Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?

It is hard to rely on a college executive composed of three chimpanzees, a scorpion, a pit viper, and a coma patient.

— Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt
“Tenure and Promotion Goes Crazy”

Comments

Essentially what this article advocates is: (i) pay writers of recommendation letters a few hundred dollars for writing their letters [a good idea], and (ii) make associate professors full without too much of a serious discussion [bad idea]. But their proposals seem to me to be very incremental and does not address the real problem [the existance of committees], as such I vote strongly for rejecting their paper, and taking away their tenure, which clearly they stole while the chimpanzee was petting the pit viper.