It says more than something about the state of people’s impressions about academia…

In every job I had, my bosses wanted blind and total devotion from me, and were driven to irrational jealousy by my extra-curricular activities. I was sacked for writing and lecturing, and that it was done in my own time was not accepted.

And my attitude toward my own people was/is worse and even more unjust. I spend a lot of time wondering about what are doing and thinking, whom they are seeing and talking to. I am only relaxed when I feel I have a complete grip of the person’s life and I have him/her classified in a safe box. Safe for me, I mean.

Sean is wrong to assume that his colleagues were unaware or uninterested in his blogging activity. Everybody is intensely, passionately interested in others sexual life and personal connections. And if the dynosaurs in the Dept. did not understand a thing about blogging – it is worse for you, they formed their opinion on the basis of two-world comments (which probably didnt hear clearly).

Sorry, I am old enough and far away to tell what I think is real life.

I come from another less funded area of academia so I’m looking at this from a different angle. I think if academia was not regarded as a vocation like some kind of intellectual priesthood, then employment conditions would improve.

I was made sad again by the tenure decision but for those of us outside academia and perhaps for those of you inside, this is one of the great mystery/black boxes.

One of the things that I appreciate about you, Sean and now the cosmic group, is that as experts you don’t hold me at arm’s length. You make me feel welcome to your world as you try your level best to help me understand enough of it to enjoy, appreciate and be awed by the mystery of it all, the mystery that delights, enchants and bathes our souls and minds in wonder. The other side of it was captured in that incredible comment made by the former teacher with whom you talked: “The world is not magic.” It is knowable. That is wonder!

Thanks again for your informed comments on blogging and tenure.

Sean has a bright future and will land on his feet. However, Chicago will grow to regret their decision – it can haunt them in many ways. For example, they have an open search right now for an assistant prof in high energy theory. If their top candidate has multiple offers (not unusual for top people), he/she might think twice about accepting an untenured position at Chicago.

Admin says:

I think something that isn’t well understood outside academia is how the process of continually “being weighed and found wanting” extends from well before tenure to long afterwards.

Amen! Couldn’t have said it better.

Is physics just a job?

The other issue is one of loyalty. As a successful blogger you are visible in a way that more senior non-blogging faculty are not. As strange as it may seem, some will see that as being disloyal, you have in a warped sense stepped ahead in line. While that’s not a rational view, it is an all too human one.

Given the number of highly qualified people from all over the world trying to land tenured jobs in prominent institutions and high-paying, powerful jobs in corporations, who succeeds becomes more about who achieves best-fit in the local social structures than about whose work is the most effective by whatever standard their profession applies. That may sound like sour-geek-grapes, but I know of no one who would disagree with the general truth of the observation.

So we take our skills elsewhere and seek a “best-fit” with a different group of people with whom we would like to associate. That change often comes at great personal cost — a sad reality of wondering about in the upper reaches of ones profession.

I like your blogging and think the outreach you do is vital to an informed society and just plain interesting to this non-physist. Keep up the good work.

I truly wish you the best of luck.

If only there was some way to do theoretical physics without being an academic.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had Einstein faced the pressure to frequently publish citation-gathering papers, rather than having enjoyed the presure-free peace and independence of the Swiss patent office.

Given that the altenative to academia is more likely to be mentally (and spiritually) taxing employment in some sort capitalist enterprise (rather than slower paced government service), who knows what sort of physics gems were never discovered?

Feynman was also sensitive to academic career pressure. I remember reading that during his Cornell days things weren’t going well for him physics-wise. Everything changed as soon has he consciously decided to simply have fun. He ignored the pressure, just worked on what interested him, and had faith that things would work out. The problem is that many young physicists aren’t strong enough to do this.

Re Blogging, I think you’ve made a case for doing it anonymously. Why take a chance?

Now I understand why my Physics professors have been not so good with the teaching. It makes sense that if you have to spend more time getting your name on papers, then your students will suffer (for example, telling them you do not have time to help them figure out where they are going wrong with a simple (to them) undergraduate problem).

Is this something that’s generally true? Or is it a property of UoC? Is cosmic variance accepting undergraduates in Physics yet?