# Female Nobelist only an associate professor **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 4, 2018, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398 "2018-10-04T00:58:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/21 "2018-10-04T20:42:20Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Her post-tenure performance is that of a professor who fits in the “people we regret having tenured” category. At least for a research university. They end up teaching undergrad mechanics and taking up real estate. [This is the only thing I can think of right now](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Caddyshack): > [@](#): > > _[standing in an ornamental flowerbed]_ What an incredible Cinderella story! This unknown, comes out of nowhere, to lead the pack at Augusta. He’s at the final hole. He’s about 455 yards away, he’s gonna hit about a 2-iron, I think. _[swings, pulverizes a flower]_ Oh, he got all of that. The crowd is standing on its feet here at Augusta. The normally reserved Augusta crowd is going wild… _[pauses]_ for this young Cinderella who’s come out of nowhere. He’s got about 350 yards left, he’s going to hit about a 5-iron, it looks like, don’t you think? He’s got a beautiful backswing… _[swings, pulverizes another flower]_ that’s- oh, he got all of that one! He’s gotta be pleased with that! The crowd is just on its feet here. He’s a Cinderella boy. Tears in his eyes, I guess, as he lines up this last shot. He’s got about 195 yards left, and he’s got a, looks like he’s got about an 8-iron. This crowd has gone deadly silent… Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greenskeeper, now about to become the Masters champion. _[swings, pulverizes yet another flower]_ It looks like a mirac- it’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! I wonder if she’s the most obscure person to ever get a Nobel. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/22 "2018-10-04T21:30:27Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Her Wikipedia page [was rejected in May](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/10/nobel-prize-physics-donna-strickland-gerard-mourou-arthur-ashkin/571909/) because she hadn’t gotten enough outside mentions on the Internet. [It was deleted over copyright violation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Donna+Strickland) Looks like _someone_ is lying in the newspapers! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/23 "2018-10-04T21:53:27Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Her post-tenure performance is that of a professor who fits in the “people we regret having tenured” category. At least for a research university. They end up teaching undergrad mechanics and taking up real estate. 😕 Really? Because by my count she’s had, for instance, [at least 25 research publications just since 2010](https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=Cv9djkcAAAAJ&hl=en), and of course many more before that. I don’t know how many of them count as “major”, or by what criteria, but she clearly hasn’t just been off selling real estate. And from my acquaintance with somebody who just missed a Nobel Prize in physics some years back (the collaborators he’d worked closely with for many years got it, and it was apparently a toss-up whether it would be jointly awarded to him too), my impression is that it’s a pretty competitive award. I doubt the Nobel Committee really picks recipients whom their institutions regret having tenured. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/24 "2018-10-04T22:19:50Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > > [@kunilou](#): > > > > Her Wikipedia page [was rejected in May](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/10/nobel-prize-physics-donna-strickland-gerard-mourou-arthur-ashkin/571909/) because she hadn’t gotten enough outside mentions on the Internet. > > [It was deleted over copyright violation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Donna+Strickland) Looks like _someone_ is lying in the newspapers! No lying involved but instead two different events, as far as I can tell. A 2014 Wikipedia article about her was deleted over copyright violations but _another one_ was [declined in May 2018](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Donna_Strickland&oldid=842614385) for not meeting notability guidelines. If you poke around Wikipedia, you’ll find much discussion of what this means for and about the site; whether it reflects poorly on Wikipedia’s treatment of women and women scientists. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/25 "2018-10-04T22:46:59Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > That’s nonsense. I never applied either and I was a full prof at 35. You don’t apply (although you might pressure your chair to push the case). Within five or six years of her promotion to assoc. prof., they should have automatically examined her for promotion to full. No application necessary. I spent my entire career in academia and I know how it works. At my institution, it takes an awful lot of work to jump from Associate to Full. Many distinguish faculty members are perfectly happy to stay at the Associate level until they retire. Then they still refuse to go away and become Emeritus. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/26 "2018-10-04T23:25:04Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > That’s nonsense. I never applied either and I was a full prof at 35. You don’t apply (although you might pressure your chair to push the case). Within five or six years of her promotion to assoc. prof., they should have automatically examined her for promotion to full. No application necessary. I spent my entire career in academia and I know how it works. Its not nonsense. I certainly had to apply for Full Professor. It was a pain in the ass. I actually put it off a year because I decided to spend my time writing grants instead. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/27 "2018-10-04T23:26:57Z")
If promotion to Full didn’t come with a decent pay raise (and it may not depending on the institution), but does come with a big increase in administrative duties, I can totally see her saying Screw It. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/28 "2018-10-04T23:41:38Z")
There’s a story about Shelley Winters being considered for a role. She sits for the meeting with the producer or director or casting director, opens a big bag she’s carrying, takes out her two Academy Awards and put them on the desk in front of her (she won two Best Supporting Actress Oscars). Similarly, Professor Strickland might schedule a meeting with the university president and then just take the Nobel Prize medal out and lay it on the table. But I suspect that won’t be necessary. If the University of Waterloo doesn’t promote her, unprompted, at the earliest possibly opportunity, I’m sure a bunch of other schools in North America would be happy to offer her a full professorship and an endowed chair. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/29 "2018-10-05T00:24:52Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > That’s nonsense. I never applied either and I was a full prof at 35. You don’t apply (although you might pressure your chair to push the case). Within five or six years of her promotion to assoc. prof., they should have automatically examined her for promotion to full. No application necessary. I spent my entire career in academia and I know how it works. Aren’t you also like 160 years old? Academia is pretty different now. Tenured positions are few and far between and compensation across the board is terrible. Typical adjuncts make so little they’re on food stamps and most will never have the opportunity for a full-time job in academia. Automatic promotions even for tenured faculty are largely a thing of the past. