You're no good: An ongoing MoneyLaw series

You're no good
Feeling better now that we're through
Feeling better 'cause I'm over you
I learned my lesson, it left a scar
Now I see how you really are
Linda Ronstadt

Many things in academic life are simply no good. The task of identifying these things falls happily to MoneyLaw.

This ongoing series will highlight aspects of academic life that seem as inevitable as they are entrenched, but in reality deserve to be scrutinized. MoneyLaw undertakes this project in the belief that no academic practice is so sacrosanct that it cannot be questioned. Indeed, it should be an academic leader's calling to expose, perchance ultimately to reform or even to overthrow, those practices that are corrosive of academic values and the interests of higher education's true constituents. To get things started, I'll give this forum's readership a hint: Among the three T's most familiar in higher education and its finance — tuition, taxes, and tenure — only two are familiar to the system's true constituents.

True to MoneyLaw's belief in the wisdom of crowds, I invite readers to nominate practices, customs, and expectations that — in Linda Ronstadt's simple and persuasive way of expressing the point — are no good. Fire away in the comments to this post. As Linda would say, it's so easy.