Happy Shiny People (for academics)

I recently visited a number of universities in the Maritimes. For those not in the know there are a lot of very small universities in the region. These universities tend to have small student bodies and a similarly small faculty compliment. In talking to these people something became very clear.

The happiest and most productive of departments I visited was at the smallest of the universities I visited. This of course got me thinking. What makes university faculty most likely to be productive? (BTW this is an issue I’m personally concerned about.)

The university in question has had a stable student population for decades (about between 2250 and 2500) and does have a fairly large endowment. On the down side it does have something of a history of labour unrest, with a potential for faculty strikes every few years.

What has always amazed me about this group is how much pleasure they take from their work and how much research they actually get done despite an onerous teaching load. Thinking about it for the last couple of weeks, I’ve spotted a few things to consider.

1) Few layers of administration. This is a small university with relatively few AVP’s DAVP’s, ADAVP’s, associate dean’s, coordinators, etc. This means there is a hope of influencing the outcome of administrative decisions. Despite this it is possible for a department head to devote comparatively little time to admin busy work. Unlike larger schools in which most faculty members don’t know who is making administrative decisions this week and don’t feel they have any meaningful say in the direction the university takes or have to spent countless hours in meetings that accomplish nothing.

2) The group legitimately respects each other and gets along. When hiring, attention was paid to how different people appeared to “fit”. In a small group this is exceptionally important. You need someone who is going to be of a complimentary temperament. Many academic units ignore this to their detriment. Ideally, you need someone who agrees with just enough not to make you insane. I’ve seen this group subject their own (and my work when I visit) to intense thoughtful scrutiny. It isn’t always the velvet glove sort either, but it is always done in a way that lets you know it’s about making it “right”.

3) Really bright, engaged, students. I’m not even talking about graduate students, though they offer fill this role. The students I have encountered there are genuinely engaged, willing to challenge, and capable of putting up a really good intellectual fight. There is accordingly a great atmosphere of academic debate and thought.

Considering all these factors, it really makes me wonder if Universities in Western Canada have taken a wrong turn in pursuing size. Would a larger number of smaller universities better achieve the stated objectives?

The Hurtful Helicopter

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about prospect theory lately. This theory is likely become taught in most microeconomics courses over the next 10 to 20 years (things move slowly in the academy). There are a lot of important details in the theory, but one that sticks out in my mind is the idea of reference points.

The idea is that when considering options (prospects) people compare the possibilities to what they have now. What you have now is a reference point and what you might get is a prospect. It doesn’t take much of a stretch to see that what you expect about something or someone can be a reference point. This is one of the reasons why expectations are so important.

Having established a reference point, the next interesting piece of the theory is that gains are treated very differently from losses. While gains improve your happiness, the effect is moderate. Losses, on the other hand, cause dramatic reductions in happiness. Estimates show a loss as having almost twice the impact of a gain. So gaining $5 bucks, keeping it for a while, and then losing it is worse than never having it at all.

What does this have to do with helicopter parents and happiness? Think about what your average overbearing parent does to a child’s expectations in life. The child has never experienced failure, has been told they are super, special, and just the bestest at everything. These expectations are going to be impossible to meet once you grow up and get out into the world. This means that something that would be a forgone gain (a minor discomfort) for most of us, becomes a crushing loss for the pampered kid. The impact on the happiness of the child will be dramatic. I haven't met a sheltered kid that seemed happy to me, and this might be part of the explanation.

Trying to make your child happy all the time, might just be making them unhappy in the long run.