Posted on 02/16/2005 11:02:25 PM PST by FairOpinion
My classmates and I would like to know his secret so we can get tenure w/o a review as well. I mean, why waste 6 years writing and teaching after getting our PhDs, when we can just waltz in somewhere and get tenure?
Phony Indian, Phony Professor, Phony American.
I am in academics. A chairman of a department would necessarily have a Ph.D. from a major school, most likely one noted in that field where he teaches, ethics in this case.
Most universities expect a Ph.D. among all their instructors, even at the lower levels. This buffoon seems to have no serious training except some at an experimental college which did not keep its wacky program going, from what I read.
Tenured professors are often lazy because they have a lifetime annuity. Many teach from the same notes, decade after decade. Tenure is a joke and should be abolished. That would reduce the incredible overhead at schools.
In technology it was easy to teach upper level courses a few years ago. Now enrollments are down in one school and all the tenured professors have to teach the introductory, required survey courses. That department looks very hang-dog now. Still they get about $60k for teaching 15 hours per week, about 8 months a year. They can do other work on the side, but they must attend boring faculty meetings.
ROTFLMAO!
I've been telling my children for years "YOU are Native Americans - THEY are American Indians."
As it seems to fit well in this thread, here is a back and forth I had in a prior thread on Churchill. I'm the one who retired from UIC:
My question is how did a man who has an M.A., but no Ph.D., a) be hired to a professorship at a major public university, and b) rise to be Department Head? I just retired from UIC (U. of IL at Chicago) and I can assure you, we did not interview nor hire in our Department (as with all the Departments throughout the University) anyone who did not have a Ph.D. to a professorship. It is a prerequisite to having a faculty position on campus. There are other rules for lecturers/instructors (only an M.A or M.S. needed), but for tenure track professors, a Ph.D. was a must have.
Reply by someone else:
"One doesn't always need a PhD to be hired or promoted at universities; a "terminal" degree is necessary. This is often a PhD, but can be other degrees."
Reply by me again:
That sure wasn't hiring policy at UIC, and I was intimately involved in the hiring process as I was the Assistant to the Head in our Dept. Whatever you are talking about (a "terminal" degree) doesn't allow for hiring of TT/T faculty at any of the large public universities that I know about, and I interfaced with many other universities when dealing with promotion matters and hiring of faculty. Our policy was and still is that you must be a Ph.D. to be hired in a tenure track/tenured position. Can think of no exceptions on our University campus. (Now back in the olden days that may have been done upon occasion, and a few leftovers from those days probably still teach at professorship level, but you could probably count them on one hand.) Frankly, I think it's an artificial rule. I think there are those out in industry whose vast experience should allow for them to teach at University level, and be given the title of "Adjunct" professor, or some such thing.
As to your comments about the Head not necessarily being the most credentialed or qualified person in the Department, I totally agree with you. Usually it is someone who is somewhat administratively skilled, such as having been a Director of Grad Studies before, or an acting head, or in someway administratively savvy, as it should be. However, think Ward Churchill now, do you think, with his attitude, phony publishing record, anti-authority mentality, and political advocacy, that he was a good Department Head? And once again, I can't imagine giving a Headship to a person without a Ph.D. It just isn't done. Not in normal universities, but then again U. of Colorado is a totally PC university, so anything can probably happen there. Just wouldn't want to send any children to such a university, unless it was for a degree in the hard sciences or medicine, which are less steeped in political activism.
I agree. While the dept Chair doesn't have to be the brightest bulb in bunch, I do expect that person to have a PhD.
I am on the west coast and had been looking at schools/nice towns in the west for possible positions. Boulder was on that list, but no more. I can understand the Ethnic Studies dept being PC, but if the whole university is as PC as you say, it's not the place for me. It's hard enough to live with the normal amount of idiotic leftness that you find on most campuses, I don't need to go someplace where people like Churchill are hired, promoted, and revered.
btw - one of my classmates worked at UIC before starting her doctorate. Small world, eh?
Interesting post, and very well articulated response on your part. Nice to know someone in the education field still has a bit of intelligence, but then again, you said you are retired (sigh).
bttt
Because of Churchill, some "real" Indian (whatever the hell that means) didn't get a job for which he was qualified academically.
Statement by Dean Charles Middleton, Nov. 29, 1994; the same date, Dean Middleton formally approved a request by Churchill's home department to "clear him of these scurrilous charges."
Correct rhetoric = fast track to tenure.
This is the beginning of the attempt by the administration of the University of Colorado/Boulder to distance itself from Middleton. Considering the idiotic way they have tolerated Middletons antics in the past, they think they can begin to "handle" the greatest scandal yet to come.
Dean Charles Middleton covered-up the desecration of over 600 skeletal remains in the Department of Anthropology/Boulder.
The university is bound to present a marketplace of ideas, a forum for free discussion. A) they've taken it upon themselves to lock the doors to conservatives. Thus some might well say, if that were all - hang tenure! I might agree. But B) those few who are conservative, or become increasingly so, are PROTECTED by the system of tenure. A local university, named Stanford (very much underrated, now, given all they've done in the research and post-grad area over the last decade in a host of departments) boasts something called the Hoover Institution. I believe tenure is necessary. But I do not believe that a host of formerly responsible but now irresponsible colleges - are necessary.
ping
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