ISU and the ID professor.

At Iowa State University, their has been a bit of stir over tenure. One Guillermo Gonzalez tried for it, and was rejected. He didn't take it well. I have known plenty of professors that have been none to happy to face a seeming wall of tenure. It is rough.

But this is all made rougher as Gonzalez is an avowed ID'er, good old creationist. So he feels this is being held against him. And he feels this is wrong.

He has gotten plenty of support. Religious types are ready to go into a furor at the merest thought of the nasty secular colleges beating on poor pious profs. The Discovery Institute and its ilk are eager to lay blame on academia as being closed minded and cabal like, denying their discoveries.

Seen here:

I like the little sign above his head: he's being burned at the stake because he "believes in God"! I assure you that the fact that someone goes to church does not play any role in tenure decisions, nor does the penalty for failure to get tenure involve immolation, or even singeing. The reality is that Guillermo Gonzalez is being politely shown the door because he "believes in pernicious pseudoscience," and more pragmatically, because he didn't bring in enough grant money.

Christians are always too eager to jump on the cross or into the lions den. And they see martyrs everywhere. With suspect vision like this, can their be any trust is visions of Marys Jesii, and angels?


So what happen?

He is a assistant professor of physics and astronomy. But also an Intelligent Design advocate. He spent time researching it. He spent time writing on it. And when tenure was denied him he believed it was the sole reason he is left behind.

What does the school say?

President of ISU, Gregory Geoffroy:

Geoffroy said he considered refereed publications, Gonzalez’s level of success in attracting research funding and grants, the amount of telescope observing time he had been granted, the number of graduate students he had supervised, and the overall evidence of his future career promise in the field of astronomy.

...

The Des Moines Register reported Thursday that university records showed that Gonzalez had raised significantly less research and grant money than his peers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Iowa State has sponsored $22,661 in outside grant money for Gonzalez since July 2001, records show. In that same time period, Gonzalez’s peers in physics and astronomy secured an average of $1.3 million by the time they were granted tenure.

He was a professor who was not making the cut, in comparison to his peers. I have seen that. Smart, friendly, diligent teachers, but they didn't publish much or go distances that were asked of them to be considered and accepted into a tenure post.

It must be embarrassing for him to have this flung out there, so publicly.

More from ISU's president:

The president of Iowa State University has rejected Guillermo Gonzalez's appeal for tenure, citing the fact that "he simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect." That, alas, is the result I expected, and that everyone involved should have expected.

He spent a large amount of time researching and focusing on pseudoscience. He used his time to write on it. He obsesses over it.

Then when tenure comes, that is what he has to show for his time and the schools dollar.

Less in the range of astronomical research, less in getting his and the schools name out in the field through publishing...He wasn't cutting it. It happens every year.

If he had wasted his time on proving astrology, and was writing about it in Astrology Monthly, he would be in the same spot. Same if he loved poetry and spent all his time on that.

He brought next to nothing in, and produced little in his field. That means no tenure, no matter where you are in this country...maybe not at Liberty University.