Word: petersons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Harvard undoubtedly misses out on a lot of stars, because it hands the rising academics--like Mark Peterson--over to other colleges. Peterson is already interviewing for tenured positions at other universities. And although demand for professors across the country is at a lull during the recession, Peterson is a very attractive candidate. He'll get a good offer soon...
First, although Peterson is surely a rising star in his field, he hasn't yet become a star. He's only in his thirties. He has written only one book. And although Peterson has established himself as an important scholar with great potential, he has not firmly established himself as one of the world's leading American political scientists...
...even the best of them--on the threshold. By the time a junior professor comes up for tenure, he or she is usually just starting to excel and develop a base of scholarship. Translation: no tenure. It's a frustrating policy, both for teachers and for students, but as Peterson told me, shrugging, "It's part of life at Harvard...
...SECOND possible reason for the Government Department's denial of tenure to Peterson can be found within the department itself. Many of the influential government professors--most notably Kenneth A. Shepsle and Morris P. Fiorina--subscribe to the "rational choice" theory of politics. This perspective, which holds that political choice can be explained by looking only to individual rational preferences, has a growing membership list within the senior faculty of Harvard's Government Department...
...either a rationalist or you're not. You either accept the narrow rational-actor paradigm as the comprehensive framework for explaining everything about politics--as many tenured American government professors at Harvard happen to--or you see the model as useful but not the final word--as Mark Peterson and most other political scientists...