[Todos] Fwd: The Argentinie chapter of the academic show (Seventh letter)

[fabio vicentini]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fabio vicentini <fmvicent en gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 5:05 AM
Subject: The Argentinie chapter of the academic show (Seventh letter)
To: "presidencia en conicet.gov.ar" <presidencia en conicet.gov.ar>,
FulbrightNEXUS en iie.org, info en fundacionsadosky.org.ar, info en mincyt.gob.ar,
prensa en mincyt.gov.ar


 Buenos Aires, June 29, 2012

 Dear Colleague:

Subject: Mafia

 I have sent you seven letters on academic corruption in the School of
Exact Sciences of Buenos Aires University (FCEyN/UBA). Fifty years ago I
was a student in the same school and nothing of this sort was apparent. I
wonder what happened in the meantime to debase the academic moral.

 Let me sum up the essential facts. Eduardo Saguier is a researcher of
CONICET, the government agency for the promotion of science and technology
in Argentina. He denounced a mafia stealing funds from ANPCYT, the agency
providing funds for research. This led me to investigate my school mafia
and, as a result, I published a report on corruption at FCEyN. The
authorities of my school came down on me like a ton of bricks, calling me
nazi, demented and some other niceties.

 I cannot pinpoint the evil seed that triggered the decomposition process
of my school. I suspect that the World Bank started the ball rolling when
issued instructions on how to administer higher education in Latin America
and the Caribbean in the nineties while Argentina was under the Menem
administration.

Whatever the cause might be, my school is at the hands of a gang. It may be
called mafia or camarilla, but no matter the name for it, what I mean is an
inner circle of rascals who hold the power, and use the institution for
their own benefit. They won’t kill anybody but are ready to get rid of
those who won’t submit to their academic dogmas. They have perfected the
scheme to win the elections. When election time comes they pretend a change
with no change. As put it humorously by Lampedusa: "Si vogliamo che tutto
rimanga com´è, bisogna che tutto cambi."

I reentered FCEyN in 1995. Having a practical background I found the
academic policy not to my liking. They had driven the "publish-or-perish"
culture to mockery. The professor's performance is gauged by the number of
papers, the content having no bearing. As a consequence, professors are
intent into maximizing the number of published papers, and the school has
become a bullshit producing engine. Also, professors are expected to ask
for funds to sustain their research, so bullshit is financed by the ANPCYT,
that is, the taxpayers. There are even scoundrels who boasts of scientific
achievements by faking a project, submitting a bogus grant proposal,
publishing bullshit papers, going on vacation to attend foreign meetings,
you name it. And I know of cases because I made the scrutiny inside the
whale myself.

I reacted to this pretence of science by publishing satirical pamphlets.
Irony infuriated the gangsters, and I was manipulated by a task force. The
mobsters gave me a full mobbing treatment. Then they got rid of me by
aborting my contract. I appealed to the dean Jorge Aliaga, and he responded
by filling out a bureaucratic form.

I had been an odd man out in my school, the unique academic in the math
dept who did consulting jobs instead of papers for journals. The mafia
kicked me out of the school for being an heretic dissenting from the
paper-making dogma. The impervious heads of these inquisitors cannot get
the point that theory on papers serves no purpose if there is nobody to
apply it in the real world.

This is the last letter.

Very truly yours,

     Fabio Vicentini


Operations Research Consultant
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