Academic Productivity: A Misnomer

Please give this careful thought:

The concept of "productivity" applies to factories. It makes sense to ask questions such as "how many cars or pencils or cell phones does a factory produce in a year?"

In contrast, the right questions to ask in academia are: What has a researcher discovered? What questions has he asked? Which longstanding questions might he or she have answered? How has a field of knowledge moved forward fundamentally or how has the human condition improved dramatically owing to someone's research?

Compare the questions I have just posed to: How many papers have you published this year?

The concept of productivity is best left to factories. Academics must stay introspective, deep, searching.

The one concept that has caused perhaps the most damage to academia is the concept of tenure tracking based on "productivity".

Academics will be far better served if we base tenure decisions on: a) Quality of classroom teaching, b) Quality of undergraduate project mentoring, c) Quality of Masters theses guidance and d) Quality of PhD theses guidance. This will bring the focus back to who universities were established for in the first place: Students! Alongside, encourage faculty members to work on really challenging problems and give them awards/promotions when significant breakthroughs come. And till someone's research moves forward appreciably, simply don't promote them. This in itself is incentive enough for academics to pursue their research with intent. Who would like to stay an assistant or associate professor forever? Undervaluing quality teaching and quality project/thesis guidance while emphasizing "produce something somehow" by pressing the "tenure gun" against someone's head and threatening their livelihood is self defeating, it weakens academics. Do you see what I'm saying?

The question of course is: Can qualitative judgments be made and trusted?

My response: If we trust our students and peers enough to talk in detail with them, take their feedback, and then apply our mind to ensure that everyone is above board and the feedback being received is genuinely academic, I don't see why not.

We need to (very urgently) bring back a culture of introspection, depth and intellectual rigor in our universities and make them what they were mean to be: Centers of Education. The very nature of the society we are creating depends on that. And if you just step back and watch carefully, things are falling apart really fast.

[I also invite you to read: Strike a Pause: Introducing Tenure Track In Indian Academia: A Case Study In Insincerity (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)]

The Good Life

Think about this deeply:

Today, as a society we have linked "the good life" exclusively to how much money one has. Living in a good neighbourhood in a decent house, having decent amenities at home, wearing good clothes, sending one's children to decent schools, being able to go to a good hospital when sick: everything is simply linked to one's bank balance. This has resulted in a society that encourages making money quickly in whichever way possible. In some sections of our society this has taken things to the extreme that parents cut short their children's education and engage them in earning money - the thought process being "what's the point of education if one can earn money without it"?

Now this is deeply unhealthy! Undervaluing knowledge and education will result in a society with substandard doctors, engineers, scientists, lawyers, judges, teachers, professors, police officers, administrators, writers, musicians, painters, and so on, very very quickly. In fact, can you sense that this is already happening? Worse, societies that undervalue knowledge and education also have a higher crime rate as people start engaging in criminal activities: theft, drug dealing, prostitution, etc.

A society bereft of knowledge is not only a low quality society, it's also guaranteed to become a society dependent on foreign powers. Nations that lead are also nations that invest in keeping their societies knowledgeable. This has always been true. And it will always be true. Self sufficiency depends very strongly on how knowledgeable a society and country are.

We need to bring a shift and figure out ways to guarantee a good life to the following three sets of people:

1) People who have put themselves through an advanced level of education and are committed to using their knowledge for the society's benefit.

2) People who may not have been able to go through traditional education due to personal or family reasons but have developed a skill or an art form on their own to an advanced level and are committed to using their skill and art for the society's benefit.

3) People who engage in social work and dedicate their lives to serving the poor, the destitute, the orphaned, the abandoned.

We have to stop expecting the studious, the scholarly, the learned, the artistic, the skilled, the compassionate, the caring, the servers, to "be good" on their own expense while we give a comfortable life only to those who somehow run around and make money.

This will bring back balance in our society.

Are you able to see what I'm getting at?

Nalanda University: A Brief History Lesson and Some Homework

A brief history lesson and then some homework:

I. Brief History Lesson:

Nalanda University was attacked three times:

First attack: Mihirakula (Huns)

Second attack: Shashanka (Gauda Dynasty, Brahmin)

Third attack: Bhakhtyar Khilji (Muslim)

II. Homework:

1. Read about Mihirakula and Shashanka. Where were they from? Which religions did they subscribe to? Which form of God did they worship?

2. Ask yourself: Why is it that we are only taught about Bhakhtyar Khilji but not Mihirakula and Shashanka? What's the agenda?

Be sharp, very sharp! Know that whenever history is taught to us with distortions and omissions, there is a "Divide and Rule" political agenda behind it.

The truth is simply this: History is full of wars, violence and destruction by people of ALL faiths, ALL sects. And the only sensible way forward is this: QUIT FIGHTING! LIVE TOGETHER! LIVE AND LET LIVE!

Progress and Development is possible ONLY if we stop wasting our time and energy in fighting with each other and work together to take the nation forward. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Period.

(Note: As you reflect on the post above, bear in mind that I have supported the present government every time they acted to cancel minority appeasement freebies (Haj Allowance, PM Iftar Parties, Triple Talaaq, Article 370 - Kashmir lost the moral right to ever demand anything in January 1990). But from 2019 to 2024 their speeches and IT Cell actively spread hatred against ordinary Muslim citizens. Not only can this not be allowed, it is fundamentally nonsensical. To understand this better, I invite you to read: Strike a Pause: Why Push Away Muslims? (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com))