In recent years, the "non-promotion or leaving" policy of some colleges and universities has been controversial.
Generally speaking, it is for young teachers in the "lecturer-associate professor" stage, and the pre-employment system is adopted, that is, they will not be rehired if they fail to meet the assessment requirements, so as to prevent them from lying flat as soon as they enter colleges and universities, and "force" the majority of "green peppers" to produce results as soon as possible.
However, the "non-promotion or departure" of some colleges and universities has gradually "mutated". Some asked associate professors to join "either promotion or departure"; Some "wide in and wide out", which can be called "not rising but leaving"; Some "are either promoted or transferred", and if they can't become associate professors, they will go to work in administration, logistics, and security.
Many "green peppers" bluntly said: "This is a game of elimination." ”
Half tenured associate professor
This year is the fifth year that "Taro" has joined a 985 university in the east, except for attending classes and taking care of children, the rest of the time is engaged in research, "scientific research is a part of life".
According to the previous requirements of the university, during the six-year assessment period, she must complete 4 papers of "SCI/SSCI2 and above or core journals" and 1 "minimum standard" of a national fund project before she can be rated as an "associate professor" and stay in her position, otherwise she can only change her post or leave.
In her opinion, if the research is done well, it is not difficult to publish a paper. However, the uncertainty of the national project is too high, and a large number of excellent "green peppers" who are "either rising or leaving" are "desperately" applying for the National Youth Fund.
So, in the absence of research resources and less than 60,000 yuan in start-up funds, she contacted experimental resources through personal relationships, and practiced "writing books" every year, and finally succeeded in applying for the project in the third year.
Compared with "taro", Xiaofan, a doctoral student who just graduated this year, is facing a more severe situation. Although he has a good "background" and many papers, 6 CSSCI journal articles allowed him to get an offer from a 985 university in Northeast China.
But in the current environment of more fierce competition and more demanding conditions, it is difficult for him to stay. According to the regulations, Xiaofan must be rated as a "pre-appointed associate professor" in the first three years before he can enter the next round of three-year assessment and apply for a "tenured associate professor".
This means that, first of all, he must be "hit" once twice to apply for a national project in the first two years; Secondly, since the contract does not specify the thesis index, but "merit-based admission", he must "compete with no upper limit" with the 10 people in the same batch.
Xiaofan speculates that the elimination rate of the two rounds of assessment will reach 70%, and in the end, "half of the people may become tenured associate professors".
The reason why it is "half" is because two years ago, the college recommended 7 "long-term" places to the school, but none of them passed. Moreover, the income of such colleges and universities is often extremely unequal to the intensity of competition, "a job of 6,000 yuan, the elimination rate reaches 80%".
Some second-class colleges and universities, which were once regarded as "retreats", have also begun to "go up or go".
When applying for a job, "Xiaocun Qingjiao" found that a second college in Ningbo required 2 core journal papers and 1 provincial project during the 4-year initial employment assessment period; A university in Chongqing also proposed at least 120,000 yuan for horizontal projects, "everyone has high requirements". Moreover, once the target is not met, it may lose money, "money is not so easy to get".
It's all up to the school
However, the "green peppers" can't be "rolled".
"It's a buyer's market now, young people have no choice but to accept or say goodbye, and colleges and universities are in an absolutely dominant position." Professor Li Qi of the Institute of Higher Education of Beijing Normal University said.
In 2023, there will be 2.07 million full-time teachers in higher education, a year-on-year increase of 4.91%, while in the same year, there will be 612,500 doctoral students in mainland China, a year-on-year increase of 10.14%, and the enrollment is still expanding.
As a result, colleges and universities have higher and higher requirements for young teachers. "Brother Dao", an associate professor at a university in Beijing, pointed out that in the era when there was no "promotion or leaving", he spent eight years at the university to be promoted from lecturer to associate professor; After the start of "either promotion or departure", it is required to have 4 core journal papers within five or six years; Now it is necessary not only to have a national fund, but also 4 CSSCI journal papers, of which 1 is a "top journal".
Since there are no mandatory regulations by the state, how to raise and go "green peppers" is up to colleges and universities.
Xiaofan introduced that in a university in the south, because the local government issued hundreds of thousands of subsidies to doctoral graduates introduced by universities, colleges and universities can recruit a doctoral graduate at almost no cost, so they can recruit a large number of academic temporary workers; In some universities in the north, the "human touch" is more important, and they are unwilling to dismiss people, which belongs to "either promotion or departure", "sign a 6-year contract first, renew it for 3 years if it fails to meet the requirements, and then renew it if it can't meet it".
