University Talk

[moonchild7903]

Help, experienced academicians. After two years of teaching in university, I haven't learned to interpret the foreign language called "departmentese"

I've taught in University for two years so I'm still very much a junior in my department. When I was bright-eyed and new, the seniors were raving about my "potential" and how I would do well to get on the "tenure track" but that I must first earn my MA. When I entered the MA program of my university the following term, they were singing my praises to the dean and the department chair person, saying that they've never seen anyone with so much research potential. Somewhere in the middle of my program, I noticed some classmates shifting to the non-thesis program and sought the help of my academic adviser, asking him if it would be good for me to go to the non-thesis program. He said "no, if you shift to the non-thesis program, you won't be able to get into the PhD." Inexperienced as I was, I listened.

I am currently finishing my thesis and up until a week ago was still very naive but a friend of mine who tried to get into the tenure track was stopped at deliberation even if she had done her MA on the thesis track. We would have taken the rejection well if they hadn't just placed four teachers on the tenure track who were MAs but didn't write MA theses. Last week, they were allowed in the PhD program even after telling me that non-thesis MA holders cannot be admitted for PhD in my university! The four have not published anything, have not demonstrated research potential, aren't exemplary teachers, and they haven't been in the university long enough either.

Discouraged, I went to my thesis adviser (who happens to be the most iimportant person) and asked what is the key to getting on the tenure track because in a few months, I will be in the place of my friend who just got rejected. Her answer was, "be patient."

okay... here's the question again, does this normally happen in universities? Is this kind of vagueness status quo in universities?

Thanks

[tigertiger]

Moonchild
This sounds like politics, and there is a lot of it in a University. That is why I quit working in a Uni in UK.
There are Macro politics, e.g. where the Dean has been instructed to deliberatley run down a dept that has fallen out of favour with the principal.
Then that are the micro politics, where someone is instructed, or it is decided, that person A will be admited, and person B won't. This is often based on subjective criteria. In some countries it is beacase the students has/hasn't the right connections. The student may also be seen as less pleasant to manage by the prof. The students academic interests might fit better with those of the prof. Remember that many profs calim the work of thier underlings as their own when published, despite rules on plagiarism.