Ok, I had an experience in my sophmore year of college where some incidents happened with a professor who was pretty much a newly minted PhD and in his first semester teaching (we will refer to him as the Bastard). Things blew up big time and the “Cold War” took place for the next two years.
Anyway, I was checking the new classes at my alma mater for the fall (something I always do. I think it is fun to see what is being offered). The course that the Bastard used to be the adminstrator for is now listed under someone else. The only places his name is listed is with master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation.
Could it be happening that he was denied tenure after 5 years? I thought that if they are taking his classes away, then they might be trying to get him out. He thinks he is hot stuff and that his Ivy League education is going to always keep him in a job. In fact, his supervisor had to speak with him about not pissing people off by thinking they are stupid and acting accordingly. Of course, he has not published in about 2 years from what I understand (as in getting turned down, not just doing a long research project).
Anyway, does anyone else think that the bastard is on his way out?
I would not be so thrilled if he was not such a jackass and has it coming to him.
If they didn’t want him there, would they put him in charge of graduate students?
I thought standard practice for driving professors out was to force them to teach four sections of freshman survey courses with no graduate assistants.
If he’s only doing theses, my guess is he got himself a sabbatical. Many professors will continue to work with their graduate students even if they don’t have to teach other courses. If he were on his way out, they would still want to get all the labor out of him they could, first.
I’d agree with kunilou. You don’t punish someone by having them teach fewer undergraduate courses. In fact, it’s often just the reverse - senior profs may have enough pull so they only have to teach graduate students.
If he hasn’t published in 2 years, that’s not necessarily fatal, if he had some publications before that. It’s possible (but perhaps unlikely) that the administration considers him promising enough that they have cut his course load to enable him to get more publications out.
If he was denied tenure, he probably wouldn’t still be around, and I wouldn’t expect him to be teaching graduate courses.
It is not rare for someone, even a superficially competent one, to be denied tenure so it is certainly possible. However, being a dick in class isn’t one of the things a new professor usually gets let go for. It is mainly for research quality (publish or perish). Professors are generally prized and rated mainly on research ability rather than research ability.
People tend to say that being a professor is an easy job but I was in graduate school on that track once and the upcoming situation terrified me so I got out. It is fairly easy to get killed at any level and the great majority of incoming graduate students never make it as opposed to law or medical school where most do. It is the most cutthroat and brutal thing that I have ever seen. It makes my supposedly cutthroat corporate consulting work look very tame and laid back by comparison.
This was one of the options I thought about…but sabbatical after only 5 years? I knew a prof who didn’t take a sabbatical until after 10 (of course, he is a workaholic who wonders why he is still single at 55). Actually he has never taught freshman level classes.
Oh and here is another peice to my little puzzle. The woman who is now adminsterating the class is a senior lecturer. Maybe they are trying to save money or something. I don’t know. That whole department is pretty messed up. In fact, one prof has just walked out mid semester. Heh, serves em right.
He wasn’t a dick in class. He was more of a “dick” to me. He also lied to me about who knew what. He proceeded to rake me through the mud while looking angelic himself. Of course, the guy who he supposedly told got caught with his own pants down and ended up leaving after alledgedly begging his wife’s forgiveness (all this is 3rd hand knowledge).
Alot of the profs I know are great at the research thing but can’t teach worth squat. I aspire to be able to do both well.
It’s very unlikely that a new professor would be allowed to take a sabbatical after only five years if he hadn’t yet received tenure. (And in my experience most academics like to take their sabbaticals somewhere else than their home institution.) On the other hand, if he has received tenure, he might have been given a sabbatical. Are you sure he hasn’t received it yet?
Thank you for posting that. I get awfully tired of hearing the “ivory tower” bit from people who have no clue. Not to say that criticism is not deserved in some cases, but look at it this way – the competition is, by definition, the best in their respective fields. Imagine competing with Jack Welch daily. Now multiply that by 100.
I think 5 or 6 years is standard for tenure. No opinion on what the case is here.
He probably got a post doctoral fellowship, and as has been said, still maintains a connection with some grad students. Probably turning his dissertation into a book.
I agree: many academics are people of poor character. Typical sycophants: mistreat underlings, curry favor with superiors. This is a familiar type.
Sometimes the complaints are warranted and sometimes they are not. I had some incredibly outstanding profs in my undergrad and I had some really stupid ones too. It is very cutthroat and that is what i am not looking forward to. I am not really good at being cutthroat.
Five years would be slightly early for the up-or-out tenure decision to be mandatory, but the “clock” varies according to institution. And, of course, it is possible to receive tenure before the final up-or-out date. How is he listed? If his title is Assistant Professor, I don’t think he could have tenure at any university or college. If his title is Professor, then I think he’d have to have tenure at any university or college (at least in the U.S.) If his title is Associate Professor, then he might or might not. At some places no associates have tenure, at others all (or most) associates have tenure, and at others some do and some don’t.
Oh and one more thing I should have added. The clock I was speaking of might not have started exactly when he got his PhD. In some fields, people leave their institution with the dissertation not quite finished and begin to work. The dissertation is usually (but by no menas always) finished within two years after that. The tenure clock may start immediately when (s)he begins to work. It may not start until the PhD is actually conferred, or there may be a rule like the clock starts the earlier of PhD receipt or two years after the person begins to work at the institution.
I remember that he was minted when he arrived at the school. I remember asking what he should be called and he said in a huffy way “Dr. _______”. (Of course, a couple of months later, I was on a first name basis) Later, when I asked, he said he had defended his disseration and gradauted two months before he arrived. He was also put on tenure track one month after arrival (in fact, I remember the literal day it happened). Apparently some problem with getting a line open. So it has been about 5 years. I always thought that profs went up for tenure after 7 years. And he is listed as Assistant Professor.
Sounds like a post-doc year to me. Shouldn’t be up for tenure but there are lots of chances for people to take a half-year or a year for research that aren’t sabbatical. Not teaching undergrad classes for a time is, as others have noted, not really a “punishment”.
You don’t feel stalkerish about this at all, do you?
Nah, of course not. I have not spoken to him in years and have absolutely no desire to. My friends are more interested in it all than I am. He is an asshole and I don’t like having those in my life. I know it is incredibly mean but I think it would be nice to see his star falling as mine is rising. Sort of like cool poetic justice. I just don’t see it happening.
If he’s got the title of assistant professor, he can’t have a post-doc fellowship. A post-doc is a job, not just money, and it’s THE intermediate step between studenthood and having a “real” job, i.e., a tenure track faculty position, in fields where the competition for faculty slots is very tight.
However, he could have funding geared toward young faculty (NSF has the CAREER program, for example) that’s allowed him to negotiate his way out of teaching some classes. If you want to be nosy and he’s in a field encompassed by NSF, you can look up his awarded grants.
He might also have gotten something like a Fulbright, which would definitely get him out of teaching duties for a time. I was recently looking for an old friend who I’d known was on the faculty at a certain school, but he was virtually nowhere to be found in the department’s web site. Turns out that he’s spending a year in Eastern Europe on a Fulbright, and since his department has a policy of totally revamping the web site each year to reflect who is around and doing what, he currently has an extremely low profile there (seems a bit counter-productive to me in the broader scheme of things, but oh well).
[I wouldn’t necessarily go by the title alone. I’ve heard of people getting tenure (sometimes after as few as three years) but being denied promotion. In fact, it happened in my department as recently as this year. There’s one prof in my department who’s still an assistant professor–she’s had tenure for over twenty years. One has nothing to do with the other.
