Good luck to Daniel Drezner, who has been denied tenure by the University of Chicago. I can't speak to his strict academic qualifications, but it amazes me that any school would turn him down, given the contributions he's made to public life via his blog (which, btw, he's worried may have been part of the problem). I suppose his contributions to the political discussion over the past few years haven't had the same rigor as traditional academic discourse, but he has nevertheless been hugely influential -- and moreso, I'll wager, than any of his colleagues.
Apart from his role in policy discussion, it seems like his expertise on the topic of blogging would be particularly relevant in political science, where some study of the blogging phenomenon and its implications for political organization and structure might be appropriate. Or maybe there are experts who already study this, but don't blog themselves?
Anyway, I hope that the blog didn't enter into this decision, or rather I hope it did enter into the decision, somewhere in the pro column. But I have my doubts -- there are just too many reasons for the academy to be hostile to blogs, just like there are reasons for the recording industry to be hositle to the formats it can't control. My guess is we'll see more of this sort of thing, and that it will have a chilling effect on blogging by those in the tenure track.
I'm sure the blog was responsible, but not for any specific reason. Research institutions at this level see anything other publishing (teaching, being publicly active, having a hobby, having a family) as a waste of time. Those are moments that could be spent producing peer reviewed articles, and really what else matters?
I'm not defending the system, just explaining.
Dan has no excuse for being upset or surprised. Everyone knows the rules at a place like Chicago. I know people who turned down offers there because tenure seemed like an impossibility.
Entering the academy is a huge act of arrogance. Students who have always been at the top of their class ignore the dire predictions about job prospects. Certainly I won't be the one to fail, because I've never failed in my life. Hey, that's what I thought.
Dan was very lucky. He got a tenure track job. He probably assumed that he would be the 1 in 10 who could actually get tenure at a place like Chicago. Sure, he wasn't really following the rules of a place like Chicago, but he'd always beaten the odds before.
I don't mean to attack Dan personally. I don't really know him or his blog. I'm just trying to identify the mindset of academics.
He'll be fine, though. I'm sure lots of less prestigious places would love to have a professor with a public profile. If his profile grows over the next few decades, than I bet even top research schools like Chicago would want him on faculty.
yeah, I definitely see this attitude where I am (I'm on the research staff for a prof in another department at U of C) and there's no limit to what these folks can see as not worthwhile. And it's hard to argue with them, becuase their formula has worked in the sense that it's kept Chicago an elite institution and a key player in the world of social science.
If you didn't get a chance to read Drezner's posts on it, you should read them just because it's so interesting that he seems to have had his eyes open going in about what the attitude toward his blog would be.
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