Forget kids, here comes the organization professor

If F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel 'This Side of Paradise' captured life at Princeton at the outset of the twentieth century, then Princeton may have as astute, if less literary a chronicler at the dawn of the twenty-first century in David Brooks. Brooks' article "The Organization Kid" — published in the April 2001 issue of 'The Atlantic Monthly' — has become something of a campus classic, among the few essays not appearing on a syllabus that many students have read voluntarily.

Brooks describes Princeton as the "logical extreme" of America's increasingly meritocratic society. Raised from a young age by competitive "bourgeois bohemian" ("Bobos" as they've been called) parents, Princeton's students have led highly structured lives, directed toward admission into the nation's elite institutions and successful lives thereafter. Even after these young people enter college, the structure persists. Students have internalized the achievement ethic, and spend little time questioning the reasons for their frenetic activity, much less questioning anything else, since so little time remains for contemplation.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the contrast between the worlds described by Fitzgerald and Brooks applies equally to faculty. The academic world is no "ivory tower," as Princeton's administration likes to insist — it is easily as meritocratic as the "real world," perhaps even the most meritocratic institution on earth. At every stage of the aspiring professor's career, the weakest links are mercilessly weeded out: Admission to the best graduate schools is extended to the best applicants from only the best schools; honorific fellowships, titles and awards are bestowed upon only the best among that elite group; the miniscule number of academic positions go to the tiny fraction that receives the blessing of the gatekeepers, famous senior faculty. The real trial only begins once a scholar has actually become a college professor: After he spends five years teaching, approximately two dozen of the world's leading professors will be asked whether the institution should grant him tenure. Only a tiny fraction of this already severely winnowed group makes this final cut, achieving lifetime employment. Even then, the pressure continues, since accolades will continue to be distributed only to the most select of this august tenured company.

Imagine how such a professor spends his or her time. There is no professional reward for teaching. A recipient of Princeton's best teaching award for untenured faculty members was denied tenure last year in part because of a suspicion that such attentiveness to pedagogy must indicate a failure of scholarship. Nor can one achieve distinction through a life of high culture and wide reading, as was the case for many professors in Princeton's past. Recognition is bestowed upon faculty who can demonstrate focused expertise. Today, achieving such narrow expertise requires years of study; retaining it demands constant vigilance and therefore leaves little opportunity for the leisured reading enjoyed by students and professors of Fitzgerald's day. This situation has two prominent effects on the life of faculty: First, they prefer to associate with other faculty who share their interests. Second, they tend not to enjoy or excel at teaching undergraduates, who often require a general education rather than expert training. Many faculty prefer to train graduate students who share similar professional interests and aspire to comparable expertise.

The meritocratic nature of the modern university creates a highly fluid environment. Faculty constantly cycle in and out of positions: Since I began at Princeton six years ago, the Politics Department has attempted to hire roughly a dozen new professors (and lost nearly that same number) annually. Bidding wars between the most prestigious universities constantly break out over the hottest new thing, and a considerable amount of energy goes into retaining faculty who would be poached by other institutions. The situation is closely akin to that in major league baseball: The team name remains ("Princeton"), but the personnel changes constantly. Free agency is the dominant model, with new faculty coming in and playing with the team for a few years before a better offer comes along.

Many modern professors — though not all — resemble the professionals described by the late Christopher Lasch in a book called 'The Revolt of the Elites.' Capable of constant movement and quick adjustment to new circumstances, they prize cosmopolitanism and a certain detachment from the limiting features of particular places. They reside briefly at institutions that were designed with stability and longevity in mind. Princeton's many plaques and statues attest to the long devotion of faculty who educated generations of Princeton students. The kind of faculty honored by those monuments — like the baseball players who spend their career on one team — is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Modern baseball, and modern universities, may be of better quality for this mobility (and we all like our number one ranking ), but what is undeniably lost in both cases is loyalty and memory — two things that make stadiums and gothic buildings more than just a pile of mute stones.

Patrick Deneen is an assistant professor in the Politics Department.