There is a letter in Science by Mark S. Cohen wherein he argues that it is bad advice to ask young postdocs and graduate students to seek position in places other than their home institutes. Of course it is practice in US universities not to hire their own graduate/post-graduate students. The underlying opinion is that this prevents inbreeding and clique formation. Mark argues that young scientists should be encouraged to work where they are most productive and if it happens to be their home institutes, then they should be allowed to do so.
Is Mark S. Cohen right?
In India it is the norm to hire our own graduate/post-graduate students. Only few institutes like CCMB have made it a policy not to hire their own graduate students. IISc too had a similar policy when Prof. Goverdhan Mehta was its director. However, the departments were very unhappy and were waiting for Prof. Mehta to leave before reversing the policy. I do not know the current policy at IISc.
Being in a place where the department has made it a norm to hire its own graduate/post-graduate students, I have seen the harm such appointments do. Given the hierarchical nature of our education system where graduate students are never encouraged to question their teachers, hiring back our own students ensures that the policy decisions formulated by the senior faculty are never questioned. Further, it ensures that there is never any dissent. Also, there are no new ideas. there is no growth in terms of scientific ideas and outputs. Worse, many of these faculty do not get out of their student mentality and fail to make the transition from student to faculty.
I have no problems if the students hired back as faculty are brilliant teachers/researchers. But very often the ones who are hired back are bad teachers and bad researchers. Essentially the ones who are good sycophants are the ones who are hired back.
I sincerely believe that one of the reasons that India never made great strides in science/social science field is the inbreeding that we encouraged.
Is Mark S. Cohen right?
In India it is the norm to hire our own graduate/post-graduate students. Only few institutes like CCMB have made it a policy not to hire their own graduate students. IISc too had a similar policy when Prof. Goverdhan Mehta was its director. However, the departments were very unhappy and were waiting for Prof. Mehta to leave before reversing the policy. I do not know the current policy at IISc.
Being in a place where the department has made it a norm to hire its own graduate/post-graduate students, I have seen the harm such appointments do. Given the hierarchical nature of our education system where graduate students are never encouraged to question their teachers, hiring back our own students ensures that the policy decisions formulated by the senior faculty are never questioned. Further, it ensures that there is never any dissent. Also, there are no new ideas. there is no growth in terms of scientific ideas and outputs. Worse, many of these faculty do not get out of their student mentality and fail to make the transition from student to faculty.
I have no problems if the students hired back as faculty are brilliant teachers/researchers. But very often the ones who are hired back are bad teachers and bad researchers. Essentially the ones who are good sycophants are the ones who are hired back.
I sincerely believe that one of the reasons that India never made great strides in science/social science field is the inbreeding that we encouraged.
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