Reading the comments here, it seems that even very prestigious universities are full of academic pettiness and dysfunction which deny all of us the output of brilliant people like Katalin Karikó.
It leaves me wondering: why do we not create any new universities? Why doesn't a Carnegie of our age create a new university? Brin University? Zuck University? This seems like a no brainer.
I think it might seem difficult to attract new talent to an "unestablished" university. But what if you make a simple promise: we will never, ever get in your way, the way that universities do today. We will never pressure you to publish subpar results. We will never nit-pick your purchase of a laptop. Have vision! Pursue things that are promising to you! We trust you, smart person, and we will give you autonomy to do what you think is promising. Based on what is discussed here, it seems like that would be extraordinarily compelling to the most optimistic, least cynical, and probably at least a handful of the most brilliant researchers out there. If the winning move is not to play the game, don't play.
I don't know. It just seems like there is a narrow-mindedness at play. A sense that "why try to fix this -- we'll never beat UPenn. Maybe not, but isn't it worth a try, based on how dysfunctional academia is? All it takes is the will.
Look into the difficulties faced by the University of Austin [1] (not the University of Texas at Austin).
This is a project which explicitly seems to be pushing back against the current toxic academic environment, yet a major issue they are encountering seems to be degree accreditation. To get "recognized" these days, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) [2] will need to agree that your school teaches things correctly. Of course, the AAUP is responsible for the current toxic academic environment, so it's a catch-22.
Zuck University almost certainly will be fully aligned with the AAUP.
Do you think a university defined from the jump as a left-wing institution would face similar difficulties?
One of the founding tenets of U of Austin is noted as being declared that they would not factor race, gender, or class into admissions because they "stand(s) firmly against that sort of discrimination". I’m amused, but not surprised, that in the minds of some that’s a conservative idea.
I think any institution founded for a political agenda (vs. an educational one) would likely be seen as a boondoggle, yes. And I think that's the correct viewpoint.
Cancel culture is just a term for "if you say something terrible, there may be consequences." Being opposed to consequences for saying or doing terrible things is, apparently, a key tenet of the American right.
When someone uses the term "anti-woke," what they are signaling is an opposition to things like fairness, awareness of systemic racism and sexism, and the ability of LGBTQ folks to live openly without fear. As with the prior paragraph, though, opposition to these things is a key position of the American Republican party.
The Q.E.D. really seals the deal for me. I don’t know anyone outside of high school who still writes online like that. To be honest though, it’s a pretty good indicator, along with the immediate onslaught of *isms, that your perspectives are sufficiently crystallized that no amount of discussion here will change your views. This kind of energy does exceptionally well on reddit, are you familiar?
Funny you should mention "systemic sexism" when 60% of college students are women. If there's systemic sexism in the academic environment, it's against boys and young men.
Curious take. When it's noted that 90% of people in tech are men, it's often said that it just isn't in women's nature to pursue work in tech; or perhaps they just don't like taking the risks that men do. Is it not in men's nature to pursue education, or is it merely not risky enough?
And supposing that 60/40 split is evidence of systemic sexism towards men, what do you make of the 40/60 split in the opposite direction when you look at tenured professors?
> what do you make of the 40/60 split in the opposite direction when you look at tenured professors?
A legacy of systemic sexism from the time when those tenured professors were in school.
The split is 50/50 among all professors.
> Is it not in men's nature to pursue education
School is a poor fit for boys' nature (to the point that boys' nature is defined as a disease to be medicated). Perhaps it's time to consider that the system is poorly designed, and expecting children to sit still for hours at a time is unwise.
Unless the organization is fundamentally structured with difference incentives, I'm not sure it'll achieve a different outcome.
It's a hard but necessary challenge to prioritize research, which requires that every research group advocate the utility of their work and be evaluated in comparison with others.
I agree, the funding model would have to be different.
I think there may actually some schools that already do it, but you don’t hear about them much because the research-funded model ultimately drives prestige. A school that just provides a really great education is simply less likely to be famous.
Well, no, I'm not talking about education. I'm talking about research.
I'm saying, can we create a research university that would displace Harvard, MIT, etc. by allowing our brightest researchers to actually do fundamental research instead of churn out incremental grants? Even the smartest people (who are, without a doubt, at MIT and such places) seem to have a hard time just actually pursuing research. Especially research that is not legible to the byzantine bureaucracy of Academia (tm). Increasingly it seems that it's despite these institutions that good research gets done, not because of them.
Teaching is another matter as well and is certainly related. The most learning I ever did was at community college. I'd really like to know why we keep tolerating a system of research and teaching in which researchers can't research and teachers cannot teach.
That's been done dozens of times, we just call them corporate labs instead of universities. And it works fine. There's no reason to care about the university as an institutional form, they just suck in so many ways that are all resolved by proper companies.
Yes, there are many different purposes of a modern university. There are plenty of non-R1 universities that focus more on education. No model is "better", but it might be more or less appropriate for different students or professors depending on their goals.
Isn’t constant evaluation the problem? If you don’t have to churn out papers to meet evaluation requirements then most of the perverse incentives disappear.
It sounds like the best institutions hire great teams and just let them be. Check up on them to ensure some progress, but don’t make artitrary requirements like “>3 papers in a journal with impact factor > [arbitrary cutoff]
They often fund new departments or centers within existing universities, because despite all the complaining about overhead rates, setting up an organization required to house, support, accept funding for, etc. research is non-trivial.
My current position is in a department like that - it's funded heavily from several $Person'sName Foundation
Azim Premji University? Wealthy people are definitely setting up universities except they are outside the US. The center of gravity of academia is shifting eastward imho.
Lagging indicators like patents per capita and Nobel prizes will also follow in a generation or so.
They were treating the malaise by importing people but now, with widespread internet access and isolationist politics, I fail to see how US can continue to be the default destination for academics across the board.
It leaves me wondering: why do we not create any new universities? Why doesn't a Carnegie of our age create a new university? Brin University? Zuck University? This seems like a no brainer.
I think it might seem difficult to attract new talent to an "unestablished" university. But what if you make a simple promise: we will never, ever get in your way, the way that universities do today. We will never pressure you to publish subpar results. We will never nit-pick your purchase of a laptop. Have vision! Pursue things that are promising to you! We trust you, smart person, and we will give you autonomy to do what you think is promising. Based on what is discussed here, it seems like that would be extraordinarily compelling to the most optimistic, least cynical, and probably at least a handful of the most brilliant researchers out there. If the winning move is not to play the game, don't play.
I don't know. It just seems like there is a narrow-mindedness at play. A sense that "why try to fix this -- we'll never beat UPenn. Maybe not, but isn't it worth a try, based on how dysfunctional academia is? All it takes is the will.