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Research in the world of engineering is usually collaborative. But Fabrikant’s field was narrow, on the cusp between engineering and mathematics. In any case, collaborating with him was difficult. He was by nature a loner and his colleagues learned to keep their distance. Some of them found him unpleasant, others a know-it-all. He had run-ins with Concordia’s computer lab, insisting that his work was more important than anyone else’s.
By 1981, he’d begun applying for jobs at other universities, including a job at the University of Calgary he wasn’t qualified for. When he learned he hadn’t been short-listed, he attended a conference at which he first harassed and then attempted publicly to humiliate the professor who’d signed the hiring committee’s rejection letter. The story quickly got back to Concordia. Sankar also received complaints from editors of journals about Fabrikant’s rudeness when, in the course of normal editorial practice, they criticized or asked questions about work he’d submitted.
But Sankar turned a blind eye to Fabrikant’s behaviour. He was not alone among academics at Concordia — and elsewhere — who believed that academic freedom meant not just freedom of speech but tolerance of eccentricity. His feeling was that only things that could be quantified should be taken into account in assessing a faculty member’s performance. And the truth of the matter was that, in a world whose hard currency is the number of scientific papers produced, Fabrikant was gratifyingly prolific, the equivalent of a sixty-goal-a-year scorer in hockey.
The number of papers an academic publishes is an important factor in obtaining grants, salary increases, promotions and tenure. The average professor in the world of engineering is doing well if he or she produces two or three original papers a year. Fabrikant was producing more than twice that number — twenty-five in under four years. And on almost all of them, Tom Sankar, his chair and protector, was listed as a co-author.
Co-authorship is like getting an assist in hockey — except in hockey, an impartial scorer decides who, if anyone, merits an assist. In the world of engineering, the rules are much less well-defined, and Fabrikant quickly realized that in Concordia’s engineering faculty co-authorship was routinely used as a way to curry and repay favours.
Fabrikant’s stipend came from the department’s so-called soft funds — research grants — and he was pushed ahead rapidly. By 1980 he’d been made a “research associate,” an invented rank, at $12,000 a year, and two years later, a “research assistant professor” at $23,250. Although he was not on the university payroll, he was already doing some teaching. That year, 1982, he decided it was time to marry and through friends in Brooklyn, found a young Slavic bride, Maya Tyker.
In 1983, Sankar proposed that Fabrikant’s status and title be upgraded yet again — to research associate professor. John Daniel, as vice-rector academic the person ultimately responsible for approving all appointments, had serious reservations about Fabrikant. Earlier that year, for example, Fabrikant had enrolled in a non-credit French class at the university, taught by a part-time instructor. He complained, not unreasonably, but extremely rudely, that the teacher smoked in class, and then went on to attack her in other ways — he didn’t like the way she spoke French; he didn’t like her teaching style. Fabrikant became so disruptive that the instructor threatened to resign. The teacher’s supervisor told Fabrikant he was no longer welcome in the class and sent him a note to that effect. But Fabrikant attended the next class anyway, read the supervisor’s note aloud, tore it up, and stayed. A more senior official ordered Fabrikant to stay away. He did so but demanded that the university give him $1000 to take French classes elsewhere. Sankar went to bat for him. It took Concordia months to say no.
Sankar was incensed that Daniel should cavil about Fabrikant’s behaviour and wrote him stiffly, saying, “I was always under the impression that we took decisions on promotions, reappointments and salary ... increases purely on the basis of scholarly achievements and academic excellence rather than on the individual’s behaviour ... . I hope my understanding is still valid.” He drew attention to Fabrikant’s publication record, describing ten of his papers as “truly outstanding” and hinted at “a major breakthrough” in the offing. Daniel backed down.
Dr. Fabrikant's Solution, continued >
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