Resentment in Academia

The comments section at the bottom of almost any article on insidehighered.com or chronicle.com often includes expressions of resentment.

Often, the resentment is directed from faculty members against administrators. Sometimes it is from graduate students against faculty. Sometimes it is from junior faculty against either senior faculty or some aspect of the tenure process. Sometimes it is resentment of academics against elected officials or the government.

On occasion, non-academics, or employees of for-profit institutions, express resentment against the “ivory tower.” In any case, resentment seems to be the currency of interaction among factions in the academic world.

Does anything need to be done about all this resentment, or do these expressions of resentment serve as a pressure valve that, at least to a point, makes things better on the ground?