"Placement" is not a thing in British universities. It is solely a US thing.
Not true. Compare Oxford's politics department (no placement effort) with two of the nearest neighbours in the same institution:
https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/dphil-placement-record
https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/job-market-candidates/job-placements
Now find a similar page at DPIR. You won't.
"Placement" is not a thing in British universities. It is solely a US thing.
Not true. Compare Oxford's politics department (no placement effort) with two of the nearest neighbours in the same institution:
https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/dphil-placement-record
https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/job-market-candidates/job-placements
Now find a similar page at DPIR. You won't.
Oxford faked at least two of those placements by arranging to pay the salaries of the “new hires.” Shameful.
Are there any problems of which one should be aware? I'm deliberating between funded places at each. Thanks.
"Placement" is not a thing in British universities. It is solely a US thing.
Not true. Compare Oxford's politics department (no placement effort) with two of the nearest neighbours in the same institution:
https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/dphil-placement-record
https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/job-market-candidates/job-placements
Now find a similar page at DPIR. You won't.Oxford faked at least two of those placements by arranging to pay the salaries of the “new hires.” Shameful.
What are you talking about?
One thing that might put off potential hires is that Oxford does not really have a departmental culture at all. It seems the professors there don't base themselves in their department offices, instead using their undergrad college room to work in.
For an ambitious young academic, it may seem isolating to work in their college room. These colleges do have nice lunch provision, but on the whole, while attractive to some English people who went to Oxford, and some others, to many these colleges are like a kind of "rest home" for retired academics. More likely than not you won't be able to talk about academic research in your own area with any colleagues, except in a general way. For an ambitious academic, this does not compare with the more professional environment you get in the departmental context.
While DPIR does have a department building, it is, by and large, empty except for administrators. It is not the inter-active and research-active place that its founders had back in 2000.
Hence my question - does this not bother potential/new hires?
What a load of crap. Many new appointments do not end up at undergraduate colleges.
Hm? I think the argument is that most of the fellows choose to work out of their offices at their respective colleges (undergrad here was a poor choice of words by the author as places like Nuffield and All Souls and the other grad colleges are full of academics). That statement though is absolutely true. In fact, it's why Nuffield is particular desirable for students and academics: its dense set of social scientists allows the kind of conversations and cross-fertilizations that occur in a normal academic department. One could make a somewhat similar argument for something like All Souls but it would have to be built only partially around the density of academcis in the same discipline and more for the 'brilliance' of everyone there.
Elsewhere, though, you're lucky if an undergraduate-dominated college has two political scientists and a sociologist or economist that might be around to talk to. Even then, offices are all over the college and there's nothing similar to the hallways of US departments that allow people to have informal chats.
As far as "new appointments", it's true that a lot of the lecturers are more often working out of DPIR, but that's because they're not fellows and don't have the same kind of ties to the colleges. That said, a lot of them will have some kind of college affiliation and spend time at that college.
I don't think it's really up for debate that the social science building does not replicate other top departments around the world that are more centalized and densely populated with academics, which might be benefitial for academics and certainly is for students. Whether it scares away hires is a different question.
"Whether it scares away hires is a different question."
Would an ambitious pol sci AP want to be in a college room rather than in a department room? It seems to me problematic. The strange thing is that DPIR invested in a building and moved to a departmental structure in 2000 with a view, presumably, to having more of a departmental culture. I guess that there is a sort of chicken and egg / coordination failure problem in which they are at the "bad" equilibrium: people would work in the department if everyone else did (first best equilibrium), but given nobody else does they don't (bad equilibrium).
"Whether it scares away hires is a different question."
Would an ambitious pol sci AP want to be in a college room rather than in a department room? It seems to me problematic. The strange thing is that DPIR invested in a building and moved to a departmental structure in 2000 with a view, presumably, to having more of a departmental culture. I guess that there is a sort of chicken and egg / coordination failure problem in which they are at the "bad" equilibrium: people would work in the department if everyone else did (first best equilibrium), but given nobody else does they don't (bad equilibrium).
Oh ya it's definitely a *problem* and one they should try to solve for sure, but I'm not sure your standard person offered an Oxford job is going to turn it down for that reason. Maybe they should and maybe it's the straw that breaks the camel's back when it mixes with lower pay, no tenure system for the lecturers, and high teaching loads. But, it seems like they fill those mid-level posts with qualified, good academics pretty easily.
I think the draw of staying in your college is generally the ease of having college tutorials there, and the offices are almost always better.
The college system is one of the most attractive aspects of Oxford for a load of reasons that haven't been mentioned here. Yes, it detracts from 'hallway conversations' so perhaps we should abolish it.
Hallway conversations but also opportunities to interact with some of the great academics there. Imagine being an early career scholar working on democracy and working in a department with Nancy Bermeo, Giovanni Capoccia, and Ben Ansell as well as a few other great scholars but never really interacting with any of them. You could set up meeting to chat, but you're not going to have the same opportunities to get to know them that you might if you were at a top US alternative.
That shows how undergrad-teaching-dominated the whole set up is for APs at a ugrad college.
yeah, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a different focus from US research unis where the focus is absolutely focused on grads. Oxford generally gives their grads more room to do their thing, which most Americans see as a bad thing, but is really just a manifestation of different academic cultures. I've not known too many Oxford DPhils who complain that often about it, honestly. It's great for the undergrads, obviously. Still, I'm definitely on the side of limiting cohort sizes and giving more attention to grads, but don't think they should give up the quality of undergrad instruction there.
An ambitious AP would want to develop his/her own group of PhDs. It's good for the AP's human capital, future network, and a measure of their impact within the profession. There isn't that much benefit to the AP in the UG students, in the main, often they are smart, but not so much that you get a lot from it. (Unless they go on to be PhDs). The UGs seem a bit over-catered to, though I think things are gradually rebalancing in the university as a whole (not yet DPIR) towards the graduates.
I have never heard of anyone placed well in political economy from the LSE.
You are a bit slow. My point is that LSE is like NYU or Columbia as in a university inside a big city.
In terms of placement, LSE places really well in political economy.
Enter Acemoglu, the highest earning academic
I have never heard of anyone placed well in political economy from the LSE.
You are a bit slow. My point is that LSE is like NYU or Columbia as in a university inside a big city.
In terms of placement, LSE places really well in political economy.
Enter Acemoglu, the highest earning academic
Izzo at UCSD. studied poliecon and formal theory at LSE