tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post1092390734112730574..comments2023-06-11T02:19:27.429-07:00Comments on Academic Cog: What Do Graduate Students Want?Sisyphushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09880634753539329199noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-55548440584011051922008-06-13T08:47:00.000-07:002008-06-13T08:47:00.000-07:00Totally off topic, but I friended you on LJ so you...Totally off topic, but I friended you on LJ so you can follow the moving-and-new-job saga in more gory detail if you want to. Or not, if you don't want to.Fretful Porpentinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11165078003123517013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-24146951952910269602008-06-12T15:48:00.000-07:002008-06-12T15:48:00.000-07:00Yup, I agree with zunguzungu (Hello! by the way) -...Yup, I agree with zunguzungu (Hello! by the way) --- if you count grad student TAs, we might be at 90/10 percentages right now. All those suckers don't have to finish --- just to be persuaded to "take a shot at it" long enough to get in a new crop. Individual TAs flow in and out, but structurally Universities can count on a large and pretty stable supply of teachers who work for almost nothing before they get wise. <BR/><BR/>Humanities grads aren't big on "rational" and "cost-benefit analysis" much anyway.<BR/><BR/>If you want to be really depressed, go to the "applying to grad school" thread on livejournal and watch the undergrads work themselves up into enthusiasm for taking on more risks and debt starting out than I have at the end of the game. I keep wanting to post on it or to comment over there more often, but it's just too depressing.Sisyphushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09880634753539329199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-11240753848924600492008-06-12T14:27:00.000-07:002008-06-12T14:27:00.000-07:00I think it's pretty irrational now, though of cour...I think it's pretty irrational now, though of course some have it better than others. But the fact that most people don't really enter the vise grip until they've already invested a significant handful of years in the enterprise means that it's easier to get in than get out, in a way.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10505845165131255374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-30574801482479461292008-06-12T12:44:00.000-07:002008-06-12T12:44:00.000-07:00Well this is just...cheery. I think at some point ...Well this is just...cheery. <BR/><BR/>I think at some point the process of adjunctification will make it simply irrational to get a PhD. Given the time and money it takes to get one, there's simply no point if there isn't tenure on the other end.Arbitristahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14090122079098885856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-84126556617704154252008-06-12T10:39:00.000-07:002008-06-12T10:39:00.000-07:00I like the way you put it, aligning the tenure-tra...I like the way you put it, aligning the tenure-track position with the "good union job." But it doesn't just have that meaning in Midwest parlance; it's the only bastion of job security and meaningful work that exists in this profession. I think a lot of damage has been done to “labor’s” position in these kinds of fights by our dogged unwillingness to express our desires in terms other than the continuation of the tenure system (why can’t we defend job security, academic freedom, and reasonable pay and benefits without seeming to be mindlessly defending a status quo straw man object? but anyway) But this is why I don't think “tenure” will simply go away in the apocalyptic way Donaghue imagines: without some kind of meaningful carrot, there simply will *be* no one willing to put their life on hold in hopes of getting it. There will be no adjuncts if there is no promise of some phantasmic security to haul them through graduate school, and so some kind of balance has to be struck. Maybe one that is more like the permanent crisis/Goya painting situation we’re in now than not, but honestly, it really can't get much worse. If it did, wouldn't the class of educated and exploited grad students will simply cease to exist? Grad programs will become vocational degrees themselves, for people looking for an MA to get more money teaching high school or, as it was in the good old days that Donaghue remembers so fondly, a degree with a trust fund as its main prerequisite. The UC system has actually indicated that this latter is a direction they're willing to embrace, so that seems not totally an unrealistic expectation.<BR/><BR/>The line that struck me was this one: “For 40 years, students have been moving away from the humanities toward vocationalism.” That’s a nice piece of nonsense. So students have been choosing to alter the entire structure of academia, for no better reason than, um… let me get back to you on that one. And with all the massive power that students have to alter institutional priorities. It reminds me a bit of Deresiewicz horrid column in the Nation a while back, which blamed all the ills of academia on the stupid argument that “the profession's intellectual agenda is being set by teenagers.” Both of these Professor D’s seem incapable of much more than cranky-old-man grousing, but it’s revealing that they both would rather make their *students* into the villains here.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10505845165131255374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-11552872606960111162008-06-12T00:26:00.000-07:002008-06-12T00:26:00.000-07:00What would a world look like with only 10% of the ...What would a world look like with only 10% of the faculty in senior distinguished chairs?<BR/><BR/>Answer: The German university system. That's how it's worked for more than a century. The end result is that even the distinguished chairs lose their prestige and remuneration, which is what is happening now.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com