mike larkin wrote:
>
> Contains this helpful tip, which I'm sure will inspire
> Corporate America:
>
> "Although Ober said he doesn't know of any companies
> that function on the level suggested by the Athenian
> model, he points toward Princeton University's Faculty
> Advisory Committee on Appointments and Advancements as
> an example of the kind of self-governing function that
> individuals can have in an organization."
Three factors more or less torpedoed my academic career, two of which were politics and clinical depression (with its very real effect on competence). But neither of these factors would have been so important had I not served one year (the year of a lame-duck dept. head) on the departments "Appointments, promotions, & tenure" committee. In the normal course of things that was the year I would have received an extremely large raise plus promotion to associate professor. When the dust settled (the story is long and complicated) the whole APT committee was denied any raise (for insulting the College APT Committee or something like that) and I got no promotion. As an assoc. prof. at higher base pay it would have been much easier to weather the next couple decades as what I came to call a "tenured temp."
Faculty "self-government" for the most part means that faculty are left alone as long as they make the decisions the president and/or the board would have made anyhow.
Democracy has its perils. :-)
Carrol