← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

Sarkozy doesn’t want to be unpleasant…

… but he can’t help noticing that French universities are more néant than être.

I don’t see at all how a system of weak universities, led by a finicky central government, could be an efficient weapon in the battle for intelligence. On the contrary, it’s a system that infantilizes and paralyzes creativity and innovation. That’s why we gave the universities autonomy …

No other country has produced so many institutes, agencies, groups and other microscopic organizations that dilute means and responsibilities, pull every which way, and waste time and money …

Is science just a question of financial means and jobs? How then do we explain that with science spending higher than in Great Britain, and about 15% more researchers than our English friends, France is well behind in its scientific production? Somebody better explain that to me! More researchers, fewer publications, and excuse me, I don’t want to be unpleasant, with a comparable budget, a French researcher publishes 30% to 50% less than a British one in some sectors …

Excerpts from a recent speech.

In line with tradition, the researchers will stop working and torch the streets of Paris until he shuts up.

Margaret Soltan, January 28, 2009 12:54AM
Posted in: foreign universities

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=8509

4 Responses to “Sarkozy doesn’t want to be unpleasant…”

  1. Ellie Says:

    To be fair, to compare the French and British systems by number of publications isn’t all that useful. British scholars churn out pages because that’s how higher education pounds are allocated, on the basis of quantity rather than quality. I’m not saying that the Brits aren’t better, but "fewer publications" is hardly a good measure of anything with the RAE as the measure of "scientific production." The bureaucratic BS that French academics put up with, however, is mindboggling!

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    All good points, Ellie.

  3. Alan Gillis Says:

    Sarkozy’s reforms are also an erosion of tenure. Mandatory evaluations of faculty performance is the first stage towards blackballing lecturers and researchers who don’t make the grade on their work or their politics. This proposed fishing expedition is perhaps as dangerous to French university life as the move to less autonomy, in the guise of more autonomy. This other aspect of the LRU legislation would be the first stage of a corporate merger with big business.

    So you’re right, Margaret. The French have taken to the streets since February 5th. Continuing massive protests by faculty and students in many cities in France, go on still with about 40 out of 80 universities shut down.

    For an update see my article: "Sarkozy’s French University Reforms Crash And Burn" online in NewsHammerOnCampus.

  4. DM Says:

    Perhaps my professor colleague could publish more if they were not kept busy by large teaching time and even larger administrative duties. American professors seem to have lots of capable staff for running the place; in French universities, professors tend to have to see to things themselves if they want things done. The administration, in theory supporting teaching and research, often seems to spend its time enforcing unwieldy regulations invented from above.

    Nothing in the proposed changes of Sarkozy would change anything to the above facts of current French academic life, as far as I know.

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories