On 2016-11-09 7:18 PM, Bruce D. Scott wrote:
> MH <
MHno...@ucalgary.ca> wrote:
>> On 2016-11-07 6:59 PM, Bruce D. Scott wrote:
>
>>> Those are real gambles for someone older who already has a position...
>>
>> Not really, if you can convince them to hire at a higher level than
>> Assistant Prof, which is sometimes fully negotiable (sometimes not).
>
> Usually they want someone younger to "grow into the position", right?
depends. So often these days they are hiring people in their late 30s
and early 40s into "junior" assistant prof positions anyway - pretty
hard to call them young
>
>> You have to remember this is Canada. Tenure is not a big deal, nor is
>> promotion. Everyone who has a pulse and a grant and publishes (and
>
> How competitive is it?
Getting a job in Academia ? I can't speak for other disciplines but
there are usually lots of qualified applicants. 70-100 is not uncommon
in our department, though the number is lower if it is for a research
chair with a highly specific field. Of the applicants 20-30 are worth
taking seriously. And of course different universities attract
different calibres of candidates.
We do have a Canadians first policy, which was not observed very
rigourously until last year, when there were changes at immigration
because of abuses with the temporary foreign worker program. We still
hire quite a few non-Canadians, though. Last two in our department were
Yanks.
How competitive is tenure ? Not all all. In my department there has only
been one case of someone not getting tenure in the last 26 years.
My oldest son is doing the interview rounds for Academic jobs right now
- I am curious as to how it will work out, but he has had several
interviews for good jobs so far.
Do you also grow factors of 10 or more too many
> students who are copies of their professors
Maybe not one that scale, but I think it is a problem. All my PHD grads
are gainfully employed, all but one in Science, and several have had
very good research careers already, whereas others are award winning
teachers at smaller Universities. But I am less confident it will be
the same for the current batch
or who just run their
> group's simulations?
>
>> different elsewhere except maybe U of T, McGill, and UBC, who all give
>> themselves airs (only partially justifiably).
>
> What about SFU? (That's where General Fusion is, roughly)
SFU is one the better second tier "comprehensive" Universities in the
country. Usually mentioned as up there with Waterloo (famous for
engineering, math an coop programs) Guelph and Victoria.
The top tier is large-medical doctoral universities, of which there are
14-15 depending how you count them. This would include Toronto, UBC,
McGill, Montréal, Alberta, McMaster, Calgary, Ottawa, Western, Queen's,
Laval, Dalhousie, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, more or less in that order
according to the various somewhat useless and unreliable ranking systems
that are out there. In some of the international rankings Waterloo,
and maybe even Guelph and SFU, would be ahead of the last bunch on the
other list.
As of last year U Calgary was the top ranked University under 50 years
old in North American, for whatever that is worth. Since we turned 50
in 2016, we won't be able to brag about that any more.
>
>> Plus our grant scene is considerably more humane than that in the US,
>> although CIHR is getting a lot like NIH.
>
> Does that mean the entrenched network problem? "Alte Seilschaften" as
> they say in Germany.
Success rates way too low, too much concentration of money into too few
hands, people not even getting first grant until their 40s, and so on .
I am not sure this is result of an entrenched network. I think to some
extent it was the previous govt channeling all the funding into applied
work with industry partnerships.
>