HR . She stated the were destroyed, so she didn't have any.

R195 that truly is a find.

The rule would be up to the individual school to make and to enforce. The professor should not be involved. Someone from staff should pass out and collect the evaluations. They can be very informative.

r198 I'm not r193 but I would assume that academic depts hold onto the evals for consideration when tenure comes up

I am a professor and I am not allowed to even be present when students do their evaluations.

In the past they did them on a bubble sheet and had one student turn them in to the departmental office. Now they are done on computer.

I have never known a school where professors were able to even see the actual evaluations let alone "lose" them.

And the results of the evaluations are preserved forever online. You can see what percentage of each class in each semester rated me poor, fair, acceptable, good, or excellent on a number of criterion for the last 20 years.

Evaluations are NOT handled by HR. Nor are they in anyway controlled by the professor. We get them and have 4 weeks to react to them and request any comments edited or removed. The dissatisfied student WILL make comments. Fortunately a few satisfied students will, as well. Some semesters I'm too busy to check them. A teacher gets feedback directly from day 1. And can see how every student is doing, more or less, soon enough.

Yeah R201 , R202, R203, and R204 that's why when the individual said none existed for her I was shocked. She said she previously worked for a small university (she did) and they didn't keep evaluations. It was part of her personnel file so yeah there should be some. Her previous employer was unhelpful to say the least. Oh well, I was just curious if there was a law I could have cited , but oh well. The time to have done so has passed. I was asking in the event something like that happens in the future.

R205, you are changing the story a bit. It is now one school asking another for evaluations.

I do not think any employer would give another employer those kind of documents. In some states that would be the basis for a law suit.

And if someone asked an employee for documentation from a previous employer's file, they would be stupid to provide it.

It depends on the universities how professor reviews are handled. In most cases, professors can have access to the student reviews, and figure out who wrote the negative one. I have seen professors go ape shit about a student, even though that student did not write the review. Also, universities give incentives to students to counter negative reviews. The is no integrity or ethics in student feedback, university and professor reviews. Students never have recourse. Accreditation does not deal with this issue. They have no teeth anyways, on the issues they do deal with.

The only way to get at an university and professors is to see if the tenure professors are receiving top tier scientific grants. Also, if thesis and doctoral students are getting the top tier student research grants. Also, it is an thorough review of their IRC process. If you are not a top tier researcher yourself, your are not going to be able to get this data to make informed decisions about Professors and Universities.

Where I was, teaching reviews were maybe 10% of the tenure packet. (There are no real percentages, but that was the gist). Your publications were 50-70%. Peer ratings at the institution and at other institutions was the next big piece. Somewhere in there were conference presentations, committee memberships, students you've mentored (recommendations from them), and positions with journals (among the named editors / peer reviewers).

So, getting along with others counts for less than half of your success. That's not what attracts crazies, but it makes sure they stay in the tower.

R208, the percentages are different at every school. And what you are leaving out is that the value of those publications that make up 50% to 70% of your school is by outside evaluations from peers outside your school whose evaluations are given weight (or denied weight) but people within your institution.

So getting along with others means a bit more than I think you acknowledge. However, the others you need to get along with are often batshit crazy, so that skews things.

Yea, that's why i started my statement with "Where I was"

[quote] And what you are leaving out is that the value of those publications that make up 50% to 70% of your school is by outside evaluations from peers outside your school whose evaluations are given weight (or denied weight) but people within your institution.

I don't understand this post anyway. Punctuation is missing and words are jumbled up. Are you saying "given weight BY people"? Which people? Anonymous peer reviewers or tenure packet reviewers?

Peer reviewers are anonymous, but journal impact factors are not. So, that's what matters.

R211, the tenure packet get sent to people for review. These are usually people within ones field. They are not anonymous--they write and sign evaluations.

These evaluations then become part of the packet to be read by people within one's department, college, and university.

So it is all subjective. Even the evaluations are then judged by people within one's own institution who know little about the field. When a biologist is judging the tenure file of a historian, a big part of their judgement is going to be personal. Even the "objective" evaluation of a historian outside the university is being judged by the biologist.

So ultimately, a good part of the evaluation is about whether they like you, since the various promotion committees are made up of people who do not really understand the file they are reviewing.

^^^^ I am sorry, but I am having trouble stating it clearly. But your 50%-70% publications are being evaluated by people who mostly do not know what those publications mean. So when they decide the value of those publications, they are of necessity basing their judgement on if they like you--or if they like the personality of the person they assume you are from the file (if they have not met you).

The weakness and strength of the tenure system is that it is in no way objective. It is personal.

Oh it's definitely not objective. My only point was that it doesn't weed out horrible people, and specifically horrible teachers at schools that over-prioritize research as mine did.

Said horrible people also know the EXACT asses to kiss, though. Yet another reason they survive and rise.

[quote]When a biologist is judging the tenure file of a historian, a big part of their judgement is going to be personal.

