That's My State

Nothing like this Chicago Tribune story to ruin your holidays. Apparently the Illinois Board of Higher Education has launched a study of faculty productivity looking at what kind of research projects faculty undertake to how much time they spend in the classroom. According to board chairman James Kaplan "there's got to be a tangible, measurable benefit for the people of the state of Illinois for a professor doing research." Nothing good can come from this.

The University of Chicago is a private school unaffected by this study, but I would hate to see my friends at the various U. Illinois campuses to have to take unpaid leave to go to conferences.

Update 12/29: Daniel Drezner dissects this article. Also, I talked with a University of Illinois-Chicago professor who worries less about this study than budget cuts in the University of Illinois system due to the continual fiscal crisis in the state.