[TheOtherHobbes]

>What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can't measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee.

I'd be astonished if any academic committee in any university anywhere in the world had any idea how to measure the value of research objectively.

As for not pissing people off - I'd imagine it's impossibly hard to do truly original research without pissing at least some people off. There will be petty jealousies, back-biting, gossip, and all the usual nonsense. Too much, too soon, and hackles will be raised.

It's very sad. Academia seems to have become stifling rather than expansive.

My working definition of organisational dysfunction is when politics and status become primary motivators, and quality of output - and pride in that quality - become secondary.

From the outside, that seems more true of academia now than it should be.

[sdenton4]

Yep. The academic job market is mind bogglingly brutal, meaning that academic departments have no reason to go out on any limbs. As a result hiring and tenure processes are extremely conservative and, as the author points out, normative.

I completely sympathize with the author; the promise of such shenanigans in the academic career path were part of my motivation for passing a job offer and instead take a software engineering job.