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Comment by mcherm | Hacker News Reader

This article has a powerful and important point to make. But much of the strength of an argument rests on the author's evaluation of his own contributions which is almost unfailingly positive.

The article would be even more effective if accompanied by statement from one or more of the eight department members who voted against granting tenure.

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He obviously pissed off his department, and so they voted with an aim to punishing him. He's a fool not to appeal it, though. If he appeals then the decision will be made by people outside of his department who won't have the same emotional stakes in the decision. Rage quit after you win your appeal, if you must!

$3,000,000 in funding, most of it still active is astonishing (https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu/proposals/), and his DBLP (http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/c/Challen:Geoffrey) is pretty awesome (note: he's in DBLP as Geoffrey Challen, Geoffrey Werner Challen, and Geoffrey Werner-Allen).

But he DID keep his dog in his lab, against university policy: https://web.archive.org/web/20151002100639/http://www.buffal...

I hope he changes his mind about not appealing. The grass ain't greener anywhere else. All university departments are filled with miserable gossips.

It looks like he also flipped classrooms and was active within the department service-wise. That's a pretty crazy decision not to tenure him from the outside.

It was really crazy in the department too, at least among undergraduate students. His lab is very well known as a great place to learn about the development of mobile devices, which is basically not offered in any courses and difficult to be formally educated in otherwise.

As sad as it is, there are lots of places where these things are met with skepticism and argument.

I know people who specifically waited years to redesign courses until they had tenure.

> All university departments are filled with miserable gossips.

They are also filled with people who think their own vision and priorities for the intro programming course, operating systems course, networking course, "entire" undergrad curriculum, department and college resource allocation, and campus dog policy, are obviously the only correct and rational choice, and anyone who disagrees is a miserable gossip.

Sounds like everyone in any career, including the OP or people on Hacker News.

On the other hand, why? The article jives with my own experience and understanding from college and talking to people that went to other not top tier schools. Most schools are not equipped to teach CS, certainly not to increase diversity, and they don't really care. Change is scary, especially if it might work. He can make more money in industry and move around more fluidly to find like minded folks, sounds like a great life decision. Honestly, most people don't know when to cut their losses. I think he does.

I was also wondering about his chance at appeal, but it's not clear how close he was:

> I knew that I had made a few enemies, but I was surprised that the final vote was so lopsided: 6 yays, 2 abstainers, and 8 nays.

What's the bar for passing? A majority of yeas? A plurality? Is there any sort of standard or is it different from school to school?

I think it's not really an appeal. Instead you let your application for promotion continue to the next level up the chain. But letting it continue up after one level has rejected it is essentially an appeal.

"Appointments require full review and votes at all levels (including the department, school/college, PRB [President's Review Board], the Provost, and the President.)"

http://www.buffalo.edu/content/dam/www/provost/files/Faculty...

I'm sure a strong majority at the school/college level would work! There are probably even a few (very rare) cases where a President has overturned department and school/college rejections. Probably ultimately it's the President's call.

Here's a small qualitative report on university presidents overturning tenure decisions: http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~mligare/governance/adhoc/crtp_fi...

(My rough back-of-napkin summary: it's a once-every-10-years type of occurrence, and can go either way).

The grass ain't greener anywhere else.

The politics may not be better anywhere else, but pretty much anywhere is friendlier to life, including grass, than Buffalo.

Here's something he didn't write about: Postdoc at MIT (2010–11), PhD from Harvard (2010), 5000+ citations with an h-index of 14 [1][2].

[1]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffrey-challen-572b771a

[2]: https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu/people/challen@buffalo.edu/Geof...

His performance in the citation game is considerably weaker since 2011 (when he started at Buffalo).

>performance in the citation game

Am I the only one who thinks that is a cringe-worthy metric to evaluate a scientist?

In any case, it is what many research professors are evaluated by, that and how much grant money they bring in.

I always thought I would enjoy doing research on the bleeding edge, but doing that research isn't what matters for your success in that industry. Citations and funding are "traction" in academia and I don't see anything displacing that, whether we like it or not.

For him, it is a gift--a reason to leave Buffalo and go somewhere better.

I can't be the only high school age lurker here that thought your comment came straight out of an AP DBQ.

What is an "AP DBQ"?

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