I have no idea why not being willing to engage in hypotheticals is a problem, nor do I have the patience for your idiocy (a job in academia could be Mount Greylock, you aver. No, actually, “academia” is generally understood to be higher education, especially in the context of this discussion — first Wal-Mart, now Mt, Greylock? Please, stop being a douchenozzle.).) So I will reiterate yet again: Tenured Williams professors would get good jobs as professors at respectable universities or colleges if Williams revoked tenure as we know it and Williams would be harmed in the process, not least by AAUP and in various rankings, which may mean nothing but sure as hell matter to a whole lot of people associated with the college.

dcat

DK… solely to revel (with palpable glee) about bad news at Williams, compare it unfavorably to Swarthmore, generalize one negative event to institutional catastrophe, or make some other nasty comment. It’s like the dorky kid who gets picked on by the jocks waiting for them to get a DUI arrest, lose their job, and go bald, then starting a blog about it.

I do not believe that this is an accurate statement WRT: David’s “intentions,” but it is worthwhile to think through why it may seem so.

Also, there is a zero percent chance HWC would have approved of ANY Presidential hire who was not a woman, as he himself made clear prior to the announcement, so of COURSE he would denigrate the Falk selection. Duhhh.

True. The College could, however, at least taken the starch out of my displeasure by hiring an obviously outstanding white male instead of a guy who has no record of accomplishment as a college administrator and who told a joke about putting electric dog collars on his children.

If I had told you a year ago that Williams would hire a president who had never set foot on a liberal arts college campus as a student, professor, or administrator, who had no ties to Williams, and who had three years of experience as a school Dean at a research university with a dreadful undergrad reputation, you would have said I was nuts. That’s exactly what they just did. I knew they would hire a white male, but I expected them to hire one with an impeccable resume.

As for Moore. I have made clear that I am not even concerned about his record as a convicted felon. I have stated emphatically that I can’t find anything in his academic or professional record that makes him even a plausible candidate for a teaching position at Williams College. If the College ever chooses to shed some light on his appointment and reappointment, then I would be willing to reconsider. Until then, I think it is quite reasonable to portray that hiring as incompetent on its face.

2) “since a retarded monkey can do the job of most investment banking analysts” So, why doesn’t Goldman Sachs hire retarded monkeys or community college graduate or high school drop outs?

3) “not native talent either that is constraining supply.” It would be helpful if you could spell out your position more clearly. Consider the job of professional soccer player. Is “native talent” “constraining supply” for that job? On the one hand, No. I (and millions of others) would love to be a professional soccer player. There is huge supply. On the other hand, Yes because the people doing the hiring in soccer want the best players that they can find.

Similarly, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, et al want the best analysts they can find. And they are willing to pay enough to get it. If they paid less, many of the Williams graduates they want to hire would go elsewhere.

[Now, you can make a sophisticated argument that the decision makers at soccer teams and investment banks are stupid, that they use sub-optimal standards and so on. Is that what you mean?]

4) “why such a compensation differential” Supply and demand. You claim that this response is “predictable,” but the truth often is. Whatever mechanism you cite for explaining salaries in professional soccer (or insert some other high paying field) is likely similar to the mechanism which explains the pay in investment banking.

Again, it is possible to view the pay in soccer, banking, military service, ditch digging and many other fields as “screwed up” in the sense that you wish the world were otherwise. I wish that Peppermint Patties grew from the bushes in my yard. Nothing wrong with wishes! But, unless you are going to propose some policy/law/culture change that might affect those pay scales, your personal moral intuition is not that interesting.

@David: Easy and pretty predictable response on supply and demand but I would posit that a) demand for both occupations is cyclical and b) supply is not constrained. Moreover, since a retarded monkey can do the job of most investment banking analysts,its not native talent either that is constraining supply. So now you tell me David, why such a compensation differential – esp. when you consider the investment most professors make in their education.

Judging from your nasty, embittered comments (the only kind you ever seem capable of making when it comes to your alma mater), you’d think Bernard Moore had replaced Mark Hopkins as the dude on the other end of the log.

Although I agree that some of hwc’s comments on Falk and Moore have been too negative — or, at least, more negative in a manner that is different from my own special flavor of nastiness — I think that “only kind” goes to far. Recall hwc’s excellent posts on linguistics and the College’s financial statements. We need more from hwc, not less.

