Questioning Donald Sterling

A few days ago, L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling was revealed to have said some racist things. Although his fate as owner of an NBA team has not yet been determined, his ability to interact with those on his team and attend NBA games has been; he has been banned for life.

There are a number of interesting sociological questions related to this situation. One concerns the relationship between private statements and personal property. Another is related to types of discrimination and why statements that gain public attention can have more severe consequences than years of discriminatory practices. Although NBA players are paid very well, we can also use this situation to examine relationships between owners and players. Finally, Doug Hartmann at The Society Pages has a nice exploration of the situation’s impact on our understanding of racism in America.

Included in Hartmann’s post is a message from Max Fitzpatrick of Central New Mexico Community College (Edit: Fitzpatrick’s message is now its own post). Fitzpatrick writes:

Instead of merely being what Marx sarcastically called “critical critics”—those who attempt social redress through words alone—we should take these opportunities to bring attention to—and to change—the poor social conditions and institutional discrimination disproportionately faced by people of color. Attacking the material foundations of the problem will be more effective than simply laughing at the wrinkled old symptoms of the problem.

In some ways, the Sterling situation seems to support Fabio’s claim that, while we are not “post-racial,” we may be “post-racist.” Although racism is still prevalent, its public expression has been severely limited. As Fitzpatrick and Hartmann note, however, this may actually serve to make racism and discrimination more dangerous, since they continue to have serious negative effects even when society claims that they don’t.

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Take Orgtheory’s public access poll

Following up on the idea of publicly-accessible Federally funded research, Fabio at Orgtheory has posted a poll. Go take it.

As a bonus, you can use the poll as an example of how not to write survey questions in your Research Methods courses this semester.

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Academic phase transition in the liberal arts

Fabio’s post at Orgtheory today about academic phase transition, in which academics go from being in low demand to being in high demand very quickly, made me think about the experiences of one of my acquaintances from grad school in the publication gauntlet and, to a lesser extent, my own recent experiences.

Quite a few years ago at ASA I was talking to an acquaintance who had graduated and started working at a liberal arts school where he was about to go up for tenure. He was somewhat concerned because the school did not clearly define what the publication expectation was for junior faculty. At the time, he had published one peer reviewed article since starting his job and the official word of the administration was that junior faculty did not need at least two publications but that they did need more than one.

A few years later I was wondering if he had been able to get the necessary (but not required) second publication and checked his profile on the school’s web page. He had published two papers in the year he went up for tenure and two more in the year after receiving tenure. Checking his profile today he has published at least one paper in every year since.

As much as we like to think that we come out of graduate school as fully-formed academics, I suspect that for most people this process is not complete when they receive their Ph.D.s. Personally, it took years before I was able to settle into my current position where I am able to balance teaching and service with getting a bit of research done.  Although my publication productivity has been relatively low up to this point, I hope that I am on the cusp of an academic phase transition of my own.

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Yes, it is there, too: Academic false consciousness and academic journals

As if academic false consciousness wasn’t bad enough at our institutions and among graduate students, it appears that it is also present at academic journals. Last week, Olderwoman at Scatterplot posted about receiving a packet of five reviews of the same article, stating:

Although five was over the top and freaked me out, it has become pretty common now for me as a reviewer to get a packet with four reviews. No wonder we regular reviewers are feeling under the gun. The old calculation of two or even three reviews per article has gone by the wayside. The pressure for fast turnaround and the high turn-down or non-response rate among potential reviewers has led editors to send out articles to extra reviewers in the hopes of ending up with at least the minimum two or three.

But this is a death spiral. As a frequently-sought reviewer I get at least four requests a month, sometimes as many as eight, and I used to get more before I got so crabby.  When I was young and eager, I was reviewing an article a week [and thus, by the way, having a huge influence on my specialty area], and I know some people who are keeping that pace. But at some point you burn out and say “no more.” I, like all other frequently-sought reviewers I know, turn down outright the requests from journals I don’t know for articles that sound boring, and then save up the other requests and once a month pick which articles I want to review. So the interesting-sounding articles from good journals get too many reviewers, while the boring-sounding articles from no-name journals get none. If journal editors respond to the non-response by reviewers to boring-sounding articles by sending out even more reviewer requests per article, our mailboxes will be flooded even more and the non-response rate and delayed-response rate by reviewers will go up even more. Senior scholars are asked to review six to eight (or more?) articles per month. You have to say no to most of the requests.

And then we have the totally out of hand R&R problem. I think it is completely immoral to send an R&R to ANY new reviewers. I know a young scholar with a perfectly good paper who is now on the 4th (!!!!) iteration of an R&R from ASR. Not because she has not satisfied the original reviewers, but because the editors keep sending each revision to a new set of reviewers in addition to the original reviewers and, of course, the new reviewers have a different perspective and a new set of suggestions for the paper, some of which cover ground that was gone over in one or more of the previous revisions. Not to mention the problem that R&R memos are now longer than the original articles!!  We are no longer a discipline of article publishing, we are turning into a discipline of R&R memo-writing.

