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Neither of the people in this photograph are qualified for an academic job (see also "Professor" Bill Shorten). I like Ardern a lot, and creating a role using her experience for mentoring is great, but hospitals don't say "we've hired Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman to do heart surgeries this month."

Hang on... wasn't Ardern at Oxford then Harvard? Must have picked up some skills on the way along with her politics & comms. Degree from Waikato Uni. Though I reckon her stint at the U. of Arizona was probably just a semester sabbatical.

She's got skills (and unique experience) and would make a fantastic adjunct. That doesn't mean she's qualified to be a lecturer.

With the greatest of respect, that smacks of academic snobbery. Adjunct and non-academic lecturer pathways exist precisely to bring high‑level applied expertise into universities.

And again, she would make a fantastic adjunct (world class, even). I don’t think it’s snobbery to insist that academia is a highly skilled profession that requires expertise and experience, however, or that it’s a distinctive enough vocation that non-academic VCs are a problem.

Yup, non academic VC's are definitely bad! Just don't tar an experienced adjunct lecturer with the same brush ...is all I'm saying. ;)

Well if people would stop announcing “lecturer” appointments for people who haven’t done the hard yards necessary to have that title, no such tarring would be necessary.

I don't think my PhD is nearly as impressive or difficult as leading a government through a a hugely successful pandemic response, a volcanic mass casualty and one of the worst racially-motivated mass murders in recent history.

Sure, but your PhD is a lot more relevant to anything you’d actually need to teach at uni, just as I’d obviously choose Ardern’s CV over mine if you needed someone to manage a crisis.

The main requirements are demonstrably knowing what you're talking about deeply and widely and being able to successfully communicate it. I was teaching and publishing with an MA for many years. I only did the PhD to get around a largely irrelevant glass ceiling.

But you were actually teaching and publishing during that time, and you had the MA! Obviously any politics or public policy and management class would benefit from hearing from Ardern sharing her experience. That's not the same as being a lecturer.

And it's also a question of *what* you know deeply and widely. Ardern has invaluable experience and public policy knowledge. Great, now how does that experience relate to the relevant literature? As an apocryphal French diplomat once said: that's all fine in practice, but will it work in theory?

There are two flaws in that reasoning. 1. The assumption that a former senior policy analyst for the UK Government is unfamiliar with the literature and theory. 2. The assumption that she would be teaching an entire degree program by herself, which would be highly unusual.

Odd, I can think of many professors with traditional academic backgrounds who were appointed for political reasons, are terrible at teaching and barely publish. Also if the role of former Prime Minister is the low bar... "parce tuas in me perdere, livor, opes; ad maiora tibi, si potes, arma para."

I’ve thankfully missed these professors - certainly among those hired this century, where the competition for jobs has been insane - though to be honest nobody would bother appointing philosophers on political grounds anyway.

Appreciate the Ovid, and sure, envy is part of it. Academia is rock stardom pursued by other means. Making rock stars into academics instead is thus all kinds of annoying.