At the same time, some colleges and universities have delegated the autonomy of assessment to colleges, and due to the uneven management level between colleges and universities, various assessment standards have also changed.
Xiaofan found that not only are the policies of the school always changing, but the application standards and assessment rules for "pre-appointed associate professors" in many colleges have not been formulated. Xiaofan went to ask the HR department, but was replied: "This is not something you should consider".
"Taro" recalled that his assessment criteria were initially verbally notified, and in the fourth year of the assessment period, there was a "temporary price increase": the original 4 papers were changed to 5, and the national project was changed to project funds. In this regard, she could only accept it helplessly. "With a stroke of the pen, others can decide where we go or stay", "This game is not interesting and fair".
Another possibility of "go or go".
From a practical point of view, the chaos of "either rising or leaving" is not "unsolvable".
In 2019, "Sweet Potato" joined a famous university in Guangdong and signed a three-year short-term employment contract. In his opinion, although it was impossible to stay, the school did not treat him badly. He completed the assessment target in two years, took an annual salary of three or four hundred thousand yuan and a talent subsidy, and spent the rest of his time "riding a donkey and looking for a horse with pay".
After that, he left the university to work as an engineer and investment consultant in the enterprise, and only one of the eight "green peppers" who joined the same batch with him chose to renew the contract, and the rest were engaged in various jobs in enterprises and governments. After experiencing salary cuts and layoffs, he found that his current salary is more than 20% higher than staying in college.
Now, when he is almost 35 years old, he does not plan to go back to college. First, the competition is fierce, and it may not be able to stay, and secondly, it is easier to turn research into products in enterprises, "my personal choice is to go to society".
Of course, colleges and universities also have university solutions.
Xiao Ben, an associate professor at a public university in Hong Kong, has just completed a six-year assessment period and has become a tenured associate professor.
Here, there is no quota for promotion. However, he found that most people would post far more than the "minimum standard". He also "rolled" himself, worked fourteen or fifteen hours a day, and by the time he applied for an associate professor in the fifth year, he had published more than 50 papers.
Although "the pressure is very high", he also approves of some of the school's practices. For example, after he entered the school, the school solicited the opinions of "either promotion or leaving" teachers, including him, on the evaluation standards through hearings and other channels, and since then has successively clarified many indicators including papers, projects, teaching, and administration. "It's nice to be able to speak freely."
Now, he no longer worries about losing his job at any time, and plans to balance work and life, and do some "research that is not afraid of wasting time and is of higher quality".
It is also the vitality that academics should have
The saturation of university jobs is a global phenomenon.
On the mainland, a large number of highly educated "green peppers" have accumulated in the stage of "either rising or leaving", and there is no guarantee or way out, and they are "born and died" at the bottom of the teaching positions in colleges and universities. In Europe and the United States, the origin of "non-promotion or departure", there are also "millennium old post-doctoral post-doctoral students", and many highly educated talents cannot obtain long-term teaching positions and move in various postdoctoral sites.
Although the competition is fierce when there are more people, it is fair to say that more talent and more active competition are not a bad thing for universities.
The problem is that at present, many colleges and universities are "either rising or leaving", which is to adopt a chicken-killing and egg-killing "squeezing" of "green peppers" under the atmosphere of "scientific research only", which not only makes "green peppers" fall into the "paper" involution, but also violates the original intention of academics.
Professor Li Qi pointed out that academia is long-term work, not competitive sports, and long-term and high-intensity "involution" will make the "green peppers" fall into professional burnout, deviate from the original intention of scientific research, and is not conducive to the construction of the "academic community".
For colleges and universities, clarifying their own positioning, formulating corresponding norms according to the characteristics of running a school and the needs of long-term development, so that more suitable people can "rise" and unsuitable people "go", which may be the correct way to open "either promotion or leaving".
Fortunately, some colleges and universities are making new attempts to break the "green pepper" evaluation system of "only papers, only hats, only professional titles, only academic qualifications, and only awards", for example, Chinese Minmin University withdrew from the ranking of universities with the impact factor of papers as the index, Fudan University gave lectures and masterpieces "green pepper" promotion opportunities, and the president of China Agricultural University proposed to give up the high-pressure competition and elimination policy...... In general, it is to return academics to academics.
History has proven countless times that young scholars have unlimited potential. How to stimulate the research vitality of the "green peppers" and return the academic vitality they should have, this also tests the wisdom and determination of colleges and universities.
(At the request of the interviewee, sweet potato, taro, Xiaoben, Xiaocun green pepper, Xiaofan, and Brother Guide are all anonymous)