She proposes several ground rules that she thinks would help the problem and that reminded me a bit of Gary Fine’s discussion of similar problems as editor of Social Psychology Quarterly.

Fabio followed her post with one of his own, talking specifically about ASR and the number of R&Rs that are given:

This issue has arisen with respect to the American Sociological Review, the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association. The ASR has been giving R&R’s to many submitted articles, much more than average, and they are soliciting many reviews per article. It has also been sending articles through multiple rounds of revisions, leading to articles being held at the journal for years. Since they seem to accept to same number of articles per year (about 40), that implies that the multiple rounds of revision do not lead to publication for many authors. Here is my response to that post:

I am asking the American Sociological Review to curtail this practice. In writing this, I have no personal stake in this matter. I do not have any papers under review, nor has the ASR accepted my previous submissions. I only write as a member of the profession, senior faculty at a top 20 program, a former managing editor of an ASA journal (Sociological Methodology), former associate editor of the American Journal of Sociology, occasional board member for various journals, author, and reviewer.

The inflated R&R policy is damaging sociology in a few ways. First, by continually R&R’ing papers that have little chance of publication, the ASR is “trapping” papers that may be perfectly suitable for specialty journals or other outlets. Thus, inflated R&Rs keep good research out of the public eye for years. You are suppressing science.

Second, inflated R&Rs damage the reputation of the ASR itself. The goal of a flagship journal is to be very picky. When people hear that a paper has been invited for revision, they believe that the editors think that the paper is of great merit and wide relevance. Inflated R&Rs undermine that perception.

Third, you are damaging people’s careers. By trapping papers, you preventing papers from being resubmitted to other journals that can help their careers. Also, R&R invitations are often seen as signs of intellectual progress, especially for doctoral students and junior faculty. By lumping together strong and weak papers, you are debasing the “currency” of the R&R. When people see “R&R at American Sociological Review,” they no longer know what to think and that pollutes the junior level job market.

Fourth, you are wasting precious time. Reviewers are usually full time faculty who teach, mentor graduate and undergraduate students, do administrative work, conduct research, and have full family lives. Thus, when you ask for a fourth reviewer, or a invite a paper for a third round of R&R, you are taking up many, many scarce resources.

Olderwoman, Fine, and Fabio all make valid points that need to be addressed by editors as well as their reviewers. More than any of the other instances of academic false consciousness, this seems like something that can be addressed quickly and relatively easily. Let’s do it.

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Ten years since college graduation

Roughly ten years ago I was graduating from college and making plans to start grad school in the fall. I was lucky to have great undergraduate mentors  who gave me an idea of what to expect. Today, students can also rely on Fabio’s Rulz. Here, then, are a few pieces of advice for those who will be starting grad school in the fall from somebody who survived (and even enjoyed) the experience:

Show up to things (Whether or not there is free food, it is good for faculty and other grad students to know who you are.)

Once in a while, say something that sounds intelligent (Once people know who you are it will be helpful if they occasionally hear you say something that indicates you were paying attention.)

Do not tell your professors about your work habits (Ideally, they will think that you start every paper months before the deadline and thoroughly complete all of the readings. Don’t ruin the illusion for them.)

Do some thorough reading (In my first few years I diligently read every page of the assigned texts but I wish I had taken more time to actually digest the material that I was reading. Reading a portion of the assignment thoroughly and being able to discuss it intelligently is probably better than doing a surface reading of all of it but having nothing to say!)

Get started on research (Whether working on your own or collaborating with professors or other students, it is never too early to start developing your research agenda, whether or not you think this work is leading toward your master’s thesis or dissertation.)

Think seriously about the type of job you want (Research will be important for getting any type of job, but there being able to teach some of the core courses in your field will also be helpful in most situations. If you know what kind of job you want it will be easier to seek opportunities that will look good down the road.)

Have a good time! (Grad school is a marathon, not a sprint. Your life will not be appreciably worse if you put off – or skip – some of the reading to go out with friends, but it will probably be appreciably better if you do!)

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Giving the Grad Skool Rulz

I recently purchased copies of Fabio’s Grad Skool Rulz for myself and some students who are planning to go to grad school next year (and yes, I paid for the “copies” that I gave to students). The question I always have about packaged collections of things that originated on the internet is whether it is worthwhile to purchase something that is essentially available for free. In this case, I think that the ability to send the entire package as a PDF that a student can save somewhere is probably a better way of delivering information than saying “there’s a series of blog posts about grad school – look them up!” Since none of the undergrads that I know regularly read sites like Scatterplot, OrgTheory, or Crooked Timber, this is also a way to introduce them to the world of academic blogging that they will surely become familiar with when they are procrastinating during grad school.

Overall, I think that Fabio does a nice job of discussing things that grad students should know. I went to grad school in a supportive environment where these issues could be openly discussed with advisors, but not everybody is so lucky. For prospective students, this makes choosing a graduate program incredibly important. For those who are already enrolled, the Rulz should help navigate potentially uncertain waters.

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