There has been a huge kerfuffle at Sydney University. The VC decided to get rid of under-performers – defined as those who hadn’t published four papers between 2009 and 2011. It seems the process was bungled but the principle is appropriate. Employees who don’t perform should be let go. It becomes a case of defining what is ‘performance’ and, to be fair, that does vary across academic discipline.
This is how Stephen Matchett described events at the very beginning of the kerfuffle.
Actually there were a couple of things that were, well un-academic. One was the bracing frankness of the vice-chancellor’s announcement. “We can no longer carry members of the University who are not pulling their weight: it is simply too expensive to do so,” he said. In case anybody missed it (unless it was to let supposed slackers know he is really on to them) he said it again, “we need to consider the position of that small minority of academics who do not contribute significantly either to our research or teaching.”
So what is important? Research and teaching.
Then we have Matchett writing yesterday.
Even worse, what the Common Room suspects was Dr Spence’s original objective is long lost in the fog of war. When the process started the Common Room suggested the cuts were more about encouraging the university’s research culture than actually making minor reductions to staff numbers. But now Dr Spence’s opponents are presenting themselves as defenders of scholarship.
Indeed. The opponents have managed to present themselves as defenders of scholarship. See this thread over at Core Economics – notice also our former friend hc fighting the good fight. It seems to me, however, that if all Sydney Uni management wanted to do was change the incentive structure, they might have succeeded (scroll down at the Core Economics thread – comment at May 23rd, 2012 6:29 pm).
I’ll tell you what I think will be the short-to-medium term outcome — well, two. Firstly, academics will cut back on any tasks that appear remotely discretionary. That is, they will aim to do the minimum teaching that they can get away with, and to do as little admin as possible. Deans who seek staff to sit on committees, chair working parties, do grunt work of one sort or another of a “public good” nature will find that “volunteerism” has dried up. I heard of one group that would take a day or two as a unit to do “mentoring” stuff with their grad students is now abandoning that practice. It’s not rewarded, and it takes time, so why do it?
Secondly, there will be an increase in quantity of publications, and a reduction in average quality. A representative academic will now be likely to look for lightly edited books to publish in compared to a demanding peer-reviewed journal. And some of those new journals that promise two week turnarounds in their reviewing proceses suddenly start to look less dodgy and more appealing.
The first consequence is good. The University has signalled that all the make-work activity that people engage in to get out of doing research and/or teaching is simply not valuable if you’re an academic staff member. Most Australian universities have more administrative staff than academic staff, so the administrators should administer, not the academics.
I am not convinced on the second point. Certainly it is true those individuals who take a leisurely approach to writing will have to lift their game. But many who publish nothing will have to publish something. Those senior academics who tell their staff that “nothing” is better than a B publication have had that view strongly repudiated by management. Good. People who play the ‘quality’ card like to think that all academics are going to be in the top five percent of academia (yes – their maths is that bad) but that is just silly.
All up, however, I suspect we’re going to see more of this sort of thing than less.
Isn’t the problem being refused publication, rather than not producing a piece of writing. There’s all sorts of ways of excluding people or unpopular or controversial views from publication, but yeah, more blah means more blah magazines and journals, spose it creates work for publishers.
coz
7 Jun 12 at 10:18 am
I agree wholeheartedly with HC.
The rot set in with the last round of DEST points.
Every university I know, faculty and whole of body, went bananas in trying to stick to this stupid system.
The problem too is unis cannot pay what they need to. They HAVE to pay an auditor teaching auditing, or a barrister teaching law, the same as a somewhat qualified lecturer of soft social sciences. Is it any wonder doctors largely teach as adjuncts, and mainly for their own prestige, rather than the direct university salary?
Clearly they ain’t gonna get the best and brightest.
.
7 Jun 12 at 10:25 am
Dot
All the problems you and hc raise sound like the problems inherent to government delivery/central planning. The only long term solution to them is to privatise. Otherwise, suck it up.
johno
7 Jun 12 at 11:11 am
I agree.
University staff would be much better off without DEST.
The only way to do this is to privatise.
Many of the smaller unis could do this fairly easily and see fees stay the same under a deferred structure.
The real problem then is how the licence to run a uni or a course is held under “Ministerial minute” (i.e State level executive orders).
.
7 Jun 12 at 11:21 am
do academics get fired for being bad teachers?
Jim Rose
7 Jun 12 at 12:30 pm
I have seen very, VERY, VERY bad teachers sacked.
Sinclair Davidson
7 Jun 12 at 12:35 pm
Yes, what the world needs is more B publications by reciprocal favours between academic friends…and then more oversees trips to present while students learn from on-line slides.
Sinclair keeps referring to “doing research and/or teaching“, but the edict only spoke of publications as a measure of performance, to the exclusion of teaching. Have I missed something?
MichaelC58
7 Jun 12 at 12:37 pm
Teaching? That’s when you recycle last year’s Lectopia recordings, isn’t it?
benson
7 Jun 12 at 12:42 pm
Evidence?
Evidence?
I have to say the overwhelming bulk of my os travelling has been to teach on university programs.
Yes – the Sydney VC speaks of “that small minority of academics who do not contribute significantly either to our research or teaching.”
Sinclair Davidson
7 Jun 12 at 12:42 pm
Bolt asked a good question a while back.