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/30 "2018-10-05T00:26:40Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > 😕 Really? Because by my count she’s had, for instance, [at least 25 research publications just since 2010](https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=Cv9djkcAAAAJ&hl=en), and of course many more before that. I don’t know how many of them count as “major”, or by what criteria, but she clearly hasn’t just been off selling real estate. Most of those are conference presentations. And that list even includes corrections (e.g. the two with “erratum” in the title). I ran her through Web of Science and pulled five actual journal articles after 2008. With not a lot of citations. > [@Kimstu](#): > > And from my acquaintance with somebody who just missed a Nobel Prize in physics some years back (the collaborators he’d worked closely with for many years got it, and it was apparently a toss-up whether it would be jointly awarded to him too), my impression is that it’s a pretty competitive award. I doubt the Nobel Committee really picks recipients whom their institutions regret having tenured. The award, and her getting hired in the first place, were both based on work performed in grad school. Clearly past performance was not indicative of future performance. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/31 "2018-10-05T00:59:41Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I ran her through Web of Science and pulled five actual journal articles after 2008. With not a lot of citations. In other words, on average, one every two years (not counting the many conference presentations and so forth). Is that really a poor enough track record to make an institution regret giving somebody tenure? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/32 "2018-10-05T01:11:03Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > In other words, on average, one every two years (not counting the many conference presentations and so forth). Is that really a poor enough track record to make an institution regret giving somebody tenure? The only thing that makes an institution regret giving someone tenure is if they stop bringing in the grants. Publications are merely a means to and end. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/33 "2018-10-05T01:55:44Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > In other words, on average, one every two years (not counting the many conference presentations and so forth). Is that really a poor enough track record to make an institution regret giving somebody tenure? Her post-tenure performance is that of a professor who fits in the “people we regret having tenured” category. That is why she didn’t have a Wikipedia page. That is why she wasn’t promoted. It is not a “perfect illustration of the difficulties of women in academia” like the OP wrote. Women in academia and out do experience very real difficulties, and my bet would be that she has as well. But every department has their duds who stop performing after they get tenure. Everyone else here with a PhD can no doubt tick off some names. As **Tim R. Mortiss** mentions, it’s really funding that matters. And maybe someone knows how to find out what she’s bringing in and can show I’m full of shit. But you need funding to publish and you need to publish to get funding, and hers is not the publication record of someone bringing in significant funding. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/34 "2018-10-05T01:58:50Z")
Well, I have to stand corrected. It sounds like a lot has changed since 1972 when I got to be full of it. But any permanent assoc. profs in my department were the ones that stopped publishing. Oh, and there was no salary increase for me since I was already above the minimum for full. The fact that much of the teaching is done by adjuncts is irrelevant since she had tenure and once they have tenure you may as well make them happy. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/35 "2018-10-05T02:29:00Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Her post-tenure performance is that of a professor who fits in the “people we regret having tenured” category. That is why she didn’t have a Wikipedia page. That is why she wasn’t promoted. :dubious: That, I think, is jumping to conclusions. I have several colleagues who are active and distinguished mature researchers but don’t have their own Wikipedia pages, and our institution certainly does not regret having tenured them. Likewise, we don’t actually know why Strickland wasn’t promoted to full professor. There are plenty of associate professors, as other posters have pointed out, who never seek promotion to full professor, and it doesn’t mean that their institutions regret having tenured them. No, while I freely acknowledge that Strickland definitely doesn’t fit the profile of “superstar researcher”, I think it’s jumping to conclusions to assign her to the profile of “people we regret having tenured”. Not everyone who doesn’t turn out to be a superstar is therefore a regrettable choice, even before they get awarded a Nobel Prize. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/36 "2018-10-05T02:52:53Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > … > Snip… > > Likewise, we don’t actually know why Strickland wasn’t promoted to full professor. . I’m pretty satisfied that we do know why she wasn’t promoted…she never applied; as was linked by kunilou earlier. That’s pretty solid evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/37 "2018-10-05T11:15:02Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :dubious: That, I think, is jumping to conclusions. I have several colleagues who are active and distinguished mature researchers but don’t have their own Wikipedia pages, and our institution certainly does not regret having tenured them. If their degree is in English, you can try having them expain what I wrote, since you’ve got it backwards. She has a poor post-tenure performance\*. Someone with a poor post-tenure performance is unlikely to be [notable](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(academics)). And thus she won’t get a page. Many people with good performance are also not notable. Do you need a Venn diagram? Symbolic logic? All A are B does not mean all B are A. \*Publishing one article hardly anyone cites every other year is what you expect from a grad student. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/38 "2018-10-05T11:41:55Z")
Some people on Reddit are saying the same thing **Ruken** has posted and suggesting she was given the Nobel as some sort of affirmative action, since apparently it’s not usual for graduate students to get it when the supervisor is on the paper. I must admit, I find it unlikely, considering Reddit’s well known sensitivity with respect to women. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/39 "2018-10-05T11:54:21Z")
I’m certainly not suggesting the award was unjustified. Too often credit goes to the professor when he or she is barely involved. The student did the work. Whether it’s the student’s idea or not varies. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/40 "2018-10-05T12:00:01Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I don’t know how many of them count as “major”, or by what criteria, but she clearly hasn’t just been off selling real estate. I suspect by “taking up real estate” **Ruken** meant “occupying an office in their department that might have been more productive if given to someone else” rather than “kicking back in their office and starting a property development business on their employer’s time”. Not that it matters much to the point being made, but if we can’t nitpick/educate in this sort of thread, when can we? 🙂 Carry on, apologies for the hijack. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398.md?page=3)