(2) HWC, your comments on Bernard Moore extend well beyond one particular visiting professorship, and you damn well know it. You have barely been unable to contain your glee that a Williams professor (and I guarantee you, if it was a white female prof, you’d be a lot less gleeful, but that is another issue entirely) was involved in this sort of embarassing mess. You’ve attempted to generalize from one con artist, with some questionable credentials, but who also without any doubt brought some serious value to campus, was able to work for a little over one year in a visiting professorship at Williams, to a sky-is-falling generalization that Williams is not a desirable place to work and it holds no attraction for scholars of the highest distinction. This is false, as demonstrated by the list of new professors hired by Williams this year, who I guarantee are every bit as well-credentialed, or moreso, than Swarthmore’s most recent set of tenure track hires. Things have gone wrong at Swarthmore, too, That doesn’t mean that Swarthmore as an institution is falling apart. Your main goal on this block is to wait for any negative thing to happen at Williams, and then use this as proof positive that Williams is institutionally bankrupt, or at the very best, a pale immitation of Swarthmore. Well, I’m not buying, and neither are the other regulars familiar with your delight in anything negative associated with Williams.

Lest we forget, as a casual reader of this blog might, notwithstanding the occasional frivolous expenditure (endemic to any organization with a budget in the multi-millions) or the flukey and non-generalizable Bernard Moore fiasco, Williams is in pretty damn good shape, as measured by applicant quality, graduates’ success, respect among peers, grad school admissions, extracurricular accolades, every college ranking out there, and on and on and on. Judging from your nasty, embittered comments (the only kind you ever seem capable of making when it comes to your alma mater), you’d think Bernard Moore had replaced Mark Hopkins as the dude on the other end of the log. Whereas I see an institution that is as strong or stronger than it has ever been, that happened to f–k up in one situation, partly through its own fault, party by falling victim to a world-class con man who fooled plenty of other august instiutions and individuals. Which is not to say Williams can’t learn lessons from that — but the the mountains are still purple, we’re still number one in US News, we are still gonna win the Sears Cup, we are still the most prestigious liberal arts college in the country, hell, even the weather gods continue to bless mountain day. The educational apocalypse is not upon Williams, as much as you seemingly wish it were.

Loan free OR 2% faculty raises?

This may likely be true – but even so it does not necessarily support your argument. Again, its not about quantity its about quality. If only 10% or 20% of (presumably) the best candidates have other competitive offers – wouldn’t this have an adverse effect over time? Seems hard to argue otherwise unless you are saying somthing aklin to all porfessor candidates above say the 60th percentile are “good enough” for Williams students.

“…a new faculty member does not even know if she will get tenure… so the notion that something that won’t matter for eight years (if then) is going to matter that much is suspect”

That is quite plausible.

Although I think the converse could also be true. If getting tenure is the equivalent of legalized professional (and personal) torture on profs and their families, why subject oneself to that kind of treatment if all you will get if you succeed is “tenure light.” I wouldn’t even bother with such a process, myself.

Unless we have some objective data on the mindset and priorities of top caliber candidates, we are debating hypotheticals. At this point we all should know how well managing and leading by theory and ideology alone works.

(also: 2 years out of undergrad makes one a senior associate, I think, not a senior analyst. Senior analysts usually have CFAs, at least 5-10 years of experience, and make a good deal more than Williams profs. That being said, I know more than a few who would give up their high-paying-jobs in a heartbeat if they were offered a tenured professorship at a place like Williams.)

Guys, I wouldn’t sweat HWC’s usual bitter, vitriolic trolling.

I take it that you disagree with my assessement of weak to mediocre credentials for Moore and Falk? I don’t think we even need to debate Moore’s lack of credentials. I am still scratching my head wondering how Falk could have been the top candidate with his only relevant experience being a couple of years as Dean of Arts and Sciences at a research university noted for its poor undergrad program? It must have been a weak field, which surprises me. I argued throughout the process that Williams would attract an extraordiarily strong pool of candidates for that position.

Be that as it may, I disagree with DKane’s suggestion to continue the pay freeze; I would rather see Williams make other cuts. I agree with his contention that the Williams faculty would be hard pressed to equal their current gigs. The places they would need to look are not in a hiring mode.

What a screwed up world we live in…

If by “screwed up” you mean, “does not agree with my moral intuition about fair compensation,” then you’re right. Also, “free” would be another correct replacement.

Compensation in a free society is set by supply and demand. Draw out the supply and demand curves for investment analyst. Compare them to the curves for college professor. Do the same for home health aid. And garbage collector. And Marine sniper.

Does it make sense now?

the question is whether changing a fundamental “benefit” of an academic post – when Williams does have to compete to recruit and retain (by your own admission) top tier faculty – would result in greater net outmigration of current top faculty and lower yield and retention of younger top tier candidates.

Agreed! (And, by the way, you seem like a knowledgeable Eph. You ought to join us as an author.)

