Keeping UC at the Top

David Warsh reports on the continuing struggle to keep the Unobersity of California's faculty not just high quality but the highest quality in the world. In general, maintaining a social democratic university in a neoliberal age--it's not for sissies. This is particularly true for UC which has spent every dollar it can scrape together and more over the past two generations in its wildly successful mammoth expansion plan while its private peers have taken the lavish gifts from alumni purchasing indulgences and focused them on increasing surplus to stakeholders.

It is particularly hard in economics. In other disciplined to leave your university because another offers to pay you more entails personal humiliation and status degradation to a not inconsiderable degree: you are supposed to value ideas and colleagues and students, not cash. In economics, however, the thrust of the discipline makes a failure to respond to market forces a moral fault in itself.

Yet somehow we continue to punch well above our fundamental financial weight--and it looks like we will do so again this year.

This year we have been aided to some degree by the fact that Harvard's administration has turned out to be more inept than anyone believed possible. Harvard public policy was trying to hire David and Harvard economics Christie Romer. Here at Berkeley they have adjoining offices, they raise children together, they write articles together, they teach together--yet Harvard president Drew Faust turned thumbs up for him and thumbs down for her. "Early onset Alzheimer's" is the kindest explanation I have heard from anyone currently in Cambridge. Other candidate explanations are crueller and less flattering.

One part of the story David Warsh does not have is that Harvard's business school tried to reduce the university's humiliation and put a job odder together over the weekend--thinking that whatever bizarre rationale Massachusetts Avenue had might not apply to them.

Comments

[Matt]

Yuriy Gorodnichenko was a nice catch by Berkeley.

His latest, under review, goes a long way toward adding spectral theory into economics. He gets that instability implies structural reduction in input shocks. He divides economic innovations between that which is structurally relevant to the production functions and those that are not.

[jerry]

Kudos to UC. Extend your budget (and our funds(*)) by getting rid of politically correct mandated bloat.

And yeah, what can I say, but please explain how this can be true:

"In economics, however, the thrust of the discipline makes a failure to respond to market forces a moral fault in itself."

when accepting tenure is not considered a moral fault in itself?

(*) I am not currently a California Taxpayer, but it's certainly where I left my heart and hope to get back to.

[sm]

Are you dictating your blog, Brad?

[Ken Houghton]

He does sometimes. This appears to be one of them: Dragon Naturally Speaking or that telephony-to-blogpost program needs some work.

"Early onset Alzheimer's" is cruel to Alzheimer's patients. A few more decisions like that and you should just return those pink robes.

[John]

What else do you hear coming out of Cambridge?

[ottnott]

Brad wrote:
"to leave your university because another offers to pay you more entails personal humiliation and status degradation to a not inconsiderable degree: you are supposed to value ideas and colleagues and students, not cash"

That's why a successful offer should always include generous reductions in teaching load. Nobody will think ill of you for taking an offer that frees up more time for research.

[Kieran]

In other disciplined to leave your university because another offers to pay you more entails personal humiliation and status degradation to a not inconsiderable degree

This seems false.

[MaryCh]

Maybe it's an Ivy thing. Back in the 1980s Princeton lost an economist exactly the same way - job for rock star, cold shoulder for spouse - to either Stanford or Cal (sorry, all you Bay Area world class universities look the same to me...)

I'm not sure who it was, but it might've been Prof. Stiglitz.

[elliottg]

One thing that UC is not keeping their eye on is the quality of the student body. I'm sure that many UC professors only care about PhD students, but as the Regents continue to raise fees, the intellectual environment of the university will decline as students opt for other places.

[The Bobs]

Harvard isn't the only university in Cambridge. It isn't even the best university in Cambridge.

[PaulC]

Job odder? Are you sure it wasn't a platypus?

[grwmiow]

Unobersity of California
In other disciplined

Clearly, in the mammoth expansion of UC a spell- and grammar-checker fell by the wayside.

[surprise]

Harvard president Drew Faust turned thumbs up for him and thumbs down for her.

First Larry Summers' foray into the issue, now this.

Does anyone really think that academic career paths are merit-based, especially in economics? Because it sure doesn't seem like it.

And yes, I know Drew Faust is female. Drawbridge syndrome?

[Ken Houghton]

Having now read the piece, Warsh is merciless in connecting the dots. (She has enough support in the economics community to be a likely future President of the AEA; she was on the committee that pointed out that Harvard doesn't hire women.)

So much for Drew Faust being "one symbol of an opening of opportunities that would have been inconceivable even a generation ago."

