By popular demand - Academic salaries - final

Our latest article on “Academic Salaries” received a lot of attention. Perhaps because it was short and concise, our academics who don't like long articles read it as soon as they saw the short text and reacted immediately.

They asked me to elaborate a bit on the late Demirel’s aphorism.

They are asking, “How is everyone going to fend for themselves?” 

Dear friends, why are you asking me this?

Go ask the officials in your university’s “Project Unit.”

They will explain to you in detail how an academic can earn more income.

But for those friends who cannot be bothered to go, let me write a short memo here, maybe it will be useful.

1. They should write a TÜBİTAK project. Even though the project acceptance rate is around 12-13 percent, with the incentive they receive, they can at least pay their electricity bill for a while. 

2. They should write projects for the European Union, Horizon, or COST. Even if the acceptance rate is close to zero, they can dream, like Nasreddin Hodja trying to turn the lake into yogurt, saying “what if it works?”

3. They can set up a fake journal and provide DOI numbers for their friends' articles so they can receive “incentive payments.” Especially with the income obtained from the DOI numbers provided for associate professorship, there might be an opportunity to become a homeowner. 

There is no one who doesn't know how one of our professors who did this emptied the coffers of TÜBİTAK. 

In their internationally indexed journal, they published articles in a wide framework from chemistry to theology, enabling both the nation to receive incentives and to become associate professors.

What a great service.

Our late professor was also getting a cut from time to time.

A complete “win-win.”

Dozens of our professors who became professors thanks to this grateful professor’s fake journal are still serving in academia. 

They say there are even those who became deans and rectors.

In fact, if the article “Citation Gang on the Way to Rectorship” hadn't appeared in one of our national newspapers, this professor would have almost become the Rector of one of our distinguished universities.

The appointment decree written for them as Rector was changed at the last minute, and another member of the citation gang was appointed as rector.

4. They should head to the courts. They should have their names added to the expert witness lists. Even if it is only occasionally, they can pay their phone bills with the reports they write.

5. If their fields are suitable, they can give private lessons.

6. They can work like a campus agency for “cooperative products” such as honey, pistachios, apricots, tea, and tobacco from their hometowns, and by disguising this work as “University-Industry” cooperation, they can earn some income. 

7. They should look into the “education coaching” business that has emerged in recent years. Ripping off rich kids who are rebellious toward their families has become the fashion of the recent period. The income is not bad at all.

8. They can come together and buy a “public bus.” It seems there is an opportunity to earn an income equal to a salary.

9. They can buy a “stall” in the marketplace and rent it out, telling the mayor they will use it for “survey” work. 

10. They can set up a company for research purposes and siphon off the university’s research and development budget.

If these items seem difficult, and if they haven't gotten married and had children yet, they should follow the path of the savvy academics.

They should create added value from their careers and convert it into an economic vehicle.

If they become a future career-oriented professor, a son-in-law to be boasted about and trusted, a good family man, a good husband, and an academic with enough character to set their sights not on all of their father-in-law’s inheritance but only on what is necessary, their chances of becoming good academics if they marry into a wealthy family are very high.

Otherwise, if you don't do R&D, you will be no different from any other ordinary civil servant.