My sense, and I could be wrong, is that it would have a trivialdo not have to take the deal. It is optional. They can keep life-time employment. Second, for most new faculty, the difference between lifetime employment and a 30 tenure contract is very small amongst the other criteria that they are considering in deciding on Williams.

a) A new faculty member does not even know if she will ever get tenure, much less that she wants to spend the next 50 years in Williamstown. So, the notion that something that won’t even matter for 8 years (if then) is going to matter that much is suspect. Much more important will be pay, teaching load, resources, spousal employment and so on.

b) Keep in mind, the vast majority of hires do not have options anywhere near as nice as Williams. (That’s why Williams almost always, according (somewhat misleadingly) to Morty, gets its first choice in recruiting.

c) It would make sense for the NESCAC schools to get together on this and make the change simultaneously. They all face this problem.

indeed. and the fact that some “stars” leave now suggests just how poorly williams might fare in the future with a modified / reduced tenure offer.

no one has suggested that we titrate compensation to ensure that none of our stars leave. that is spurious and nonsensical – and a waste of my and Ephblog reader’s time.

the question is whether changing a fundamental “benefit” of an academic post – when Williams does have to compete to recruit and retain (by your own admission) top tier faculty – would result in greater net outmigration of current top faculty and lower yield and retention of younger top tier candidates.

I think to argue otherwise – while defensible – ignores the application of rational self-interest on the part of academics. If your argument is that Williams does not need top quintile professors and we should be content with really focusing on those profs that fall into the 40th to 80th percentile range – so be it.

But why subject all of us to years of arguments regarding the evils of affirmative action and how damaging any actions taken by the college might be (in theory or practice) to the quality of students or faculty (narrowly defined), if your advocacy against tenure would almost cetainly achieve the very outcome you have railed against all these years?

Is this a case of myopia in the servics of hypocrisy? Or am I missing something?

What a screwed up world we live in…

the fact that you and i can list off a number of faculty who have moved elsewhere should be proof that a good chunk of faculty could get highly attractive jobs if they were to look. Which likely means williams shouldn’t be alienating its faculty because of a hypothetical about 10-20 years from now by an anonymous email to you with no actual details in it. Nor should it alienate potential future faculty.

Williams has always been, as an institution, cheap in my mind. Cheap in giving, cheap in pay for services… it gets away with it for several reasons- one of which is the location and it can afford to be cheap- the other is the absolute monopoly it holds in Williamstown- but those that can travel will if you start slashing and burning their earnings. You cannot underpay your top demographic/ most enabled and important population and get away with it for long. I doubt Williams is stupid enough to underpay one of the most powerful populations at the school… no matter how cheap the institution has been in other areas in the past.

All tenured Williams faculty members would get jobs in academia. Asserting what would be a better job, and presuming that better can be measured in equal pay, is a fool’s errand.

Again, if you don’t want to educate our readers on this topic, no worries. Just say so. But it really is bad form to mislead them like this. Just what do you mean by “academia” in this sentence? Part time librarian at Mount Greylock High School? $5,000 per year adjunct (with no benefits) at Berkshire Community College?

Morever, I am not just measuring job quality by “pay.” Include every dimension of job quality you like: pay, benefits, teaching load, students quality, colleague quality, support services, and so on. The vast majority of tenured members of the history department could not get a job equal to or better than their Williams position, based on any (reasonable) combination of these attributes.

The fact that you can’t simply admit this makes me take your accusations of cowardice against anonymous faculty members much less seriously.

jeff s writes:

so somewhat less than 10% of williams profs would/could seek employmnt elsewhere under some version of David’s modified tenure proposal.

No. I don’t think any/many Williams profs would seek employment elsewhere if Williams went from lifetime tenure to a 25 year tenure contract. My claim is that, regardless of any change, no more than 10% of Williams professors could get a similar quality (pay, benefits, teaching load) job at another school.

I believe derek is correct to state that the best would be most likely to seek greener pastures.

Well, this is something that Williams faces now. Somewhat relevant departures include folks like Russ Muirhead, Marc Lynch, Craig Wilder, Jason Wilder, Gary Jacobson, Tim Cook and Bryan Garsten. You could make this problem go away by paying every professor a million dollars per year. Does that make sense?

Of course not. There will always be professors leaving Williams. The issue is balancing the costs and benefits of various policies with regard to faculty retention. If no one ever leaves, you are probably paying way too much. If everyone leaves, you are paying too little.

My goal is to have an informed conversation about just what the job market for Williams professors really looks like. Derek (and others) seems uncomfortable having that discussion.

http://dean-faculty.williams.edu/?page_id=209

The thing to remember about HWC is that he will do his darndest to turn any single good thing that happens at Swarthmore into an indictment of Williams by comparison, and any single bad thing that happens at Williams into a sky-is-falling confirmation of his belief that Williams is hell on earth, especially when compared with God’s earthly kingdom, Swarthmore. For example, had Swarthmore, and not Williams, had a Marshall winner this year, he’d find some snarky way to turn that into an attack on Williams and a tie-in to Bernard Moore’s presence on campus.