On Academic Pandering
Published at Chronicle Vitae on December 9, 2015.
Academics trade in pander, too. We pander to professors, advisers, dissertation committees, search committees, department chairs, deans, provosts, university and college presidents, and chancellors. We indulge them and make choices to gratify them. We try to do what they want us to do: to graduate, be recommended, get a job, or get promoted. We emulate their examples of what academic life is like.