Mistreated as Student, Alum Donates $10m for $30k Prizes to 'Nice' Professors | Hacker News Reader

Mistreated as Student, Alum Donates $10m for $30k Prizes to 'Nice' Professors

chronicle.com

102 pointscwan27 comments

Based on my own experience, kind professors can be more inspiring, and are often times successful people.

The obvious question is whether this is an effective way to encourage professors to be nice or simply a nice way to reward those who would otherwise have been already nice.

In other words, will professors find the possibility of making extra $30k exciting enough to change their attitude? If the answer is no, then perhaps this is not a very good way to bring more niceness to the classroom.

I think more than simply rewarding professors for being "nice," it's rewarding those who recognize that people often have lives outside of school (as Mr Yanai did).

A university education is supposed to be challenging, but shouldn't be impossible due to life circumstances. A university education should also be just that, an education, and not a grueling path taken just for the sake of being difficult.

The social signaling is probably the more important part than the monetary reward.

The social signaling won't buy academics a lot, since research is what gets you status.

On the other hand, $30k is nothing to scoff at for a US academic - academics are paid vastly less than programmers (depending on the markets, I could get 2x-3x what I got last year). It's my understanding that Israeli academics are paid considerably less than US academics. So $30k could be a very strong incentive.

However, the only people who will really change their behavior are the 16'th and 17'th nicest profs at Technion, since they are the only ones who really have a shot at moving into the "nicest 15" category.

Depends what you mean by status. If you limit it to professional advancement, then sure -- although getting involved in department/university administration counts somewhat as a secondary route. But status can also come from being valued and respected by the people around you -- e.g. being admired as a mentor by the PhD students you're supervising. Surely this prize is a step towards recognizing that?

There are already prizes for teaching, though I've never heard of one larger than $2k. In general, no one cares about such prizes.

People only bother to pay attention in edge cases - if faculty X wants to hire applicant A, and Y wants to hire B (where A,B are equally qualified), X might get desperate and point out that A is a good teacher and has a prize.

Even if the answer is no, this can still have a positive benefit. Profs with an extra $30K might use the money to be more productive (i.e., by hiring extra researchers). More productive profs are more likely to succeed in academia and thus more likely to select profs with similar values when their department hires new faculty.

That's a valid point, but more successful doesn't necessarily imply "nicer" or "more compassionate", which I believe was the goal of the donation.

He took the high road. I don't know if I could resist using some millions to make life miserable to those who mistreated me.

I take the down votes to signify that this is somehow an unacceptable mindset?

Although I don't hold the same view as the commenter, I do always appreciate this type of honesty on the board.

txs, I was just pointing out that money can be used for good or evil. And he chose to use it for good. You can always do the right thing in a hypothetical situation, but you never know until you face the real situation.

Well, the article says he graduated in 1975, so probably the obnoxious prof's are long dead/retired.

Living well is the best revenge.

Ok... so what's the second best?

This is the best thank you gift you can return to those who "maltreated" you back then: giving back with kindness. People will always remember you for your magnanimous charity no matter how terrible the past was.

I don't get the impression the past was that terrible for him, regardless of the headline. His professors didn't flush his head in the toilet, there were merely unsympathetic when he was late handing things in.

In my experience the hardest professors were the best ones. I remember grafitti in the mens bathroom that I read as a freshman about one. When I finally had a class with her as a senior she turned out to be the professor I ever had. The lessons I learned in that class have stayed with me throughout my career.

I relayed some of the grafitti to a female alum many years later. I said it's glad she never got to read any of it. She burst out laughing and said what they wrote about her in the womens bathroom was far worse.

One of the most obnoxious, useless professors I knew spent most of his time in lecture recalling his myriad accomplishments and praising himself. As an adult, it's easy to see what a sad, unfulfilled lout he was, but as an undergrad you can be easily impressed by such buffonery. Please extinct the tenure system.

To me this just came across as whiny and petty. From my high school experience and the little time I spent in college, the hard-nosed professors who insisted on hard work and punctuality actually contribute more to their students' eventual success than the easy-going, "nice" ones. I strongly suspect this guy was more successful because of what he calls his 'mistreatment' than because of the few "nice" professors.

When the student has more resources to give, then upping the difficulty will draw the best out of that student. If a student has reached the end of his resources, upping the difficulty just adds stress and diminishes the chance for success.

If I am in the army, have a wife and a kid and a job, and one of these demands causes me to miss an occasional class, I don't understand how the professor not helping me make up the work will contribute to my eventual success.

Maybe he's pulling up the ladder after he climbed it!

Before I was able to find a job, I was taking some classes at a local college. I was at the end of my financial resources (I could barely afford shoes) and they wanted me to buy this expensive textbook and problem sets online. I already had a perfectly serviceable textbook, but I wanted to be able to practice for exams. I asked the prof. if he could print out a few from his laptop or something, and he flat out refused, even when I told him that I was too poor to afford it :-(. There might have been some miscommunication, but there are times when demands are clearly unreasonable.

Which college?

A kind professor can sometimes use their administrative privileges to create a "testing" account, which they can pass on to a student. Many of the courses I took in my undergrad degree required electronic components which may cost as much as the textbook.

Hard-nosed professors can be selfish. Students have a number of classes to attend, and a professor that insists their class requires more work (are they really that insecure?) is stealing time from the "nicer" (and possibly better) profs.

Im sure this is hyped up a bit :)

But the idea is extremely sound - good professors mean great students. And great students == innovation.

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