21st Century Scholar

by Randy Clemens Language is a contradiction. It both liberates and constrains. Consider a toddler learning English. Her understanding of and command over the world expands as she learns words like food, mom, and dog. Similarly, an art student’s perception of space changes as he learns about concepts such as line and plane. But, language [...]

by Bill Tierney Here’s an interesting point about the need for research in a particular area, and how important it is that academics do it. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) did a study, of sorts, of 15 for-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs).  They found misconduct and fraud at virtually all of the 15 institutions.  They [...]

by Bill Tierney Academic Freedom and Jerks We frequently like to think of academic freedom by the following example: a noble professor has his or her rights infringed upon, the crowd stands up for the victim, and ultimately right wins out. Such cases are replete in our history. We also have examples, however, when repugnant [...]

by Bill Tierney Sudhir Venkatesh is a sociologist who has written a well-respected book on urban poverty, Off the books: The underground economy of the urban poor.  He followed that up with a popular book that derives from his research, Gang Leader For A Day.  The book made it onto the New York Times Bestseller [...]

by Bill Tierney One of the oddities of academic life is that as scholars we are taught, and teach, about generalization.  We do research projects and we are extremely careful about what our findings tell us.  I have attended any number of seminars when the speaker is asked to ruminate on what the broader implications [...]

by Bill Tierney When do I get to speak out as a ‘professor at USC’ as opposed to speaking out as an individual?  In the former I am calling upon my rights as a professor who has academic freedom and the protection of tenure, whereas in the latter I am using my first amendment rights.  [...]

by Bill Tierney Tenure exists to protect academic freedom.  There’s an odd disconnect insofar as there seems to be decreasing support for tenure while support for academic freedom remains strong.  But I don’t see how we can have one without the other in the vast majority of traditional four-year colleges and universities.  Academic freedom allows [...]

A fellow has invented a meta-analytic tool that will make decisions for us about tenure.  Perhaps that’s a bit too strong.  It’s not as if a robot is going to determine who gets tenure; we’re just making the process more robotic, which I find irksome and odd. First, why it’s odd: We know from every [...]

by Bill Tierney Although tenure reviews take a great deal of time and I mentioned that I put them at the top of my list, I also review a fair number of articles for a variety of journals.  There are times when I’ll simply say no.  When I’m on leave, or during the summer, I’ll [...]

by Bill Tierney When I completed my Master’s degree at Harvard, I noticed that people often introduced me at conferences or job talks by referencing Harvard.  “Bill comes to us from Harvard University.” After the PhD at Stanford I got two references:  “Dr. Tierney has degrees from Harvard and Stanford, and blah, blah, blah.” I [...]