If I may, I'd like to introduce a distinction into this thread, as we
may be communicating past one another. I fully agree with Deirdre who
makes the strong and moral point that the only way we as professionals
can properly evaluate one another's work, research, career
accomplishments etc. is to read the work in question, struggle with it
perhaps, and talk about it respectfully with colleagues engaged in the
same activity as we are, be they departmental colleagues or university
committee colleagues. Department chairs should be urged to act in this
way as well in "evaluating" their faculty. These processes can be
usefully lobbied and changed by noise and exposure of foolishness, as
Deirdre suggests.
There is another level though. I refer here to national councils, like
those who administer the REA in England, and related "ministries" in
France, Italy, The Netherlands, etc. who are not acting in individual
cases, but rather allocating resources among institutions in their
countries, and across schools within universities. Asking accountants to
read research product is not helpful. And the political process in say
England, a process which benefits Oxbridge and LSE, is hardly likely to
be swayed by historians of economics. At the margin, are not our English
colleagues better served by our funded conference invitations than our
expressions of outrage to their whatever titled ministers of higher
education?
E. Roy Weintraub
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