Many of the greatest minds were or have been affiliated throughout their academic careers with just a single university. Quine, for example, entered Harvard at the age of 22 and died as its emeritus professor. It is usually the case that the universities at which people tend to stay for the whole career are the good ones (Harvard, Cambridge etc.), but this may be as much the cause as the effect. Perhaps, these universities are good in the first place because, at critical points in their development, they let good people stay and establish schools of thought and traditions of excellence. To be sure, there are also opposite examples, but mobility in such cases has rarely been voluntary and it remains to be shown that it ever directly contributed to the quality of academic output. And if that is so, why now, whenever you have to apply for a grant or a job, you are asked to show evidence of your academic mobility, where mobility is taken to mean not merely a few-month-long internship or a visiting professorship, but a complete change of affiliation every few years? Why does everybody in academia have to periodically change the place she or he lives in, delaying the moment one can settle down and have something like a normal life? Let us be scientific and stick to the empirical evidence, not some vague intuitions like travelling is good for you (which it perhaps is, but, like everything, when taken with moderation).
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 10:11:06 +0000
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