7th March 2005, 1 min read

The professoriate is likened to a slime mold

This post makes the point that university professors are essentially self-organizing:

(…) universities are valuable primarily as the habitat of academic disciplines, whose self-organizing systems cannot be brought under central command. Bossing academics is like herding ants — creatures that are relatively feeble unless permitted to exercise their collective genius for self-organization.

So! That’s what universities are? Habitats for disciplines… Hmmm…