[djoldman]

Johns Hopkins University is not a university. Many other "Universities" are not universities either.

"Johns Hopkins Labs" would be a more accurate name as less than 10% of revenue is tuition related.

I'm not sure why folks including professors continue to view these places as primarily about teaching students or academics. These $100-$250 million building projects are pretty inconsequential when research grants and contracts bring in more than $4.5 billion per year.

[godelski]

The "deal" often being made with academia is "we'll give you a place to do research, and even fund your research, but you have to teach the next generation." This isn't a bad deal, and is the reason many scientists give up MUCH larger paychecks that they'd get from the private sector to be a professor. These people would rather do research than have a more directed engineering (or engineering research) role that the private sector would give them.

But that deal has also shifted. Duties have changed and often many of the academics do not get to do much research, instead being managers of grad students who do the research. Being a professor is a lot of work and it is a lot of bureaucratic work.

I'm not sure why you're complaining about researchers. Think about the system for a second. We've trained people for years to be researchers and then... make them managers. Imagine teaching people to program, then once you've decided they're fully trained and good programmers we say "you're free to do all the programming you want! But you have to also teach more programmers, grade their work, create their assignments and tests, mentor the advanced programmers, help them write papers, help them navigate the university system, write grants to ensure you have money for those advanced programmers, help manage your department's organization, and much more." This is even more true for early career academics who don't have tenure[0]. For the majority of professors the time they have to continue doing research (the thing which they elected to train to do! That they spent years honing! That they paid and/or gave up lots of money for!) is nights and weekends. And that's a maybe since the above tasks usually don't fit in a 40hr work week. My manager at a big tech company gets more time to do real programming work than my advisor did during my PhD.

I'd also mention that research has a lot of monetary value. I'm not sure why this is even questioned by some people. Research lays the foundation for all the rest. Sure, a lot of it fails, but is that surprising when you're trying to push the bounds of human knowledge? Yet it is far worth it because there are singular discoveries/inventions that create more economic value than decades worth of the current global economy. It's not hard to recognize that since basically the entire economy is standing on that foundation...

[0] Just because you have tenure doesn't mean you don't have a lab full of graduate students who need to graduate.

[analog31]

>>> The "deal" often being made with academia is "we'll give you a place to do research, and even fund your research, but you have to teach the next generation." This isn't a bad deal, and is the reason many scientists give up MUCH larger paychecks that they'd get from the private sector to be a professor. These people would rather do research than have a more directed engineering (or engineering research) role that the private sector would give them.

Teaching graduate students. Most undergraduate teaching is done by "adjuncts" who do not do research.

Salaries are a mixed bag. Scientists who want to continue doing research in the private sector also give up much larger paychecks. Many work in facilities that are barely nicer than sweatshops.

Disclosure: Adjunct for one semester, 30 years ago.

[statskier]

I think that's the whole point. Many university's very nature has shifted significantly and lots of people don't like it and lament the change.

[vonneumannstan]

This is probably true since at least WW2 but isn't the central idea that Professors closest to cutting edge research can do the most interesting teaching?

If you want the best teachers you can always go to Liberal Arts Colleges where this isn't really an issue.

[bpt3]

Professors at schools like this do not view these places as about teaching students. Academics, to include performing research in their field and publishing the results, yes, and the students get in the way of that.

[Windchaser]

Yes. If you want a really high quality education, you don't go to a big research school. You go to a small school, like a liberal arts school, where the teachers are both highly trained and really passionate about teaching.

I went to a small liberal arts school for an undergrad degree in STEM, and to a R1 research university for graduate work.

The absolute best classes at the big-name research university were about as good as the average class at my small undergrad. The classes at the small school were of distinctly better quality: more engaged teachers, more engaging work, and simply higher quality teaching.

[parpfish]

i think the only people that realize this are people that are actively doing research in academia. not even the undergrads at the school realize that teaching undergrads is at best a side-hustle for the institution.

i've seen so many "our tuition pays your salary so you you need to XXX" type rants I've seen from disgruntled students/parents over the years and i've always bit my tongue when it comes to setting the record straight.

[gowld]

R1 Research University.

Teaching mostly by TA, not Faculty.

Not a "college".

[moab]

Are you a professor at a R1 school? All the faculty I know at R1s (see CMU, MIT, etc) are doing quite a lot of teaching in addition to their research.

[warkdarrior]

TAs soon to be replaced by AI.

[nephihaha]

Johns Hopkins gets a lot of money from vested interests to push whatever suits them.

[cucumber3732842]

Exactly.

The author's electricity bill went up and his cat got stolen in part because his colleagues working under the university incentive systems (i.e. don't publish stuff that pisses off the interests that fund your lab) created work that legitimized those policy decisions so that those decisions could be made and the funding interests, whatever they may be, could benefit from them.

One wonders if there are similar incentives in the university ranking, administration and consulting that legitimize the university's otherwise questionable decision to engage in these seemingly irresponsible ventures.

[CaptWillard]

The early nod to Agora Institute mission of “building stronger global democracy” Followed by bemoaning USAID cuts makes me wonder if the author is deliberately missing one of the most glaring examples of this.

[irishcoffee]

s/gets/accepts

Nobody is waterboarding the money down their throat. They can say no. The actual question is: why don't they?