Publish or perish

This article is about the concept in litterature. For the Columbo episode, see List of Columbo episodes.

Template:Globalize/USA "Publish or perish" refers to the pressure to publish work constantly to further or sustain a career in academia. The competition for tenure-track faculty positions in academia puts increasing pressure on scholars to publish new work frequently.

Frequent publication is one of the few methods at a scholar's disposal to improve his or her visibility, and the attention that successful publications bring to scholars and their sponsoring institutions helps ensure steady progress through the field and continued funding. Scholars who focus on non-publishing-related activities (such as instructing undergraduates), or who publish too infrequently, may find themselves out of contention for available tenure-track positions.

A scholarly writer may experience pressure to publish constantly, regardless of the academic field in which the writer conducts scholarship. One physicist, for example, sees evidence of shoddy scholarship in the field. In the 1990s, graduate students and untenured assistant professors in the humanities and social sciences may have experienced more pressure than academics in the sciences, but after 2000, the pressure spread into other disciplines and the phenomenon came to influence the advancement of tenured associate professors to the coveted full professor title in the United States. Because of declining enrollments in MBA programs, business school professors are also significantly under pressure in the mid-2000s.

Origin

The phrase is thought to have originated around 1950 with Dr. Kimball C. Atwood III, then a geneticist at Columbia University. Ironically, Atwood never published the phrase himself; thus, evidence of his coining the phrase remains anecdotal. As the story goes, Atwood had only to wait a month before he heard it delivered in an address by a visiting lecturer, who afterward told Atwood he heard the phrase from a participant in Atwood's originating conversation.

Advantages

Research-oriented universities may attempt to manage the unhealthy aspects of the publish-or-perish practices, but their administrators often argue that some pressure to produce cutting-edge research is necessary to motivate scholars early in their careers to focus on research advancement, and learn to balance its achievement with the other responsibilities of the professorial role. The call to abolish tenure is very much a minority opinion in such settings.

Disadvantages

There are a number of criticisms of this phenomenon, the most notable being that the emphasis on publishing may decrease the value of resulting scholarship, as scholars must spend more time scrambling to publish whatever they can manage, rather than spend time developing significant research agendas.

The pressure to publish-or-perish also detracts from the time and effort professors can devote to teaching undergraduate (and some graduate) courses. The rewards for exceptional teaching rarely match the rewards for exceptional research, which encourages faculty to favor the latter whenever they conflict.

Many universities do not focus on teaching ability when they hire new faculty, and simply look at the publications list (and, especially in technology-related areas, the ability to bring in research money). This single-minded focus on the professor-as-researcher may cause faculty to neglect or be unable to perform some other responsibilities.

Another important aspect of professorship is mentorship of graduate students, an aspect rarely assessed when new faculty are admitted to a department.

Regarding the humanistic disciplines, teaching and passing on the tradition of Literae Humaniores is often placed in a very secondary position in research universities and treated as a non-scholarly activity, to the detriment of high culture. Hanson and Heath have polemicized against this in their book, Who Killed Homer.

See also

• Academic publishing
• Impact factor
• Least publishable unit
• Tenure
• Michael Spivak, founder of Publish-or-Perish Press

References

• Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath, Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom. New York: The Free Press, 1998.
• Thomas K. Grose "21st Century Professor" ASEE Prism, January 2007
• Richard L.S. Evans, "Chrysoloras' Greek: The Pedagogy of Cultural Transformation."
• Publish or Perish calculates various statistics, including the h-index and the g-index using Google Scholar data