On Leaving Academia

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As almost everybody knows at this point, I have resigned my position at the University of New Mexico. Effective this July, I am working for Google, in their Cambridge (MA) offices.

Countless people, from my friends to my (former) dean have asked “Why? Why give up an excellent [some say ‘cushy’] tenured faculty position for the grind of corporate life?” [Here are reasons ..]

Centralization of Authority and Decrease of Autonomy

In my time at UNM (University of New Mexico), I served under four university presidents, three provosts, and two deans. The consistent pattern of management changes was centralization of control, centralization of resources, and increase of pressure on departments and faculty. This gradually, but quite noticeably, produced implicit and explicit attacks on faculty autonomy, decrease of support for faculty, and increase of uncertainty. In turn, I (and many others) feel that these attacks subvert both teaching and research missions of the university [..].

Funding Climate

A near-decade of two simultaneous foreign wars, topped off by the most brutal recession in two generations, has left federal and state budgets reeling. [..] In the face of these pressures, we have seen at least seven years of flat or declining funding for federal science programs and state legislatures slashing educational funding across the country. Together, these forces are crunching universities, which ultimately turns into additional pressure on faculty. Faculty are being pushed ever harder to achieve higher levels of federal research funding precisely at the time when that funding is ever harder to come by.

Hyper-Specialization, Insularity, and Narrowness of Vision

The economic pressures have also turned into intellectual pressures. When humans feel panicked, we tend to become more conservative and risk-averse — we go with the sure thing, rather than the gamble. The problem is that creativity is all about exploratory risk. The goal is to find new things — to go beyond state-of-the-art and to discover or create things that the world has never seen. It’s a contradiction to simultaneously forge into the unknown and to insist on a sure bet.

Traditionally, in the US, universities have provided a safe home for that kind of exploration, and federal, state, and corporate funding have supported it. (Incidentally, buying advanced research far cheaper than it would be to do it in either industry or government, and insulating those entities from the risk.) The combination has yielded amazing dividends, paying off at many, many times the level of investment.

In the current climate, however, all of these entities, as well as scientists themselves, are leaning away from exploratory research and insisting on those sure bets. Most resources go to ideas and techniques (and researchers) that have proven profitable in the past, while it’s harder and harder to get ideas outside the mainstream either accepted by peer review, supported by the university, or funded by granting agencies. The result is increasingly narrow vision in a variety of scientific fields and an intolerance of creative exploration.