The Organization Scholar

Does the Academic Procession sometimes resemble an Oklahoma land rush for prestige and pay, with an unseemly flapping of gowns and gums as scholars jostle for position? In a book that seems likely to make the organization scholar a notorious subspecies of the herd-running Organization Man, Sociologists Theodore Cap-low and Reece J. McGee examine the rush as it is run at ten unnamed major universities. The authors of The Academic Marketplace (Basic Books; $4.95) find schools and scholars ridden with intrigue and lustful for prestige, often indifferent to teaching and scholarship.

Documentation of their charges suggests some clear--and clearly controversial--answers to a question put by Columbia Dean Jacques Barzun in the foreword: "Why has the American college and university so little connection with Intellect?" In language that is often witty and only occasionally typical of sociology's bread-pudding prose, Professors Caplow (University of Minnesota) and McGee (University of Texas) list academe's hurtful mores and petty machinations. Some of the worst:

Promotion. "It is neither an overgeneralization nor an oversimplification to state that in the faculties of major universities in the United States today, the evaluation of performance is based almost exclusively on publication." Result: a neglect of what teachers are hired for--teaching--and "a great deal of foolish and unnecessary research . . . undertaken by men who bring to their investigations neither talent nor interest." The ambitious academician's sole aim is to accumulate published titles, as a young actor squirrels away television credits. Title-squirreling pays off: "Success is likely to come to the man who has learned to neglect his assigned duties" in favor of his "private professional interests."

Hiring. Ability to teach is, for the most part, not important. Sample quotes from hiring committees: 1) "The biggest thing is that other people think well of him." 2) "They're supposed to be able to teach, I guess." 3) "Our requirements are purely mathematical; no one gives a damn if you can teach." Scholarship appears to count for little more; the weight of scholarly articles is tallied, but seldom, committee members admitted, are the articles read. More than one university confessed that a socially presentable wife is one of the scholarly attributes it looks for.

Conformity. Not surprisingly, the authors list agreement with one's department head as a must for advancement. But conformity reaches beyond scholarly dogmas. One teacher complained that his department head "believed that conviviality and sociability were the prime qualities for a professor. We had parties twice a month, played golf, etc. all the time. We also had a lousy department."'

Sociologists Caplow and McGee dust up a storm of statistics, even compile a table of percentages on professors who are given farewell parties before leaving for other jobs. They also manage to throw in enough anonymous professorial gossip to make sure that their blast is an academic bestseller. Grouses one professor-hiring department chairman, of the candidates sent him from the great universities: "We took him on the basis of the enthusiastic support of an outstanding professor at Harvard. That's very important. If Princeton pushes a man, I know it means I'll have to look somewhere else. I don't trust Columbia either, or Chicago. With one or two exceptions in each department, those bastards are shysters; they'll say anything about anyone to get a man placed." Say the authors: "We have no desire to expose, only to analyze."

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