A Reverse Philosophy Brain Drain?

A philosopher from Britain writes:

Just wondering whether we might be in a period of 'reverse brain drain'....With Travis coming to Kings, the appointment at Essex you reported and Alan Carter, Luc Bovens and Eli Mason all leaving Colorado for the UK there could be a small trend here. What explains it? Horrible politics in US; the freeing up of academic salaries in the UK because of the RAE; and the exchange rate means that salaries are now competitive at the top end and at the same time the streets are not full of right-wing lunatics here.

Let's review the facts for the past two academic years (very roughly), which have (in my experience) been unusual.  Leaving the U.S. for Britain have been:  Charles Travis from Northwestern to King's College, London; Luc Bovens from Colorado to LSE; Alan Carter from Colorado to Glasgow; Wayne Martin from UC San Diego to Essex; Elinor Mason from Colorado to Edinburgh; Knud Haakonssen from BU to Sussex; Larry Moss from Notre Dame to Exeter; Andy Clark from Indiana to Edinburgh; and Christopher Shields from Colorado to Oxford.  In addition, Mike Martin (UCL), Michael Otsuka (UCL), Michael Potter (Cambridge), and Hannes Leitgeb (Bristol) have all turned down U.S. offers recently.

Travis made it explicit that the political situation in the U.S. was a factor.

Leaving the U.S. for Canada have been:  Bob Batterman from Ohio State to Western Ontario; John Beatty from Minnesota to British Columbia; Sylvia Berryman from Ohio State to British Columbia; Adam Morton from Oklahoma to Alberta; Benjamin Hellie from Cornell to Toronto; Diana Raffman from Ohio State to Toronto; Byeong Yi from Minnesota to Toronto; Jessica Wilson from Michigan to Toronto; Jennifer Whiting from Cornell to Toronto (and she recently turned down Stanford as well).

On the other hand, several faculty have recently moved from Canada to the U.S. (Catherine Wilson from UBC to CUNY; William Demopoulos from Western Ontario to UC Irvine), and several have made the move from Britain (Richard Holton & Rae Langton from Edinburgh to MIT; John Campbell from Oxford to Berkeley; Mark Sainsbury from King's College to Texas).  Bear in mind that the U.K. still has mandatory retirement, an incentive, of course, for some philosophers to move to the U.S.

What do philosophers think?  Is this a trend?  What explains it?  Comments are open; no anonymous postings, of course.

Comments

[Bryan Frances]

I am in the process of moving from the University of Leeds to Fordham University. I did it purely for personal reasons, not because of any dissatisfaction with Leeds. However, I did apply for some posts in Canada even though I have no personal connections there, and the right-wing idiocy widespread in the US was a strong factor against my move. After Bush was reelected several of my UK colleagues as well as non-academic friends expressed amazement at the stupidity of Americans. I could not offer any defense!

[Michael Otsuka]

For all its faults, the British Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) has had the good effect of giving people an incentive to slow down and concentrate on the quality rather than the quantity of their work. Under the RAE, we may submit no more than four publications every 6-7 years . So here the administration is happy if you publish at least four very good, substantial pieces every 6-7 years even if you publish no more than that. My impression, though, is that a philosopher in the US who published only four articles during that period of time would be regarded as "underproductive". This difference in attitude towards publications greatly influenced my own decision to remain in the UK rather than return to the US. I suspect, however, that it hasn't had much influence on the decisions of others.

[Chris Bertram]

the U.K. still has mandatory retirement

This is on the way out though (from 2011 I believe).

[Thom Brooks]

I agree with Mike, but would add a second point. The RAE has not only given philosophers (and their departments) in the UK an incentive to improve the quality of their work. It has also been a kind of gold standard: people who score well in the RAE are genuine prizes. The knock up effect is that promotions are perhaps more possible for young stars, real cash cows bringing in important research cash from the government.

There is perhaps one downfall. While most of the top philosophers I've been taught by, most were great teachers. We all know some who were not. High marks in teaching does not earn money out of the RAE system. In fact, some departments 'punish' philosophers who are unsubmittable for the RAE by giving them extra teaching or admin. I think it best that the system is research led and that good researchers are often good teachers. (And there is this Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice now required of new lecturers to 'ensure' we are 'good teachers', a course I have criticized everywhere people are willing to listento me.)

