I can already feel that this tenure discussion is about to become the next big thing for me. I haven't even finished my PhD and already the phrase "tenure clock" floats across my brain at least once a day. I had better put the breaks on that. However, this reminded me of another interesting tenure related discussion that I was privy to during my time at the AFW.
Several mathematicians, including the illustrious Harold Stark were leading a discussion on how math and academia has changed over the years. The usual comments were made about the push for technology in the classroom obscuring what it means to actually teach mathematics-- a topic on which I will speak at great length at another time. The discussion was more or less what you would expect, except Prof. Stark said two things that resonated with me.
First, he mentioned a noticeable decline in the quality of students. This is a very popular topic for people of all disciplines, but I suspect that mathematicians especially love it. What tickled my funny bone about this, was that the "poor quality" students he was referring to, were the denizens of none other than MIT. So I ask you: is this really happening? Every level of school you go to, from community college to MIT, the complaint seems to be the same, and yet the world still seems to be making forward progress. We've not become a pack of unsophisticated goons eating with our hands and making fart jokes all day. Have we just become so high on our pedestals that we can't remember what lousy students we once were? Or are they really getting worse?
Secondly, as he was talking about advising his own students he made some very wistful comment to the tune of "well...for every student I took on, I was giving a paper away." Which is true. For every student, you give one problem, which equals one paper, which means that you are maybe less 100 points towards tenure. I'm not sure what exactly he meant by this, but I can only assume that at some point in his prolific career as a tenure-track professor at MIT he was actually worried about getting tenure (spoiler alert: he got it...obvi). This is just so crazy to me, because as I look up to the pantheon of tremendous mathematicians above me I think that they are amazing, brilliant, untouchable, and surely have never known a day of mathematical insecurity in their lives. Now, again, I'm not sure if this is what Prof. Stark was getting at in his comment, but I'm going to assume that it was, since that is quite possibly the reassuring thing I've ever heard. Ah, insecurity, the great equalizer.
Onwards towards tenure! And I promise I won't mention this unsavory topic ever again.
<3
Great piece. I can't imagine students are actually getting worse. Maybe he's noticing that students are getting worse at doing computations in their heads, which is certainly true. There's much more to learn these days though and we have much broader (math) education.
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