zshfryoh1 Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Here is a blog post from today by John Palmer who is a prof at UWO. He seems to be very pessimistic about the future of UWO's department. I am not interested in Canadian schools, but I know a number of you are and thought this might interest some of you. And yes, he does use for rankings the RePEc rankings which as we have previously discussed in other threads is flawed, but he has a number of other reasons for being pessimistic about the department's long term prospects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obtuse_icosahedron Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 That made me feel so good. Thanks :tup: :tup: :tup: I got rejected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayern Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 That makes me feel good as well. I declined them :p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banthisposter2 Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 I have no idea where I stand, but EDITED answered only 1-2 of my emails in the last four years. Not a good showing--for me, for him Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canecon Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Wow if you google this you will see that this person has been spamming the entire web. haha. Quotes about the troll: I guess what I liked most about her posts was how sincere she was. She honestly believed that there was a massive conspiracy out to ruin her career ... and didn't realize that her career was instead ruined by her own blatent insanity. To me, she really epitomized that radical, semi-psychopathic fringe of the XOXO board. She was really ****ed up though - probably a schizophrenic who had fallen off her meds. I will admit that it was kind of hilarious when people used to bait her by saying that they knew him and he was a great guy, which would inevitably cause her to spin into a frenzy of hateful spamming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KGkhan23 Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 There is a report that some of the senior admins here think that even having a ranking of 64 is too high for a university whose overall ranking in the world is somewhere between 100 and 150. They think this department is too good and commands too many of the university's resources. They see that top new PhDs in economics draw big salaries at top schools, and so they want us to hire lesser people and fall in the rankings. Is this for real? I never imagined that a school would behave this way. It's honestly disgusting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aumann Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 For this and other personal reasons, I will be happy to be out of here in a few years. I love how, in most walks of life, this is the kind of exposé would wait until a few days before you leave a job. Not in academia though. "You guys suck, theres no way I'm hanging around for more than a few ........ years!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zshfryoh1 Posted April 2, 2009 Author Share Posted April 2, 2009 I love how, in most walks of life, this is the kind of exposé would wait until a few days before you leave a job. Not in academia though. "You guys suck, theres no way I'm hanging around for more than a few ........ years!" One of the advantages (and purposes) of tenure is so that you can say things like this and nothing happens. In the "real world" you would get fired for saying this. To paraphrase one of my math profs "Isn't academia grand". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legatus Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 It also shields you from having to say sensible things. I wonder why he didn't mention the fact that Yale is ranked 30th and MIT 5th below Oxford and Princeton? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zshfryoh1 Posted April 3, 2009 Author Share Posted April 3, 2009 It also shields you from having to say sensible things. I wonder why he didn't mention the fact that Yale is ranked 30th and MIT 5th below Oxford and Princeton? You obviously did not carefully read what John Palmer was writing. He uses the RePEc rankings, which everyone admits is flawed due to the self-reporting aspect (though he does not mention this) as jumping off point to discuss other problems with the future of the department, most of which relate to a hostile -or at the very least ambivalent- administration at UWO in their attitude toward the econ department. That is his primary point he is trying to make, and if what he is saying from the inside is correct then his point is very sensible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obtuse_icosahedron Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 WOW! That made me feel good even more. I'm definitely not impressed with UWO students' reading comprehension Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legatus Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 WOW! That made me feel good even more. I'm definitely not impressed with UWO students' reading comprehension Whatever makes you cope better with rejection.. I don't think that budget fights are unique to any school this year. How many schools pretty much had an explicit hiring freeze this year. Economist are not always loved by other social sciences, especially since starting salaries can sometimes be as high as tenured professors in other fields, and odds are Deans are not economists themselves. Jealousy and resentment is not a new phenomenon in academia. The department here is good. Students are strong, professors are approachable and friendly, and the training is very good. This is a great place to do economics. Oh, and by the way, my other post was just a response to the tenure comment, and I still stand by my belief that anyone using the REPEC rankings is not saying anything sensible. More like just looking for any source that justifies their priors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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