Thursday, January 15, 2015

SO very sad: when a once-respected colleague goes bad



It is SO sad whenever a once-esteemed colleague drinks the Kool-Aid, and their once fine mind becomes invaded by an alien presence. My department is on the verge of mutiny to demand that our current Chair either step down or walk the plank---and frankly, making him walk the plank at the end of a sharp object would be much more fun---and the semester has only just started. He's always had a knack of making a good first impression, but he's a lazy tenure-abuser whose research dried up years ago and who's trying to stick us remaining productive faculty with his job of writing our department review, now 3 years late, not that any of the administrators who are bellowing for it will ever read the stupid thing.

His case is bad, but come to think of it, he probably never truly did deserve the degree of respect we gave him: he just had a talent for looking good. MUCH more painful is when a colleague who once had genuine merit starts advocating sitting in a circle, holding hands, and singing "Kumbaya" as a method of teaching inorganic chemistry. AND NSF IS PAYING FOR IT.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to HURL. I know that it's possible to hurl for much longer than after when one thinks one is finished. When I do get done, though, I am going to be more determined to write that grant proposal for ACTUAL research.

P.S. Like my new graphic? I drew it myself! I know, it still needs a plastic pocket protector, and some bloodstains, of course.

14 comments:

  1. You need Bubbles the Chimp in a space helmet, perched on your shoulder.

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    1. But hosting a popular game show pays a -whole- lot better than academia. Every time I mention it to him, he fluffs up the lapels on his sparkly gold jacket and grins, as if to say, "Not a chance..."

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  2. Eighteen electron rule, Kumbaya
    d orbital bonding, Kumbaya
    cis and trans ligands, Kumbaya
    Oh, Huheey, Kumbaya

    I don't know, Frod. I think your colleague might be on to something.

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    1. I agree that subjects such as philosophy and literature can be taught well Socratically, provided the students want to learn the material and keep up with their reading. Very few of my students are like that, though, and it also helps not to get them in classes of 100. Even for good students, though, nature is sufficiently rich that learning about it is necessarily a monologue lasting for many years before one can begin to approach it on one's own terms.

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    2. I never meant to pick on Hiram, F&T, or anyone else who teaches Socratically, by the way. I'm just jealous that their students are so much better than mine. Now THAT's a scary thought!

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    3. Yeah, and none of them got higher than a C in chemistry!

      MUAA-HAA-HAAA!!!

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  3. I think departments generally get the Chairs they deserve. At my place periodically (five years) we have a vote to pick our next "leader"; maybe between two internal candidates, or among three external finalists. What happens is that the more powerful ones--those with stronger research records and research priorities, perceived enthusiasm or new ideas--are invariably voted down, in favor of the mediocre asskisser. The faculty generally want to be left alone in a sleepy backwater where nothing happens, and that's certainly easier when the candidate's perceived intellectual or leadership power is about at the average of the current senior faculty; never above it, absolutely not.

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    1. My department is too small for that, having only 9 tenured faculty. We go solely by seniority, although we have exempted cases too irresponsible and senile even to serve as Chair, often at the expense of the research programs and sanity of younger strivers who at least don't drool. So OK, I suppose we do get the Chairs we deserve.

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    2. I know, that sounded bad, sorry. What I meant was, generally departments get the Chairs they want (and in those cases their choices say a lot about the department). But I guess if you are on a rotating system, you don't have that choice.

      Those `self-study' documents are a giant waste of time. We're going through this process too, but luckily our Head understands that is entirely his job. And no Kumbaya for us; we're all too jaded for that, so no Head would be foolish enough to try.

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  4. Not sure what to do about the chair (or the other guy, other than, yes, get a bigger grant than his, since apparently that's how one one-ups another academic these days), but if no one's going to read it anyway, I'd be very tempted to volunteer to lead the department review committee in return for relief from all other service, recruit a few of your closest, most productive department friends to help, then pull up the last department review, change any necessary dates (and perhaps a prominent word or two), call the job done (but don't turn the thing in until absolutely necessary), and devote future meetings to writing/workshopping grant proposals. I'm all for occasional, meaningful self-assessment/reflection, but if an exercise has devolved into box-checking/hoop-jumping, then it deserves the absolute minimum attention you can manage to give it. And I'm pretty sure that the proliferation of such reports (and the need to maintain staff who request, produce, and/or process them) is one of the major answers to "why is college so expensive when so many of the actual classes are being taught by adjuncts?"

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    1. Again, the next time it comes around, I will have to fight hard not to just make stuff up. It's a crime to knowingly furnish false information on documents for our glorious workers' state, though, so I may just plant Easter eggs, for example bury in a long paragraph: "To whomever is reading this: Why bother? You certainly won't take any action of any kind, aside from enlarging an already bloated and overpaid administration."

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    2. It will be returned to you with the 'm' in 'whomever' red-inked, but without a comment on the question itself. However, you'll have your answer.

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  5. I think the self-studies can be useful. Writing a lengthy document about the self-study, not so much.

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