jobs . . . hiring

John O'Brien (JOBRIEN@UCS.INDIANA.EDU)
Fri, 10 Jun 1994 12:09:25 EST

Bonnie Blackwell pointed out in a private message that my `feelings' on
honoring the social contract and the encouragement of individuals into
the profession(s) of the social sciences . . . can be interpretted as
implying bad faith/dishonesty on the part of faculty . . .

That I would like to clear up . . . my post was meant to state how I felt
about a situation in which a social contract has been broken, primarily by
political groups outside of academic institutions, who have reduced funding
and otherwise limited economic growth . . . as Bonnie points out . . .
predictions are based on known knowledge at a given point . . .

I think Rick Wilks post on journal reviews shows the result . . . people
are being demanded to be overworked in the current economic situation, all
across the board . . . to the detriment of the ALL.

Anyway, two weeks is nothing to have an article sit on a desk . . . lightning
speed in reality . . . some cases go on for years, or articles are sent back
to editors because there just is no time to do them, etc.

J.

Regardless, the jobs hiring post was simply a statement that we really cannot
allow administrative and legislative breaking of the `academic contract'
. . . it puts people (perfectly human with perfectly good intents) into
situations that are virtually intolerable. For example, faculty who fully
expected to see the `90's open positions (based on professional projections
of needs that were published in the 70's and 80's) . . . suddenly found
that those predictions were not accurate . . . thus, a social contract
broken by the `STATE' (in its broadest sense of the word) . . . forcing
people into situations they feel responsible for, but had no responsibility
for creating.

Another reason for arguing for concerted efforts to reverse the economic
and employment situation . . . thank you Bonnie.

John