On the other hand, many professors want a cheap, dedicated labor force, and benefit from having a labor pool that believes they have poor employment options until they say otherwise. Why should being a grad student an exercise in suffering? Meanwhile, research is done by many kind of organizations outside of universities. Academia often does not play nice with industry, and often goes to great lengths to shield itself from outsiders. At least half the talks I go to introduce the speaker based on their distinguished academic genealogy, and not based on any of their accomplishments. Even the forms I have to fill out to invite speakers assume a certain kind of background, and the expectations are set up (at many levels of the organization) to judge harshly anyone that does not conform to that.
In a way, I see all this, and think Burn Baby Burn. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
