The legislature of my state has reached the following conclusions:

1. Taxpayers pay professors to work.

2. Ergo, the research professors produce belongs to taxpayers.

3. Ergo, taxpayers should have access to the research professors produce.

4. Ergo, professors should be obligated by law to place all of their research* into an online open access database.

The problem with this line of reasoning is the following. Academic journals are struggling to stay in existence. It costs money (not a huge amount but still) to print a scholarly journal. Universities increasingly refuse to support academic journals financially. In order to remain in existence and keep publishing, journals have to sell subscriptions. If nobody buys subscriptions, the journal dies.

Is everybody with me so far? Because I’m getting suspicious that this is too complicated for most people.

Since journals need subscriptions to survive, they need a way to ensure that their content is unique enough. If you can find the journal’s materials for free online, would you buy a subscription? How much would you personally agree to pay for a subscription to this blog if the blog keeps offering an open and free access? I’m guessing nothing.

Do you believe journals will agree to the idea that their articles should be available for free online? Obviously, they won’t. There is no possibility that a library will agree to pay a subscription to a journal whose content is easily available for free on the Internet. There is also no possibility that a library can justify such a bizarre purchase, especially given that library funding is getting slashed everywhere.

So obviously, journals will not agree to sign a permission for me to place my article that the journal published online. So obviously, I should either stop trying to get published or resign myself to breaking state law. Neither alternative seems enormously attractive.

The problem that this law is trying to solve doesn’t exist. Taxpayers who are so desperate to read my research could simply request a copy of my article from the library. Or they could contact me directly since my contact information is publicly available. There has never been a single complaint from a single taxpayer who was dying to read my article on a novel by the Spanish writer Galdós and was suffering for lack of access. If such a taxpayer exists, please point her in my direction and I will make her a happy woman.

Every time when an article is published in a prestigious scholarly journal in the US, Canada, UK, Spain, etc. and is signed by “Prof. Clarissa Bulochkina, University of Koompi-Loompi”, this helps Koompi-Loompi to get noticed as a place where high-quality research is conducted. As a result, the value of the degrees awarded by Koompi-Loompi grows. Taxpayers benefit from getting more valuable degrees. Am I explaining this process clearly enough, or is my argument too academic?

Bulochkina gets published, Koompi-Loompi wins. Bulochkina doesn’t get published, Koompi-Loompi loses. Does it make sense to hurt Koompi-Loompi’s chances of generating a positive image in order to solve a problem that does not exist?

Instead of this imaginary problem, Koompi-Loompi has a real one: its name isn’t well-known, especially not in the context of scholarly excellence. Bulochkina’s “spectacular record of publications” (according to her dean at Koompi-Loompi) helps solve that problem. Should we prevent Bulochkina from getting published? Will that somehow advance the interests of the state where she works?

“We need to embrace this as the trend of the future!” joyfully proclaimed an administrator who, in his entire life, has read less than I have published.

Continue reading “Why Professors Should Stop Doing Research” →

I know that this blog is read by many people who work in my university system (which will remain unnamed; we all know what it is.) I believe the following will be of interest to them, so listen up.

Today I went to a talk given by the President of our university system (who will remain nameless). He talked about the impending budget cuts. Then there was a Q&A session. People mostly asked vague and meaningless questions, announcing in advance that they expected no answer because “these are philosophical questions that don’t have an answer. So I got up and asked a direct question. (An aside to Americans: seriously, folks, will there come a time when you will wake up and take matters pertaining to your own livelihoods into your own hands or will you navel-gaze and ask philosophical questions while the dirty work of speaking clearly and directly will fall to everybody else? I’m not having a good day, as you can see.)

My question was, and I quote, “Is there a possibility that our university system will eliminate academic programs and departments? And if so, what will happen to the tenured and tenure-track faculty members of those departments?”

There was a lot of flowery admin-speak in response but this is what I gleaned from the President’s response:

1. Yes, academic programs and departments will be eliminated.

2. This will not happen immediately.

3. There will be “productivity measures” (re)introduced aimed at deciding which departments will be eliminated. “Productivity” obviously has fuck-all to do with scholarship and research. Quality of instruction is also of zero interest to anybody.

4. There is time for faculty members to prepare an exit strategy.

5. We will still get to take the students already in our programs to graduation.

6. After that, we can fuck off.

Obviously, this was not said in these words. I’m giving you my reading of the response. As you know, I read and analyze texts for a living, so I stand by my analysis. I believe it’s better to know than not to know.

The organizer of the Black Lives Matter vigil got accused by several professors of promoting hate speech. According to these professors, saying “Black Lives Matter” is the same as saying “White lives don’t matter.” The white organizer of the vigil says that it has been suggested that we use placards saying “All lives matter” instead. In response, we are extending our Black Lives Matter vigil for one more week.

So my adventures in promoting hate speech will continue.

Two bits of news:

A. The state of Illinois refuses to honor its obligations as to funding a percentage of our university’s budget.

B. The state of Illinois has adopted a law that will prevent professors at public universities from getting published and advancing their careers as researchers. I guess the idea behind this is that students at public schools do not deserve to be taught by scholars. This definitely sounds like the final nail in the coffin of the public higher ed system. If professors can’t do research, there is no chance they will stay at such universities.

A great question from Evelina Anville:

This is about the USSR specifically– but more about your experience living in multiple countries. Is the racism in the United States particularly bad? I have travelled quite a bit but only lived in this country and it seems to me that –while other countries certainly have their problems when it comes to race relations– there is something particularly violent and institutionalized about American racism. For instance, I don’t read or hear about police officers in other (developed) countries who shoot or choke unarmed citizens. But perhaps it’s because I’m ill informed. But this is a long way of saying: what’s your experience of racism living in other countries?

This is a very good, important question. 

When I first moved to the US from Canada in 2003, I experienced a huge culture shock that was enormously higher than the shock I experienced when moving to Canada from Ukraine. I had major depression for a long time, it was just bad. Racism was one of the main reasons for this shock. I had been laboring under the mistaken belief that Canada* and the US were very similar, so I was simply unprepared for the endless barrage of racist jokes, comments, news items, etc. I just didn’t know how to inscribe myself into all this. I have this insistent feeling that when the white people around me see a black person, they don’t see who I’m seeing. I have a feeling they see something – not even somebody, but something – else.

I never feel like such a total and absolute alien as I do after events like the murders of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. I don’t understand other people, I don’t get the tone of the discussion. It’s like they speak a language I don’t understand! And please don’t roll out the “not everybody” argument. No, not everybody but in the country of the US’s history and demography, way too many. Racism is like a poison that seeps into everything and makes everything scuzzy and degraded. And I see barely any awareness of that.

Ukrainian people are very racist. But this is a country with a mono-racial population where everybody looks like me. Their racism is about people and things they see on TV. It’s still racism, it’s still bad but it isn’t about denying your own history, your own past, present and future. It isn’t about killing your neighbor. It isn’t about cheering the killing of your neighbor.

When I was a little Soviet child, I would pray to God every night, thanking him for  sparing me the horrible fate of being born in the USA where racists lynched black kids. When I got older, I decided that was all stupid Soviet propaganda and laughed at my childish beliefs. I was thinking about this today, as I stood at the vigil in memory of Michael Brown.

* The only part of Canada I knew was Quebec.

P.S. What I dig about this blog is that any discussion leads to a variety of interesting and often unexpected places. Thank you, my friends, for asking questions and reading the answers.