Thu 13 Oct 2005
Interesting comments on Dan Drezner’s ’90 tenure denial from Swarthmore’s Tim Burke.
Many smart academics could potentially write a blog rather like Dan Drezner’s: it is not what he writes per se in his blog that is an indication of his distinctive quality as an intellectual, but that he wrote it in a situation where it was potentially career-threatening to do so, and certainly not career-enhancing. That indicates a clarity of commitment to the public character of scholarly work and to the communicative ability that is one of the foundations of good teaching.
Exactly right. I try to limit myself to one out-of-the-blue e-mail to Morty each year. Last year, my topic was posting senior theses on-line. This year, it was a suggestion to hire Drezner. Getting Drezner, who will certainly have offers from elsewhere, might be expensive, but I would wager that he would only cost 75% the salary of another recent hire in the political science department.
Readers may differ on who would benefit the education of Williams students more.
Print
• Email
| « “Excellent” Reheated Wingnut Blogging | Photo ID, #24 » |
2 Responses to “He Wrote It”
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post
If a comment you submitted does not show up, please email us at eph at ephblog dot com. Please note that commenters are required to use a valid email address when submitting comments.
(d)avid says:
David, have you reconsidered your earlier views that Williams faculty are overpaid and there should be a cap of some sort? Seems like it. Or, are you simply making the argument that IF the college insists on the foolishly paying professors what other elite colleges pay professors, then the college ought to pursue Drezner?
October 14th, 2005 at 9:23 amDavid Kane says:
The latter. I still think that the College would be well served by a pay policy that set the salary for junior professors at national norms, the salary for full professors at around 2 times that, and the salary for the president at double that.
But if the College is going to pay the big bucks to anyone, Williams students would be much better served by paying the big bucks to someone like Drezner than to someone like James.
Actually, I don’t even think that “big bucks” is fair phrasing in this case. What do you think we will see when the College’s next form 990 (or perhaps the one after that) comes out? I suspect that the College had to pay James enough that she will now be among the top five paid employees. I believe that Drezner could be had for a great deal less than that. (But I would count his work on the blog in place of a class or some such deal. I believe that James’s course load is less than other Williams professors, but don’t know for sure.)
October 14th, 2005 at 9:31 am