Ivory Tower
Published by Becky S March 9th, 2004 in miscellaneous fluffIt’s been kinda fun to watch the blogosphere get itself into a knot over the recent terminations of tenured professors at Penn State Altoona and the University of Southern Mississippi. Everybody who’s anybody is weighing in:
Not surprisingly, all of the above are academics of some sort. They’re right to be indignant, and their comments mostly make sense (except for Ralph Luker–I couldn’t get past his gratuitous, o-so-righteous-liberal, anti-Mississippi remarks). Welcome to the real world, where people can get fired on a whim.
Don’t misunderstand–I don’t like seeing anyone unfairly lose a job. But it happens every day, and most of us don’t have the protection of academic freedom and whatnot.
No Tags
Sorry you didn’t appreciate my effort at wit about Mississippi. I’m a Southerner. I am allowed to make sport of my sister; but I’d better not catch you doing it!
Fair enough…I’d certainly agree that people have leeway to mock their own.
Howdy–I’d say that one reason people go into academia, sometimes earning a lot less than could be done in the private sector, is the prospect of eventually having job security. So that’s why we get in a twist when we lose it.
(Also, as a lefty liberal, I’m in favor of extending job security to the private sector as far as possible, though I know there are problems implementing it.)
But mostly I’m flattered to appear on a list of “anybody who’s everybody.”