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Comment Re:You make it... (Score 1) 519

+14. People just don't understand this. In the pro-business, pro-conservative, pro-1% states (i.e., just about all of them except a few in the Northeast and maybe the West coast), you can fire anyone at the drop of a hat and the only prohibition is that you can't be stupid enough to preface it with "Because you're black/a woman/a couple of other protected classes". The boss can say you're fired b/c I hate you, and that's that.

Comment Re:I'm actually not sure it makes much sense at al (Score 1) 519

You are far removed from the point of tenure for someone who works at a university. The idea is that the *administration* can't drop-kick you for ridiculous reasons. If you're doing good (i.e., publishable) but controversial research, tenure keeps some jackass state legislator from leaning on the university president to fire you. When many faculty have not seen raises in years, tenure is one of the few remaining perks of the job.

Comment Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs (Score 1) 1146

Also, your children will develop gum disease and die. Your dog will start experimenting with drugs. The permeability of all of your cellular membranes will spontaneously increase by a factor of 1000 and you will become a puddle of goo on the floor. Your refrigerator will become sentient and will plot against you.

Every molecule in your body will explode outward at the speed of light. Or maybe that's what happens when you cross the streams; definitely either crossing the streams or using that light bulb. One or the other.

Comment Re:only in academia (Score 3, Insightful) 94

Somebody mod this up! GP has no idea what the point of higher education is. The faculty aren't just "employees". While administrators job-hop from school to school, the faculty are the long-term caretakers of the institution. They largely determine whether the degree granted means anything or if the place is a clown college. It's sad that the idea of being able to safely point out shortcomings (= tenure) in an enterprise as large as a university is seen as such a crazy perk by those who work at the whim of others.

Comment Re:No incentive to lower costs (Score 1) 827

Perhaps you should do a little research on salaries before declaring that they are outrageous. Keep in mind that, first, there's about a ten year period of grad school and postdoc positions before you land the tenure track job, and then it's six years of busting your hump before you get tenure. After all that, a 9-month salary of $50K is by no means abnormal. There might be some outrage there, but we probably disagree on the direction of it. Remember that for every big-name Harvard or Caltech superstar making $200K, there are 40 other academics working at least as hard as anyone in the "real world" for a small fraction of that salary (and no, they don't all have grad students to teach for them, and no, they don't just work 3 hours per week).

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