I mentioned to my partner (not an academic) that we had a lot of young professors in our department. His immediate comment was " do you worry that having a lot of young professors somehow devalues the title?" In recent years, we have seen the public derision of the two main school exams in the UK - additional grades have been added to the top end of both GCSE (16) and A-level (18) to discriminate, and there is anecdotal evidence that students gaining a C in maths a-level in recent years would have failed the maths a-level 20 years ago. It is certainly true that at university we have to spend longer teaching basic maths concepts that I studied at A-level. So, does having more people at any given level (including being named Professor) automatically devalue that level of attainment?
Our discussion also included whether potential business partners would prefer to collaborate with older professors on the grounds that they fit the stereotype better. At the moment, the UK has a "celebrity physicist" in Prof Brian Cox who "looks like an ex-boyband member and way too young to be a real professor" (quote from various members of my family). Does being a young and female professor reduce my chances of being taken seriously? If anyone has experienced this, how did they respond?
No comments:
Post a Comment