@cobrat: A MD is a requirement to be a medical doctor because it is directly relevant to the skills necessary to perform the job. A JD is the same for lawyers. An MBA is often the same for executive positions (though there are plenty of executives without one). Please explain how a PhD is directly relevant to the skills necessary to run a Global Studies Institute.
There are plenty of medical organizations that are not run by medical doctors.
Just want to point out that the Institute of Politics and the Department of Political Science are not the same thing. The Institute of Politics is an extracurricular organization that doesn’t confer degrees - David Axelrod’s effort to get the student body more invested in politics by bringing major players to UChicago for seminars/fellowships, creating community engagement programs, expanding access to political internships and experiences like the Iowa Project, etc. It’s a post where a “political/connections appointment” is a good thing. Axelrod also built the program from the ground up - if not for him, it wouldn’t be here.
The Department of Political Science is a separate division, chaired by Cathy J. Cohen, PhD.
This PhD is chiming in to agree that @cobrat’s assumption is bogus.
“Only” having an MA is a red flag (or, at least, an insufficient credential) for someone who followed a normal academic path. If you’ve spent your life in the academy, then you’d better have gotten the highest credential possible. There are, however, countless examples of non-PhDs with substantial, relevant professional experience in other walks of life assuming various kinds of faculty positions at top universities.This is occasionally true even in my field, English literature, where there wouldn’t be that many obvious routes to obtaining equivalent experience. It is much more common in a field like poli-sci, where actual, lived experience in the government or military might well be (gasp!) more useful than theoretical knowlege in certain situations.
On topic: I don’t think this prof has a leg to stand on, if the allegations against her are true.
It sounds like the professor in question has mental health issues. I think that really needs to be addressed
Is your position that the lack of a PhD is a legitimate “issue” that could be overcome or made an exception? Then we agree.
But apparently not. So we disagree.
You are confused between a prereq and an industry norm.
A norm simply means “something that is usual, typical, or standard” and does not disqualify someone not conforming. A minimum prereq does.
Wikipedia article of Professor, which I believe can be considered as industry norms says;
“Education Required: Sometimes a master’s degree, but typically a doctoral degree (e.g., Ph.D.) or other terminal degree”
I would appreciate if you can pin point any credible source that either;
- PhD was a requirement for the position that Eikenberry was offered, or
- PhD is a requirement for professorship within the U.S.
Taken from the mission statement off their website:
The first and last part is the part where someone not having completed a PhD may run into issues.
Northwestern is an elite research I university with high research/scholarship expectations of its tenure-track/tenured faculty, grad students…especially those at the doctoral level, and academic affiliates. Completing a Masters or few is nowhere near the same thing as completing a PhD.
What credibility would someone who has not paid his dues by completing a PhD, gone on the tenure track, and experience being subjected to the publish/perish norms to get on the tenure track/get tenured in the context of an elite research I U where “collaborative research” and “engaged scholarship” are emphasized would have over senior Profs and academic affiliates with such experience…especially decades worth of such?
Did anyone read the professor’s response?
I am completely out of sympathy with her attacks on Eikenberry, and would have been furious at her if I were a Northwestern administrator or faculty member.
On the other hand, however, the order barring her from campus and forcing her to get a psychiatric examination really does seem Stalinist. There appears to be no evidence that she has ever been violent, and the only evidence that she was out of control seems to have come from the unsupported complaint of a male faculty member against who she had previously lodged a complaint for shouting at her and slamming his door in her face. He denies that charge, of course, but she has a witness to support it. The rest of the complaints about her seem to be that she is an annoying, oppositional, left-wing academic – which seems true, but hardly justifies barring her from contact with students or firing her once she has tenure.
“order barring her from campus and forcing her to get a psychiatric examination really does seem Stalinist. There appears to be no evidence”
In this case, I am giving Northwestern a benefit of doubt. My theory is that, out of self-interest, they wouldn’t have done it unless they had legal advise on strong bases to defend if things backfire.
Considering universities/institutions have been known to be given the benefit of the doubt in incidents which have later proven to have been grave mistakes, this is a mistake unless more evidence is in.
Personally, beyond the PhD issue, I’m withholding judgment on which side to take in the Steven’s case beyond agreeing with JHS on the Stalinistic aspects of NU’s mandating her to get a psychiatric evaluation from someone with close ties to the administration.
That’s certainly a possibility
No it is not a mistake to speculate with some base but not enough evidences, as that is the nature of speculation, or giving a benefit of doubt, which was all I did.
It would have been a mistake if I strongly argued for Northwestern’s decision on Stevens’s career and barring her. without enough supporting evidences. Of course I wouldn’t do such things.
It is your speculation and you have all the right to hold on to it until evidences prove otherwise. I wouldn’t argue against anyone’s personal opinion, unless it involves misrepresentation of a fact or faulty logic.
Eikenberry was likely hired for a PR and administrative role, drawing attention (and $$) to the instutute in myriad ways.
He was NOT hired to research, but to manage research and researchers, meet U goals. It doesn’t matter what a lawyer needs to certify or what next, a plumber?
Having an MD or DO is a legal requirement for practicing as a doctor. Having an MD is absolutely NOT a requirement of a hospital director. In my personal experience as a hospital nurse, none of the hospital directors were MDs. Most had Masters Degrees in Public Health/Health Administration. IIRC, one of them had some kind of business degree.
The Institute may involve collaborative research and engaged scholarship, but you have offered nothing to suggest Gen. Eikenberry would need to do so. No one is suggesting his MA degrees are the equivalent of a PhD. We are suggesting that his skills in being a three-star general (far rarer than PhDs, I should note) are directly applicable to this job. I am similarly unsure why you think someone subject to “publish or perish” would make a better administrator.
In some professions and fields and most academics I know believe academia is one…if the one managing researcher Profs has not himself done research at their level as a grad student or junior faculty at the very least, he doesn’t have the relevant experience to manage them…nor any business in doing so in the minds of most faculty I’ve known.
That’s not to discount his experience as a career military officer or his achieving the 3-star generalship.
However, that experience is so different from being a director of an academic research institute where one will be in charge of academic researchers with PhDs and decades of research/scholarship under their belts that much if it will unlikely to be applicable without some time experiencing the academic environment beyond that of an undergrad/MA level grad student.
Rarity of achieving a given position is irrelevant if the experience is so different as to be mostly/completely irrelevant to a new position.
For instance, being a Field medalist or a nobel prize winner is likely a far rarer feat than being a senior military officer/3 star general.
And yet, it would be absurd to use that as a basis to claim that automatically makes him/her qualified to be immediately hired straight out as the CEO/Senior exec of a fortune 500 company, field grade/senior professional military officer direct command of a military unit…especially at the regimental/brigade level or higher, etc without any other proof he/she has RELEVANT credentials/experiences expected in the hiring norms of each of those fields respectively.
For the record, Stanford’s bio on him. https://profiles.stanford.edu/karl-eikenberry
You’ll note, he’s not practicing law or medicine. His specialty is oriented to policy and practice.
FYI, a sizable portion of his publication record from that bio is in newsmedia. That will likely scream “academic lightweight” to many academics within the academy. Especially considering publishing newsmedia articles isn’t considered engaged scholarship/research with most bona-fide academics.
In fact, being told one’s academic scholarship/work is “journalism” has long been considered a pejorative in many corners of academia to denote one’s scholarship lacks depth or seriousness.
@cobrat: Nice dodge on my post by cherry-picking half the sentence from the middle. Answer the rest and I’ll get back to you. In fact, why not go for broke and answer the whole post?
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread is going around in circles. I’m closing it.