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Aaron Hanlon

5 Dec, 12 tweets, 3 min read

https://twitter.com/cnewf/status/1335003099338076162

1) Quick thread about tenure (I'm up for tenure right now). I value the prospect of tenure. Highly. I don't think people like Dean White at UC Boulder understand that if you take that away then people like me work elsewhere, including in another industry altogether. ...

https://twitter.com/cnewf/status/1335003099338076162

2) I quit a consulting job to get a PhD in English. In 2008. I wasn't naive abt what it meant for my financial & employment prospects to make that decision. If you're thinking, whoa, that was stupid, I don't agree, but that should tell you how much I value the prospect of tenure.

3) I wouldn't have quit my job to do a PhD if there were no prospect of tenure. Notwithstanding the impression you have by now from this thread of my appetite for risk, I'm an extremely risk averse person. The best I can explain this is with a poker analogy (sorry). ...

4) (I also used to play poker). See the concept of pot odds in a poker hand. In effect, tenure sweetens the pot, or ups the ratio of the value of pursuing an academic career to the risk entailed in pursuing it. ...

5) Lots of us would pursue other, more lucrative things than academia. If you've spent most of your 20s (in my case, YMMV) getting a PhD and making a poverty wage, there has to be an incentive, and that incentive has to be more than 'love of [research, teaching, etc.].' ...

6) By this point I know you're thinking 'yeah, but who cares, someone else will just step in if you step out, plenty waiting in the wings, etc.' But if we're being honest, all that extraordinarily talented 'surplus labor' only exists now because of the prospect of tenure. ...

7) I.e. if you take away tenure, i.e. you take away an essential form of compensation given the opportunity cost of doing a PhD and a late financial start in life, you're going to lose that 'surplus' you have now. Dean White doesn't see that; he's not looking that far ahead. ...

8) Given that, the next question for the Dean Whites of the world is: What happens to their business model if you take away well trained and well supported teachers and researchers (because you've taken away the incentives to land that kind of employee)?

9) That is, if you turn higher education into a rote credentialing service (in practice and by advertisement), will the economic signal be the same for graduates? Will a a campus and infrastructure be justified? Will there be as many deans? Will they be compensated as now?

10) Are you going to beat YouTube at its own game? Are you going to beat the ed tech industry at its own game? Because I promise all the Dean Whites that those industries don't need you standing up a shop with a fake university sign and an expensive middle management. ...

11) In other words, colleges and universities compete and offer value because for all the cynicism about them they're actually not just credential farms. They're centers of teaching and learning. Of knowledge production and preservation. That's the 'value added.' ...

12) Which is to say not only do you lose me if you lose tenure (what do you care, right?). You dig your own grave, as it were. You usher in your own obsolescence. Details here /end : chronicle.com/article/the-un…

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More from @AaronRHanlon

Aaron Hanlon

@AaronRHanlon

7 Dec

https://twitter.com/lpachter/status/1335881335173500929

1) I've said for years now that 'STEM' vs. 'humanities' is a silly and destructive dichotomy, as is the blame game that goes along with it. I've also said non-biz 'STEM' fields will face pressure similar to 'hum' fields. Viz., cuts to the math dept. at Murdoch U:

https://twitter.com/lpachter/status/1335881335173500929

2) By 'non-biz' I mean fields without a direct biz application & that don't pull in profit for the institution. 'STEM' marketing relies on the 'T' and the 'E,' & 'STEM' has been valuable branding as biz incentives have increasingly driven higher ed governance & policy choices. ..

3) The 'S' and the 'M' won't be able to ride this marketing wave forever. People will realize an English degree and a biology degree have near identical employment prospects and start asking ?s of biology they now do of English. ...

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Aaron Hanlon

@AaronRHanlon

11 Nov

1) Thread for literature scholars and psychology researchers, both of whom will be cranky with me but for different reasons. Let’s talk about ‘Literary’ versus ‘Popular’ or ‘Genre’ fiction in this new(ish) study about their effects on readers. psypost.org/2020/10/readin…

2) Here’s how the authors of the study distinguish between Literary and Popular fiction:

3) Lots of interesting stuff in here, much of which literature scholars would agree with (that's part of the problem, I think, and will explain). But I'd break it down roughly this way:

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Aaron Hanlon

@AaronRHanlon

28 Oct

1) You’ll sometimes hear reporters for right-wing campus ‘watchdog’ groups (pressure groups to chill faculty speech) working the non-newsworthy professor Twitter beat say ‘I’m just reporting, I don’t want my target to get threats and harassment.’ I think that’s genuine. HOWEVER..

2) It’s like you’ve watched someone lob a water balloon into a crowd of 100 about 1000 times, and some of those times it was even you who threw the balloon. ‘I was just observing the trajectory, I didn’t mean for anyone to get wet.’ ...

3) You really need to stop and think about what you’re doing. There’s no plausible deniability here. You’re part of an apparatus designed to chill faculty speech by leveraging media networks to whip up angry mobs that threaten and harass the targets and call for their jobs. ...

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Aaron Hanlon

@AaronRHanlon

26 Oct

1) I started as an economics major and now teach and study literature for a living. Here's a short Monday morning thread (especially for students) on how that happened and why I still value perspectives from where I started.

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3) This experience prejudiced my orientation to the social sciences in general. By the time I realized this and mustered the resolve to change something, I was about to graduate. I took one literature course in college, a Victorian lit. survey. That's it.

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Aaron Hanlon

@AaronRHanlon

14 Jul

1) It's not the profound lesson I wanted to learn from all this, but one thing Trumpism + pandemic have taught me is that the US has a much higher percentage than I thought of adults who are simply immature. It's been astonishing to see people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s act out.

2) I'm of the generation that supposedly never grew up, needs cheap symbolic affirmation ('participation trophies!'), lives in our parents' basement, etc. But in terms of civic duty, there are far too many grown adults metaphorically living in my basement right now. Get out!!!

3) I think an important part of maturity is the ability to make small (sometimes large) personal sacrifices for the greater good. I consider wearing a mask--which is proven to reduce viral transmission--during a pandemic a small personal sacrifice.

Read 15 tweets