Do UChicago profs often suffer a citation count penalty?

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
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<p>Maybe because Chicago is isolated from other major academic centers, and also maybe because UChicago research often tends to be far ahead of its time?</p>

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<p>“Do UChicago profs often suffer a citation count penalty?”</p>

<p>Is there any evidence they do? In the Times Higher Ed rankings, Chicago’s citations rank is similar to or slightly better than its peer schools.</p>

<p>“Maybe because Chicago is isolated from other major academic centers”</p>

<p>This makes no sense. Not only is Chicago not particularly isolated from major academic centers [Northwestern is very close, UIUC, Michigan, Madison, and Minnesota are also relatively close] it probably makes very little distance where in America a university is for journal articles.</p>

<p>“UChicago research often tends to be far ahead of its time”</p>

<p>Although UChicago research is very good it seems unlikely that it is far ahead of other elite universities.</p>

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<p>On as side note, on being ahead of your time… </p>

<p>Thorstein Veblen, whose work “The Theory of the Leisure Class” is now considered a classic, was denied tenure at UChicago and he left for Stanford.</p>

<p>From Wikipedia:
Veblen obtained his first academic appointment at the new University of Chicago, which overnight had become a world class university in many fields. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1900 and edited the prestigious Journal of Political Economy, while conversing with such intellectuals as John Dewey, Jane Addams and Franz Boas. He published two of his best known books, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), and The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904). The books made him famous overnight for their ridicule of businessmen. In 1906, he moved to Stanford University. He soon left, perhaps because of adultery, or because the faculty and administration distrusted a man they saw as a poor teacher, a nasty colleague and a political radical.[10]</p>

<p>Of course, it probably had something to do with his affairs with the wives of his colleagues.
<a href=“http://www.jstor.org/pss/4227476[/url]”>http://www.jstor.org/pss/4227476&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>But perhaps more scandalous today than his private life was back then is the fact that he was denied tenure despite his importance in the field.</p>

<p>So, yes, some UChicago profs are ahead of their time. But if you are, having affairs with your colleague’s spouses probably won’t help.</p>