Death of the American Academic

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Copyright © 2007, Mohsen BANAN

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Contents

List of Tables

1 Part of Khodzadgi

This article is part of tha series of Khodzadegi (Self-Toxxication) articles.

The trust of Khodzadegi is that when the balance between self and society is overly in favor of the individual, as it is in America to the extreme, professions start to die.

2 Death of the American Academic

Academics play an important role in the well being of the society. Their role falls into two broad categories:

1. Teaching
2. Research

The process that has made the American economic model the American societal model has corrupted both teaching and research.

I use my own school (and my son’s) – University of Washington – as an example and case study.

2.1 Corruption in American Teaching Universities

Students are raw material.

Education is about becoming a better person.

Education is different from training.

Civilized societies (Iran, China, India, Japan, even France, ...) consider cultivation of the young as the society’s responsibility. There, if the student has the brain, she gets into the right university. And, comes out a better person. Money is irrelevant. She is regarded as society’s asset and her cultivation is in society’s interest.

In America, money is everything. Even when it comes to education. Not values, but money rule American Universities.

Average American student is 40K in debt coming out of the University.

And what the American student is taught are values of American business.

UW Commencement June 2008: The celebrated model engineering student had gotten a patent as part of work study.

At no point was that model student thought that getting a patent is in conflict with academic values.

Defining values for the students: UW CS department conference rooms – Bill Gates Room, Paul Allen Room. There are no Linus Trevold room, no Richard Stallman room, no Knuth room. The values being promoted in the CS department are not quality. They are the values of financiers.

2.2 Corruption in American Research Institutions

A great deal of modern university research is lacking in what one might call its ”integrity of purpose.”

The ”processes” of contemporary academic research have become corrupt.

Here are some readily apparent manifestations:

2.2.1 Wrong Side of Patent

The existance of the patent debate is understandable in the industry but not in academia.

Pursuit of knowledge is in conflict with ownership of knowledge.

Being in favor of patents and participating in IPR regime is in conflict with being an academic.

Yet, American Academia loves patents.

http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/handbook/04-05-07.html

As if it is a matter of fact, UW PATENT, INVENTION, AND COPYRIGHT POLICY section 1 B. says:

“... it is generally in the best interests of the University and the public that patents be obtained and/or licenses granted as described in this policy. ...”

Great! pseudo-intellectuals as tools of financiers, now speak on behalf of the public and say that a corrupt model is in the best interest of the public.

This is what happens when the economic model is the societal model.

Patents are NOT in the best interest of the public. When such statements appear in leading American Public universities, rest assured that financiers are riding on top of the academics. The rest is just choreography.

UW CS Department has the list of dotCon era spin and flippers and pump and dumpers at the enterance to the building as role models and leaders. Let me pick one as an example: Greg Amadon.

Tera Beam: The quintessential spin and flip. Nothing of value got created.

2.2.2 Wrong Side of Copyright

Accepting that public academic work may be restricted from being copied verbatim is in conflict with being an academic.

When it comes to fundumental topics of Copyright and Patent; a scolar, an academic goes through the analysis and comes out with clarity.

Sharing of knowledge and information are academic values. Restricting access to information through copyright is in conflict with academic values.

2.2.3 Irrelvance of Tenure

What good is freedom and independence if it is not exercised.

Underlying theory of tenure is meant to protect the genuine principles of academic freedom. But it is only a tiny fraction of the professoriat who truly put themselves at risk for the sake of intellectual integrity. For the vast majority, tenure has almost nothing to do with true academic freedom, and has everything to do with status and career advancement. Thus it has merit only insofar as our peer group invests it with merit, and only insofar as we submit to this. Like a peacock’s feathers, it matters only because it matters–and it matters, only if you’re a peafowl. As far as I can see, academic tenure is as ultimately without substance as the validations we pursued as teenagers; in real terms, in terms of deathbed retrospective, it means little more than a boy scout merit badge. At any rate, it certainly does not warrant the enormous amount of emotional energy it engenders. It is among the class of things that can be discredited entirely, by simple, personal act of fiat.

2.2.4 Publications List – Low Quality – Pursuit of Vanity Prestige

Generally speaking, academic output is of very low quality. One of the most readily apparent manifestations of this can be seen in the quality of the end results – academic papers. As part of my own academic research projects, I have read hundreds of research papers, both those published in peer-refereed journals, and those published as part of conference proceedings. And the great majority of these have been of very inferior quality: poorly conceived, a rehash or minor extension of previous work, badly written, and offering trivial or questionable conclusions. Ninety percent of everything is garbage, and it seems that this applies as much to academic research as to anything else.

Why do people devote their lives to this? What leads someone to latch onto a fraction of a piece of a fragment of a subspecialty, then churn out an endless stream of publications on the same topic? What are the real motivations driving this gigantic volume of highly redundant research activity?

When we are adolescents, we are afflicted with adolescent desperations: to fit in, to belong, to measure up according to the values of our peers. We are desperate to wear the right clothes, to be invited to the right parties–to be seen, in the right way. But we grow up, and we see that the things we desired were without substance. We see that our values were shallow, the result of our youthful insecurities, and our undiscriminating submission to an external set of values.

But then we replace our adolescent desperations with adult ones: to garner the grown-up forms of validation: to possess the expensive toys, the insignia of success; to be respected for our research, to achieve tenure.

A great deal of academic research is driven by motivations other than genuine scholarship. I suspect that much of this activity is driven by our ancient human desire to define and validate ourselves according to the dictates of our society–in other words, it represents little more than the shallow pursuit of prestige.

But much of the research that I have seen seems to have little value other than to rack up publications, advance careers, and pay mortgages.

2.2.5 Economicaly Dictated Research Topics

Big market for Viagra. Let’s research Viagra.

A large part of modern academic research consists of an endless grind of fundraising, enterprise management for a project of intensely narrow focus and questionable relevance, coupled with a relentless pressure to publish superficial and frequently substandard papers.

References