March 8, 2016

"Terrified sheep make lousy teachers, lousy scholars, and lousy colleagues."

"And today at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thanks to #FakeTenure, I’m surrounded by terrified sheep."

Sara Goldrick-Rab takes a parting shot at UW and Scott Walker.

Click the Sara Goldrick-Rab tag for more background.

78 comments:

campy said...

Awww, poor baby.

TosaGuy said...

This person has perceived that a horrible level of oppression has been practiced upon her.

Such people will continue to perceive such personal injustice no matter where they go.

mezzrow said...

Door, ass.

rhhardin said...

A good policy is don't burn any bridges.

Tell your job interview how much you liked your last job. He's thinking that you'll be saying the same thing about him, whatever you say.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Terrified sheep make lousy teachers, lousy scholars, and lousy colleagues.

...and lousy lovers too.

...or so I've heard.

rehajm said...

People in other professions thrive and prosper while enduring the possibility of losing their job. If anxiety is so great it's preventing people from good performance it's really more of an argument against tenure.

Rick said...

The person so scared of being evaluated she ran off thinks other people are "terrified sheep"?

traditionalguy said...

Hitler has many spawn these days. Does she know Bo Ryan?

tim in vermont said...

Doesn't the concept of "ultra vires" apply here? The university is there to educate the population, better the standard of living of the state, and to advance knowledge in general. But she wants to turn it into an incubator of political revolution. Good riddance to her.

MadisonMan said...

Will she be happy there if she's not happy here? I think Philadelphia is a nice enough town, but Pennsylvania's Budget Mess I think should give qualms to anyone who is moving there. What a dysfunctional state Government she's moving to!

rehajm said...

Alt: If terrified sheep make lousy teachers stop hiring sheep.

Bay Area Guy said...

Double Godwin Law alert - ditzy left-wing Professor compares Walker to Hitler and McCarthy.

See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.

Henry said...

Hardly complimentary to her colleagues.

Curious George said...

You'll be missed Sara!

Said no one ever.

rehajm said...

Double Godwin Law alert - ditzy left-wing Professor compares Walker to Hitler and McCarthy.

And to think just a few short months ago ridicule was heaped upon anyone stupid enough to go there. Trump either makes everyone dumber or exposes morons hidden in plain sight.

TosaGuy said...

Moving from UW-Madison to Temple in a snit isn't really a career enhancing move. UW is at the very least is a top tier Midwestern university and holds up quite well nationally. Temple isn't even the best university in Philadelphia.

It is also out east where there is a university on every other block. It's much easier to be a local academic celebrity in Madison and get a fawning article today in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel than it is out east where no one will care about anything she says.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

How brave. Someday Sara will write a screenplay about how a pampered leftist at UW was able to escape Walker's holocaust ovens.

It truly is a crime against humanity that we refuse to provide her with the life and comfort she so richly deserves.

madAsHell said...

I had to google her picture. I was surprised to see that she has a ring on her finger.

SteveR said...

Being "terrified" is not unknown to most people these days. How you deal with it is what can make living fun. Growing up is a good start.

Gusty Winds said...

McCarthyism is alive and well — especially here in Wisconsin.

It is not. That's where I stopped reading.

Hyperbole is alive and well among the tenured faculty at UW.

damikesc said...

If anybody knows what lousy teachers don't like, it'd be her.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Baaaa-baaaye!

Bob Ellison said...

A good PR adviser might have prevented this. You gotta punch your weight, most of the time. Don't assume everyone knows who you are or will be impressed after they have to Google you to figure it out.

David Begley said...

When do other American workers get tenure?

YoungHegelian said...

Ms. Goldrick-Rab, who is known for her outspokenness on Twitter, was criticized last summer for tweeting at incoming Wisconsin students about the assault on tenure....

'Cause, if there's one thing incoming freshman really care about, it's tenure rights for the faculty. I mean, it's right up there with good grades & getting laid. Don't look at me like that. It is.

TosaGuy said...

"When do other American workers get tenure?"

Don't give the Berners any ideas.

David said...

Apart from blaming white folks of the male variety and certain others for all of the ills of education, what does she propose we do to fix the wreck of African-American educational underachievement? She probably has some ideas, but likely they reflect her deep prejudices. Our system of educating black minorities has moved from failure to failure for a half a century, with terrible consequences to the people being schooled and the society overall. This can only be fixed by people who are willing to question every aspect of that system, and take radical action for change. Her engrained prejudices seem to approach hatred, and she will never be able to work with all the different kinds of people needed to improve this situation. She's part of the problem, not part of the solution.

khesanh0802 said...

