Why Acadamia is Liberal

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

shiner

Lifer
Jul 18, 2000
17,116
1
0
Originally posted by: cumhail
Where was this? Unless we have a celebrity (or someone who'd be considered one in some field) in our midst, that's not at all typical of what university instructors earn when starting out. For the typical who's finished his/her Ph.D., has published one or two articles in peer-review journals, and is lucky enough to find tenure-track work, he/she can generally expect somewhere in the area of $40-50k/year, depending on geographic location, personal qualifications, the institution in question, etc. That gets you the title of Assistant Professor and means you'll be evaluated, at the end of some set term (typically, this is after several years), and it will be determined whether or not you'll be granted tenure. If not, you move on and try again. If you do get tenure, you generally receive a bump in salary, along with the title of 'Associate Professor.' In most areas, this still places you well under $70k/year... though one can, perhaps, take on additional work to supplement the proscribed course load.

My numbers are just vague averages, by the way... nothing exact. But they're based on some level of knowledge of the field and can be checked by looking for an article on the subject in something along the lines of 'The Chronicle of Higher Education.' As I mentioned earlier, all norms go out the window when it comes to someone who can bring cache to an institution. If you're well known and regarded in your field/discipline, if you've held public office, if you are a celebrity whose presence they believe will attract attention, donations, etc... there's really no set limit to what you can make nor even to what degrees you need to have. But for the regular schmoes who just finished grad school and are looking for tenure-track work with their brand-spankin' new Ph.D.'s, it will likely be a while before they're making $70k/year as their base salaries.

But if you know of some institution that really does just anyone, even without a completed Ph.D., at a starting salary of $70k/year, please do let everyone know where. I'll give you some addresses where you can post the info, as I imagine many a person would move without a second thought for that opportunity.

cumhail

Originally posted by: shinerburke
Originally posted by: preslove
Being a professor is a job, too. They don't get a lot of money, either (which is partly why the phd is not that desirable), so how are they not in the "real world." Please give some examples of the real world issues that they don't participate in?

edit* a proff has to teach students as well as publish, which means they usually work 50 or 60+ hour weeks at least (if they're good and want any chance of a tenure track at a respectable university).
Bull....back when I was working on my advanced degrees I was looking into professorships. I could have had one starting at 70k without even having finished my PhD.
It was at a university here in Oklahoma. I was working on my PhD. and was all but assured of the job. One reason for what could be considered a higher than normal starting salary is the fact I was working on something that was funded by an N.S.F. grant. Then again I know of two people I was in M.A. level classes with and they both started at a junior college making $45k while they were working on their PhD.
 

burnedout

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
6,249
2
0
Originally posted by: preslove
At the end of the day, if a social conservative enters a graduate program she'll encounter a demand to defend her position against a more liberal philosophy posessed by the Professors, generally. She will emerge from this encounter a more complete thinker. A liberal entering will emerge having her philosophy validated.. It seems to me, anyway.

The whole point of acadamia is to demand the defense of whatever position one takes. That's why whenever a new article comes out in a journal it will be immediately criticized. If it holds up then the author is validated, if it doesn't then the ideas are ignored and the author retreats. And from this advance-and-criticize model comes a progression/evolution defines each discipline. The good ideas flourish and the bad ideas die.
The basic concept of the journal extends the invitation of criticism from the scholar.

The problem with social conservatives, though, is that their philosophy is traditionalist and is founded on a whole bunch of assumptions that anthropoligists call myths.
The anthropologist may indeed refer to the underlying 'assumption' of traditionalist philosophy as 'myth'. However, my questions are simply this: How then might the philosopher describe such doctrine or theory? Are we therefore constrained to rely more upon the anthropologist's argument than that which originates from scholars in other disciplines? Finally, are we to assume that all social conservatives subscribe to a traditionalist philosophy or might one interpret differentiation based on various factors?