# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**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, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/41 "2018-10-05T12:07:41Z")
Yes. Someone who isn’t productive is taking up limited lab space. ---
**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, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/42 "2018-10-05T12:13:23Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > 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. Excellent. Great to know. Marie CURIE also got it as an assistant and no one can claim her awards were unjustified. ---
**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, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/43 "2018-10-05T12:13:36Z")
But the confusion about that statement might explain the problem with understanding other posts… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/44 "2018-10-05T12:17:28Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > 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. Oh, you don’t need a PhD for that; one of the reasons I don’t have one is a Department Director who shouldn’t have even gotten a Bachelors. > [@AK84](#): > > 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. The supervisor generally does very little of the actual work. Mine would review articles before we sent them for publication and he was shit at it; after my first article came back from the refs with a list of remarks which boiled down to “change back everything the supervisor said to change”, the other students in the group started asking me to review their articles in between bossman’s review and sending them to the refs. ---
**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, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/45 "2018-10-05T12:20:38Z")
**Nava** ’s correction is a valid one. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/46 "2018-10-05T19:28:52Z")
> [@mozchron](#): > > 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. Yep, this is the case: > [@](#): > > **There’s been a lot of attention on your position as an associate professor and not a full professor. What has been your response to that.** > > That I’m very sorry for the university because it’s not their fault. > > This is what people I don’t think get, a full professor although it’s a different name it doesn’t carry necessarily a pay raise and I don’t lose my job (if I don’t apply to be a full professor). So I never filled out the paper work. > > It’s all on me. I think people are thinking it’s because I’m a woman, I’m being held back. > > I’m just a lazy person. I do what I want to do and that wasn’t worth doing. [Scientist caught in a Nobel whirlwind](https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8943888-scientist-caught-in-a-nobel-whirlwind/) ---
**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, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/47 "2018-10-05T19:49:11Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > 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? 🙂 Oh I see, thanks! Yes, that was confusing to me because I read “taking up” as “embarking on” rather than “occupying”. Clarifying nitpicks always appreciated. ---
**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, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/48 "2018-10-05T21:12:23Z")
Maybe this was a backhand apology to Jocelyn Bell who didn’t even get a share of the Nobel awarded to her supervisor although she made the discovery _in the face of contrary advice from her thesis advisor_ who did get the prize. (Here I am quoting Fred Hoyle, from whom I heard the story in person. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/49 "2018-10-05T22:21:16Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > 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. This. I am adjunct (fortunately not on food stamps) and have been one since 1990, but I don’t see myself ever getting a FT tenured position no matter how many times I apply or how many great letters of rec or fine evaluations I obtain. ---
**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, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/50 "2018-10-05T22:57:30Z")
I don’t know why anyone is talking about adjuncts. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/51 "2018-10-06T01:32:23Z")
I’ve seen this on the front page for 3 days, now, and read through all the posts a few times. I am still a bit confused at the acceptance of the blatant elitism shown in the OP and wonderment at the fact that in 50 posts, nobody else has picked up on it. I understand, it’s veiled in “it’s not elitism, it just goes to show how ‘the system’ is keeping women in their place”, but you can’t get any traction with that argument without the implied argument that a mere ASSOCIATE professor shouldn’t really considered capable of doing NOBEL PRIZE worthy work. The fact that she is ONLY an associate professor because, by her own admission, her motivations and values did not include becoming a full professor seems only to be a side story. Anybody should be able to make significant contributions to the advance of knowledge, be they adjuncts, associate professors, or janitors. The idea that an associate professor is, somehow, inferior to a full professor, to me reeks of privilege. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me there is no reason that academia should be considered immune to hypocrisy. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2018, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/52 "2018-10-06T02:02:33Z")
if this is the English chick she dosent want the nobel prize anyhow because she says "once you win the nobel you never get considered for anything else ever unless you get lucky and win it twice " Shed rather win the smaller prizes and party all year ……. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2018, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/53 "2018-10-06T02:05:14Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I don’t know why anyone is talking about adjuncts. Because we’re associate professors. At least, that’s what my title was on at least one campus where I taught. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/54 "2018-10-06T03:57:30Z")
> [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](#): > > The idea that an associate professor is, somehow, inferior to a full professor, to me reeks of privilege. I think it is more that in a lot of tenure track it seems a normal progression to go from assistant to associate to full professor. So when you get a professor that has won the nobel prize( for her graduate student work )and she has been in such a system for over 20 years it seems surprising that she is not at the top prestige rung of the department. In this cases it seems she simply didn’t care to be. But there is no doubt you don’t need all that. I know a guy that very technically never finished his master’s degree and never worked in a research position until after he retired from his ‘straight’ job. But he nonetheless is one of the leading North American experts on the taxonomy of a couple of not particularly obscure organisms( okay, one is a bit obscure ). Brilliant guy, but he never got the “union card”( as he put it )of a PhD. Didn’t need it. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2018, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/55 "2018-10-06T04:01:28Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Because we’re associate professors. Not at Waterloo and not at damn near every school in North America. > **[Associate professor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_professor)** > > Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the Commonwealth system. > In the North American system, used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position between assistant professor and a full professorship. In this system, an associate professorship is typically the first promotion obtained after gaining a faculty position, and in the United States it is usually connected to tenure. > In the Commonwealth system (Ca... ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2018, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/56 "2018-10-07T02:40:41Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > > [@vivalostwages](#): > > > > Because we’re associate professors. At least, that’s what my title was on at least one campus where I taught. > > Not at Waterloo and not at damn near every school in North America. > > [Associate professor - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_professor) At my university, adjuncts have the same series of ranks as full-time faculty, just preceded by “Adjunct”. So, we have Adjunct Instructors, Adjunct Assistant Professors, Adjunct Associate Professors, and Adjunct Professors. I don’t believe this is all that unusual: [Academic ranks in the United States - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_in_the_United_States). On topic: One more voice to say that promotion to (full) Professor is not automatic in our system. The faculty member needs to (want to) apply. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2018, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398/57 "2018-10-07T06:12:38Z")
> [@Topologist](#): > > At my university, adjuncts have the same series of ranks as full-time faculty, just preceded by “Adjunct”. So, we have Adjunct Instructors, Adjunct Assistant Professors, Adjunct Associate Professors, and Adjunct Professors. I don’t believe this is all that unusual: [Academic ranks in the United States - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_in_the_United_States). > On topic: One more voice to say that promotion to (full) Professor is not automatic in our system. The faculty member needs to (want to) apply. Correct. And even when you apply, you might not get an interview. It’s certainly not guaranteed, no matter what you’ve done or accomplished. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-nobelist-only-an-associate-professor/822398.md?page=2)