Obviously she heard the thunder of Regents' hoofs coming to get her. She seems the perfect example of those who would be first to lose tenure under the new - and very sensible - law.

MikeR said...

Not having tenure is terrifying? What about assistant professors before they get tenure? What about _everyone else_ in the world who has a regular job?
Does she realize how ridiculous she sounds?

David said...

"When do other American workers get tenure?"

As a practical matter, once they have passed the one year probationary period working for the federal government.

JCC said...

Looking at what she's about, I see that she wants no-cost, low cost college for everyone. I'm wondering what her salary is, including all those positions and chairs, etc. Maybe she'll assist by working for free.
She started something called the HOPE Lab, which issued a report claiming that at a number of representative community colleges, 20% of students are hungry, and 13% are homeless. Without bothering to research those numbers, I have to say...BS. Like the other published "food insecurity" claims, this is all hogwash. And 13% of community colege students manage to make class while living under an expressway? Please, b*tch.

And Governor Walker is like Hitler? Sure you're not an English major? (hyperbole)

Goodbye.

JRoberts said...

A question for Prof. Althouse:

How does the new tenure policy compare to other schools in the Big Ten?

Based on my discussions with family members who are tenured faculty at another Big Ten school, benchmarking is a big deal and a desirable goal.

I would think Wisconsin's move either brings the school into alignment with other Big Ten schools or out of alignment. Which is it?

garage mahal said...

Why would anyone want to teach in this state under Walker and the WISGOP goons?

Gusty Winds said...

So Ms. Goldrick-Rab is the one who accused Scott Walker of being Hitler. Good Grief. Wisconsin and UW are now better off with her leaving. Bye!

And then she advocates free college tuition.

At my company we supply products to the construction industry. I demand that the gov't pay for all these products and they are provided to the construction industry for "free". That way my job is secure, and I don't have to worry about competition any more.

Or adjunct professors replacing me for less money.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

How awful it must be to live under the threat that your job can be taken away due to political pressure from some outside group. The Left would never use such tactics, no ma'am.
What a brave, brave woman, nobly fighting within a profession where 90+% of her colleagues are in 100% ideological and political agreement with her.

Anonymous said...

Nicholas and Erika Christakis were not available for comment.

Gusty Winds said...

A question for Prof. Althouse or any professor:

Why do families and students have to go in to debt to have freshman and sophomore year classes taught by unqualified 23-year-old teacher's assistants?

What sacrifices are the current tenured faculty at UW willing to make in order to increase tenure opportunities for adjunct professors?

Is college really worth the money other than the required piece of paper and the perceived prestige?

How long till the higher education bubble bursts?

Fabi said...

The article notes that Goldrick-Rab is a scholar-activist. How luxurious.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

When everyone is Hitler, no one is Hitler. Well, maybe Hitler.

Lewis Wetzel said...

she would move to Temple University as a professor of higher-education policy and sociology.
She is an utterly useless woman. There are people working at shitty jobs that they hate with no future. The taxes levied on their labor pay her salary.

Big Mike said...

First Melissa Click and now Sara Goldrick-Rab. It's been a good week for sanity.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The intertubes informs me that Professor Goldrick-Rab looks a bit like Lena Dunham.

Make of that what you will.

Otto said...

She describes herself as an "East Coast Jewish woman" who was "taught to be outspoken and forthright."
A WASH DC princess. Probably grew up well -to- do,pampered, secularized and in a strong victimization ethos. Is intelligent lite ( major in sociology) with no original thesis, just the same tiresome liberal mantra. So who is the sheep? Hopefully this culture which has been demonstrated for the past 50 years to be destructive will end.


Rob said...

"Terrified sheep make lousy teachers," she bleated.

garage mahal said...

"The article notes that Goldrick-Rab is a scholar-activist."

Why she should be fired for no reason. Not a conservative!

Mark said...

"what does she propose we do to fix the wreck of African-American educational underachievement? "

She has written quite a bit about educational policy, I think it would be easy enough to find that out ... If you cared.

Journal Sentinel has an article today about how UW Madison spent $9 million trying to keep top staff in the July to Dec period last year.

She is just one of many who are trickling away. Its easy to focus on the hated and ignore the good ones who have left after the latest tenure fight, but that is a short sighted view. Either it's gong to get more and more expensive to pay people to say who have offers elsewhere, or they won't come here in the first place.