Sinc presumably spends a lot of time running this blog, and without wanting to suck up too much, it’s a fantastic resource for public debate, free from the usual leftist-impsoed censorship.
I’d go so far as to say that, since the Bolt vs. White Nine decision and News Ltd’s somewhat gutless reponse to it, the Cat taken over from Bolt in that regard. Bolt’s practically said as much.
So anyway, the question was – does this blog count as one of Sinc’s four publications, even if its not ‘peer reviewed’?
papachango
7 Jun 12 at 1:16 pm
No . It doesn’t count and it shouldn’t either.
Sinclair Davidson
7 Jun 12 at 1:24 pm
Clearly the random rants/musings of JC, dot, Infidel Tiger et al aren’t rigourous academic research. Not to mention the leftist trolling from m0nty, SfB et al.
But for those us that are not day-to-day in the ivory tower of academia, a blog like the cat is more accessible, and more useful than some dry academic paper full of jargon. ’tis not really academic work, but a useful public service
papachango
7 Jun 12 at 1:44 pm
Lol – you are an ‘umble bipad!
Rabz
7 Jun 12 at 1:58 pm
What exactly does count as A grade academic work and who gets to chose? Please don’t tell me it’s reviewed by those that only produce the B grade stuff.
Simon
7 Jun 12 at 2:26 pm
Whoops choose.
Simon
7 Jun 12 at 2:26 pm
Some journals are obviously A or A* grade others are not, so in general …
Sinclair Davidson
7 Jun 12 at 2:44 pm
The Crisis of the University of Sydney
CB on May 7th, 2012 10:18 pm
Apt
dan
7 Jun 12 at 3:13 pm
It is rather amusing that career academics are threatening to stop doing minor chores around the place to make more time for their research. If they are serious their minds should be consciously or subconsciously working on their research 24/7.
Poor Old Rafe
7 Jun 12 at 3:21 pm
Are scientists being culled in this process? When I was doing my cutting edge work I felt sorry for people working on field crops because they only got one research cycle per annum and if there was a drought or cows broke into their trials they could lose a year of data. In contrast I could turn experiments over in a few days.
Poor Old Rafe
7 Jun 12 at 3:27 pm
Sinclair, how bad was bad? drink? drugs? sleaze? violence? theft?
Jim Rose
7 Jun 12 at 3:38 pm
Rafe,
What do you think of Peter Andrews and his “lateral water movement”?
.
7 Jun 12 at 3:40 pm
Not those things.
Bad teaching. Evidenced by years of student complaints.
Sinclair Davidson
7 Jun 12 at 3:41 pm
Eh, so academics are going to be ‘encouraged’ to publish more. They should take a leaf out of the climate scientists who produce recycled drivel with a multitude of co-authors published in magazines owned [in the rap sense] by the climate establishment.
cohenite
7 Jun 12 at 3:48 pm
will publish or be fired improve teaching quality? increase data mining and publication bias?
requiring publications ensures that academics are up to date with their literatures
Jim Rose
7 Jun 12 at 6:40 pm
How do you solve what is being taught not being up to speed?
.
7 Jun 12 at 6:41 pm
Ive seen very very few bad teachers in unis even reprimanded.
The student is the LCD (lowest common denominator).
Alice
7 Jun 12 at 8:19 pm
=
says
‘How do you solve what is being taught not being up to speed?”
The answer is you dont. I have been teaching for years in unis.
This semester Ive yelled from the head of school to the Dean about materials not being up to speed and the academics being unconcerned and the students pulling their hair out and me in a state of complete disgust.
I yelled because I dont want to teach this subject again unless they get their act together.
Nothing will happen.
There are some academics who think a major undergrad course runs itself if you throw the book up online and ignore student emails I have discovered.
Alice
7 Jun 12 at 8:27 pm
One of my lecturers was actually insane but had tenure (was a basic computer animation/programming subject so a ‘technical’ skills course), the best they could do was force her to make a statement at the beginning of class term to the effect that she had a dx, due to the sheer number of complaints. She wasn’t insane in a nice way, just a nasty psycho.
coz
7 Jun 12 at 9:42 pm
What a shitfight, Alice!
.
8 Jun 12 at 12:01 am
‘Materials not being up to speed’… So much for independent learning. Who said undergraduate isn’t the new secondary school?
Toxic
8 Jun 12 at 12:23 am
Tullock, I think, told a story about a tax lecturer who was arrested for tax fraud.
his department did not know what to do about his remaining classes because of academic freedom.
the problem solved itself. he did not make bail.
Jim Rose
8 Jun 12 at 1:22 pm
My evidence for academic rorting of the system is purely personal observation, from departments in two major universities and my own much earlier 3 year research career (not economics).
A minority of dedicated hard working academics and teachers seems to be carrying a large number of mere passengers playing the game.
Of course, measuring professional output is not easy – be it for academics, teachers or doctors. All attempts at it seem to pervert the process being measured – a kind of Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
I guess, publications and student assessments are a start.
MichaelC58
9 Jun 12 at 12:09 am
are four publications every two years a lot?
will it lead to more data mining?
would coase and alchian have kept their jobs?
Jim Rose
12 Jun 12 at 2:59 pm