Imposters in the Temple

Impostors in the Temple: The Decline of the American University by Martin Anderson, Simon & Schuster, 1992. 

Favoring Research over Teaching

America’s colleges and universities make teaching students a secondary goal, with research as the primary goal. Much of the teaching is performed by graduate student teaching assistants, rather than by professors. The author believes that it should take only 3-4 years of graduate school for a college graduate to obtain a Ph.D., but it actually takes about seven years, since the colleges and universities drag it out.

Economics

In the field of economics, there are many mathematical equations with little substance. The research is highly abstract, and lacks a connection to the real world. Equations make it seem that economics is more scientific and reality-based than it actually is.

Publication Bloat

A large fraction, in some fields a majority, of academic publications are never cited in the bibliographies of later publications. This indicates that they had no influence in the field. For these publications, nothing has actually been discovered. Academics pay too much attention to the quantity of publications, and not enough to their quality. Churning out a large number of trivial publications has become a careerist game, a way to be promoted from assistant professor to associate professor, and from associate professor to full pressor.

Unread

Professors spend very little time reading articles in academic journals that others have written.

Authorship

Many publications have multiple authors, so you cannot tell who contributed which ideas.

Board of Trustees

Martin Anderson feels that the boards of trustees of American colleges and universities have abdicated their responsibilities to supervise the faculty.