Based on what family in academia have said, it's the latter.

wildswan said...

I think that there should be a "skinny" degree option at UW. In this tuition is based on the salaries of three university officials - the President, Chancellor and Treasurer and faculty salaries, library costs, lab costs and cleaning. The student does not live on campus, cannot use sports, music or recreation facilities, be on the student paper, is not protected against micro-aggressions - so does not pay room, board, student fees, or more than 10% of the administrative fees of the university since he/she isn't using what most of the current employees, the administrators, produce such as diversity grievances, PR, kangaroo courts for alleged rapes, and required indoctrination courses. And statistics about it all.

Fabi said...

Excellent point, garage mahal. It's such a travesty that there are no liberals in academia. Maybe someone will emplace a program through which progressives may one day find a teaching position. You should write a letter to your congress critter.

David Begley said...

Gusty Winds

Worse than that, it is my understanding from reading professor Victor Davis Hanson that there is a new class of "serf" untenured professors that get paid very poorly.

It is all about average labor costs.

Rick said...

Mark said...
Either it's gong to get more and more expensive to pay people to say who have offers elsewhere, or they won't come here in the first place.

Based on what family in academia have said, it's the latter.


The far left is framing this as a loss of tenure, but in fact the new Wisconsin rules are the same as the tenure rules almost everywhere. Why are academics overreacting? If it's because they don't want to be associated with a University in a State with a Republican Governor shouldn't we applaud losing them and thus increasing tolerance?

BarrySanders20 said...

Sara GoldRick-Roll is upset that a public university is subject to public control. After fifty years of lurching left and having chosen sides in politics, she is shocked! about minor reforms imposed by the side her tribe detests.

I wonder if she has enough self-awareness to understand what it must be like to have conservative beliefs in the university faculty setting. Her leftist rants are hardly courageous given the setting.

Sorry, Sara, you're no martyr.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

garage mahal said...

Why would anyone want to teach in this state under Walker and the WISGOP goons?

Ooh,ooh, pick me, pick me, I know...

F o r t h e C h i l d r e n .

They've made if very clear that this is why they teach. It certainly isn't about the summers off, or the job protections, or the early retirement.

Todd said...

Well so far "not terrified sheep make lousy teachers, lousy scholars, and lousy colleagues." so some sort of change is in order.

Don't like the new rules? You should not have shat all over the old ones. These changes were driven (in part) by the abuses that took place under the old system. Indoctrination, stifling of alternate views, shouting down of dissenting opinions, intimidation, and other bulling tactics. If you acted more like adults, you would be treated more like adults...

garage mahal said...

"You should write a letter to your congress critter."

That would indicate I give a shit what happens to this state. I do not. I do enjoy watching this dumpster fire burn. People that live here deserve every bit of it. If the UW continue to tumble out of the top 100, I will, again, laugh.

Fernandinande said...

JCC said...
Looking at what she's about, I see that she wants no-cost, low cost college for everyone. I'm wondering what her salary is,


$109,773 for 2013/14, a pittance compared to:
RYAN WILLIAM COACH $2,401,617.59
ANDERSEN GARY COACH $2,199,400.98
ALVAREZ BARRY DIR, ATHLETICS $1,056,250.04
ARANDA DAVID ASST COACH $516,560.00
LUDWIG WILLIAM ASST COACH $516,560.00
JETER ROBERT COACH $495,441.27

After the jocks and assistant jocks comes the highest-paid prof:
WRIGHT RANDALL PROFESSOR BUSINESS FINANCE $490,953.16
http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/datacenter/university-of-wisconsin-system-salary-database.html

HoodlumDoodlum said...
When everyone is Hitler, no one is Hitler. Well, maybe Hitler.


"If Hitler's spirit dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope he likes enchiladas, because that's what he's getting."
Apologies to Jack Handy.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Lefty activists have a right to have their activism funded by taxpayers. Anything else is McCarthyism. They're all serious scholars according to their fellow Lefty activists. If you don't give them money (which they will use to promote their politics and teach young people how awful non-Lefty taxpayers are) you are Hitler.
Non-Lefty aspiring scholars need not apply. Diversity isn't THAT important, geez.

Rick said...

Fernandinande said... a pittance compared to:

[jocks and assistant jocks and Professors of Business Finance]

Her value provided is a pittance compared to them also. If you think they're overpaid why not get rid of them and see how it plays out?

Pookie Number 2 said...

Why she should be fired for no reason. Not a conservative!

"Things conservatives would stay (if they were as stupid as Garage Mahal)."

Pookie Number 2 said...

*say*

Bob Ellison said...

I saw Terrified Sheep open for Steppenwolf. Helluva show.

Birkel said...

President-Mom-Jeans:

Under the Geneva Conventions it would be illegal to place "garage mahal" within 100 yards of a Milwaukee High School.

Ask Robert Cook for more information on international law and why every American is currently a war criminal, if you don't believe me.

damikesc said...

'Cause, if there's one thing incoming freshman really care about, it's tenure rights for the faculty. I mean, it's right up there with good grades & getting laid. Don't look at me like that. It is.

I wonder if she ever texted adjunct faculty about this.

Cause I bet THOSE people would laugh mightily.

Why would anyone want to teach in this state under Walker and the WISGOP goons?

The children don't need teachers unless they have forced payments made to unions?

Why she should be fired for no reason. Not a conservative!

Because conservatives, truly, wield the power at U of W - Madison, amirite?

I don't know of many jobs where attempting to prevent customers (which is what students ultimately are) from using your service wouldn't lead to termination.

Pookie Number 2 said...

Under the Geneva Conventions it would be illegal to place "garage mahal" within 100 yards of a Milwaukee High School.

That's an unfortunate waste of a phenomenal bad example.

jaydub said...

Ignorance is Bliss said...

"Terrified sheep make lousy teachers, lousy scholars, and lousy colleagues.

...and lousy lovers too.

...or so I've heard."

In Spain sheep are called "chicks." Or so I've heard.

Peter said...

She appears to be a "scholar" who already has all the answers (and, yes, they're all political).

Writing "I'm-A-Scholar" software that always gives the same (political) answers to all questions asked of it would surely be a trivial exercise for CS101 students. Perhaps writing software that creates a Twitter account and then bombards it with pithy PC nuggets might require more advanced programming skills, but perhaps UW didn't hire her to manage a Twitter account?


Such "I'm-A-Scholar" software would,however, be as valuable as the proverbial stopped clock. So why, exactly, would anyone think UW might be worse off without her "scholarship"?

BarrySanders20 said...

Who needs software? Just create a PC version of the old Magic 8 Ball for the answer to all important questions.

damikesc said...

Who needs software? Just create a PC version of the old Magic 8 Ball for the answer to all important questions.

That works.

"PATRIARCHY!!!"
"WHITE PRIVILEGE!!!"
"ISLAMOPHOBE!!!"

Shouldn't take more than an hour to crank out all options.

Gusty Winds said...

When she refers to "terrified sheep" it seems she is talking about the current UW student body.

Unless the Professors now need trigger warnings and safe spaces as well.

Gusty Winds said...

David Begley said...

It is all about average labor costs.

Victor David Hanson Good article.

Faculty exploitation. The abuse of lecturers, part-timers, and graduate students is institutionalized. In a word, the university is the most exploitative institution operating at present in the United States, protected by the notion that it is progressive and that its protocols cannot possibly be understood by the ordinary public. Temporary and adjunct faculty members often have degrees as good as those of their tenured betters. Often their teaching records and publications are comparable, if not superior. They may teach the same classes as permanent faculty do, and yet often receive about half the compensation. Were Wal-Mart or a coal mine to operate under such protocols, it would earn Labor Department sanctions. At some public universities, nearly half of the curriculum is taught by part-time faculty — in effect a subsidy that allows the tenured caste to teach smaller and less-in-demand classes, where less time is needed for preparation and grading. Worse still, universities knowingly turn out too many PhDs in the humanities, which ensures a glut of job applicants, which, again, ensures a continued supply of cheap temps to sustain tenured privilege.


Paddy O said...

Speaking of terrified sheep, I'm wondering how much she has used her position of power and privilege to advocate for adjunct faculty, or if she is just concerned about the security of her own most privileged of privileges in her outrage.

There are few greater vocational inequalities than between adjunct faculty and tenured faculty. The first is in a constant state of insecurity, very low(below minimum wage) income, no benefits, very heavy workload with the least valuable courses and least interested students.

dwick said...

