Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Average is so over

People, I once had a department chair who denied that, if we had a policy of giving above average (in percentage terms) raises to the lower paid faculty, in the long run everyone would be paid the same. Just flat out denied the math.

This same chair, upon the occasion of me complaining that my evaluation was above the departmental average while my raise was below, told me not to worry, that everyone had gotten a below average raise.

I am not making this up.

But I guess you can see where all this is leading.

Yes HRH HRC has proclaimed that she would close any school that was below average. Like it was obvious and I guess just be a few. Sadly, no one asked her how, in the long run, we were gonna fit all the kids in the US into one school (barring ties of course).

Mrs. Angus has suggested to me that maybe HRC was thinking globally, closing any US school below the global average.

I think Mrs. Angus has a bright future in politics.

ps. this same chair, in a public seminar, vehemently denied that (PQ)/Q = P. Vehemently.

6 comments:

Incitatus said...

See:

http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2015_12_20.html

Angus said...

@ Incitiatus Yes, I know. That's why I said "barring ties of course"

Dwatney said...

It's a jobs program in disguise. Think of all the all the jobs replacing half the schools every year!

Incitatus said...

@Angus
Fair enough. But most schools are rated using counting numbers from, say, 1 to 10, or 1 to 5. So, ties are unavoidable.

JorgXMcKie said...

Was that department chair an economist? I mean, I'm in a department of political science and such statements from a dept head there wouldn't surprise me. And actually I have a colleague with a degree in econ who used to teach stats for us and it wouldn't surprise me to hear him say those things.

Angus said...

@Jorg. Allegedly!!