Yes, good questions, good points, and a big topic. Don't get me started on the take-over of higher education by highly-paid administrators, the edifice complex, the chasing after money, and the increasing reliance on low-paid adjunct faculty with no benefits who are dependent on high ratings from students to stay employed. Many of my aca…
Yes, good questions, good points, and a big topic. Don't get me started on the take-over of higher education by highly-paid administrators, the edifice complex, the chasing after money, and the increasing reliance on low-paid adjunct faculty with no benefits who are dependent on high ratings from students to stay employed. Many of my academic colleagues have retired early because the administrators have no education experience and are making their institutions into corporate degree factories, with pressure to 'dispense' good grades to the consumer (aka student). The question of whether they deserve to survive is, I would agree, a valid one.
That said, there are still many academics (and scientists) who strive to be good educators and care deeply about their research --many of whom have been involved in proving just how bad the covid clot shots are -- so let's not throw Harvard and other 'babies' out with the bathwater. Maybe with a different system of incentives, we can turn the sector around. Happy to hear more thoughts on this.
I agree with virtually everything you say, and I was happy to read that some scientists were able conduct research the outcome of which was not preordained by Big Pharma and the public health bureaucracy. But I have my doubts about whether our existing institutions can be saved, given the extent of the corruption. Is anyone in this community involved with the new University of Austin?
Oh they are beholden to some entity who is paying for the research. Defense, biotech, Dept. of Energy... In hard sciences there is often a curtain drawn between researcher and their client. For example, you are given tasks/experiments to formulate and do them without knowing they purpose. Medical research isn't often (as we know) given such freedoms to pursue truth or undiscovered reality. And I will add scientific researchers at uni's are most often conservative.
That's indeed the nut of it. If you don't understand your job and objectives, grants dry right up. Universities created this mess as we all do when we get addicted to sucking at the tit.
Yes, good questions, good points, and a big topic. Don't get me started on the take-over of higher education by highly-paid administrators, the edifice complex, the chasing after money, and the increasing reliance on low-paid adjunct faculty with no benefits who are dependent on high ratings from students to stay employed. Many of my academic colleagues have retired early because the administrators have no education experience and are making their institutions into corporate degree factories, with pressure to 'dispense' good grades to the consumer (aka student). The question of whether they deserve to survive is, I would agree, a valid one.
That said, there are still many academics (and scientists) who strive to be good educators and care deeply about their research --many of whom have been involved in proving just how bad the covid clot shots are -- so let's not throw Harvard and other 'babies' out with the bathwater. Maybe with a different system of incentives, we can turn the sector around. Happy to hear more thoughts on this.
I agree with virtually everything you say, and I was happy to read that some scientists were able conduct research the outcome of which was not preordained by Big Pharma and the public health bureaucracy. But I have my doubts about whether our existing institutions can be saved, given the extent of the corruption. Is anyone in this community involved with the new University of Austin?
Oh they are beholden to some entity who is paying for the research. Defense, biotech, Dept. of Energy... In hard sciences there is often a curtain drawn between researcher and their client. For example, you are given tasks/experiments to formulate and do them without knowing they purpose. Medical research isn't often (as we know) given such freedoms to pursue truth or undiscovered reality. And I will add scientific researchers at uni's are most often conservative.
I think the key is who or what funds the research. If certain research isn't funded, it doesn't happen.
That's indeed the nut of it. If you don't understand your job and objectives, grants dry right up. Universities created this mess as we all do when we get addicted to sucking at the tit.
That research isn't going to happen if it isn't the 'right' research.
You thinking about go out there?
Later Jay