To brave the winter - snowboots are a must. What kind of snowboots do universities have?

Yesterday, as I walked home from school, I felt a little better. I realized that I can't do anything to change what has occurred, and thanks to FullofLife for reminding me that I have the love of HippieHusband and friends to get me through this. And I know there will be days (and nights) when this LIFE EVENT will overwhelm me. Maybe one day I'll be able to blog about it, but not now.

I also realized as I walked home amongst the snowbanks and -15 degrees Celsius temperature that winter was likely here to stay for at least 4 possibly 5 months. Good god 5 months of cold temperatures - my tropical genes shiver. Good thing we bought some serious snowboots.


Mostly, I like the snow. I like the sound it makes when it crunches below my snowboots, but I swear my thighs were seriously frostbitten by the time I got home. They were red and itchy, I'm sure that's a sign of frostbite. I had to stand in front of the space heater, or my 'oxygen unit' as HippieHusband calls it, just to thaw out.

The other thing that the idea of a long winter made me think about was the "bleak and tortured financial landscape" that is about to beset universities and colleges across North America. I've previously blogged about how the rapid growth in the number of PhDs per year is outpacing the number of available academic jobs. So that the probability of getting an academic job is something like this

Pr(academic job) = (Number of Retirements + Number of New job created)/Number of Graduating_PhDs (per yr) .

(if you assume that every PhD graduate is equal)

But last Thursday when the Vice-President of Research of SmallUniversity, who looked an awful lot like Mr.Burns from The Simpsons, came to do a Q&A at the weekly lunch seminar, it became very clear that the situation is really bad and that the above model is too simplistic.

Doh! A simplistic model, no really.

The faculty at SmallUniversity have what are called "reserve accounts." In these accounts, they keep grant monies the faculty have obtained from applying to various funding agencies, like NSF, NIH etc. Money kept in this account is their reserve for a rainy day when one year they don't get a grant or if they need to pay for the cost of upkeep on lab equipment.

So with the bleak winter that is about to fall upon SmallUniversity, Mr. Burns revealed the university's snowboots. The administration, it seems, has talked about "raiding" (and yes this word was used) those reserve accounts. They will take the money from individuals and put it in a centralized pool, which if faculty need money they have the option of applying for. Ahh, looks like the university administration has taken their big bad snowboots and given a swift kick to some academic asses (double entendre intended). What it means is, other than glory and fame, there is really no motivation for tenured faculty to win large grants especially if the university is just going to appropriate their earnings.

I am reminded of a quote from the Simpsons,

Well, that's odd ... I've just robbed a man of his livelihood, and yet I feel strangely empty. Tell you what, Smithers - have him beaten to a pulp.

Mr. Burns indicated that university needed money to pay for things like keeping the lights on. And furthermore, although there is a hiring 'pause' on at many universities across America, to make up the cost of paying the bills, there is talk of letting go of part-time staff and sessional lecturers and consolidating departments.

Things get worse. Lately, I've been hearing on NPR and reading in newspaper articles like this one in the Boston Globe that we may be seeing more and more universities/colleges closing their doors or merging because of huge debt taken on during the years of low interest rates, a drop in endowments, and the dwindling number of students.

Why are students less likely to choose higher education in the future?

First, the cost of education is climbing and it will likely rise further in the near future. (To cover declining enrolment, I think we will see deregulated tuition increases in Canada.) This means a ballooning student debt. It's hard to justify taking on $40,000 in debt (based on Canadian tuition, I shudder to think what it would be for out of state students here) just to get an English degree or even a Biology degree. Hence the move by universities toward more 'marketable degrees'.

Sigh!

I think the second reason will be less of a problem in 10-15 years, but it is a problem now. If everyone has an undergraduate or graduate degree, then what's the advantage?

The story on NPR was interesting because it detailed how one tenured prof, who lost his job because of a college closure, took 7 months to find a job. Where did he find a job? China. Imagine that although there are 4400 colleges in America if 5% close, that's 220 colleges with academic staff looking for jobs. Now the probability of getting an academic job looks more like this:

Pr(academic job) = 0

I'd say there is a long and tortured winter ahead for many a faculty. Indentured servitude isn't looking so bad.