[jerry]

From the Warsh article, and knowing as we know that an offer was extended but vetoed by the female diversity hire Drew Faust,

"The episode is likely to be seen as being profoundly embarrassing to Harvard – *a red flag to those who consider it a haven for misogynists*"

Yes, as is usual, a woman being denied by a woman president (and a feminist) is a demonstration of misogyny.

[gianni]

A few more decisions like that demonstrating the quality and calibre of his decision making, and Harvard president Drew Faust can make a late run for a senior position in the Bush (Mal)Administration.

[Gene O'Grady]

Drew Faust may have made a very bad decision (I couldn't read between the lines) but it's absurd to call her a diversity hire.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Apparently Harvard College dispensed with spelling some time ago.

[thorstein veblen]

A few comments...

Harvard Econ is an ole' boy's club. It's a frat. It's by-and-large conservative. (Yes, there are perhaps a couple real liberals in there, but the conservatives are really balanced by dinner-party centrists...) See Warsh on the whole tawdry Schleifer affair, which deserves to be mentioned every time Harvard Econ has a new issue... Giving a thumbs down to Christina Romer is par for the course. (Being a woman in the tail of the IQ bell curve, perhaps Harvard Econ just concluded that her brain size is likely closer to the mean than her husbands is, ala larry summers...)

Second, it's not clear to me that the UCs will really lose students raising tuition and retaining it's best faculty... If you are a high school student choosing between Berkeley and Stanford, you'd be straight stupid not to just go where you would get the best education given that your future earnings will be stellar either way, and given the availability of student loans and aid. Once the best faculty are gone, the reputation and students will follow...

Also, UC could easily raise tuition and also increase financial aid to low income students, effectively only making the parents of the well-heeled pay more... It's not clear to me who really loses in such a scenario. The well-heeled will be getting something for their money, after all...

Lastly, there are recent examples of rich, northeastern liberal arts schools who raised tuition and then had applications increase! This confirms that quality & reputation are (well) above price for most high school seniors (whose parents may foot the bill in any event)... Indeed, it seems possible, if not probable, that the UCs are losing students by not raising tuition...

[Model 62]

"In economics, however, the thrust of the discipline makes a failure to respond to market forces [cash] a moral fault in itself."

I expected that economists had a term for situations such as this.

While UC Econ professors might be turning down more cash by choosing to teach at UC instead of some richer, better paying institution (USC? Harvard? Stanford?), they are certainly receiving from UC something the others can't offer (prestige? a grand view of the Bay? the opportunity to help shape a great, community-focused, public-minded institution with a rich history?).

[David Lloyd-Jones]

MaryCh writes "(sorry, all you Bay Area world class universities look the same to me...)"

Mary

It's easy to tell 'em apart: Berkeley is the senior university. The other one is Leland P. Stanford Junior University.

[d]

Berkeley need to make offers to every qualified female faculty member in the Harvard economics department. They clearly aren't welcome at Harvard and the Bay Area is a much nice place to live. How many offers and acceptances before Harvard really starts stressing. It's not like they have many female econ faculty members they can lose.

[ogmb]

"Harvard isn't the only university in Cambridge. It isn't even the best university in Cambridge."

Right on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Cambridge

[save_the_rustbelt]

Actually, accounting profesors job hop all the time, having worked hard to create a shortage of PhDs they now take advantage (although they may have overdone it, putting program accreditation in jeopardy).

Accountants get little attention because they tend to deal in facts and therefore have little voice in public policy debates. :)

[Hugh Gordon]

The Harvard Economics Department may be full of mossbacks but they must have approved the appointment for it to have reached the point where Faust could veto it. You can't blame them. Given Faust's lack of expertise in the subject area, it's doubtful that she did this on her own initiative -- she most likely deferred to some other faction.

[kharris]

Why all this pondering of what and why and who? Romer is an intellectual goddess. Harvard could have had her, but declined. Whatever the details, we're talkin' about eedjits here.

I once had the great pleasure of taking a Chaucer class with Donaldson. He had no reason to be there, other than that his wife became tenured faculty at my humble alma mater when he was ready to retire from the big leagues. Harvard ain't "humble" but you don't need to be humble to take two Romers when offered.

[MaryCh]

Thanks David L-J. Your comment reminds me - the hosts of Philosophy Talk, Profs at LPSJU, always take care to call it "Leland Stanford Junior University."

[Anon]

Yeah. Harvard doesn't like to hire women.