Like many other Americans living in the UK (I am from New Haven), I cannot imagine ever going back to the UK. Part is the support for research Mike mentions. Part is the lifestyle (perhaps a matter of taste). The political dimension---the fact that Bush is loathed in the UK and across a chunk of Europe---is reassuring and it is great finding scores of likeminded people wherever you go. However, this is not a crucial factor for me on where I live.

[Frederic Bouchard]

Aside from the political landscape, one factor that has been mentioned and that should not be underestimated is the fluctuations the currency market. Let’s take a starting salary of 55k Canadian (probably a reasonable average but variance is high). With the current exchange rates, that corresponds to 45k US whereas three years ago, that would have corresponded to 34k US. If you have no loans it doesn’t make a difference (after all, rent in Canada is paid in Canadian dollars) but if you have debts in US dollars, moving to Canada three years ago was an expensive proposition. In my case, I turned down American offers because I wanted to go back home (UofMontreal), but the strong Canadian dollar (or weak American dollar…) made that decision, much more reasonable financially than it would have been a few years ago. In addition, Canada (through the SSHRC) funds research in the Humanities and in the Social Sciences at a serious level.

[Martin L. Martens]

It's not only Philosophy Academics. I am a US Citizen in a Canadian Business Faculty and I run into numerous, experienced academics at every conference asking about jobs in Canada, or moving to Canada.

[Peter King]

I too moved from the USA (Ohio State) to Canada
(University of Toronto) within the past two years;
the political situation in the USA was certainly a
factor in my decision. The weak US dollar made it
possible, too, but no more than that. I bet against
mandatory retirement in making the move, and that
has paid off (retirement is no longer mandatory at
the University of Toronto and is on its way out all
across Ontario)... but the USA PATRIOT act was one
of the last straws, and nothing I've seen since --
from the flouting of international law to the denial of due process -- makes me at all sorry to be an expatriate.

[David Hunter]

I have friends here in New Zealand who work in immigration, they told me the number of applications for residency from US citizens increased by a factor of ten directly after the election!

Likewise here at Massey University we would have landed a fairly big fish as HoD last year had our admin people not mucked things up so badly, and his main reason for wanting to shift was... Politics, he didn't want to raise his kids in the US political environment

[David Thomson]

Thank God you people are leaving. Please don't let the door hit you on the way out. I also hope you purchased one way tickets.

[BL]

As the preceding gem indicates, this discussion has been linked from one of the right-wing blog sites: http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/004646.html

I'll leave Mr. Thomson's missive as a reminder of what these folks are like. I'll delete any others.

[T J Olson]

I swim in academic circles in the western US and the UK too because I'm a grad student in both (in environmental science and history). However, I find it odd that so many academics are just, now, after a decade of Republican dominance, waking up to the fact that - as Micklethwait and Woolridge call it with their recent book - the US is "The Right Nation"?

Evidence of American exceptonalism has abounded for years and decades, except that lefties only wake up to their denial when it's shoved in their face? How "smart" is that? Yet the problem goes beyond simple denial, into the realm of self-contradiction: how can a party win in America by being so shreekingly anti-American? Who in their right mind can support a "Democratic Party" that eschews and castigates promoting world democracy?

9/11 and Bush and Pubbies and "the Neocons" have only cemented a political realignment long underway. Clinton was an aberation because he was such an exceptional political persona himself. Nevertheless, the master lost Congress in 1994; Senator Jefford's switch was but a pyrrhic victory - has no one on the left been prepared for further change since? Can a rival "national" party survive merely on a constituency of urban cores, college towns, and trustafarian enclaves? Demographics aren't everything, but a further stranglehold by the right in national US politics over the next ten years is all but assured: "red" states and counties are growing while very few "blue" ones expand.

This ain't rocket science, people. But the sheer absence of constructive or creative ideas from the left is truly shocking. (See William Galston in Washington Monthly last April for long overdue sense.) Perhaps the panic evident here is only demonstrative of the horror of a vacuum that confounds nature. . . .or good minds lacking the will to fight? As Alfred says to Master Wayne, "Why do we pick ourselves up after we fall?"

