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October 9, 2003

how senior scholars get published

Months ago, a colleague in another department told me that his chair was pressing the faculty to submit more articles to peer-reviewed journals, because that's good for a department's reputation. "Who does that?" the colleague said; "I'm always busy writing articles that my friends have asked me to contribute." I took this as evidence of a kind of corruption in higher education. Scholars of my generation don't have friends who run journals or edit prominent books. So they compete with one another for the few genuinely open publication slots. Only the ones who frequently succeed in publishing get tenure. Meanwhile, the senior faculty who sit on their tenure committees lengthen their resumes with non-reviewed articles that they write for one another.

This sounds bitter, but it doesn't reflect a personal complaint. I've been very fortunate with easy opportunities for publication. I'm just angry on behalf of other people my age and younger.

October 9, 2003 12:35 PM | category: none

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