Articles

Politics and the Professions

---

Abstract

Academics have always had a love/hate relationship with politics. They tend to view politicians with haughty disdain and to see politics as suitable only for detached study. And yet, most academics that I know are fascinated by power and influence, which are the essence of politics. The professor jockeying to become department chairman, the scholar trying to outpoint a rival in his field by winning wider support for his work, or the candidate for an important office in a professional association are all political animals. I was asked often after being elected to the Minnesota legislature how I found the transition from the groves of Academe to the hurly-burly of politics. My reply was that nothing went on in the Minnesota legislature that I had not already experienced in meetings of the history department of the University of Minnesota.

How to Cite:

Spear, A., (1984) “Politics and the Professions”, Archival Issues 9(2), 75–81. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/archivalissues.10432