A friend sent me an interesting article by Ben Hunt in which Mr. Hunt calls for a reformation in academia as it is being increasingly brought into disrepute by university executives who have been accused of cheating and plagiarizing their research and peer reviewed papers.
The former president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, quit under a cloud of plagiarism accusations. She, according to her unassailable moral compass, was the target of racist attacks. “Racism for me is plagiarism for thee” apparently.
The former president of Stanford University, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, is now spending as much time revising his academic papers as he took in writing them. With evidence of falsified information and data taken from the unattributed work of others, Dr. Tessier-Lavigne assures NPR that he “could have done better.” Indeed. Like not getting caught I suppose.
Mr. Hunt compares the modern academic quadrangle to the cloisters of Clairvaux and hopes that just as Johann Tetzel’s overreaching promotion of indulgences led to the 95 reforms of Luther, perhaps the public shaming of today’s academic high priests will lead to a similar, if less violent, academic reformation. While Mr. Hunt’s interpretation of that significant 16th century event is open to question, he makes a very interesting point. I will return to my cavils with his history and the point that he so interestingly makes in a moment. First my experience with academia in hot pursuit of a PhD.
My decision to advance my education was made at a luncheon to develop a joint training project between my then employer and the academic dean of my alma mater. The conversation turned to discussion of a mining project on which I had spent several years working and the interesting social responsibility issues that resulted. When I off handedly stated that “this would make an interesting dissertation topic.. ha, ha”, the dean suggested that I consider pursuing a PhD in his department. Six months later I was enrolled and making quarterly payments to the university. Three years later I submitted myself and my dissertation to the necessary defense.
The thesis defense is a time-honoured joust in which the winner takes all - you either pass or fail. If you fail, then you weep over the thousands of dollars spent on your tilt at an arcane windmill about a subject that few would find interesting. If you pass, then you weep over the thousands of dollars spent on your tilt at an arcane windmill about a subject that few will find interesting.
It is important to explain that I was no spring chicken. In fact, I was older than most of the people on my thesis committee. I also knew how to write and was approached by the department to give seminars on “how to write a dissertation” based on the “page turner” nature of mine. While I was pleased to offer the seminars, I was surprised by the invitation because I assumed that sarcastic humour used to make polemical points would be edited out by my thesis committee. Not so. They apparently loved it.
My thesis defense took the better part of two hours, and I was required to answer surprisingly few questions. On its conclusion I was ushered out of the room to await their judgment. When another two hours passed, and I was invited back into the center of my inquisition I could see that things had not gone exactly swimmingly. The faces of my formerly delighted thesis committee members were furrowed and stern. With considerable reservation they agreed to allow me to pass the defense but only after making substantive revisions to the document. And to add gravity to the extent of my sin, the entire thesis committee, not just my advisor, had to sign off on the changes. Sarcasm wasn’t so delightful after all.
In the postmortem to the defense, my thesis advisor explained that my external examiner, a professor at an Australian university, had compiled six pages of academic sins concluding that, but for my pleasant writing style, I should be denied the degree. The head of the examination committee disagreed and thought my work was easily acceptable and I should be passed. The two hours were spent balancing those views. I was given the six pages and told to remediate my work. It was a most humbling experience, but I sensed that something was amiss.
When I read through the six pages, I found myself agreeing with most of the proposed changes. The most significant change was to include the research of a group whose work I considered interesting but was too tangential to include in my thesis. Big mistake. The bulk of the complaints were to strike my sarcastic, polemical comments. If he found them as funny as I did, he didn’t let on.
I wrote to my Australian examiner and thanked him for taking the time to read, assess and analyze my dissertation. He was surprised by my communication given how close he came to failing me. But I was grateful to him, and we even considered writing a paper together.
The point is, I think he was the only one to have read my work. I concluded that the reason I did not get push back on my sarcastic comments is that the comments hadn’t been read. Is it possible that my committee members liked the introduction and read no farther?
