Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Global Adventurer and Raconteur
Context and Credentials
My entry discipline and academic training was as faculty to educate student affairs and higher education post-graduate students. I spent 10 years in a Department of Counseling, and even more in a Department of Educational Leadership. I served on a load of committees on campus, from doctoral committees to a few senior campus level committees where I was appointed by faculty governance and the Provost. My father was faculty and a Dean, my sister was faculty and a Dean, my wife was faculty and a Department Chair. I am the family failure since I never sought a position in management (well, I did serve one year as Associate Dean, and again as Faculty Fellow to help out a new Dean, then I went back to the classroom). I have been immersed as a faculty member in Thailand and Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia, and the same social stratification and hierarchy dynamic works in those nations. This is to say, I was immersed in campus culture as I studied campus culture. I was also immersed in my professional organizations.
The Crypto Language of Campus Hierarchy
For individuals: (Full) Professor, Associate (not Assistant) anything, Chair, Executive Committee, Citation Index, Science (not Humanities or Arts), Ph.D. (not Ed.D.). These are the campus version of the corporate corner office and keys to the executive lounge for individuals.
For campuses and academic programs: Campus Rank, Program rank, "recognized", Accredited. For a campus these are the version of being Big Law or the Big Accounting firms. The US NEWS campus rankings are taken very seriously, to the point that a lot of campuses game the system to increase their rank (for example; free applications for low income students to increase the application to acceptance ratio).
These are manufactured status distinctions. Note that these are, sort of, about social or positional privilege for individuals and perceived privilege for campuses and programs. Some of these privileges are earned, and some are not.
Faculty and Administrator Hierarchies
On any campus there are multiple avenues to individual prestige - basically the Big Three - Research, Teaching, Service. On most campuses teaching is not a path to prestige - this says something about what the faculty and campus leaders really value. An alternative path to campus level prestige is to go into management - campus leadership. Administrators, those who quit years of academic preparation to take on a leadership role, live in a politically based hierarchy with unclear rules for advancement.
Research Hierarchy
Seeking the rationale for requiring faculty to publish in high prestige selective journals is interesting. Most of this rationale is grounded in mythology, but there is a lot of inertia for the current emphasis on research. Even the definition of high prestige journal is open to question, since it often means a high rejection rate, which really means that the articles accepted are 'within paradigm' and don't upset senior scholars. Phrases like 'tier one journals" get used but no one can find a list of tiers in journals. Academic journals come in several varieties: professional organization, topic, campus, and predatory (for profit).
Myth: good research is related to good teaching. I call bullshit, based on research on this topic.
Myth: research keeps faculty current in their topic. I call bullshit. I've sat on enough tenure and promotion committees to know that this is not true. How about the idea that reading current material in your discipline keeps you current.
Myth: publication is the route to peer reviewed notoriety. I call bullshit. Current social media, blogs, and other forums do a fine job of peer review. Simply count readers and read comments. For example, as of today, I have 688 citations according to my Google Scholar profile, my most popular citation comes not from a tier one journal but from this blog. I have 315,469 page views on this blog, and I have 2630 Google hits on "Will Barratt" "Social Class", and more on other topics.
Myth: The more people who cite your research in their publications is a measure of how important your article is. This one is true. Two large commercial organizations, that are competitors, manage the academic citation index of the journals they index, so they don't index each other's journals. SCOPUS (owned by Elsevier Publishing) and ISI - Web of Science (owned by Clarivate). SCOPUS does deals with campus and nations to be the citation indexer of choice, for a fee. So campus leaders get sold a citation index that is a business, when a free one is better and more inclusive (Google Scholar). I guess if it costs more then it is better.
tl;dr - for profit citation indexes have become currency for research hierarchies.
Teaching Hierarchy
I have a standing dispute with every Chief Academic Affairs Officer: I assert that campus leaders do not value teaching. Academic Affairs leaders note that teaching is taken seriously in the promotion and tenure process. OK, so once at the 3 year review, once in the tenure review, and once for promotion. And teaching is not weighted heavily in those few decisions. I won the teaching award on my campus, one of 3 in the year I won out of 400 Tenure Track Faculty. I got a plaque and a one time $1000 USD check. Oh, and a dinner. While the criteria for research is publications and citations, the criteria for teaching is often having one class observed and a teaching evaluation survey of students, often focusing on a single question.
Service Hierarchy
Faculty are expected to provide service to the campus, the community, and the profession. This is usually translated as committee work. Campus committees, from Department to College to Campus level are a hierarchy - and the type of committee matters. High value committees are about faculty matters, low value committees deal with students.
Campus Hierarchies
Campus ranking systems are bullshit, for the most part. Accrediting bodies and news media have dodgy criteria designed to attract readers and sell advertising. Three critical components of any program are key in the Program Evaluation world: Inputs, Experiences, and Outcomes. Most college rankings look at inputs only - which often translates into money. Criticism of rankings is not to be found in the media because the media is responsible for the ranking systems.
While dated (2006) College Ranking Reformed by Carey is a wonderful and critical way to look at rankings - and to offend the name brand schools. Carey calls bullshit on current ranking systems, and supports it with data.
Summary
The hierarchy system on campus is a part of life - does math have more prestige than physics? What about chemistry? Are all sciences better than all humanities? Are humanities better than arts? As with the military the hierarchy within (faculty and administrator rank) and between (physics v art history) is a part of life. None of it is supported in any empirical way. As I have written and said before, this is all just made up.
tl;dr campus is a swamp of interlocking hierarchy systems. The fights are so vicious because the stakes are so low.
