The merits of faculty retreats

Michael Froomkin and Eric Muller are having an amusing debate on the relative merits of faculty retreats. Michael votes thumbs down [UPDATE — Froomkin contests this description], while Eric believes them to be the epitome of Habermasian discourse. I gotta go with Michael on this one. The idea of a faculty retreat sounded good the ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Michael Froomkin and Eric Muller are having an amusing debate on the relative merits of faculty retreats. Michael votes thumbs down [UPDATE -- Froomkin contests this description], while Eric believes them to be the epitome of Habermasian discourse. I gotta go with Michael on this one. The idea of a faculty retreat sounded good the first time I heard it -- probably because I thought it would be held at some secluded lake somewhere with generous coffee breaks. In actuality, the retreats I've attended (all before I was at the U of C) were day-long marathons of bad pizza, bad flourescent lighting, and bad pontificating. This gets to the nub of why I'm pessimistic about retreats. It's not that I don't respect my colleagues -- I respect and admire the erudition they all bring to the table. However, at the risk of destroying the glass structure that houses this blog, academics as a group are prone to liking the sound of their own voices way too much. [Cue sound of glass tinkling!! Most of your colleagues aren't so egotistical as to have pontificating blogs!--ed. Yes, but reading my blog is optional for Internet users. Listening to colleagues at an all-day retreat is usually mandatory.] UPDATE: Of course, as Kristin from Mad Pony points out, there are other forms of turture in academia.... like being compared to Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World.

Michael Froomkin and Eric Muller are having an amusing debate on the relative merits of faculty retreats. Michael votes thumbs down [UPDATE — Froomkin contests this description], while Eric believes them to be the epitome of Habermasian discourse. I gotta go with Michael on this one. The idea of a faculty retreat sounded good the first time I heard it — probably because I thought it would be held at some secluded lake somewhere with generous coffee breaks. In actuality, the retreats I’ve attended (all before I was at the U of C) were day-long marathons of bad pizza, bad flourescent lighting, and bad pontificating. This gets to the nub of why I’m pessimistic about retreats. It’s not that I don’t respect my colleagues — I respect and admire the erudition they all bring to the table. However, at the risk of destroying the glass structure that houses this blog, academics as a group are prone to liking the sound of their own voices way too much. [Cue sound of glass tinkling!! Most of your colleagues aren’t so egotistical as to have pontificating blogs!–ed. Yes, but reading my blog is optional for Internet users. Listening to colleagues at an all-day retreat is usually mandatory.] UPDATE: Of course, as Kristin from Mad Pony points out, there are other forms of turture in academia…. like being compared to Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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