Academic Ego, Part 2: The Ivory Tower
This is the 2nd installment of a previously unpublished article I wrote for academic editors to help them gain a perspective on the authors they work with. Authors come with (largely justified) ego, discussed in the 1st installment, and also with pressures surrounding textbook publishing, publish or perish mandates, and the constraints of ivory towerism. (Copyright Mary Ellen Lepionka: All Rights Reserved.)Author profiles for acquisitions in publishing often reflect academic career constraints. Ideal authors for textbooks in higher education, for example, are associate or full professors, preferably with tenure, but perhaps not actively involved in administration. Active department chairs and heads of academic associations often are too busy with administrative duties to give textbook authoring projects their due. In addition, textbook projects may have low cachet in institutional or departmental qualifications for tenure, such that prospective tenure-track authors may feel they cannot afford to divert their time and efforts. Research institutions in particular may spurn textbooks as trivial, while at the same time applying immense pressure to publish.
The phrase "publish or perish" was publicized, if not coined, by Texas scholar Logan Wilson in his 1942 study, The Academic Man: A Study in the Sociology of a Profession (Hibbits, 1996). "The prevailing pragmatism forced upon the academic group is that one must write something and get it into print. Situation imperatives dictate a 'publish or perish' credo within the ranks"(197). Logan interviewed professors (overwhelmingly male at the time) in a classic study of their attitudes, beliefs, and values about their academic life. Now, as then, tenure committees emphasize refereed scholarly publishing of dissertation adaptations, original short-term research, and review articles, quantified through calculi such as aggregate citation rates and percentage of articles with sole or first authorship (Goh, 2002). In contrast to these harsh intramural realities, academic milieus often appear to be shockingly isolated and naive in relation to extramural life or practical requirements, a phenomenon widely known as “ivory towerism” (Fuller, 1969).
French literary critic C. A. Sainte-Beuve coined “ivory tower” in 1837, when the term had positive or mixed connotations of strength, purity, virginity, and imagination (as in flights of fancy). The term entered American English around the turn of the century with a negative connotation that reflects the profoundly pragmatist principles on which that nation was founded (Becker, 1997). In the negative ivory tower stereotype, scholars and members of academia in general are socially aloof, detached from reality, or unaware of or insensitive to worldly affairs. Like all stereotypes it is not true, but it has been employed in culture wars since the Progressive Era, especially to criticize academics who somehow fail to embrace the applied.
It is true nevertheless that intellectuals tend to hone their knowledge on campuses and in the sheltered workshops provided in academic associations, research facilities, and institutions of higher learning. Although the dichotomy between “pure” and “applied” study has all but disappeared, disconnection between academe and the real world in many cases has not. Witness, for example, textbook authors who resist writing to actual reading levels of students or providing pedagogy with real-world relevance or practical lay application. In an academic author, the combination of proprietary knowledge, intellectual arrogance, and real-world naivety or disdain may constitute an editor’s greatest challenge.
Labels: academic authors and editors, Academic editors, Ivory Tower, Publish or perish
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