Very seriously indeed if you value higher education and research.
Lot's of people do. Over a decade ago now, Ben Ginsberg wrote "Fall of
the Faculty". Political scientists like Wendy Brown have picked apart
not only the evidence, but done deep analytical work on the reasons
for the disintegration of academia in the West. Even Peter Thiel (who
I profoundly disagree with on almost everything) has given knock-down
commentary that I find impossible to ignore on how academia went to
seed, and is now unfit for teaching, learning and honest research.
From a personal perspective; I worked in universities for over 30
years. What we have now is unrecognisable from the institutions I
started teaching at in the early 1990s. Almost all human values have
been expunged and replaced by a puppet show of performative theatrics,
led by MBA educated impostors and career administrators. It is fake to
the core. I no longer recognise these places as universities. I've
seen brilliant colleagues go crazy, retire early, turn to alcohol and
drugs, commit suicide, or just wander off to live in the mountains and
grow vegetables. I refuse to believe all those smart and dedicated
people are/were "weak". Academia is a very toxic place and I would not
advise any "smart and sensitive" person to go into that life if you
value your health.
When you consider how much it costs a nation to educate someone to PhD
level and then look at the churn and attrition, it's a massive bonfire
of wealth.
I've written numerous pieces in the Times Higher on specific failings
of universities, but one cannot halt a juggernaut of change with words
alone. Now I am left only with curiosity at how higher education will
change and what will come after.
My response has been to conduct and publish my own research
independently outside the "academic system" and to start my own
companies for teaching. By my standards, both are successful.
I think - no, I fear, fear is the right word - that there is much more than just academia disintegrating in the West.
> Almost all human values have been expunged and replaced by a puppet show of performative theatrics, led by MBA educated impostors and career administrators.
I was going to reply to a go further up but yes this has absolutely crept into many other technical areas. I had a similar grad school as others here have expressed but I didn’t stay in academia after school.
I’ve worked the past 15 years or so for several different F100 companies in various technical R&D functions. These companies manufacture real things and generally have labs, resources, and staff that rival but the very best academic institutions. The politics and worldviews with which the MBAs have infect the technical teams with the last 20 or so years is palpable.
I know there used to be real in-depth research done; talking to the old timers and looking through old technical reports showed that to me. Doing that now will quickly get you RIFed. Now quickly getting to revenue and moving onto the next project is all that matters. Nothing is retained in classic 20-30 page technical reports that help build true institutional knowledge or even allow us to repeat projects based on the learnings from 2 years ago. If you are smart you quickly learn how to test and validate things to make whomever the customer is happy (following the $) while providing the bare minimum to the lawyers to make a specific marketing claim. In practice this means I’ve become very good at not opening certain doors during research (ie the ones that I intuitively know have a high likelihood of derailing a project) even if they probably should have been. See no evil, hear no evil…
Yes, over the past few decades, that sentence applies to every institution I can think of. Academia, government, business, religion, medicine... I don't know why administration has turned into such a plague, but it keeps absorbing larger shares of our money, power, and time to do less and less with more and more.
Has Peter Thiel ever put his thoughts on higher education down in long-form writing? I've seen him speak about it, but I'd be interested in a deep dive.
It's interesting and worth watching, but it becomes apparent that Thiel is a financier, and science takes place on a different timescale. Better seek advice from someone who was active when US science was still functional, let's say Roy Vagelos.
Very seriously indeed if you value higher education and research.
Lot's of people do. Over a decade ago now, Ben Ginsberg wrote "Fall of the Faculty". Political scientists like Wendy Brown have picked apart not only the evidence, but done deep analytical work on the reasons for the disintegration of academia in the West. Even Peter Thiel (who I profoundly disagree with on almost everything) has given knock-down commentary that I find impossible to ignore on how academia went to seed, and is now unfit for teaching, learning and honest research.
From a personal perspective; I worked in universities for over 30 years. What we have now is unrecognisable from the institutions I started teaching at in the early 1990s. Almost all human values have been expunged and replaced by a puppet show of performative theatrics, led by MBA educated impostors and career administrators. It is fake to the core. I no longer recognise these places as universities. I've seen brilliant colleagues go crazy, retire early, turn to alcohol and drugs, commit suicide, or just wander off to live in the mountains and grow vegetables. I refuse to believe all those smart and dedicated people are/were "weak". Academia is a very toxic place and I would not advise any "smart and sensitive" person to go into that life if you value your health.
When you consider how much it costs a nation to educate someone to PhD level and then look at the churn and attrition, it's a massive bonfire of wealth.
I've written numerous pieces in the Times Higher on specific failings of universities, but one cannot halt a juggernaut of change with words alone. Now I am left only with curiosity at how higher education will change and what will come after.
My response has been to conduct and publish my own research independently outside the "academic system" and to start my own companies for teaching. By my standards, both are successful.
edit: grammar