Fernandinande said...
JCC said...
Looking at what she's about, I see that she wants no-cost, low cost college for everyone. I'm wondering what her salary is,

$109,773 for 2013/14, a pittance compared to:
RYAN WILLIAM COACH $2,401,617.59
ANDERSEN GARY COACH $2,199,400.98
ALVAREZ BARRY DIR, ATHLETICS $1,056,250.04
ARANDA DAVID ASST COACH $516,560.00
LUDWIG WILLIAM ASST COACH $516,560.00
JETER ROBERT COACH $495,441.27

After the jocks and assistant jocks comes the highest-paid prof:
WRIGHT RANDALL PROFESSOR BUSINESS FINANCE $490,953.16


Ya well - Ryan, Andersen, and Alvarez are responsible for directing programs that bring in revenues of ~$128M to the university. The only thing Goldrick-Rab generates is negative publicity.

JCC said...

@ Fernandinande -

Reading her page at the U of W/M, she has about 3 or 4 (or more) simultaneous positions at various institutes, centers, labs, schools and the like. I'd be willing to bet her salary at the U of W is only 25% of her real annual earnings. This of course does not include any royalties from books or publications.

While I agree with your unstated point that the athletic department figures earn salaries completely out of reason considering the job context - an educational institution - those salaries are matched by the executive branch of the most universities, and usually, the athletic departments bring in far more revenue that is ever spent on them, and a reasonable person could easily justify the high salaries for, say, head coaches, when seen in light of the massive funds that accrue to the university as a result of those coach's efforts. Even if every dime generated remains within the athletic department, it would be sufficient to cover expenses required by the Feds and Title IX, which otherwise would be deducted from educational resources.

In any event, most athletic coaches are not philosophical hypocrites, preaching free education while becoming weathy on the backs of paying students.

jr565 said...

if faculty either teaches safe spaces or allow the radicals on campus to push for them, they really have no cause to call other people sheep. they would either be sheep themselves, or teaching students to treat being a sheep as if it was a virtue.

Paddy O said...

"I see that she wants no-cost, low cost college for everyone."

European universities do this by not having any sports, etc. and so on. No-cost, low-cost education is possible for everyone. No cost, low cost "college EXPERIENCE!" is not possible, as it's basically paying for a four year country club membership.

And foreign faculty like to teach in the states because US schools pay a fair bit more.

Bay Area Guy said...

It makes me really, really happy that the football coaches get paid much higher than the Professors at University of Wisconsin.

It just does.

Maybe, its schadenfraude or something. All these really, really liberal incompetent professors (hostess excluded) just seething about how much Barry Alvarez makes. I love it!

Fernandinande said...

dwick said...
Ya well - Ryan, Andersen, and Alvarez are responsible for directing programs that bring in revenues of ~$128M to the university. The only thing Goldrick-Rab generates is negative publicity.


I'm aware of the effect, but never having watched a football or basketball game with adult players, it strikes me as a bit bizarre.

"Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)"
If the highest paid state employee isn't a coach, it's someone else employed by a university.

John henry said...

Let me say a word or two about adjuncting. I think that most schools and most adjuncts are doing it all wrong. I think anyone trying to make a living or a career out of adjuncting needs their head examined.

Most of my teachers as an undergrad and grad student in the 70's were adjuncts. they did a pretty good job at it and I learned a lot from them. The labor lawyer who taught me Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations. The account executive who taught me Marketing, the Director of quality who taught me Production Management. The Navy SEAL BMCM who taught me SCUBA diving. (I was an oceanography major early on) and so on.

About 25% or so of my teachers were permanent staff. The rest were all adjuncts teaching their professional fields.

I taught pretty much continuously from 1982 to 2013 or so. Mostly in graduate but occasionally in undergrad. Mostly business but some education courses. I also taught 5 years at an engineering school in their graduate program (Packaging technology). I will likely be adjuncting at UW next year (Packaging Machinery)

I love adjuncting for a number of reasons. Money is not great compared to my day job but it is certainly OK for 1 night a week and a few hours of prep. I particularly love working with students, many of who are already expert in their fields. I have learned far more teaching than I ever did as a student.

There is no way I would ever try to make a regular career out of it. Adjuncting is a part time job in addition to not instead of a real job in my professional field.

That is how schools should treat it. That is how adjuncts should treat it. I read far too much about these pathetic fools who got suckered into getting qualified for non-existent faculty jobs. They hang on as adjuncts so they can claim, professionally, that they are college professors. The seem to nurse a hope that if they just adjunct long enough it will lead to a regular faculty position.

The triumph of hope over experience. The odds of an adjunct getting a faculty position are slim, just slightly better than none. If someone is willing to work as an adjunct, why in the world should the school pay them to be on the faculty?

John Henry

Kirk Parker said...

Paddy O,

Not just European universities...