Building Open Source Hardware in Academia - Building Open Source Hardware - page 293

Life in the Ivory Tower: An Overview
To understand how open source hardware is a true paradigm shift and an enormous benefit
to those who work in the ivory tower of academia, it is important to understand some of the
basics of academic life. The majority of professors have ascribed to an unwritten pact: we
accept less monetary compensation for our work than we would receive from employment
in the business world in exchange for academic freedom. Academic freedom is meant to
enable professors to teach, research, and share their ideas (particularly those that are incon-
venient to political groups, the powerful, and state authorities) without being targeted for
repression, job termination, or imprisonment. 2 This freedom is guaranteed through tenure
for the professor; this status provides senior academics with contractual rights not to have
their positions terminated without just cause essentially for life, or at least until retirement.
In today's economy, very few positions have such job security, and the tenure process at
most institutions is a hard-won prize—one that is normally bestowed only after five to sev-
en years of hard labor as a tenure-track assistant professor. 3 The value of tenure for aca-
demics can hardly be understated. Thus, for the first five years or more after landing their
first academic position, all of their efforts are focused on ensuring success in the tenure
process. 4
2 . In practice, academic freedom is curtailed by many mechanisms, but it does ensure that at least
some of professors' time is spent any way they like (e.g., researching the answers to questions that
are the most important to ask or teaching lectures on what they think is the most important topic for
a class).
3 . After receiving their PhDs, many academics serve in multiple low-paid, zero-job-security post doc
positions to gain enough experience so that they will be offered a tenure-track position. The life of
the post doc and assistant professor at many institutions is a lot like indentured servitude, where the
would-be-tenured professors must work for a number of years doing the worst of the academic
labor (e.g., large mandatory service classes made up of uninterested students from other majors)
and essentially earning a living stipend. Interestingly, indentured servitude in the American colon-
ies lasted for about the same amount of time and paid about the same amount (e.g., enough to cover
room, board, clothing, and training).
4 . Academics lose their jobs if they are denied tenure and in general will find it much more difficult to
land another tenure-track position. Even though he or she might spend five to eight (or more) years
in graduate school, up to two years or longer as a post doc fellow, and seven years as an assistant
professor, losing tenure means that the academic might well be unemployable in his or her spe-
cialty.
For many people outside of the academic world, the life of the professor appears to in-
volve only the part that they remember from college: teaching in the classroom. Although
nearly all professors teach, the vast majority of their time is actually spent elsewhere and
what they actually do in the classroom accounts for only a small part of the evaluation of
their performance. There are also different kinds of professors, depending on the type of