Community Colleges

[Carrol Cox]

I know at least one person who is a first-rate researcher but "stuck" in
a commnity college, and teaching an obscenely heavy load. He tells me
that at his CC (and probably at most of them) not only is there no
pressure to publish but publication can be held against a person.
Perhaps that is why what he _does_ publish is of such high quality. Even
the brightest (whatever that means) have only so much to say in a
lifetime, and when they are forced to publish continuously to survive
they necessarily (a) begin to crank out bright and well-written fluff
and (b) never get the time to say what they really have to say.

There are always exceptions to everything. A few people have fallen over
12 thousand feet from an airplane and survived. But the generalization
that falling from great heights is fatal still holds.

Carrol