Academia is failing and everyone is responsible

I chose to retire early because the academic environment I was in had become toxic. And not just for me.

In addition to working 9-10 hours, sometimes more, and having a four-hour daily commute, the academic environment had become dysfunctional. In addition to experiencing discrimination, increasing (often unreasonable) demands, incompetence at all levels of administration, support and guidance was not only lacking, but often there was no accountability. Many PIs lacked people and group management skills, department heads often overlooked bad behavior and management, and too many times the university Human Resources either overlooked or refused to intervene when valid complaints were reported. This lack of accountability only enabled poor lab environments at the expense of productivity, quality research, and satisfaction by all lab members. Education also suffered collateral damage.

In the capacity of most of the strata of that hierarchy (except as department head and institutional office) over several decades, I have seen many bright and capable students, staff, and even PIs, leave academia. I (and a colleague) left one university because of discrimination, harassment and a very dysfunctional department. I finally retired from another university after ten years with similar experiences. During that time I worked with a few colleagues that had exceptional people and management skills, and who also left for other positions and institutions. With sadness, and some anger, I have also seen productive graduate students with excellent potential also leave. Most eventually found a favorable position and institution, but a few left science completely because of their bad experiences.

The culture and system is deteriorating at all nodes and needs attention. I am encouraged to see some attention to these matters in the last several months in a few reputable journals and on social media, especially blogs. However, the focus has been on graduate students, especially post-docs. But that attention and concern needs to broaden out to include PIs, department heads, and institutional management.

Yes, the fault is spread everywhere in the system. So let’s include every participant.


The group at the journal Nature recently posted a poll on their FaceBook group page, Nature News and Comment.

The following was my comment to this poll about people management training in academia:

“I chose “Additional training for PIs” because:

1. I could choose only one.

2. The established hierarchy of the academic unit is PIs at the top. A PI with good skills with people and work management, especially communication, will potentially already establish and maintain a healthy and productive lab environment. That includes training of lab assistants and students.

Additionally, students (and other lab staff) often feel powerless when department heads and even Human Resources do not provide guidance or intervention when complaints are reported. In those cases, the PIs weld complete authority.

3. After perusing the articles in Nature and other journals on this topic, most of the attention is on graduate students. Lacking is focus on improving skills for PIs and the overall members of the culture (including department heads and administration). Glaringly absent is recognition of lab assistants, especially lab managers, who often are the surrogate lab nanny and educator.

Being retired has allowed me to reflect on the past 28 years serving in the capacity of all points in that hierarchy (except department head). At each node is the ability to contribute to a healthy, productive, and satisfying academic experience and culture for all.

However, it seems that the appropriate skills have deteriorated, and awareness of that has fared even worse over the last two decades. Academia and the culture, including the institutional, have generally but not universally deteriorated, with both education and research suffering. I have seen many bright graduate students and PhDs leave (myself included). And it needs “fixing” at every node in the system.

Why place the burden solely on the students?”

As you think we know........

Thetis: “Why then, child, do you lament? What sorrow has come to your heart now? Tell me, do not hide it in your mind, and we shall both know.”

Achilleus: “You know; since you know why must I tell you all this?”

The Iliad, Book I

As a writer I really have few ‘pet peeves’. If you place a comma in the wrong place, if you use quotation marks instead of apostrophes, or other slights and ambiguities of punctuation, we still get your meaning. If you weren’t raised on the Strunk and White bible, “Elements of Style”, don’t stress it. Strunk be damned and White was a hypocrite (he himself advocated ignoring his manual). As long as you use appropriate periods and spaces, you can get your message across. We really don’t have to be style Nazis.

However, a pet peeve that I do have, or it has me, is overuse of “As you know.....” or “As you already know.....”. YES WE ALREADY KNOW! Or NO, STUPID; HOW DO YOU EXPECT US TO KNOW?!

It’s a tropism used in writing fiction; a literary tool to give information or explain something to the reader that they don’t know otherwise, or have forgotten. But it has to be used carefully and not assuming that the reader (or audience) doesn’t know or does know where the lead in is going. But if the writer, or speaker, assumes that the reader or audience knows, and when that assumption has a high probability of being wrong, THEN DON’T USE IT! Recall that commonly used cliche! “‘Ass-ume’ makes an ass out of you and me.”? Well, it makes more of an ass out of the person that assumes, and it irritates the hell out of the ‘me’.

I see the use of this misplaced trope much too often on blogs and other social media, especially posts on FaceBook. “As you know, I moved across the country to this location.” I think to myself, ‘If you know we know, then why tell us that we already know?!’ It makes me want to shake the writer, or pull a Gibbs and smack the writer on the back of the head (TV series NCIS reference). Don’t use this trope unless you are writing a novel!

I have heard this trope used in some presentations, but it is placed well as a segue or to invite a question from the audience. Example: “As some of may know, not all grasses use the same photosynthetic pathway. Some species use the C3 pathway, others may use the C3 and C4 pathways.” Assumptions that all those in the audience know this is not implied, and the speaker explains a setting for the rest of his talk.

If you are writing a novel or short story, and a character needs to fill in a gap, this trope can be handy in dialogue, such as the example above of the speaker’s use, or to refresh the reader’s memory of an immediate and pertinent point. It can also be used to imply character personality, especially arrogance, such as with the famous character of Sherlock Holmes.

But if you don’t want to appear arrogant or pretentious, then DON’T USE IT!!

Judges Playing Scientists

Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle, argued that roasters and manufacturers failed to prove that that there is no substantial risk to drinking coffee, or that the benefits of drinking the beverage outweigh the risks posed by acrylamide, a substance created naturally during the brewing process. By the standards of California’s decades-old Proposition 65 law, Berle affirmed in his final ruling last week, all coffee sold in California must come with a warning label stating: WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. *

An example of scientific ignorance and misguided judgement.

If coffee should be labeled as carcinogenic, then so should toast, grilled meat, pizza crust, and a plethora of other foods that contain a lot of carbohydrates and proteins.

BUT it is ‘okay’ to ingest foods that have been exposed to pesticides demonstrated to be neurotoxins and carcinogens, and drink water tainted with the same, without the same warnings!

The Maillard reaction that occurs during heating or breakdown of certain substrates does produce acrylamide (and free radicals). It is basic organic chemistry. Is it carcinogenic? It can be, depending on dose and the animal. This is based on experiments with mice, but not with humans. Although mice are not men (murine models have limitations for extrapolation to humans), using mice can lead to suggestive conclusions that then must be tested in humans. Pharmacology history is fraught with failures in extrapolation from mice to humans.

Should we be concerned? Possibly, if you are drinking a gallon or more of coffee every day. The greatest threat from anything involving the Maillard reaction products, including acrylamide, is smoking! And uncontrolled blood glucose levels.

The Maillard reaction that occurs from smoke inhalation and rampant metabolism of glucose and proteins in tissues causes exceedingly high free radical production and Amadori products which accelerate breakdown of connective tissue in the body (elastin and collagen in skin, tendons, ligaments, vascular tissue, eyes, etc.). That’s why smokers have accelerated aging of their skin, and it is a contribution to diabetic pathophysiology.

We shouldn’t expect judges to be scientists, but we should expect them to consult with experts in the field in which rulings are concerned.

Interesting that they don’t exert the same concern and rulings with documented toxins in our environment, other than those spurious claims.

* In Labeling Coffee a Carcinogen, California Leaps Ahead of the Science