Richard,
Did our Beloved Leader offer any empirical evidence to support the 
assertion that his "incentive plan" is working or is ever likely to work?
Did he offer any explanation of why it might work better than the recently 
abandoned post-tenure review incentive plan, or the chairs of excellence 
incentive plan, or the bonus incentive plan?
Did he defend what the results might be when all the best young scholars 
figure out that they will become victims of salary compression and that 
over the long haul their "rewards" will grow at the same rate as state 
appropriations?
Do you think he would be interested in a sure-fire 20 percent return on his 
money as long as the stock market bubble lasts (with the caveat that past 
performance is no guarantee of future earnings)?  If so, I also have a nice 
bridge between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn for sale.

Fritz.

At 07:25 AM 11/2/2005 -0500, Richard Rice wrote:
>President Petersen last week at the Trustees Meeting defended his 
>incentive plan to attract and reward the best young scholars in the UT 
>system. A recent survey of scholars teaching international relations in 
>Foreign Policy suggests that an unintended consequence of this will be a 
>trend towards teaching more theory and less real world application. I 
>wonder if this will be true in most disciplines at UTC? I quote:
>
>"The international relations field today is surprisingly young: Half of 
>the professors who teach at U.S. colleges received their Ph.D.s in the 
>past 12 years. Even more surprising is how young scholars change the focus 
>of their teaching over time. Early on, when young faculty are fresh out of 
>graduate school, they focus their teaching on theoretical questions and 
>scholarly debates. But, as their careers progress, professors are inclined 
>to teach their students more about real-world policy debates and less 
>about scholarly arguments. The image of the ancient, tenured professor 
>reading from decades-old notes needs to be revised."
>
>  Richard