[Humphrey Bogus]

I am a layperson in the field of academic philosophy. I therefore ask the following out of curiousity.

It appears that quite a few of the academics you mention as having moved to Canada in the last two years are from Minnesota, Ohio State and Cornell. Likewise, four of the people you mention that have moved to Britain came from Colorado.

Is this just a coincidence, or was it something about those schools? Were those schools particularly worth abandoning or were those faculties particularly strong and hence were raided by others? Why aren't moves to Canada or Britain more widely distributed among faculties? Also, are they all US Citizens, or were any (or their spouses) from the UK/Canada originally? Just wondering if other factors might have played a part.

[BL]

I am certain other factors played a part in several of these cases. Part of the reason for the thread was to address whether the political situation in the U.S. was a significant factor.

Please post with an actual name and e-mail in the future. Thank you.

[Martin L. Martens]

I didn't specify so in my previous comment but the political situation in the US is the significant factor for business academics moving from the US to Canada. Salaries in the US are typically 20-25% higher than similar positions in Canada but the higher pay isn't worth it.

[Elinor Mason]

The considerations that Michael Otsuka mentions influenced my decision to come back to the UK enormously. At Colorado I felt as though I was coming up for tenure with huge pressure to go for quantity rather than quality (I am not claiming that *all* my colleagues there were responsible for that!). I also thought that the process of tenure would waste a year of my life, and was best avoided. So I do think that there is potential for reverse brain drain of people at the pre-tenure level.

[Colin Farrelly]

I spent the first four years of my career teaching in the UK (before coming back to Canada) and my perception is a bit different from Elinor’s. A comparison of the pressures to publish for tenure versus an RAE submission really depends on when you enter the job market relative to the next RAE submission. If you first enter the market in the run-up to the next RAE then the pressures to publish can be greater than that required for tenure. At least in the case of tenure you know you have a fixed number of years (e.g. six years) to establish your research programme. But if you want to land a permanent job in the UK, and the next RAE submission is two years down the road, depts will only be seriously considering candidates that have four publications in print (or close to being in print). So the pressure to publish quantity rather than quality can still exist in the UK. It really depends on timing. New PhDs who are going on the market in the run-up to an RAE will face different pressures than they might a year after an RAE submission.

[Peter Thurley]

An article published in the Hartford Courant (http://www.courant.com/news/local/northeast/hc-leavingus.artjun19,0,867344.story?page=1) details the reasons why a husband and wife duo, Kelly Anthony and Joel Dubin are leaving jobs at Yale University and Wesleyan University to take positions here at the University of Waterloo. The explicit stated purpose of leaving the USA is because of the political situation. Now that Bill C-38 has passed and is on its way to becoming law, allowing Same-Sex Couples to have full rights as civil rights married couples, it wouldn't surprise me that there are even more people moving North of the 49. Canada is proving to be much greener pastures for academics in all fields looking to get away from the rampant right-wing fundamentalism that has taken over government in the USA.

[Adam Nelson]

To pose a philosophical question: is not the decision to forfeit one's presence in a community with which one has moral conflicts with, thus limiting the influence that one has over the future of that community's moral framework evidence of failing to satisfy a moral duty?

As Larry May (philosophy professor at Washington University in St. Louis) suggests in his book entitled Sharing Responsibility, one does avoid metaphysical guilt by "condemning or disavowing what one's community has done...Such changes disassociate one from fellow group members and diminish one's shared responsibility for what those others have done"(154). However, I would suggest that to abandon one's ability to actively participate in the dismantling of a system of thought that is so potentially damaging to the cause of a new and enlightened global moral order is also a moral duty. The philosopher has a responsibility to be the gadfly (see May) and this responsibility is being inexcusably abandoned by professors as they run from the opportunity to stand among the masses as a reflective voice of reason and elevated moral concern (which is desparately needed), istead fleeing for communities that are more like-minded and the simple psychological satisfaction that follows. Regrettable.
Adam Nelson
B.A. Philosophy--Metropolitan State University (MN)