Yesterday, in celebration of Constitution Day, my campus brought a guest speaker who had been a professor of mine in grad school, at dear old R1. He’s a good egg, and it was fun to catch up. He was fascinated by my job, and wanted details. The conversation:
Visiting Big Shot: Do you carry academic rank?
DD: No.
VBS: So do you have tenure?
DD: No.
VBS: But the faculty you supervise have tenure?
DD: Yes.
VBS: So they can just tell you to jump in a lake, and you have to take it?
DD: Yup.
VBS: So how the hell do you manage them?
Exactly.
