Higher Education |
The American University Higher education in America and Europe is labeled “academic.”
This Greek word is derived from the residence of the ancient philosopher (lover
of wisdom) Plato (427-347 BCE) who lived in a house once belonging to a citizen
named Akademos. Now the words academy and academic refer to so-called higher
education. Until recently, American colleges and universities enrolled about 16
million students. These students were called college students, as most
institutions of higher learning conferred so called bachelor’s degrees to
those who had completed four years of study. Universities were, until last year,
those institutions which included a school of law, a school of medicine,
graduate schools which confer doctoral degrees, and such schools as
architecture, engineering, etc. Now,
the distinction between colleges and universities has been abolished, as any
four year college can call itself a university even if there is no graduate
school of any kind. Outsiders who are not members of a college faculty are told by our
media that these institutions function like business and industrial
establishments in that there is a hierarchy of bosses including a college
president, vice presidents, deans, associate deans, department chairs, and, on
the bottom, professors, who appear to be the coolies of the institution. The facts are quite different. The administrators of universities
and colleges are in reality the failures within the profession. Most college
presidents are politicians who seek power or at least the appearance of power
and a large paycheck. Yet scholarly research and publication is the very heart
of the academic profession, and therefore administrators who deal with such
lofty issues as parking spaces and leaking roofs are hardly equals to those who
produce books and scholarly journals. Who was president of the University of
Pittsburgh when Professor Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for poliomyelitis? College and university presidents are generally politicians who know how to influence the board of trustees at any college to make them president. College presidents are expected to raise money from alumni and others. Presidents of colleges and universities do not appoint the faculty. Faculty are appointed by professors who are already members of a department. Anyone seeking an academic appointment must submit his credentials to the department in which he seeks to function. The members of the department review the credentials and usually also require an interview. The department members then vote which applicant they wish to appoint. The candidate’s name is then sent to the dean, the vice president, and the president, all of whom have no choice but to appoint the candidate selected by the members of the department. Only if one of these administrators has information not known to the department can an administrator hold up a faculty appointment. It is also important that administrators hold their positions only
at the pleasure of the faculty. Indeed, the president is appointed by the
trustees. However, if the faculty finds the president inadequate for any reason,
the trustees must let him go. The deans who head various disciplines in a
university are appointed by a majority vote of the faculty. The dean is usually
elected for three years and is then evaluated by the faculty at the end of that
time if he seeks to keep his job. A dean who loses the vote of the faculty must
leave. The faculty appoints its own members and the dean. Even the president
cannot long remain in his position if his performance does not please the
faculty. Department chairs are elected by members of the department. The
chair may serve three years and then needs to be reelected. The chair rotates
among the department members, although many departments re-elect
the chair for years because nobody else wants the job. The problem faced
by the chair is that he cannot find time to publish books and journal articles
and therefore may never become a professor. Of course, there are those who want
to be chair because they cannot write, cannot teach, cannot research or conduct
experiments, and therefore cannot do anything worthwhile except the routine
measures required of a chair. Chairmen have no authority and serve at the
pleasure of the department members. What is true of new hirings is also true of promotion. New faculty
members are usually appointed for one to two years.
However, an assistant professor may remain in that rank only seven years.
At the end of six years the department members review the performance of the
assistant professor. This means that the candidate for promotion to associate
professor must have published to be considered for associate professor, which
includes life tenure. Assistant professors whose publication record is poor are
not promoted and are let go at the end of seven years. Those who are promoted
are given a substantial increase in pay and may “rest on their laurels” for
a lifetime. That leaves the rank of professor as the most important attainment
of any academic. The rank of professor is again in the hands of the department
members, who vote whether an associate professor should be promoted to more pay
and more prestige. Professors should have published one or more books and a
large number of journal articles or some other combination. Some professors
write incessantly and produce thirty books and numerous journal articles. Some
are truly writing machines while others do nothing because they have tenure and
need not work anymore. Indeed, some professors are ‘pensioners of the
state.” These associate and “full” professors take advantage of tenure but
cannot be removed. It is therefore
understandable that there are many who want to enter
the academic profession, as they seek a lifetime appointment without
needing to work. Yet, tenure cannot be abolished, because those who write a lot
would lose their jobs as soon as some politician did not like what a professor
wrote. Because research and publication are featured as the most important
means of advancing to tenure and eventually to the rank of professor, there are
in the academic profession numerous participants who dislike teaching and who
are absolutely terrified at the prospect of having to write journal articles and
books. These “hangers on” cannot think of a topic they would
like to study and write about. Even those who do make a weak effort to
write something cannot tolerate rejection by publishers and do not try again.
Facing the possibility of losing their job after seven years, these non-scholars
seek refuge in becoming an administrator. This is also true of some who have
achieve tenure but hate to make the effort of writing one or more books in order
to attain promotion to the professor
rank. Desperate to be an administrator, these sycophants (fig showers)
run to every meeting at which established administrators are present.
They beg for an administrative job of any kind, thereby relieving themselves of
the need to write while simultaneously telling their family and friends that
they have been “promoted” to assistant provost or associate dean or
assistant to the president, etc. Now
the truth is that these administrators do not need any college education, let
alone a doctorate, to sit in meetings all day discussing such weighty issues
as parking, fixing a leaking roof in a building, hearing complaints about
“unfair exams,” interfering with the campus police,
and allocating some money to the library for new books. Any high school
graduate can sit in meetings all day and do the non-work of these
administrators. Relieved of the need to write and publish, administrators
develop what the Germans call “Grossenwahn,” or “delusions of grandeur.”
This need to exhibit oneself is particularly visible among college and
university presidents who surround themselves with speechwriters, numerous
secretaries, assistants or vice presidents, and all others whose political
acumen drives them on and on. These politicians earn a lot of money which could
be spent on allowing poor students to gain scholarships which pay their tuition.
But “Grossenwahn” comes first, as can easily be seen by observing our
“public servants” or elected officials whose sole achievements are that they
know how to attribute to themselves the achievements of others. Many years ago, Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers,
observed that Harvard University produces mostly arrogant fools who can’t do
much more than brag. Undoubtedly there are professors at Harvard who have
contributed much to science and the humanities. In some prestigious universities
we also find numerous self-aggrandizers, such as the former president of Harvard
who had his secretary tell a visitor that “the president is in Washington so
speak to Mr. Roosevelt.” All of these menageries cost money. Most of the cost goes to
salaries, which are uneven, depending on the location of the college under
consideration. Therefore California appears to pay more than any other state to
its faculty. There the average professor earns $124,420 and in New York the
average professor earns $112,960. In Texas, the average professor earns $70,270,
in New Jersey, $93,460, and in Pennsylvania $93,490. The pay of California
faculty is the least because the cost of living in California is far above that
of all other states except New York or, more specifically, New York City.
Someone who earns upward of $112,000 in Buffalo is far better off than someone
who earns that in Manhattan. Currently, in 2022, there are very few academic job openings
available to new Ph.D.’s. This is in part due to the decline in the number of
students, but also because the members of the public have recognized that their
daughters or sons are better off learning computer science or plumbing instead
of hearing a Phidiot (an idiot with a Ph.D.) rant about Chinese hieroglyphics or
his latest divorce. Shalom u'vracha. Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including The American Jewish Community in the 20th and 21st Century (2021). |