Quote:
Originally Posted by M-squared
Syracusa: I am an administrator at a small liberal arts college in the Northeast (close to a city that sounds like your screen name). It's exactly your "us" versus "them" from professors towards staff and administrators that, quite frankly, turns my stomach. I run an non-academic department. I have a graduate degree and have become fairly highly regarded in my field. And yet, I will forever be an "other" to certain members of the faculty simply because I don't have three little letters (Ph.D.) behind my name. Glad to know it's not just my own particular institution.
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Oh, I know that!! And believe me, I would NEVER claim that academia does not have its major, major, ego-related issues. It is a terrible shame that such things are going on and it is even more surprising that such superficial attitudes (purely based on credentials - as bad as those based on income or flashy life-style are) come from academics who really...REALLY!...should know better. But many don't...and let's face it, your average contemporary academic is no longer the "sage" academic of yesterday. Many are just credential-hungry people, just like the rest of the professional world, and that's about it. It's human nature/ego probably.
Just give me an hour with a person any day - and their undivided attention in a one-on-one conversation. Give me SUBSTANCE and CONTENT. The person's eyes, their ways of talking, what they are saying, how they are saying things...they will give me enough material to work on my "fine discriminations". This is my only criterium for "discriminating" : QUALITY/SUBTANCE. Not income, not degree, not flashy life style.
I have had superb conversations with a poor boy selling newspapers at the subway station. He lives in an almost ghetto/dangerous area...but will I move there simply because some incredibly and naturally intelligent people (albeit non-credentialed, poor, low social status) also live there?
But when you just drive through a neighborhood you have to work within the superficial cues that you have. It is simply hard for me to count on the probability of finding the substance I am looking for among people whose outward appearance seems to indicate the "work/sports/big-screen-TV/fast food" lifestyle only. It would not be realistic for me to believe that most of those look superficial on the outside but are a mountain of substance, intelligence and grace on the inside. Some may.
Many will not - as I will most probably discover when we move.