It's not necessarily personal in the sense of a completely subjective personality decision. There are objective standards for academe that cross departments.

Anyway, wouldn't that be mitigated by weighing factors? With a lower weighting under specific criteria, isn't it just a fail safe on whether or not the person is a toxic psycho, or these days sex pest? I don't see anything wrong with cross field colleagues evaluating each other in that circumstance.

The tenure process is part of what makes academics crazy. They are amassing material to fit unspoken criteria. During that time they are also working full-time in the university. So if you have children, you better have an understanding spouse. Do not even think of beginning a relationship, because you will not have time. So while you are at the beginning of a job, creating new classes you are also hustling to develop other new projects that will meet a set of standards that are purposely not articulated.

During this process, your department will be supportive of your outside work because they do not want to do another protracted search. Once you get tenure, they are not supportive of outside work because they got you.

Or, they are not supportive of outside work because you quit doing it once you got your lifetime tenured pass.

That's what bothers me the most. Bona fide researchers need tenure. Academics who have side-lined themselves and now only teach the same goddamned classes every goddamned semester reading from the same outline each time out of the gate, should not enjoy the protection of tenure.

Publish to get tenure. Publish to keep it.

There should be teachers with some research, who are hired to teach.

There should be researchers who are researchers,

And both should be fired sometimes, like everyone else in the real world.

Well, you don't have to fire them if they're doing a great job. I had some university teachers who were fantastic.

r218 sometimes the best researchers make the best teachers, at least in the humanities.

I am DOCTOR AMY BISHOP, hand over that baby chair NOW or I will crush your skull with it!

Then they can teach, R220. People who lack "people skills" should not be teachers or in professions around other people.

R219, I never said that they should fire people who are doing a fantastic job. These are the ones they should keep. And give them a raise!

I actually had ONE university professor who was fantastic. This person was treated badly because of petty politics and left for another university.

Oh, R221 - I totally forgot about the episode! I had to search:

In March 2002, Bishop walked into an International House of Pancakes restaurant in Peabody with her family, asked for a booster seat for one of her children, and learned the last seat had gone to another customer, according to a police report.

Bishop strode to the customer, identified in the report as Michelle Gjika, demanded the seat and, after a profanity-laced rant, punched her in the head while yelling "I am Dr. Amy Bishop.'.

Absolutely! I'm 0 for 3 with with college professors. I am afraid to even drive by a University anymore.

They are mostly screaming Liberals, so yes.

Research and teaching should be separate. Researchers should then consulting with the teaching aspect to develop curriculum. Teaching, under the current model, is always secondary to the research, and the students (who are paying big bucks), are the ones that lose.

There are a lot of talentless, mentally ill people in academia, and I'm not even referring to the faculty.

Yeah, it is very contagious R228 - faculty, admin, libraries, students - the whole bunch!

Avital Ronell wears her particular brand of mental illness on her sleeve.

r227 with the limited budgets, how could you support two streams?

R217, professors do not choose to teach the same class over and over--they are required to, because they are required courses and/or fit into the sequence of the curriculum. You do not get to teach whatever you want.

If you look around the university, there are a lot of us keeping up our professional practice, even though the administration would prefer us to not to. They love it when we get awards and media attention, but do not see the connection between that and the support they provide.

The pressure of maintaining two careers in spite of the opposition makes us crazy.

My husband is of the non-crazy variety, but had a colleague/mentor who was a raging alcoholic, blackout drunk 3/7 nights of the week, every week. My former boss, also a professor, was an unrepentant sociopath.

So let's say 2/3 of academia is probably crazy.

Sorry, R232, but I did not say that professors choose to the same classes over and over again. But they do it. As you correctly point out, It's the job.

But each year, at least be sure to update your notes before you lecture. I've been a student in a class with tenured professors using the same note book and the same notes that had been used for years. That might work if one is teaching the Canterbury Tales. It's a disaster in a more robust and volatile field. But tenure protects crap like that. It exists to protect honest academics. Not lazy ones.

The main difference between academia and the corporate world is that in academia there are no rules for social behavior and so the crazy comes out in an unconstrained way. The people in the corporate world are not better human beings, but they usually know how to fake it better.

Having been in the corporate world and academia, the difference is that in the corporate world, people only care about what works and in academia, they care about how they look. It makes sense since promotion in academia is based on appearances rather than anything quantifiable.

In the corporate world my bosses appreciated that I was able to steer them away from mistakes that would cost money and resources. In academia, my bosses want toadying. They fear criticism and would rather waste resources than have their judgement questioned.

bump

Executive and department secretaries are the ones who run everything. They are the most normal.

Crazy people can hand on longer in academia. In other professions they are weeded out. I worked in private banking and investment banking. The cray cray ratio is high there, as well. In Engineering, you have people on the spectrum, so stubborn, boring, self-referential, but high functioning enough to be professional.

*hang on

r326 That’s why science (as Max Planck said) advances one funeral at a time. I think most advances in science and engineering today are being made in private industry.