There is an implied contract when a professor is invited and agrees to sit on a thesis committee. They are to follow and understand the work and make necessary course corrections. In return, the candidate includes their names on any published work as it relates to the dissertation. In my case I felt they had not fulfilled their end of the bargain and I was equally diligent in fulfilling mine.
I made the necessary corrections to the dissertation by early June and submitted it to the committee by email with a request that they send back their comments and suggestions by the end of July. Having heard nothing from the committee members by the middle of July I sent emails and left telephone messages to remind them. In the middle of September, as the deadline to apply for graduation approached, I called and emailed the committee members twice more. Still no response.
Within a week of the graduation deadline (and the need to pay tuition for another term) I wrote a letter to the Dean of Graduate Studies laying out the circumstances of my complaint and my intended action if there was not a timely response. I intended, or so I said, to sue the university and all individuals associated with my sad situation for breach of both contract and fiduciary duty.
“I am not some 26 year old slave with insufficient life experience or money to protest the knavish manner of dealing with my situation. Were I to experience this level of disrespect by people working under me in the business world they would all be sacked.”
It was one of my better rants and I remain proud of my turn of phrase. And it worked. I received a phone call the next morning from the new Dean of my department telling my that I was mistaken and my dissertation had been approved and cleared by my thesis advisor. “Goodness, where did you get the notion that the whole committee needed to approve it?” I thanked him for his call and applied for graduation.
I hasten to add that my thesis advisor remained a staunch supporter and shared my unhappiness with how I had been treated. He left the university at the end of the term and is now dean of an engineering college - in Australia ironically enough.
So that is the context that informs my thoughts about the current vicissitudes of academia. I am not on their side. And to this extent I agree with Mr. Hunt,
The problem is the intellectual rot of the modern university that perverts and diminishes the works of its faculty and administrators, no matter how smart they are, no matter how accomplished they are, no matter how well-intentioned they are …
But it is not exactly like the Medieval church. I think that the rot goes a lot deeper into academia than the sale of indulgences did in the Medieval church. Not very many people liked the sale of indulgences which is why there were few Johann Tetzels and, more importantly, why there were so many Martin Luthers (eg Hus, Wyclif, Savonarola, Tynedale). Were the upper ranks of the church corrupt? Of course! There was a huge basilica to build and German electors to influence so that the young upstart Charles would not be able to purchase his emperorship. (By the way, Charles got the money to purchase his office from a mining family, the Fuggers. Just saying…)
Given the disparity in the depth of rot, I balk at comparing the perfidy of academia to the aggressively fraudulent fund raising of the Medieval church. Mr. Hunt speaks of rot from top to bottom in the university but that didn’t characterize the Medieval church. It had a crust of rot but also enough vitality to reform itself.
The collapse/reform of the university system will not lead to great violence and nor did the Reformation lead to the violence described by Hunt. The fight between the House of Valois and their cousins in the House of Bourbon was more fraternal than religious and it is hard to argue that the horrors of the 30 Years War were based on religion when the combatants regularly changed sides fighting as effectively with fellow Catholics as with Protestants.
Therefore, I think that comparing the rotted university to the pre-Luther Catholic church is not particularly accurate. Nevertheless, I do hope that the universities of today, like the church of yore, have sufficient vitality to reform themselves. After all, some of the greatest gifts of the church to western civilization were the 12th century universities that grew out of Charlemagne’s cathedral schools. These are gifts that need to be revitalized if we are to succeed as a creative and generative society. In this Mr. Hunt and I are on common ground.
Academics aren’t fake; they are our best.
But they are trapped in a system that sucks that positive energy right out of their souls, that fakes learnedness and virtue at scale, that perverts and diminishes their work, yes, but even more so them.
Our reformation is for them. And for us. It’s not a single action and it’s not a purge. It is a rebuilding and a reframing. It is a shift in our common knowledge.
But a reformation it must be all the same.
Well done Mr. Hunt. I couldn’t agree more.