Unconscionable Disciplinary Selfishness

By Alex Usher. Everyone knows this story, or a variant of it, even if it never hits the papers and no one wants to name names.  It goes like this: Professor X simply won’t retire.  It’s not that he/she (though it’s mostly he) is staying on for themselves, you understand. It’s for the department.  If he/she (mostly he) left, there simply wouldn’t be any guarantee that a new tenure line would go back to the department.  That position might go to another department – or another faculty entirely.  And that would never do – think of the department. More...