Who is the best? ...

Monday, Oct 22, 2012. Recently I had a beer with some colleages from the US, and the chat also got into a discussion how the best American universities pick their staff. We discussed different tools to make decisions about who gets tenure (i.e. a permanent research job at a university). The goal is to choose only those who are “the best” in the field.

How do you find out who is the best? …

Some universities play the following game: they ask a range of people who they think to be “the experts” in a field, to write an ordered list of candidates. Then, they combine the lists and go top down and approach people. Others let people apply, but then write to “the experts” and ask them for recommendations.

But maybe it is time to question this question “who is the best”! What criteria are we using? Citations? Recommendations? Publications? Personal networking? As long as we still ask for the right criteria, we assume that there is something or someone as “the best” … with respect to some measure. But is it? We have a bunch of criteria, and depending on the weights we give them, we will pick a different person. But there is more to ask!

Do we really want “the best”? Whom do we want? Usually, when we fill some position, there are a range of criteria and goals we need to achieve. We want someone to carry out good work in some area. Universities and many other institutions today look for leading figures … for people who can go ahead in some field and lead others. But what are these other goals? Do we have a reasonable and sustainable idea of how our science or business together with all the others is supposed to work in the long run?

Different world …

When it comes to God, we come to a different world indeed. The biblical books lead us into a world of mutual support and joint work. Please note, there is leadership as well in these. Jesus leads us. God leads us, father, son and holy spirit. They show us a life of peace and sustainable prosperity. They lead us into a different world!

First of all, Jesus has a valuable place for everyone. It is just different from the university business, which sais: “we take the best and do not care about the rest”. Jesus cares about everyone - and Christian community is to care about every single individual and find a way for him to put his personal gifts into action for the whole community.

Second, we are freed from the the world of boasting. We do not need to put ourselves forward all the time. We can just focus on our targets and our duties. We can focus on helping each other and working for the community. We are accepted and loved, we are taken serious, we are cared for. We know that the community wants us to be happy and wants to help us as much as they can. Of course, it is a part of this to put effort into our work, to be eager to work well and to help the others in the same way. Of course we try our best! But we are no longer dependent on it … we are free to live - in him. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts