(Shouldn't there be a separate thread for discussing the conference and its environs? Where else can we post helpful tips to each other about where to eat, or the justdiscoveredbyme fact that the Nixon Library is just 30 min. or so away from the convention center?)
Since I know that senior faculty also read this blog, permit me to plead that one or more of them finally take some action to force the Placement Service into the 21st century by getting them the software needed to schedule interviews at the APA, instead of continuing the current practice. When I left for Thanksgiving I still hadn't received the paper form we're supposed to fill out to indicate availability (which, as of Nov. 19 had not yet been mailed out), and yet I'm supposed to have that form in the APA's hands by Dec. 4?!? In this day and age it should be quite simple to computerize this whole process, with candidates filling out an online form that goes straight into the planning software. (My guess is that some Penn CompSci undergrad could figure this out.)
Not only would this be a far more efficient system, but it would allow for flexibility: I still remember the time a friend had something of great importance come up and had to fight tooth-and-nail to reschedule an interview because of the alleged burden in making a last-minute change. With a computer program that could be done by pressing a few buttons...
Second the last post. It's the internet age. The APA just debuted a new website. What better time to make the Placement Service more modern and convenient for everyone?
Even emailing the form as a PDF and having people print it out and mail it back in triplicate would make life easier for everyone (and save the APA money in postage). In particular, those resident outside the adjacent US currently stand no chance of getting the form in on time. Every year people complain but nothing changes. I suppose the overtime payments for those who do the paper scheduling are quite lucrative, though.
That's true about .pdf files that can be filled out and e-mailed, and that it would SAVE the APA lots of money. Surely, someone in a position to do something about this is out there, and realizes what a no-brainer it is to compel the Placement Service to do this.
In other news, am I the last person to know that they're remaking "Clash of the Titans"? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800320/
My APA form only had to travel across two state boundaries, and not very distant ones at that; it arrived this morning. I can only hope that the postal service on the return journey will have caught up with the Thanksgiving backlog.
One year my form, filled out by me as soon as I got it (late, naturally), got lost en route to them. I was asked to send them an email with a list of available times. So...if that can be done in case of emergency, why can't it be done habitually?
Oh, and that email they sent us with a list of interviewers last year pre-APA, but a big deal was made about how we couldn't be given interview times in advance? Well, the list in my email corresponded exactly with the order in which the schools interviewed me (all my friends had the exact same experience). Seems like they might have been able to give me that info right then. Unless they need candidates to show up to collect the yellow copy of the interview schedule triplicate forms in person...
Unless they need candidates to show up to collect the yellow copy of the interview schedule triplicate forms in person...
Forcing all of us candidates to check our slips in one little room is definitely the most efficient method of having us really smell the collective fear inspired by the search process. The smell, you know that gasoline smell... Smells like, victory!
Anonymous said... One year my form, filled out by me as soon as I got it (late, naturally), got lost en route to them. I was asked to send them an email with a list of available times. Well, when I missed the deadline last year (because they were late sending out the form), email just wasn't good enough: fax or nothing. Incidentally, does anyone know whether there were any repercussions for the mishap a couple of years back where all job-seekers' email addresses were sent out to the whole list in the clear? I don't remember anyone from the APA ever addressing this incident, or apologizing to those concerned. It's hard to imagine people getting away with that scot-free in any other line of work.
On another note, why do we even post the European jobs on here? Has any non-European without a European degree ever been short-listed for a permanent job there? I know there was a big brouhaha a while back about the trans-Atlantic classics market basically being a one-way street, but I say enough with the charade already.
Anonymous said... On another note, why do we even post the European jobs on here? Has any non-European without a European degree ever been short-listed for a permanent job there? I know there was a big brouhaha a while back about the trans-Atlantic classics market basically being a one-way street, but I say enough with the charade already. Did you even bother to check? From last year alone, permanent lectureships at St. Andrews and Cambridge went to North Americans with North American degrees (Montreal/McGill/Yale and Montreal/Montreal/Harvard respectively). Perhaps you're confused by the terminology: "lectureships" in the UK are permanent.
Also, North Americans aren't the only ones updating the wiki and the forum now. Some Europeans and Americans living in Europe are also contributing, and the job posted reflect this.
I - an American - was shortlisted for two foreign jobs last year, one in Europe. I intend to apply for foreign jobs this year, too. Let's not limit ourselves in a tough year, and let's welcome European job seekers to the wiki and FV.
Just don't want anyone with a memory that stretches back two years to confuse this new Tiresias with me, the original Tiresias. I do still check the blog from time to time, mainly out of curiosity.
Perhaps the new one should go with Teiresias? I seem to remember that spelling being used in some translation or other...
Speaking of foreign job openings, anyone out there watching what's happening in Dubai these days? I wonder if that search will end up being called off, what with the gargantuan default...
I would say a job talk should be on or at least related to your dissertation. It's the only topic on which you'll have the depth of background knowledge that will allow you to answer questions. Occasionally people ask you to give a talk not on your dissertation; this usually means some people on the committee like you but others think they don't need a person with your specialization.
I thought that search was for Abu Dhabi, you know, the place WITH the oil, not just an egotistical, fratricidal property complex.
That's right. NYU went with Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai for diversity considerations: it already had a campus located in a country that produced and exported far less than it consumed, was dependent on oil-rich countries, and had rung up massive public and personal debt, but that had masked these weaknesses for years by pumping up a massive real estate bubble.
That's right. NYU went with Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai for diversity considerations: it already had a campus located in a country that produced and exported far less than it consumed, was dependent on oil-rich countries, and had rung up massive public and personal debt, but that had masked these weaknesses for years by pumping up a massive real estate bubble.
Awesome. Let me shake you by the virtual hand, Anonymous.
That's right. NYU went with Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai for diversity considerations: it already had a campus located in a country that produced and exported far less than it consumed, was dependent on oil-rich countries, and had rung up massive public and personal debt, but that had masked these weaknesses for years by pumping up a massive real estate bubble.
Awesome. Let me shake you by the virtual hand, Anonymous.
"Since I know that senior faculty also read this blog, permit me to plead that one or more of them finally take some action to force the Placement Service into the 21st century..."
Your first mistake is to imagine that the APA and the AIA care about you -- 'they' don't. They don't care about new PHDs, they don't care about adjuncts, they don't care about junior faculty. It shows in the big and small things. Go to the meetings and watch the backslapping silverbacks congratulate themselves and throw themselves big banquets and give each other awards. They don't give a fig about the 21st century or making your job search more less painful or helping you get a job or preserving the discipline. If you want to see elitism, it's on parade at the annual meetings and you should be revolted rather than intimidated, and work to change it -- in big and small ways --the minute that you can.
The following could not have been put more eloquently and closer to the heart of the matter. Welcome to the elite circle-jerk that is the APA/AIA:
our first mistake is to imagine that the APA and the AIA care about you -- 'they' don't. They don't care about new PHDs, they don't care about adjuncts, they don't care about junior faculty. It shows in the big and small things. Go to the meetings and watch the backslapping silverbacks congratulate themselves and throw themselves big banquets and give each other awards. They don't give a fig about the 21st century or making your job search more less painful or helping you get a job or preserving the discipline. If you want to see elitism, it's on parade at the annual meetings and you should be revolted rather than intimidated, and work to change it -- in big and small ways --the minute that you can.
Anonymous said... "Since I know that senior faculty also read this blog, permit me to plead that one or more of them finally take some action to force the Placement Service into the 21st century by getting them the software needed to schedule interviews at the APA, instead of continuing the current practice."
OK, I (middle-aged full professor, mildly well-known) just wrote to three APA office-holders about this.
Just received an email rejection from Amherst today. I have to say that though being rejected always stings it is remarkably professional to be efficient in sending along information to applicants - I noted that they requested interviews yesterday so I figured what was next. Not being a classicist, but having the training and teaching experience of one, I have applied broadly to many jobs in different departments this year and the classics departments have been much more pleasant to deal with than any of the others. With the exception of perhaps two (and they were email applications!), I received confirmation emails, etc. I cannot say the same for many other departments in academia. I'm not sure a hat's off is in order; but for what it's worth I thought I'd share my experience.
Someone mentioned this earlier in the thread. It's supposedly also a good year for archaeology. I chose the wrong year to be a Hellenist (and wrong week to give up drinking).
It is an amazing year for ancient philosophers no joke, but it isn't that bad a year for Hellenists. You don't think it's much better than last year?
Brown, MI, Penn St., Bryn Mawr, McGill, Grinnell, Macalester, Santa Clara, Trinity, College of Charleston, South Carolina, NYU, Xavier, Georgetown, Tufts... did I miss any? I mean what was it last year? Oklahoma, Wesleyan, NYU, McMaster, UCSB... what else was there last year? OSU Newark? Penn St. and SC lost their lines in 08-09. I could go on the Wiki but what a pain.
A) Not all of the jobs mentioned are for Hellenists, unless you're including generalist ads.
B) My ancient philosopher friends with degrees in Classics don't think it's a good year for them; they point out that most of the philosophy jobs are for people with a degree in philosophy, and who are familiar with philosophy as a discipline, not those who can teach the ancient philosophers in the original languages. A similar problem may apply to ancient historians: great year for those with history degrees, not-so-great for historians with classics degrees.
"Not all of the jobs mentioned are for Hellenists, unless you're including generalist ads."
Exactly, and though it might not actually be so extreme, it feels that there is ten times more competition for a Hellenist. Add in the fact that all my archaeology friends are applying for positions outside of classics departments, and it feels especially crappy to be a Hellenist at the moment.
On job talks. If we're talking about a job talk as part of a fly-out, in my experience the committee will be looking for a number of things. First, your 'presence' in front of people: are you clear, concise, organized, interesting. It's probably be easier to do that about stuff you know well, but remember that they don't want a raced-through summary of your thesis.
But one thing that they want to see during your visit is that you have a research horizon that extends beyond your thesis, and that within a few years some new research will be coming on line. Most places don't expect an outline of the second book (the first is the thesis), but at the very least you should be able to identify a likely topic and approach, and be able to describe its value to the discipline.
Now, if you do an actual paper that demonstrates that coming research theme, that'd be great. But my guess is that the paper itself might be a little riskier in that there may be a hole there that someone else can see, which can be fatal.
So my advice is to make your job talk from the most interesting part of your thesis, but talk about what's coming next whenever you have a chance.
(For context: I'm mid-career in a middle-rank sort of place and have been involved in about 10 searches.)
I'm interested to hear what people think about business cards. I don't think I've ever met a classicist who had business cards, but from what I can gather from friends in other humanities disciplines it's not uncommon: is there any need for them in this age of Google and departmental websites? Are they a bit pretentious? Or are they a good way of getting your name out there and networking?
Business cards are only slightly more useful than blank cards the same size. High school kids who visit your school to talk about majoring in Classics will be impressed if you given them one. I've seen a lot of them from Classicists; it saves having to write an e-mail address. You can also give a person one, and write his/her email on the back of another one. Some people stick them in offprints, which makes it easy to write an e-mail of thanks. And the blank back side can be really useful. Ideally you can get a Dept. to pay for them, which means you will have a box that you will never use up. Hard to get them when you don't have a job, although I guess these days you could just have your name and g-mail address vel sim. You can also buy printer sheets that will do them, with microperforations, that might look cheesy in a profession (or country) that cared a lot about business cards.
In general agreement about business cards. When you get your T-T job, make your department order some. My grandmother especially likes having a couple of mine around because they offer proof to the other old ladies that her granddaughter is better than theirs. It also is more convenient than writing out contact info when making a new and useful introduction at the Meetings, vel sim. But it seems like you're pretentious or trying to hard when you have one sooner: when I see one that says "grad student" I think, "you forgot to add douchebag."
Business cards are much appreciated by editors, when talking in person. Cards are a standard part of the business world even if they are not uniformly used in academia.
Similarly, an up-to-date signature block in email is also appreciated, with complete information (title/rank, department, school, phone, fax if any, and any needed clarification e.g. if a department has multiple buildings or snail mail addresses).
when I see one that says "grad student" I think, "you forgot to add douchebag."
See, now, that's what I think when it says "Professor of Classics," too. I translate it automatically to "Douchebag of Classics" (or "Assistant Douchebag of Classics," etc., as appropriate). I make exceptions for foreigners, because foreigners are powerless before cards and apparently need them to survive, and for people who have extensive dealings with non-academics, like archaeologists. Otherwise, it's just a little slip of paper that lives in my wallet (until I use it for something else) and asks me to remember two things: your name, and that you're a douchebag.
If anyone received the following email from Renie Plonski and is bothered by it, I urge you to email her and cc Adam Blistein explaining that a week, which includes a national holiday and which falls at the end of a busy academic term, is not enough time to return the availability form. Mine was postmarked the 24th, two days before Thanksgiving, and I did not receive it until more than a week later. I sent it the same day I received it, but that was not soon enough, apparently. Please put in writing the suggestion for an online form, which many of you have posted here. If the appropriate parties receive enough of these suggestions, perhaps some day they will actually implement them.
"Hello -
Please be advised, at least one college/university wishes to interview you at the APA/AIA Annual Meeting in Anaheim in January. You are receiving this message because I could not schedule your appointment(s) because I have not yet received your availability schedule. It was due to be in my possession this past Friday. I am attaching a blank form. Please complete the top (I'll fill in your ID number when I receive your fax), and FAX it to me to 001-215-573-7874.
Because I needed to contact you now, this will be the only pre-convention notification message regarding interviews that you will receive.
Thanks for understanding and for your cooperation.
Now that my work for this weekend is done, what should I do today...go play with the dogs at the greyhound rescue...Christmas shop...go to the casino... hmmm...
I'll think of something. Thanks for giving me the day off!
I also received that e-mail (my form was also postmarked 11/24 and was not in my possession until the evening of November 30, effectively December 1st: and the deadline for its receipt was the 4th!?), and have replied to Renie and cced Adam Blistein; I urge the rest of you to do the same. The only way we can change the inefficiency of the Placement Service and the rudeness of its staff is by voicing our concerns to people who can do something about them. Please send an e-mail!
I sent my form (rec'd the 30th) back priority mail (at departmental expense) just to avoid such communications, which I have received in the past. But that email is obnoxious by anyone's standards. You don't get a pre-convention email notifying you about schools that want to see you just because your form was late? That's ridiculous and needlessly punitive - especially given that quite a few schools have only just had deadlines or have their apps due Dec. 15. There's no way RP has scheduled any but a few interviews yet (maybe the schools listed on the wiki as already being in touch). And scheduling interview requests as they come in is ridiculous, without knowing each school's schedule. Even if you didn't get the email, I would encourage any readers of this blog, job-seekers or not, to contact the APA about it.
wow, each year RP and the Placement Service sink to new levels of ridiculousness. This latest email is absurd. A few years ago it was 'oh the placement forms have been lost in my baggage', then we had everyone's emails sent in the open in some flippant, mass email. Now this tangle over the stupid scheduling forms. Why does everyone (and by this I mean institutions and people with clout) tolerate this b.s.? Who in this age cannot accept data and information by way of email and/or the internet? Lots of people rail on this blog about the obsolescence of classical studies as a discipline. How can we hope to compete with other cutting edge fields when we can't even seem to pretend that we live in a modern age, much less a post-modern one?
There will of course be no change. For those still stuck on the Ixion-like wheel of the classics job market, some version of this same rant will re-occur here in this very spot 12 months or so hence.
Does anyone know the average number of applicants for a given classics job? Obviously it will vary among Hellenist/Latinist, philologist/historian/art/ archaeologist lines, but it would be nice to know the odds. I've heard anywhere from 80-150. I imagine it's worse this year due to last year's poor market. Thoughts?
Does anyone know the average number of applicants for a given classics job?
I don't know about averages, but I do know some concrete numbers. Two years ago, UCLA ran a tenure-track generalist search, and had 175 applicants. Last year Bryn Mawr had 75 applications for their one year job. And this year Santa Clara received 122 applications for their Hellenist position.
Availability forms: if you knew the completed form would probably not arrive until after the deadline, you could always have contacted the placement service in advance for advice (which would probably have been to fax it in, as in previous years). I'm sure they would make every effort to be accommodating up to the deadline. It's unrealistic to expect them to re-schedule their work arrangements after that point to accommodate late arriving forms, when you knew in advance you would have a problem in meeting the deadline. (That's not to say that the system currently in place could not be improved in various ways as suggested. At least the current system is known to work.)
"I don't know about averages, but I do know some concrete numbers. Two years ago, UCLA ran a tenure-track generalist search, and had 175 applicants. Last year Bryn Mawr had 75 applications for their one year job. And this year Santa Clara received 122 applications for their Hellenist position."
This sounds about right (100-200 for a TT search and 50-100 for a 1-year position). Though I do recall some TT searches getting less than 100 and 1-year positions getting close to 200.
Now that my work for this weekend is done, what should I do today...go play with the dogs at the greyhound rescue...Christmas shop...go to the casino... hmmm...
I'll think of something. Thanks for giving me the day off!
Yeah, this is bad. If I were a grad student or recent Ph.D., had tried to get the form back to them on their absurd schedule, and had received this message, I'd tell my dissertation chair and other supporters that this was going on, and show them the message, which makes quite an impression. If someone had treated a student of mine like this, I'd be pretty pissed off.
Now that my work for this weekend is done, what should I do today...go play with the dogs at the greyhound rescue...Christmas shop...go to the casino... hmmm...
I'll think of something. Thanks for giving me the day off!
Was this real? Did the Placement Service really include in an official email to job applicants?!
I thought this was a joke here on the blog, and not something that RP really sent......
I thought this was a joke here on the blog, and not something that RP really sent......
I'm assuming it's real because it displays RP's characteristic writing style. (I've had occasion to correspond with her.) If it's a fake, the writer has captured her well.
But if you DID get the email, at least you have an interview...
I too can confirm that RP sent that email out this morning.
What galls me is that it incriminates me for not returning the availability form to her on time when, in fact, she made it impossible for me to send it back to her by the deadline.
I live in the Bay area, and didn't get the form until Dec. 1 (it was postmarked Nov. 24). Short of sending it overnight express mail, it is simply impossible for the postal service to get it back to the east coast in three days.
And to the poster above who said that I should have contacted her to let her know that I couldn't return it on time, nice try. I paid my placement service fees, and I expect a minimum level of service. That includes me not having to be unduly inconvenienced (and yes, for me that includes faxing something) or having to pay additional out of pocket expenses.
RP has evidently mastered the art of email, making PDFs, and using the fax machine. I suspect that her email account can handle incoming PDFs. Her computer might even be connected to a printer.
I have to say I'm appalled by this. I don't think it's enough for those of you who have received this email to simply complain to the sender and to Adam Blistein. We need to start taking these complaints to the top, i.e. to the President (or President-Elect?) who would, I'm sure, take a dim view of these things...
Availability forms: if you knew the completed form would probably not arrive until after the deadline, you could always have contacted the placement service in advance for advice (which would probably have been to fax it in, as in previous years). I'm sure they would make every effort to be accommodating up to the deadline. It's unrealistic to expect them to re-schedule their work arrangements after that point to accommodate late arriving forms, when you knew in advance you would have a problem in meeting the deadline.
You either work in the placement office or are a total tool (or both).
Can the people who got that Placement email get their advisors or current chairs to write complaining? Or any people with APA juice among your teachers? And maybe print a hard copy of the email and send it? As a forwarded email the end looks too bizarre to be real, even if it is.
While we're on the topic...if we can register for the annual meeting online, why can't we register for the Placement Service online? Only very recently have we been able to pay dues online. Other professional associations I belong to allow me to do these things. (They are not, however, in classics.)
It's not just RP, though she is a good example of the problems with entering the technology age the APA apparently has.
BTW, the President-elect is a very reasonable person and I think would lend a sympathetic ear to these complaints. Here's a list of incoming APA officials for 2010: feel free to contact any you know. At least four of them I think would be concerned.
I'd like to second the analysis of anonymous 10:21.
Well, to be fair, it could be Stockholm Syndrome.
Now, like someone else who commented above, I do strongly suggest that people who got this message show it to their dissertation chair, department chair, and other sympathetic faculty, and explain how difficult the time-frame made it to return the form in time. These people have a specific stake in your future, as well as some influence, and some of them will say something.
My favorite part is "at the casino." The only way it could have been better is if she'd also wondered if she should spend her day off "at the titty bar."
"Here's a list of incoming APA officials for 2010: feel free to contact any you know. At least four of them I think would be concerned."
One of them even has an office on the same floor as the APA, so I don't think we've heard the last of this. But more than punitive fireworks, we need changes, and there, I'm afraid, we're likely SOL.
It's an archaic placement service fit for an archaic discipline.
But more than punitive fireworks, we need changes, and there, I'm afraid, we're likely SOL.
That's right. Just from this e-mail, if you're lucky, you're going to get forms that are mailed slightly earlier, so long as no emergencies or technical difficulties prevent it, which sometimes they will. Which is still better, right?
But my sense is that the office staff is not interested in doing things in any way but its own way, even if that way is dumb, inefficient, inconvenient, and expensive. A personnel change might help with that, but in my time around academic departments I have never seen a staff person fired. I have seen positions eliminated for budget reasons, but I've never seen anyone fired for refusing/being unable to do their job (despite having seen some obvious candidates!).
I do think it's good to make noise, though (and just bitching on the blog doesn't count; tell actual people).
At the risk of starting another rantfest, are any of the St. Joe's interviewees Roman archaeologists? I'm on the Greek side and didn't apply, but I'm always curious about these generalist-but-it-would-be-great-if-you-did-some-material-culture searches in classics.
I don't know about St. Joe's specifically, but I would imagine it is the same as any other "generalist-but-it-would-be-great-if-you-did-some-[speciality x]" position, which is to say, what they really *need* is someone who can teach everything, because, like many non-R1 schools, their department is small and grab-bag enough that they cannot afford too much specialization in anything. So if they get an application from an archaeologist who can also believably teach an advanced Greek seminar on Homer AND an advanced Latin seminar on Horace, who also looks like someone they would like to spend the rest of their careers working with, and who will seem like a worthy hire to the outside arbitrators (deans, tenure review committees, etc.), they will short-list him/her. I have met very few archaeologist who can teach BOTH Greek and Latin at advanced undergraduate levels, however, and as the archaeology courses Undergrad institutions need taught are more likely to be at the lower levels (since advanced levels of archaeology are quite often not encountered until graduate school, or else are offered through other departments, like Anthro), they are more likely to be interested in candidates who can do Greek and Latin really well and can mess about believably in archaeology (i.e. philologists who dabble in realia), than in candidates who can do archaeology really well and can mess about believably in Greek and Latin (i.e. archaeologists who dabble in philology). [Cue the angry mobs of MC people yelling at me for denigrating their specialty and training, which are vastly superior, and inflating my own, which are by nature vastly inferior ]
I have an interview with St. Joe's and am more on the "person who works with Roman material culture as well as texts" side than the pure archaeology side, if that answers your question.
I do not have an interview with St. Joe's and I am an actual Roman archaeologist (with a great deal of teaching experience in both languages at all undergraduate levels), if that further answers your question. In my experience, I think Lemons and Platypodes accurately expressed the prevailing attitude of search committees for such jobs. Whether this is a valid perspective is another question. Sometimes people are more inclined to hire people with similar training to theirs simply because they are better equipped to evaluate these candidates. I don't know if this is a symptom or cause of this outlook, but it is worth noting that Classics at St. Joe's resides in a department of Foreign Languages, which our seers on this blog have been warning is the fate of departments that have such parochial attitudes towards realia.
As an archaeologist, I have no complaints about what type of candidate a department, especially a foreign language one, fancies. Nevertheless, I think the wording of the St. Joe's search is a bit misguided, and its ilk is quite common in "classical" searches. As a positive example, I point to this year's Trinity University advertisement when it comes to finding a classicist who dabbles in everything:
Assistant Professor of Classical Studies - Tenure-track appointment, August 2010. The Department of Classical Studies invites applications for a tenure-track position with the rank of Assistant Professor, beginning in August 2010. Candidates are expected to have a high demonstrated aptitude and enthusiasm for undergraduate teaching and a strong commitment to scholarship. The area of specialization is open but we hope to complement existing faculty strengths. (Possibilities include but are not limited to Greek and Roman history; late antiquity; cultural studies including material culture; and interdisciplinary approaches to the ancient world.)
What difference does it make? I, for one, do not want administrators who are anthropological archaeologists and archaeological art historians to think that the short list produced by this search committee is representative of classical archaeologists. Whether one wishes to admit it or not, the present wording makes it seem like they're looking for someone who's a bona fide Roman archaeologist, which is certainly not true based on comments here and past searches. Classical archaeologists have a difficult enough time demonstrating to the greater archaeological community that we're not just wealthy, Anglo, male philologists who get dirty once in a while in our pith helmets searching for Homer and Pausanius. We don't need these misleading searches to reinforce this unfortunate stereotype. Again, I point to Trinity's advertisement for how it should be done. Is that too much to ask?
While I agree that the wording of many job ads, not just those for "clarchs," is misleading, in the case of Trinity, they actually have a highly experienced archaeologist (who is one of the bigger names in her field) on staff and, given the small size of the department, who is presumably on the SC as well (unlike St. Joe's and a number of schools guilty of similar ads). I read ads like Trinity's - way more general than St. Joe's - as saying that the search is basically open: what they want, really, is a candidate who does interesting work and is a good teacher. I think such openness to ideas and all kinds of candidates is, if genuine, a good thing on the whole. Trinity ran a similar ad last year and had a very mixed bag of finalists, who covered from Greek poetry to Roman cultural history, thus proving their genuinely open intentions.
"which is to say, what they really *need* is someone who can teach everything"
"Everything" as defined by a dying discipline. At the minimum, with less stringent requirements for what passes as history and material culture than for Greek and Latin. Most clarchs I know can more than hold their own with both languages. To ask them to teach upper level classes in both Greek and Latin as well as specialists in each is bullshit. Again, most clarchs I know can teach upper level classes in their non-specialist language about as well as a non-archaeologist in their non-specialist language. To say that there is a huge discrepancy in how well an average Hellenist can teach upper level Latin compared to an average Greek archaeologist is baloney. I won't even go into how well a Hellenist can teach a Roman history or archaeology course, let alone a Greek history or archaeologist course. Same goes for a Latinist teaching Greek history or archaeology.
This leads to my other question. How many upper level Greek and Latin courses will be offered in a catch all foreign language department like St. Joe's? Yeah, I thought so. Classics is dead. Long live language departments.
I read ads like Trinity's - way more general than St. Joe's - as saying that the search is basically open: what they want, really, is a candidate who does interesting work and is a good teacher. I think such openness to ideas and all kinds of candidates is, if genuine, a good thing on the whole.
I'm not sure if you're agreeing, disagreeing, or making a random observation, but isn't this exactly what St. Joe's goal is for their search, at least according to the comments on here?
Pile on RP all you want, folks. As someone pointed out earlier, an antiquated culture for an antiquated discipline. I say this as a specialist in Greek tragedy, watching classics go down the toilet. Can anyone recommend that any classics major continue on to grad school with a clear conscience, or does the need for slave labor dismiss scruples?
Again, most clarchs I know can teach upper level classes in their non-specialist language about as well as a non-archaeologist in their non-specialist language.
Without weighing in on the general issue, I can't believe that the above statement is true of better-trained candidates. The best clarchs I know are great archaeologists, I'm sure, and should be hired for their archaeological expertise, but shouldn't be put within a mile of anything above intermediate language. In some cases nowhere near elementary language. In fact, statements like the one above make me worried that some people have no idea what actually ought to go on in an upper-level language class. Just to be clear, I think that archaeologists should be in classics departments teaching material culture, and there should be more of them and fewer philologists. But upper level language instructors on a par with philologists? I have to assume you're exaggerating, I'm afraid.
Oh, God. Whoever asked about St. Joe's has indeed incurred another rantfest. Cue the annual clarch whininess, the philologists' defensiveness, and the historians' hurt feelings when they try to get in on the action. Do any of us really have the time for this? Maybe, just maybe, this kind of inter-specialty bickering and status-insistence is one of the problems with classics today?
But upper level language instructors on a par with philologists? I have to assume you're exaggerating, I'm afraid.
I guess reading comprehension is not a part of the package for some classicists. Anon. 9:28 specifically said there is no "huge discrepancy" between archaeologists and philologists in their non-specialist language. So a Greek archaeologist vs. a Hellenist teaching teaching an upper level Latin course. Or a Roman archaeologist vs. a Latinist teaching an upper level Greek course. I happen to think that s/he has a point, especially when it comes to a double standard vis a vis teaching expectations and, no, I'm not an archaeologist nor do I play one in the classroom.
I'm a bit sorry I've posted now, but from what I can gather, none of the posts between my last and this one came from an archaeologist. I can't speak for all archaeologists, but I personally have no dog in this fight. I was just pointing out that I don't think archaeology should be dragged into 99% of the all-inclusive generalist ads. The philologists who are steering the classics ship can figure this out (apparently, bar room style). I'm happily teaching in an anthro program and all my 20-something clarch friends who are truly trained in a holistic manner would sell a liver to somehow leave the admininstrative aegis of classics to ply their trade elsewhere. Judging by senior archaeologists flooding to Albania, the Black Sea region, Syria, etc. to conduct fieldwork, classical archaeology has already "left the building," so to speak.
Okay, back to our regular programming. This is better than cable tv.
Schliemann sucks, I suppose it could "out" you unwillingly, but have you considered putting together a roundtable for the AIA discussing the practical steps needed to get an anthro job as a clarch? I think you would have quite an audience.
If you're willing, can you tell us whether you were originally in another department and then combined with anthro, or did you specifically apply to anthro programs from the get-go? I've been told that an anthro Ph.D. or at least a double-major is needed to vie for an anthro position, but this seems to be loosening up a bit these days. One anthropologist suggested to me that it's possibly happening as anthropology departments split or gravitate to either socio-cultural or archaeology, opening up the door for clarchs. Any thoughts you have on these matters would be much appreciated. Better yet, start a blog!
So a Greek archaeologist vs. a Hellenist teaching teaching an upper level Latin course. Or a Roman archaeologist vs. a Latinist teaching an upper level Greek course.
Yeah, got it the first time. Something that clearly can't be said for everyone. My point was that if you want to hire a non-specialist to teach upper-level Greek, better to hire a Latinist than an archaeologist. That such a simple point requires so much clarification is, sadly, typical. The fact that I spoke in favor of archaeologists in general goes without mention, of course.
So whatever incremental advantage a department has with a non-specialist philologist over an archaeologist (apparently debatable at that) in the off chance that a catch-all department offers an upper level language class without a specialist at hand trumps the not even debatable fact that most philologists couldn't teach a history/archaeology course without Wikipedia? Right, this explains much about the current state of classics and where it's heading. Check, please!
Again, most clarchs I know can teach upper level classes in their non-specialist language about as well as a non-archaeologist in their non-specialist language. To say that there is a huge discrepancy in how well an average Hellenist can teach upper level Latin compared to an average Greek archaeologist is baloney.
In general, Classics Ph.D.s are expected to have meaningful training in both languages, and the translation exams that they take, in both languages, to qualify for the Ph.D. are considerably tougher than those that archaeology Ph.D.s must take.
I would also point out that Classics Ph.D.s are trained to teach literature, which it turns out is an important skill in a literature course. The idea that this kind of teaching is just about knowledge of the languages suggests a failure to understand what is supposed to be going on in upper division courses in Greek and Latin.
whatever incremental advantage...(apparently debatable at that)...in the off chance...a catch-all department...the not even debatable fact
Did you read this before you posted it? I think someone went off their meds.
I'm not sure where you went to grad school, but where I went, philologists did roughly equal work in both languages. They just wrote a dissertation on one or another. Skill level went a bit beyond "incremental advantage".
To assume that a Hellenist can't teach, say, Statius or Tacitus vel sim. (that's Latin, and I'm a Hellenist, see?) is incorrect. Can they teach it well? I guess that depends on the individual.
As I see it, you can count on a philologist to do two things well: Latin and Greek. You can count on a historian to do one thing well: history. And you can count on an archaeologist to do one thing well: archaeology. This is not to say that an archaeologist can't be a whiz at Greek, a historian a whiz at Latin, or a philologist a whiz at archaeology. Do you want to hire someone that's sure bet at 1 of 4 areas, or 2 or 4?
If you're a SLAC, and the deans are breathing down your neck, you want the most bang for your buck. That's a philologist. If you can find a philologist with some archaeological or historical training, that's icing.
And how many Statius or Tacitus classes do you imagine are going to be offered at St. Joe's over the next six years? In my experience, in small Classics programs 90% of the students taking languages are concentrated in the first two years. Moreover, non-language courses (including yes, history and archaeology courses) serve two or three times the number of students as language courses and serve as a hook for prospective majors. I reject the premise that decisions should be made on the basis of the few small language classes at the top of the curriculum. For that matter, why shouldn't history or archaeology seminars be the small protected courses at the top of the curriculum? Oh right, because that would require parity between philologists and archystorians.
It would be nice if this blog would move on from name calling and chest thumping by Greek and Latin types who believe they are the end-all-be-all of classics. Face it, folks - it isn't just about languages, not any more - nor should it ever have been. And to the delusional person who posted that the doctoral exams taken by Greek and Latin types are more difficult than those taken by archaeologists, I would have dared him/her to have passed my comprehensive exams in Roman archaeology - from the tone of your post, you would have failed, and big time. Oh, and I passed my comps in Greek and Latin, thanks very much. So you should think about your attitude toward this discipline, especially when you are fighting for scraps in that language department and losing to Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese ... good luck and good bye.
Let's just hold on one damn minute here! Can't we turn our rancor and deep-seated insecurities against a common enemy? Hell, everybody knows that the Taliban hates Classics; and they don't know the difference between a philologist or an archaeologist or an historian: they would just as soon kill us all in one worldwide anti-Classics Jihad (especially the women, whom they would first rape). So I say we stop this bickering, and put our hatred where it belongs--behind the fight against the Taliban. I know some of you are scared, but when you put your hand in a pile goo that was reading Virgil ten minutes ago, you'll know what to do.
As I see it, you can count on a philologist to do two things well: Latin and Greek. You can count on a historian to do one thing well: history. And you can count on an archaeologist to do one thing well: archaeology. This is not to say that an archaeologist can't be a whiz at Greek, a historian a whiz at Latin, or a philologist a whiz at archaeology. Do you want to hire someone that's sure bet at 1 of 4 areas, or 2 or 4?
If you're a SLAC, and the deans are breathing down your neck, you want the most bang for your buck. That's a philologist. If you can find a philologist with some archaeological or historical training, that's icing.
What a strange landscape you describe here!
When I was a young lad in graduate school there were no such creatures as "historians" and "archaeologists" as you so conveniently describe them. One was a Roman historian or Roman archaeologist or a Greek historian or Greek archaeologist. I must have been buried in my Tibullus and Propertius when both space and time collapsed around me. Oh, my, but it must have been spectacular!
When a school hires either an archaeologist or an historian they are, in fact, getting a "sure bet" in 2 out of 4 areas since such people can teach both geographies of the discipline to the same extent philologists can teach both Greek and Latin.
The real pressing question is then what percentage of philologists are whizes at history or archaeology, versus what percentage of clarchs/historians are whizes at at least one language. Hmmmm?
My money says that the latter percentage is much, much higher. Somebody should go around and count, but I will put $1000 anonymous dollars on the table saying that you will find more historians and archaeologists, in all their multiplicity, teaching Greek and/or Latin at both introductory and upper levels than you will find philologists, in all their multiplicity, teaching intro and upper-level Roman and/or Greek history and/or archaeology courses.
You must have a very perverse sense of "bang for buck" if you think you are going to get both variety of teaching abilities and high enrollment numbers through hiring a philologist instead of either a historian or archaeologist!
The problem here is that those who are, for the most part, doing the hiring are philologists seemingly afflicted by such perversions of the senses.
Which is why next year, too, we will have this discussion. And every year after that, until the historians flee to the history departments and the archaeologists flee to the anthropology departments, or both flee from academia altogether. In this fallen age those who can fill the lecture halls are the bakers of wholesome and hearty cakes to Deans. The small language classes that struggle to make enrollments each semester are merely the icing on such offerings.
Graduate programs, which by and large are less vulnerable to the sorts of pressures afflicting the great majority of classics departments around the country, simply must do a better job of educating their students about the economic realities of institutional budgets and priorities! Anybody who leaves school thinking that their great little Latin seminar on Statius or Tacitus is nearly as valuable to the administration of a hiring institution as an upper-level seminar on the late Roman Republic, or the archaeology of Pompeii, is in for a nasty surprise.
In order to "earn" the languages, we must attend to numbers, numbers, numbers. I wish it weren't true. But, it is.
"The problem here is that those who are, for the most part, doing the hiring are philologists seemingly afflicted by such perversions of the senses."
Basically sums up the problem of classics in a nutshell.
To add insult to injury, don't forget that most, if not all, clarchs majored in the languages as undergrads, often taking them earlier in high/middle school. At the minimum, they minored in classics. How many history/archaeology classes did philologists take through all middle/primary/secondary school? 2? 3?
to the delusional person who posted that the doctoral exams taken by Greek and Latin types are more difficult than those taken by archaeologists, I would have dared him/her to have passed my comprehensive exams in Roman archaeology - from the tone of your post, you would have failed, and big time. Oh, and I passed my comps in Greek and Latin, thanks very much.
I'm going to quote what I said, and in order to assist your reading comprehension highlight some important words that I think you have missed: "the translation exams that they take, in both languages, to qualify for the Ph.D. are considerably tougher than those that archaeology Ph.D.s must take."
Please let me know if that's clear yet, or if it needs further elucidation.
If archaeologists are so great at languages then why do they complain so bitterly about job ads which ask that they teach them?
Their answer is that they feel they shouldn't have to; they're archaeologists and they want to teach archaeology. And that's fair enough.
On the other hand, I don't want to teach giant civ or myth or humanities classes, and yet that's part of the deal for people who work in literature.
As a curious Medievalist reading this thread, I can't help but say that apartheid is alive and well in academia! It sounds like there is an abudance of well-qualified (and disgruntled) realia people in classics. I now know where our department should look to cherry pick some good scholars in the future.
Why only Bronze Age archaeologists? It sounds like mainly classical archaeologists specializing in later periods voicing their discontent on here. Besides, we have a Near Eastern person covering Aegean art in our department already. She will NOT do classical art, however.
Anybody who leaves school thinking that their great little Latin seminar on Statius or Tacitus is nearly as valuable to the administration of a hiring institution as an upper-level seminar on the late Roman Republic, or the archaeology of Pompeii, is in for a nasty surprise.
My schools (undergrad and grad) may not be typical, but here's my experience: the classes that bring students in are your basic Greek Civ or Roman Civ courses (which generally include some history and some pretty pictures of Pompeii, the Forum Romanum, or the Acropolis, but which are primarily literature courses in translation), or some courses in translation that are a little more specific but still pretty general, such as Ancient Comedy, Greek Tragedy, or even something like Age of Nero.
Literature in translation is what gets people in the door, not "an upper-level seminar on the late Roman Republic, or the archaeology of Pompeii."
That said, I'm in full agreement that we can't tailor ourselves and our teaching interests to graduate-level seminars or even to lower-level language classes: we have to get people in the door first, which means appealing to non-majors (a few of whom we can inspire enough to become majors or at least minors).
"If archaeologists are so great at languages then why do they complain so bitterly about job ads which ask that they teach them?"
As a historian, I can say it's because it's a glass ceiling by which to exclude non-philologists. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching Latin, as much, if not more, than teaching my ginormous Roman civ lecture. I'm pretty damned good at it, if I say so myself. It doesn't change the fact that this metric of teaching languages is often vaguely used to hire a like-minded philologist over a historian/clarch for generalist searches.
"This candidate's dissertation is on Romans satire, she obviously has a better grasp of the languages, which IS our main parameter after all..."
Only as a line of last defense, if there are no historians or archaeologists handy to serve as enrollment fodder.
This is just not true. Having at least one very large lecture course that you regularly teach is a minimum expectation for a literary classicist at any institution that has large lecture courses, and being able to teach two or more is normal. Myth, civ, and Western civ courses are widely taught by literary scholars.
I also think you're slightly off about historians and archaeologists being "enrollment fodder." Like literature, history and archaeology are in fact generally regarded by undergraduates, and by the general population, as boring and pointless subjects, and making any of them interesting to a wide audience of students requires good teaching.
"Like literature, history and archaeology are in fact generally regarded by undergraduates, and by the general population, as boring and pointless subjects, and making any of them interesting to a wide audience of students requires good teaching."
Sorry, this is just not true. Far from considering it 'boring and pointless', the general population thinks that archaeology is far more fascinating than it actually is in practice, and they are far more inclined toward hearing about it than either ancient history or classical literature. It is far easier to get a general audience to attend an archaeology lecture than History or Lit. and it's easier to raise money for it too. I'm not saying it's right, it's just my experience (as someone who gets asked to give archy lectures to the general public a lot).
"This candidate's dissertation is on Romans satire, she obviously has a better grasp of the languages, which IS our main parameter after all..."
Yeah, and let's ignore the fact that if you take away the seminar table and cozy class size that the candidate is a muttering mess in a lecture. Having duds for lecturers sure is helping our case to keep classics alive in the academy.
I resemble this remark, but whatev. I'm sitting here in a tenure track job and by the sounds of it you're not. I guess you should have nailed your conjugations and declensions better when you determined your career path.
the general population thinks that archaeology is far more fascinating than it actually is in practice, and they are far more inclined toward hearing about it than either ancient history or classical literature.
Yeah, let me take back the part about archaeology being as unappealing to the broader American public as history is.
"Besides, we have a Near Eastern person covering Aegean art in our department already. She will NOT do classical art, however."
Mandela, you're a medievalist. Why don't YOU teach classical art. Am I missing something here? I know nothing about art history, but shouldn't medievalists know how to teach classical art?
I resemble this remark, but whatev. I'm sitting here in a tenure track job and by the sounds of it you're not. I guess you should have nailed your conjugations and declensions better when you determined your career path.
That's amazing! I don't think I've ever seen a twelve-year-old in a tenure-track job.
Greek and Roman historians in history departments often teach medieval history. I have two friends, one in Roman history, one in Greek history, who do so. So why not the other way around? It'd be better than a Early Modern Britain historian teaching Greek history.
"This is just not true. Having at least one very large lecture course that you regularly teach is a minimum expectation for a literary classicist at any institution that has large lecture courses, and being able to teach two or more is normal. Myth, civ, and Western civ courses are widely taught by literary scholars."
I find this hard to believe, as very few lit people in both my non-elite undergrad institution and elite grad institution taught large courses. Yes, a couple taught myth, but they were the exception, not the rule. I don't doubt *some* departments exist as you describe, but whose fault is it that they hired a lit person during their generalist search when the most pressing concern was to teaching large lectures? Unless, of course, you're saying lit people are generally better prepared and willing to teach these large courses than historaeologists.
"Deans should read this thread...quite eye opening."
I think the best theme brought up in this fracas was sustainability. I see now that classics is not. Once the large state schools such as MSU and UIC get rid of classics, it's only a matter of time before the regional schools follow, if they had a program to being with. Finally, the elite SLACs and Ph.D. programs will follow last. I don't think they're sacrosanct anymore, not with the rest of the classics landscape devestated. Once Constantinople lost Asia Minor, it was only a matter of time. There might be a grand battle at the end, but classics will slowly fade away rather than go down fighting.
Well...too bad for our grandkids, but I'm ready now for lunch!
Mandela, you're a medievalist. Why don't YOU teach classical art. Am I missing something here? I know nothing about art history, but shouldn't medievalists know how to teach classical art?
I'm guessing that Mandela is a late Medievalist, therefore tying himself (herself?) more to Renaissance art than Late Antiquity. Yes, Medieval art historians teach survey courses such as "caves to Renaissance," but few are usually called upon to teach specific classes in classical art. Yes, some Medievalists would be quite qualified to teach classical art, but that would almost surely be their prerogative, not the department's.
As I remember, the real Poldy used toodle pip once, though more usually he did sign off tinkerty tonk, at least, as far as I recall (and I'm not wading through the "discussions" of years past to find out).
At least there is some discussion. This place was dead compared to past years.
Though, it's just the same old inter-disciplinary squabbling as usual, so perhaps there was nothing missed.
"Though, it's just the same old inter-disciplinary squabbling as usual, so perhaps there was nothing missed."
I suppose the economy might be ratcheting up the usual squabbles a couple more notches, and all will be well in a couple years. It could also signal a watershed moment from which classics never recovers. Who knows? Hopefully, those of us who haven't bailed on this leaky ship can get along long enough to see where it all goes. Poldy, are you still on the ship or lying on a tropical beach somewhere?
My dept.'s situation isn't perfect by any means, but from here the FV jeremiads look a little unwarranted, or at least misdirected.
In the humanities, at least, Classics is one of the larger departments in terms of faculty, majors, and overall enrolment. We have a fairer distribution of hist., lit., and clarch faculty than most depts, and at least one person in each category has taught large civ. courses. Only myth and general civ. classes pull in numbers in the hundreds, but all other fields do reasonably well, except for advanced lit. courses, which we're all mostly happy to support. Like a few other places we have some Greek problems, but our other issues tend to be less serious. In general, we have more disagreements with the administration than with each other.
The real threats don't seem (to us at least) to be internal, but rather from an increasingly utilitarian attitude among students and administrators. Neither the lit. people nor the historians nor the clarchs have proven capable of solving this problem. This may disappoint all the partisans out there but I think it would be unrealistic to expect any one group to solve it. As much as I hate the idea of working in administration I think that may be the most useful thing I could do for the field.
Thank you SLACKer! A pleasure to hear a voice of reason amid all these petty squabbles. None of us can do much to prove our relevance or utility, so we would do better to present a unified front before our common foes.
News, news, I SEEK NEWS about the NYU Greek position! (This is my first year on the market so I probably don't have a shot at it anyway, but I'd like to KNOW that I'm dead in the water, at least.)
And a newbie question: if the APA is notifying us of interviews before the meeting, does that mean the colleges themselves won't?
Check last year's Wiki for the date of NYU's notification. I recall a phone call at a date closer to Xmas (I was already on holiday) than we are at now.
As for notification, some colleges do, some don't. The APA advance notice may well contain some surprises.
I would say the vast majority notify in advance. Emails are easy enough and I'm not sure if I would trust the placement machinery. They must use a generic government manual from the 50s to run the place...
I've been long-listed for a position run out of the dean's office (classics program but no official department). Are there any peculiar aspects to this type of search one should watch out for? Do these searches typically go straight to campus visits after they sort through the additional application material? I'm assuming that they won't be interviewing at the APA as an intermediate step. Any experience from similar searches in the past would be much appreciated.
To Anon. 2:51 - I'd imagine that they would have something like phone interviews to weed out the long list.
On surprise APA interviews - the Placement Service email last year revealed interviews with 3 schools that hadn't contacted me, so yeah, I'd say there's a chance of surprises. But don't count on it. Prior to last year, the most "surprises" I had got at the APA Placement office was one, and that only once.
Generally, yes. As people figure out if they are going on sabbatical, move to another place, etc. then positions open up. Look especially in Feb. and March.
One worry is that this year many places won't hire temporary replacements because of the budgets. No idea if this is a well-founded fear, however.
This past spring's temporary job market was poorer than usual. I expect the same this spring. If there's any way your grad program or your current position can keep you employed, I'd take it.
So I noticed on the Classics-wiki that a 3-yr job at Elon was just added. I double-checked to verify that they in fact did not register the job with the APA Placement Service, and then discovered when I finally hunted down a listing of their ad on some random website that their deadline was on November 20th. Now I'll admit that this is my first year on the market and that I'm thus not completely familiar with all the idiosyncrasies that everyone on this thread has been so eager to laud, but honestly - if you're looking for Latinist, shouldn't you post your ad with the APA's PS?
Two-and-a-half serious follow-up questions, though: (1) Is what Elon did normal? If so, (1.5) where should I be looking for Classics job ads not registered/publicized by the APA Placement Service? And (2) If a job ad states, as does Elon's, that an application should be in by a certain date "for full consideration", do they still accept apps after that date? In other words, if I were to submit an app to them now, would they even consider it? I'm just a little peeved to have missed out on this one simply for not having known it existed!
The Elon ad was posted the FamaeVolent Boards on Oct. 16th, well before the deadline. What obscure website did you find it on?
In the future, check H-Net, The Chronicle and FV regularly. I do find it very weird that Elon didn't advertise through the APA (so you have reason to be annoyed). It might mean they already have an inside candidate ready to go or, since they are a Foreign Language department, that they are simply clueless.
It can't hurt to email Elon and ask if it is worth sending in a late application. If they say no then you are no worse off than now.
I posted the Elon job on the wiki the other day because I noticed it wasn't there. Sorry for the frustration.
In any event, the job was posted on Chronicle, Higheredjobs and Insidehighered, I think. As for why they didn't go through APA, who knows. In my experience many smaller schools advertise to a smaller audience since they're not interested in a national search, nor do they have the budget to undertake such a venture. (I taught at small school in the northeast for a number of years and found their job simply listed on their HR site -- it was not posted anywhere else.)
As for applying late, I second the above poster's suggestion of emailing the department. My suspicion is that they won't take it; but I had to learn that one the hard way.
In the future, if you're interested in being in a specific location it never hurts to peruse small college HR sites. The experience is time consuming; but it sometimes works out.
Servius has a bunch of links to academic job search sites up on the right sidebar. I'd add that now is also the time to start checking the UK jobs site regularly, since the UK job search season gets going in the spring, usually.
Several people have mentioned the APA Placement Service sending out emails with interview schedules; when does this usually happen? And are there ever any changes between that email and the meeting itself in January?
Last year it wasn't an email of interview schedules, just a list of schools that wanted to interview you. So if you were hoping the Placement Service would let you know your actual schedule in advance so you could save money on flights or hotels, forget it.
I do recall it being quite late - after Christmas, maybe even after New Year's?
I checked my emails from the job search last year, and Renie notified me on 12/31.
I was wondering why our numbers are down on the wiki this year. Are people smarter this year and not obsessing as much as I have been (impossible). I know several people who know about it but refuse to sign up or even look at it. I mean I need other people to obsess with over this.
I know for a fact that one much sought after TT position is not or rather doesn't know to notify their interviewees via email, and has let the job placement service know already who is on their APA interview list, so some of you will be receiving a nice Holiday Gift whenever Renie lets us know. So don't all be so pessimistic.
I was wondering why our numbers are down on the wiki this year.
Might be more useful to see how many users the FV boards have. Assuming it's tracking different IP addresses, there were 115 individual users in the last 24 hours.
I've also noticed people are ID'ing themselves as on the market when they get an interview.
re: "I know for a fact that one much sought after TT position is not or rather doesn't know to notify their interviewees via email, and has let the job placement service know already who is on their APA interview list, so some of you will be receiving a nice Holiday Gift whenever Renie lets us know."
Without divulging any details of why you have this info, would you mind sharing with the rest of us which institution this is, that we might at least know not to expect word one way or the other from them? Thanks!
Topic: 230 applications for Trinity's position. Discuss.
That's going to be one tired search committee. Usually you can weed some applications out on the grounds that they don't fit the description, but how do you do that when you've advertised for, basically, anyone who does anything?
Also, it's got to be really hard to compare candidates.
Greetings wiki - long time lurker, first time poster - apropos the 230 applications at Trinity: I wonder if within that number there is a core of folks that are attractive regardless of the number of cacata charta received -- 50 or 500 only a given number are truly competitive? And I also wonder if the number of applications will increase much next year, especially for us Latin guys and gals who currently own the benches.
The thing that concerns me about, say, a job like the one at Trinity receiving 230 applications is the fact that the number would seem to represent a statically significant higher number of applications than the number I've heard bandied about at other comparable (in terms of size, region, and quality of institution as well as the scope of the search parameters) institutions that did hires last year. Say 30-40% higher (i.e. roughly 170 vs. 230).
How many of those candidates are "truly competitive" is another question, and it will always be a perennial question as to who "is" -- or at least, appears to be -- competent and/or competitive.
While there may be other factors at work in the case of Trinity (e.g. its apparent collegiality, regional economic strength, willingness to hire at all ranks), I -- for one -- find this (albeit) anecdotal information thoroughly disheartening. In particular, it makes me wonder about the numbers next year: 270-300 applicants for a very good SLAC TT position?
Still, kudos to the chair and committee for the candor. And kudos to those who got interviews.
It doesn't seem to me that there are that many truly open searches.
If you search for a t.t. job in e.g. material culture, without Greek/Roman specification, you get c. 80-100 files.
But if you search for anyone who does anything, so long as they're not senior, you're going to get a hell of a lot of applications. In fact, you'll probably get applications from nearly every junior person on the market. I don't think 250 or whatever is a lot, given the advertisement's refusal to specify any parameters for exclusion. Had they said "Greek" or "Roman," it would have been cut down by 40%. Had they said "poetry" or "history," it would have been cut by another 20-40%. Descriptions matter, and affect the pool a lot. So, when your description says "Anyone could be a winner!!!" you get a lot of applications.
I had predicted on the FV boards that Grinnell would get over 250 applications. If Trinity received only 230, then maybe I'll have to revise that down to 200+.
One thing that may be driving these numbers is that people on the tenure-track in places hard-hit by the economy are looking to jump ship. I know many junior CSU and UC folks have sent out applications this year. Normally these types of applicants wouldn't be in the pool. But, where would you rather be, a well-heeled and well-run SLAC or part of a public system spiraling into the toilet?
Do people think the ability to send in digital applications affects the number? Assuming tha the vast majority of people on the market are footing their own bill for postage, wouldn't this have some kind of affect on how many applicants Trinity (snail mail only) gets vs. Tufts (snail mail or email)?
I'm on a search committee at a place that has non paper apps, and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about the number of applicants. I did notice a much higher number of egregiously late applications -- maybe when there's no postage at stake people are more likely to throw their hats into the ring late on the off chance that someone would actually still read the app.
I was wondering what exactly constitutes a "late" application? What I mean is that if you, the applicant, get in your materials (CV, letter of app, etc..) but the recs are not on file yet, if those materials were sent in on time, would that be considered on time? I ask since my recommendations have been late (two weeks late in the case of the early deadlines) because my adviser and the committee feel that search committees expect this and accept them. I am beginning to wonder how this might have adversely affected me.
posted November 30, 2009 8:46 PM "Your first mistake is to imagine that the APA and the AIA care about you -- 'they' don't. They don't care about new PhDs, they don't care about adjuncts, they don't care about junior faculty. It shows in the big and small things. Go to the meetings and watch the backslapping silverbacks congratulate themselves and throw themselves big banquets and give each other awards. They don't give a fig about the 21st century or making your job search less painful or helping you get a job or preserving the discipline. If you want to see elitism, it's on parade at the annual meetings and you should be revolted rather than intimidated, and work to change it -- in big and small ways --the minute that you can."
Let a silverback respond about how we act at the APA meetings. We do backslap and congratulate each other. We’re friends after all, who see each other mostly only at these meetings, and some of us do deserve some congratulation. But don’t think that over drinks we don’t talk about the profession honestly and wonder about and hope for its future—which is you, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous. I myself am pessimistic about the outside forces working against us (which begin with the administration right outside my department walls) but optimistic when I see the quality of the young people (those at grad student conferences, giving talks at the APA, just beginning to publish). Why do you think we are elitist? Because we don’t know who you in particular are? This works both ways. Many times, when I see a group of young people (grad students or just past this) thoroughly enjoying themselves, I wish I could join them. So, the next time you see one of us old timers, come on over and introduce yourself, and let us know what you are working on. Ask for advice. We’d be pleased to meet you.
I for one would be very interested in hearing more of your own take on these issues. These boards are dominated by the young and the restless, and too few grizzled veteran voices can be found here.
One thing that continues to give me pause is the lack of "official" recognition on the part of the APA about the seriousness of what we talk about here. Too many panels on niche topics attended by too few people. Why don't we have more places to actually meet and talk about matters of urgency at the APA? Why not a few panels addressing the role of archaeology in the classics, or how to get hired by non-classics departments, etc.?
Judging from the stories told my advisors, the job market in the 70s, 80s and 90s was every bit as bad as today's, so having veteran perspectives would be nice.
I sent my application in to one of the very good SLACs this year about 10 days late, and still got an interview. Who knows when my letters arrived, certainly at least two weeks late.
One thing that continues to give me pause is the lack of "official" recognition on the part of the APA about the seriousness of what we talk about here. ... Why don't we have more places to actually meet and talk about matters of urgency at the APA?
So, you mean have FV, but live and in person?
I think there's a limit to how much shrieking, slap-fighting, and hair-pulling a conference hotel will put up with.
Is there any way we can give the APA more teeth, vis a vis academia? What exactly is the executive director's job at the APA? If not the director, could we make a position that is akin to a full-time lobbyist in academia? As far as I know, the executive director is fairly invisible, working in the bowels of administration. The position of president seems largely ceremonial. It's obvious that classics is losing its foothold in academia and to me, it feels like we have our head in the sand. How about a senior scholar with administrative experience at or near retirement. As long as they have some lead left in the pencil, wouldn't they be a great advocate for classics?
What exactly is the executive director's job at the APA?
So far as I know, it's to hold the money and set up the meeting.
If not the director, could we make a position that is akin to a full-time lobbyist in academia?
To lobby whom? Congress? State legislatures? Santa? And with what money are you going to engage the services of a full-time lobbyist? APA dues? The APA isn't the UAW, and the APA dues you pay aren't even close to union dues.
As far as I know, the executive director is fairly invisible, working in the bowels of administration.
What administration? It's not part of a university; it's a professional society with a handful of officers.
The position of president seems largely ceremonial.
And it is.
It's obvious that classics is losing its foothold in academia and to me, it feels like we have our head in the sand.
The humanities in general is losing its foothold. The more profit-oriented colleges and universities become, the more education is valued for its ability to impart job-specific skills, the more research is supported only if it can bring in federal grants or lead to patents, the more the humanities (and Classics) will struggle. It's all part of the same problem, but we don't realize it (you might even say we have our heads in the sand!) because we don't give a crap what happens to English, modern languages, etc. (nor do they about us).
How about a senior scholar with administrative experience at or near retirement. As long as they have some lead left in the pencil, wouldn't they be a great advocate for classics?
OK, so, not an actual lobbyist with lobbying experience and the apparatus of a lobbying firm to do the lobbying of whoever is supposed to be lobbied, but instead some old dean?
Anything is better than what we're doing now. Considering what we got, I think we're doing much worse than an average humanities discipline. We go on and on about how we're the first interdisciplinary discipline, but it's all talk. What are are we doing to get this message across to administrators. Let me guess, that's not the job of a professional organization like the APA and there is no money. Regardless, something has to be done before there is no classics. Well, at least any more than there is still Hittiology and Sanskrit studies in academia.
Anything is better than what we're doing now. Considering what we got, I think we're doing much worse than an average humanities discipline.
Saying "why, seems to me that..." while stroking your beard is not a very good argument.
We go on and on about how we're the first interdisciplinary discipline, but it's all talk.
A). Can a discipline be interdisciplinary?
B). Even if it isn't all talk, it doesn't have anything to do with whether we're appealing to administrators.
What are are we doing to get this message across to administrators.
Which message?
Let me guess, that's not the job of a professional organization like the APA and there is no money.
Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. First I would need to hear what the message is.
Regardless, something has to be done before there is no classics. Well, at least any more than there is still Hittiology and Sanskrit studies in academia.
Well, for now, the best thing to do justify Classics' existence is to have some classes with good enrollments and a healthy major by, e.g., having a well-subscribed "civ" major along side the language majors. That makes Classics competitive with other kinds of humanities departments, in a way that Sanskrit and Hittite are just not going to be.
That is however only a temporary solution: it gives us a place alongside English, history, and other humanities departments.
That won't help us though as the humanities in general gets squeezed while colleges and universities move to a vocational training model; once the idea of a liberal arts education is dropped and humanities requirements for degrees sink, everyone in the humanities is in big, big trouble.
because we don't give a crap what happens to English, modern languages, etc. (nor do they about us).
Yes, this is already upon us - competition between humanities depts for the ever-shrinking pie. Much as I respect the work coming out of History and the newer fields (Am. Studies, Af. Am., etc.), in a way these historically- and nationally-oriented fields do us a further disservice. It's always going to be easier to make a pragmatic, easily comprehensible, even ethical, argument for modern history and US identity than for anything old, obscure, and foreign. And while Myth and Gladiator courses may keep us in the game - which is vital - they hardly counter arguments from pragmatism about which fields should keep being funded. In other words, the pessimist in me fears that we'll be seen as nothing more than undergraduate entertainers, pleasant filler between macroeconomics 100 and history of the modern world. And any attempt to show Classics' relevance to these areas (whether social science or humanities) merely buttresses the argument that it's the modern stuff you really should be studying anyway. But if we go back to a more traditional vision of Classics, as everyone on here knows, we'll just die faster. A whirlpool and a monster come to mind...
It's always going to be easier to make a pragmatic, easily comprehensible, even ethical, argument for modern history and US identity than for anything old, obscure, and foreign. And while Myth and Gladiator courses may keep us in the game - which is vital - they hardly counter arguments from pragmatism about which fields should keep being funded.
Well, yes and no. To a dean, high enrollments are very practical.
In other words, the pessimist in me fears that we'll be seen as nothing more than undergraduate entertainers, pleasant filler between macroeconomics 100 and history of the modern world.
Actually, I think you're an optimist. You think we'll be seen as "entertainers" and "pleasant," and you think modern history courses are safe. And maybe you're right.
And any attempt to show Classics' relevance to these areas (whether social science or humanities) merely buttresses the argument that it's the modern stuff you really should be studying anyway.
I think that's right. And I think that the argument is right, too: if you're looking at higher education as job training for specific skills, then "Classics" isn't the first thing to spring to mind.
But then, neither is the "modern stuff." There aren't a huge number of jobs out there that demand knowledge of postmodern literature, and not that many more that require you to know about African decolonization, or the Great Leap Forward.
Once higher education is only about training people for industry, the humanities are mostly over, because there is no humanities industry.
But if we go back to a more traditional vision of Classics, as everyone on here knows, we'll just die faster.
There aren't a huge number of jobs out there that demand knowledge of postmodern literature, and not that many more that require you to know about African decolonization, or the Great Leap Forward.
Well, there will be, and in fact already are, constrictions in these fields too: American history but not American literature, African American identity but not African history, Business in 21st c. China but not the Qing dynasty (exc. large endowments at particular universities designed specifically for such purposes). Students of Dickinson, the Bastille, Greek vases, Marcus Aurelius, Kant, the Upanishads, and the KMT will just be evolutionarily-challenged freaks. Nice to know we're ahead of our time. Anyone who thinks EITHER archaeology OR philology is going to save us just doesn't have a clue. And anyone who thinks that an admixture of quantitative skills in Classics will solve the problem is just chucking the baby out with the bilge water...
The debate about the purpose and value of a university education is, as we all know, nearly as old as the institution itself. It is not hard to see a plus ça change quality to it all.
Thus it is not that hard to articulate a whole variety of responses to the pragmatic or professionalization argument.
Most of us have soapboxes of various sizes (e.g. classrooms) and surely we can use them to articulate the values we find in the study of classics beyond its undeniably entertaining aspects.
It is probably too pessimistic to diagnose the imminent demise of the study of antiquity as it is probably too sanguine to assume a constant and unchanging acceptance of its value.
So there is plenty for us to do on an individual level (I will make various arguments for the value of studying antiquity to about 500 students this year), even if it feels like we are swimming against the current at times.
I will make various arguments for the value of studying antiquity to about 500 students this year
And you and I will both get some perverse satisfaction from the few who buy it while minimizing the increasing infantilization which we have no choice but to abet. I'm proud to be a successful beggar and charlatan. That's what it's come down to.
937 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 937 Newer› Newest»(Shouldn't there be a separate thread for discussing the conference and its environs? Where else can we post helpful tips to each other about where to eat, or the justdiscoveredbyme fact that the Nixon Library is just 30 min. or so away from the convention center?)
"kitchen sink of threads" -- I thought anything was game. But it would probably be more efficient to focus our threads...
Macalester was quick to draw up their APA list.
"Macalester was quick to draw up their APA list."
The job was due October 15. I think they've actually been commendably quick - I know tons of Oct. 15 jobs that take as long to notify as Dec. 15 jobs.
Agreed about Macalester. It is a good move on their part to notify as early as possible.
Since I know that senior faculty also read this blog, permit me to plead that one or more of them finally take some action to force the Placement Service into the 21st century by getting them the software needed to schedule interviews at the APA, instead of continuing the current practice. When I left for Thanksgiving I still hadn't received the paper form we're supposed to fill out to indicate availability (which, as of Nov. 19 had not yet been mailed out), and yet I'm supposed to have that form in the APA's hands by Dec. 4?!? In this day and age it should be quite simple to computerize this whole process, with candidates filling out an online form that goes straight into the planning software. (My guess is that some Penn CompSci undergrad could figure this out.)
Not only would this be a far more efficient system, but it would allow for flexibility: I still remember the time a friend had something of great importance come up and had to fight tooth-and-nail to reschedule an interview because of the alleged burden in making a last-minute change. With a computer program that could be done by pressing a few buttons...
Second the last post. It's the internet age. The APA just debuted a new website. What better time to make the Placement Service more modern and convenient for everyone?
Even emailing the form as a PDF and having people print it out and mail it back in triplicate would make life easier for everyone (and save the APA money in postage). In particular, those resident outside the adjacent US currently stand no chance of getting the form in on time. Every year people complain but nothing changes. I suppose the overtime payments for those who do the paper scheduling are quite lucrative, though.
That's true about .pdf files that can be filled out and e-mailed, and that it would SAVE the APA lots of money. Surely, someone in a position to do something about this is out there, and realizes what a no-brainer it is to compel the Placement Service to do this.
In other news, am I the last person to know that they're remaking "Clash of the Titans"? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800320/
My APA form only had to travel across two state boundaries, and not very distant ones at that; it arrived this morning. I can only hope that the postal service on the return journey will have caught up with the Thanksgiving backlog.
One year my form, filled out by me as soon as I got it (late, naturally), got lost en route to them. I was asked to send them an email with a list of available times. So...if that can be done in case of emergency, why can't it be done habitually?
Oh, and that email they sent us with a list of interviewers last year pre-APA, but a big deal was made about how we couldn't be given interview times in advance? Well, the list in my email corresponded exactly with the order in which the schools interviewed me (all my friends had the exact same experience). Seems like they might have been able to give me that info right then. Unless they need candidates to show up to collect the yellow copy of the interview schedule triplicate forms in person...
Unless they need candidates to show up to collect the yellow copy of the interview schedule triplicate forms in person...
Forcing all of us candidates to check our slips in one little room is definitely the most efficient method of having us really smell the collective fear inspired by the search process. The smell, you know that gasoline smell... Smells like, victory!
Anonymous said...
One year my form, filled out by me as soon as I got it (late, naturally), got lost en route to them. I was asked to send them an email with a list of available times.
Well, when I missed the deadline last year (because they were late sending out the form), email just wasn't good enough: fax or nothing.
Incidentally, does anyone know whether there were any repercussions for the mishap a couple of years back where all job-seekers' email addresses were sent out to the whole list in the clear? I don't remember anyone from the APA ever addressing this incident, or apologizing to those concerned. It's hard to imagine people getting away with that scot-free in any other line of work.
On another note, why do we even post the European jobs on here? Has any non-European without a European degree ever been short-listed for a permanent job there? I know there was a big brouhaha a while back about the trans-Atlantic classics market basically being a one-way street, but I say enough with the charade already.
Anonymous said...
On another note, why do we even post the European jobs on here? Has any non-European without a European degree ever been short-listed for a permanent job there? I know there was a big brouhaha a while back about the trans-Atlantic classics market basically being a one-way street, but I say enough with the charade already.
Did you even bother to check? From last year alone, permanent lectureships at St. Andrews and Cambridge went to North Americans with North American degrees (Montreal/McGill/Yale and Montreal/Montreal/Harvard respectively). Perhaps you're confused by the terminology: "lectureships" in the UK are permanent.
Also, North Americans aren't the only ones updating the wiki and the forum now. Some Europeans and Americans living in Europe are also contributing, and the job posted reflect this.
I - an American - was shortlisted for two foreign jobs last year, one in Europe. I intend to apply for foreign jobs this year, too. Let's not limit ourselves in a tough year, and let's welcome European job seekers to the wiki and FV.
Americans have recently also got good research positions at Bristol and Heidelberg - that must have been pretty competitive, no?
Just don't want anyone with a memory that stretches back two years to confuse this new Tiresias with me, the original Tiresias. I do still check the blog from time to time, mainly out of curiosity.
Perhaps the new one should go with Teiresias? I seem to remember that spelling being used in some translation or other...
Speaking of foreign job openings, anyone out there watching what's happening in Dubai these days? I wonder if that search will end up being called off, what with the gargantuan default...
Dubai
I thought that search was for Abu Dhabi, you know, the place WITH the oil, not just an egotistical, fratricidal property complex.
I would say a job talk should be on or at least related to your dissertation. It's the only topic on which you'll have the depth of background knowledge that will allow you to answer questions. Occasionally people ask you to give a talk not on your dissertation; this usually means some people on the committee like you but others think they don't need a person with your specialization.
Dubai
I thought that search was for Abu Dhabi, you know, the place WITH the oil, not just an egotistical, fratricidal property complex.
Oh, good point. I guess those emirates all look the same to me.
If NYU had opened a branch in Dubai I'd have laughed my face off. I'm a horrible person.
I thought that search was for Abu Dhabi, you know, the place WITH the oil, not just an egotistical, fratricidal property complex.
That's right. NYU went with Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai for diversity considerations: it already had a campus located in a country that produced and exported far less than it consumed, was dependent on oil-rich countries, and had rung up massive public and personal debt, but that had masked these weaknesses for years by pumping up a massive real estate bubble.
That's right. NYU went with Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai for diversity considerations: it already had a campus located in a country that produced and exported far less than it consumed, was dependent on oil-rich countries, and had rung up massive public and personal debt, but that had masked these weaknesses for years by pumping up a massive real estate bubble.
Awesome. Let me shake you by the virtual hand, Anonymous.
That's right. NYU went with Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai for diversity considerations: it already had a campus located in a country that produced and exported far less than it consumed, was dependent on oil-rich countries, and had rung up massive public and personal debt, but that had masked these weaknesses for years by pumping up a massive real estate bubble.
Awesome. Let me shake you by the virtual hand, Anonymous.
Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to post that twice. Though the original post was funny enough to deserve it.
"Since I know that senior faculty also read this blog, permit me to plead that one or more of them finally take some action to force the Placement Service into the 21st century..."
Your first mistake is to imagine that the APA and the AIA care about you -- 'they' don't. They don't care about new PHDs, they don't care about adjuncts, they don't care about junior faculty. It shows in the big and small things. Go to the meetings and watch the backslapping silverbacks congratulate themselves and throw themselves big banquets and give each other awards. They don't give a fig about the 21st century or making your job search more less painful or helping you get a job or preserving the discipline. If you want to see elitism, it's on parade at the annual meetings and you should be revolted rather than intimidated, and work to change it -- in big and small ways --the minute that you can.
...and work to change it -- in big and small ways --the minute that you can.
Excuse me - I believe that's exactly what the quoted poster did, and not at all what you just did.
Let's try to keep the level of discourse at a reasonably high level, rather than just complain, shall we? Thanks.
The person who posted about the placement service was reprising a perennial plea. Others have asked this every year. And how is that working out?
I appreciate the last poster encouraging folks not to be intimidated by the usual hazing that occurs at the annual meeting.
The following could not have been put more eloquently and closer to the heart of the matter. Welcome to the elite circle-jerk that is the APA/AIA:
our first mistake is to imagine that the APA and the AIA care about you -- 'they' don't. They don't care about new PHDs, they don't care about adjuncts, they don't care about junior faculty. It shows in the big and small things. Go to the meetings and watch the backslapping silverbacks congratulate themselves and throw themselves big banquets and give each other awards. They don't give a fig about the 21st century or making your job search more less painful or helping you get a job or preserving the discipline. If you want to see elitism, it's on parade at the annual meetings and you should be revolted rather than intimidated, and work to change it -- in big and small ways --the minute that you can.
Does anyone know if South Carolina asked for writing samples before scheduling interviews for the classics/comp lit job?
Does anyone know if South Carolina asked for writing samples before scheduling interviews for the classics/comp lit job?
They didn't ask me for one.
Does anyone know if South Carolina asked for writing samples before scheduling interviews for the classics/comp lit job?
They didn't ask me for one.
Let me clarify this.
I have an interview with them, but they didn't ask me for a writing sample.
Why?
Just wondering. I thought it strange that they scheduled interviews without asking for writing samples.
Many schools don't ask for writing samples as a means of whittling down an initial shortlist. I'd say it's more the exception than the rule.
Anonymous said...
"Since I know that senior faculty also read this blog, permit me to plead that one or more of them finally take some action to force the Placement Service into the 21st century by getting them the software needed to schedule interviews at the APA, instead of continuing the current practice."
OK, I (middle-aged full professor, mildly well-known) just wrote to three APA office-holders about this.
Just received an email rejection from Amherst today. I have to say that though being rejected always stings it is remarkably professional to be efficient in sending along information to applicants - I noted that they requested interviews yesterday so I figured what was next. Not being a classicist, but having the training and teaching experience of one, I have applied broadly to many jobs in different departments this year and the classics departments have been much more pleasant to deal with than any of the others. With the exception of perhaps two (and they were email applications!), I received confirmation emails, etc. I cannot say the same for many other departments in academia. I'm not sure a hat's off is in order; but for what it's worth I thought I'd share my experience.
Hurrah for Anon. 1:15! Hopefully more folks will follow suit.
Has anyone else noticed that this year is a remarkably good one for philosophy, given the dismal state of the market in general?
Someone mentioned this earlier in the thread. Apparently, it's also a good year for archaeology.
Someone mentioned this earlier in the thread. It's supposedly also a good year for archaeology. I chose the wrong year to be a Hellenist (and wrong week to give up drinking).
Wow, echo?
It is an amazing year for ancient philosophers no joke, but it isn't that bad a year for Hellenists. You don't think it's much better than last year?
Brown, MI, Penn St., Bryn Mawr, McGill, Grinnell, Macalester, Santa Clara, Trinity, College of Charleston, South Carolina, NYU, Xavier, Georgetown, Tufts... did I miss any? I mean what was it last year? Oklahoma, Wesleyan, NYU, McMaster, UCSB... what else was there last year? OSU Newark? Penn St. and SC lost their lines in 08-09. I could go on the Wiki but what a pain.
A) Not all of the jobs mentioned are for Hellenists, unless you're including generalist ads.
B) My ancient philosopher friends with degrees in Classics don't think it's a good year for them; they point out that most of the philosophy jobs are for people with a degree in philosophy, and who are familiar with philosophy as a discipline, not those who can teach the ancient philosophers in the original languages. A similar problem may apply to ancient historians: great year for those with history degrees, not-so-great for historians with classics degrees.
Child, you haven't been around long enough if you think this is a good year for historians.
"Not all of the jobs mentioned are for Hellenists, unless you're including generalist ads."
Exactly, and though it might not actually be so extreme, it feels that there is ten times more competition for a Hellenist. Add in the fact that all my archaeology friends are applying for positions outside of classics departments, and it feels especially crappy to be a Hellenist at the moment.
Ah, poor Hellenist. Cry me a river.
I'd much rather be a hellenist than a latinist right now.
On job talks. If we're talking about a job talk as part of a fly-out, in my experience the committee will be looking for a number of things. First, your 'presence' in front of people: are you clear, concise, organized, interesting. It's probably be easier to do that about stuff you know well, but remember that they don't want a raced-through summary of your thesis.
But one thing that they want to see during your visit is that you have a research horizon that extends beyond your thesis, and that within a few years some new research will be coming on line. Most places don't expect an outline of the second book (the first is the thesis), but at the very least you should be able to identify a likely topic and approach, and be able to describe its value to the discipline.
Now, if you do an actual paper that demonstrates that coming research theme, that'd be great. But my guess is that the paper itself might be a little riskier in that there may be a hole there that someone else can see, which can be fatal.
So my advice is to make your job talk from the most interesting part of your thesis, but talk about what's coming next whenever you have a chance.
(For context: I'm mid-career in a middle-rank sort of place and have been involved in about 10 searches.)
(That last post was in response to a question on job-talks -- which now I don't see. Perhaps I've answered a question that is weeks old.)
I'm interested to hear what people think about business cards. I don't think I've ever met a classicist who had business cards, but from what I can gather from friends in other humanities disciplines it's not uncommon: is there any need for them in this age of Google and departmental websites? Are they a bit pretentious? Or are they a good way of getting your name out there and networking?
Business cards are only slightly more useful than blank cards the same size. High school kids who visit your school to talk about majoring in Classics will be impressed if you given them one. I've seen a lot of them from Classicists; it saves having to write an e-mail address. You can also give a person one, and write his/her email on the back of another one. Some people stick them in offprints, which makes it easy to write an e-mail of thanks. And the blank back side can be really useful. Ideally you can get a Dept. to pay for them, which means you will have a box that you will never use up. Hard to get them when you don't have a job, although I guess these days you could just have your name and g-mail address vel sim. You can also buy printer sheets that will do them, with microperforations, that might look cheesy in a profession (or country) that cared a lot about business cards.
In general agreement about business cards. When you get your T-T job, make your department order some. My grandmother especially likes having a couple of mine around because they offer proof to the other old ladies that her granddaughter is better than theirs. It also is more convenient than writing out contact info when making a new and useful introduction at the Meetings, vel sim. But it seems like you're pretentious or trying to hard when you have one sooner: when I see one that says "grad student" I think, "you forgot to add douchebag."
Business cards are much appreciated by editors, when talking in person. Cards are a standard part of the business world even if they are not uniformly used in academia.
Similarly, an up-to-date signature block in email is also appreciated, with complete information (title/rank, department, school, phone, fax if any, and any needed clarification e.g. if a department has multiple buildings or snail mail addresses).
Nah, c'mon, we don't need business cards. If you want to behave like a businessman, become a businessman.
when I see one that says "grad student" I think, "you forgot to add douchebag."
See, now, that's what I think when it says "Professor of Classics," too. I translate it automatically to "Douchebag of Classics" (or "Assistant Douchebag of Classics," etc., as appropriate). I make exceptions for foreigners, because foreigners are powerless before cards and apparently need them to survive, and for people who have extensive dealings with non-academics, like archaeologists. Otherwise, it's just a little slip of paper that lives in my wallet (until I use it for something else) and asks me to remember two things: your name, and that you're a douchebag.
If anyone received the following email from Renie Plonski and is bothered by it, I urge you to email her and cc Adam Blistein explaining that a week, which includes a national holiday and which falls at the end of a busy academic term, is not enough time to return the availability form. Mine was postmarked the 24th, two days before Thanksgiving, and I did not receive it until more than a week later. I sent it the same day I received it, but that was not soon enough, apparently. Please put in writing the suggestion for an online form, which many of you have posted here. If the appropriate parties receive enough of these suggestions, perhaps some day they will actually implement them.
"Hello -
Please be advised, at least one college/university wishes to interview you at the APA/AIA Annual Meeting in Anaheim in January. You are receiving this message because I could not schedule your appointment(s) because I have not yet received your availability schedule. It was due to be in my possession this past Friday. I am attaching a blank form. Please complete the top (I'll fill in your ID number when I receive your fax), and FAX it to me to 001-215-573-7874.
Because I needed to contact you now, this will be the only pre-convention notification message regarding interviews that you will receive.
Thanks for understanding and for your cooperation.
Now that my work for this weekend is done, what should I do today...go play with the dogs at the greyhound rescue...Christmas shop...go to the casino... hmmm...
I'll think of something. Thanks for giving me the day off!
Renie"
To Anon. 1:43 and everyone else here:
I also received that e-mail (my form was also postmarked 11/24 and was not in my possession until the evening of November 30, effectively December 1st: and the deadline for its receipt was the 4th!?), and have replied to Renie and cced Adam Blistein; I urge the rest of you to do the same. The only way we can change the inefficiency of the Placement Service and the rudeness of its staff is by voicing our concerns to people who can do something about them. Please send an e-mail!
Don Draper uses a business card, so I want one too.
I sent my form (rec'd the 30th) back priority mail (at departmental expense) just to avoid such communications, which I have received in the past. But that email is obnoxious by anyone's standards. You don't get a pre-convention email notifying you about schools that want to see you just because your form was late? That's ridiculous and needlessly punitive - especially given that quite a few schools have only just had deadlines or have their apps due Dec. 15. There's no way RP has scheduled any but a few interviews yet (maybe the schools listed on the wiki as already being in touch). And scheduling interview requests as they come in is ridiculous, without knowing each school's schedule. Even if you didn't get the email, I would encourage any readers of this blog, job-seekers or not, to contact the APA about it.
Another reason why classics (and the humanities) sucks. It's not worthy of holding the Petrie Dish of a bona fide discipline.
wow, each year RP and the Placement Service sink to new levels of ridiculousness. This latest email is absurd. A few years ago it was 'oh the placement forms have been lost in my baggage', then we had everyone's emails sent in the open in some flippant, mass email. Now this tangle over the stupid scheduling forms. Why does everyone (and by this I mean institutions and people with clout) tolerate this b.s.? Who in this age cannot accept data and information by way of email and/or the internet? Lots of people rail on this blog about the obsolescence of classical studies as a discipline. How can we hope to compete with other cutting edge fields when we can't even seem to pretend that we live in a modern age, much less a post-modern one?
There will of course be no change. For those still stuck on the Ixion-like wheel of the classics job market, some version of this same rant will re-occur here in this very spot 12 months or so hence.
Does anyone know the average number of applicants for a given classics job? Obviously it will vary among Hellenist/Latinist, philologist/historian/art/
archaeologist lines, but it would be nice to know the odds. I've heard anywhere from 80-150. I imagine it's worse this year due to last year's poor market. Thoughts?
Does anyone know the average number of applicants for a given classics job?
I don't know about averages, but I do know some concrete numbers. Two years ago, UCLA ran a tenure-track generalist search, and had 175 applicants. Last year Bryn Mawr had 75 applications for their one year job. And this year Santa Clara received 122 applications for their Hellenist position.
Availability forms: if you knew the completed form would probably not arrive until after the deadline, you could always have contacted the placement service in advance for advice (which would probably have been to fax it in, as in previous years). I'm sure they would make every effort to be accommodating up to the deadline. It's unrealistic to expect them to re-schedule their work arrangements after that point to accommodate late arriving forms, when you knew in advance you would have a problem in meeting the deadline. (That's not to say that the system currently in place could not be improved in various ways as suggested. At least the current system is known to work.)
"I don't know about averages, but I do know some concrete numbers. Two years ago, UCLA ran a tenure-track generalist search, and had 175 applicants. Last year Bryn Mawr had 75 applications for their one year job. And this year Santa Clara received 122 applications for their Hellenist position."
This sounds about right (100-200 for a TT search and 50-100 for a 1-year position). Though I do recall some TT searches getting less than 100 and 1-year positions getting close to 200.
Now that my work for this weekend is done, what should I do today...go play with the dogs at the greyhound rescue...Christmas shop...go to the casino... hmmm...
I'll think of something. Thanks for giving me the day off!
Yeah, this is bad. If I were a grad student or recent Ph.D., had tried to get the form back to them on their absurd schedule, and had received this message, I'd tell my dissertation chair and other supporters that this was going on, and show them the message, which makes quite an impression. If someone had treated a student of mine like this, I'd be pretty pissed off.
Are APA employees members of the UAW?
Now that my work for this weekend is done, what should I do today...go play with the dogs at the greyhound rescue...Christmas shop...go to the casino... hmmm...
I'll think of something. Thanks for giving me the day off!
Was this real? Did the Placement Service really include in an official email to job applicants?!
I thought this was a joke here on the blog, and not something that RP really sent......
yes, that is a direct quote from RP's latest e-missive.
I thought this was a joke here on the blog, and not something that RP really sent......
I'm assuming it's real because it displays RP's characteristic writing style. (I've had occasion to correspond with her.) If it's a fake, the writer has captured her well.
But if you DID get the email, at least you have an interview...
I too can confirm that RP sent that email out this morning.
What galls me is that it incriminates me for not returning the availability form to her on time when, in fact, she made it impossible for me to send it back to her by the deadline.
I live in the Bay area, and didn't get the form until Dec. 1 (it was postmarked Nov. 24). Short of sending it overnight express mail, it is simply impossible for the postal service to get it back to the east coast in three days.
And to the poster above who said that I should have contacted her to let her know that I couldn't return it on time, nice try. I paid my placement service fees, and I expect a minimum level of service. That includes me not having to be unduly inconvenienced (and yes, for me that includes faxing something) or having to pay additional out of pocket expenses.
RP has evidently mastered the art of email, making PDFs, and using the fax machine. I suspect that her email account can handle incoming PDFs. Her computer might even be connected to a printer.
I have to say I'm appalled by this. I don't think it's enough for those of you who have received this email to simply complain to the sender and to Adam Blistein. We need to start taking these complaints to the top, i.e. to the President (or President-Elect?) who would, I'm sure, take a dim view of these things...
Just get a free trial account on efax.com. That's what I do every December for this one purpose.
Availability forms: if you knew the completed form would probably not arrive until after the deadline, you could always have contacted the placement service in advance for advice (which would probably have been to fax it in, as in previous years). I'm sure they would make every effort to be accommodating up to the deadline. It's unrealistic to expect them to re-schedule their work arrangements after that point to accommodate late arriving forms, when you knew in advance you would have a problem in meeting the deadline.
You either work in the placement office or are a total tool (or both).
RP has evidently mastered the art of email, making PDFs, and using the fax machine. I suspect that her email account can handle incoming PDFs.
OK, hang on. They have plumbed the mysteries of the pdf, and they still mail the form?
Can the people who got that Placement email get their advisors or current chairs to write complaining? Or any people with APA juice among your teachers? And maybe print a hard copy of the email and send it? As a forwarded email the end looks too bizarre to be real, even if it is.
Amazing.
I'd like to second the analysis of anonymous 10:21.
While we're on the topic...if we can register for the annual meeting online, why can't we register for the Placement Service online? Only very recently have we been able to pay dues online. Other professional associations I belong to allow me to do these things. (They are not, however, in classics.)
It's not just RP, though she is a good example of the problems with entering the technology age the APA apparently has.
BTW, the President-elect is a very reasonable person and I think would lend a sympathetic ear to these complaints. Here's a list of incoming APA officials for 2010: feel free to contact any you know. At least four of them I think would be concerned.
OK, hang on. They have plumbed the mysteries of the pdf, and they still mail the form?
Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!
You people have no idea how many greyhounds it takes to power the one PDF-capable server the APA actually owns.
You all want the forms sent as PDFs via email, then you get out there and help round up all the fast-twitch muscle necessary for powering that system.
You people have no idea how many greyhounds it takes to power the one PDF-capable server the APA actually owns.
Then what we really need is Ed Begley, Jr., on his toaster-powering bicycle to go work for the APA.
Amazing.
I'd like to second the analysis of anonymous 10:21.
Well, to be fair, it could be Stockholm Syndrome.
Now, like someone else who commented above, I do strongly suggest that people who got this message show it to their dissertation chair, department chair, and other sympathetic faculty, and explain how difficult the time-frame made it to return the form in time. These people have a specific stake in your future, as well as some influence, and some of them will say something.
My favorite part is "at the casino." The only way it could have been better is if she'd also wondered if she should spend her day off "at the titty bar."
"Here's a list of incoming APA officials for 2010: feel free to contact any you know. At least four of them I think would be concerned."
One of them even has an office on the same floor as the APA, so I don't think we've heard the last of this. But more than punitive fireworks, we need changes, and there, I'm afraid, we're likely SOL.
It's an archaic placement service fit for an archaic discipline.
But more than punitive fireworks, we need changes, and there, I'm afraid, we're likely SOL.
That's right. Just from this e-mail, if you're lucky, you're going to get forms that are mailed slightly earlier, so long as no emergencies or technical difficulties prevent it, which sometimes they will. Which is still better, right?
But my sense is that the office staff is not interested in doing things in any way but its own way, even if that way is dumb, inefficient, inconvenient, and expensive. A personnel change might help with that, but in my time around academic departments I have never seen a staff person fired. I have seen positions eliminated for budget reasons, but I've never seen anyone fired for refusing/being unable to do their job (despite having seen some obvious candidates!).
I do think it's good to make noise, though (and just bitching on the blog doesn't count; tell actual people).
After receiving that email from RP, I wrote an acrid email to her and vented on this blog.
Still, I feel sorry for her. She is going to have a really terrible Monday.
At the risk of starting another rantfest, are any of the St. Joe's interviewees Roman archaeologists? I'm on the Greek side and didn't apply, but I'm always curious about these generalist-but-it-would-be-great-if-you-did-some-material-culture searches in classics.
I don't know about St. Joe's specifically, but I would imagine it is the same as any other "generalist-but-it-would-be-great-if-you-did-some-[speciality x]" position, which is to say, what they really *need* is someone who can teach everything, because, like many non-R1 schools, their department is small and grab-bag enough that they cannot afford too much specialization in anything. So if they get an application from an archaeologist who can also believably teach an advanced Greek seminar on Homer AND an advanced Latin seminar on Horace, who also looks like someone they would like to spend the rest of their careers working with, and who will seem like a worthy hire to the outside arbitrators (deans, tenure review committees, etc.), they will short-list him/her. I have met very few archaeologist who can teach BOTH Greek and Latin at advanced undergraduate levels, however, and as the archaeology courses Undergrad institutions need taught are more likely to be at the lower levels (since advanced levels of archaeology are quite often not encountered until graduate school, or else are offered through other departments, like Anthro), they are more likely to be interested in candidates who can do Greek and Latin really well and can mess about believably in archaeology (i.e. philologists who dabble in realia), than in candidates who can do archaeology really well and can mess about believably in Greek and Latin (i.e. archaeologists who dabble in philology). [Cue the angry mobs of MC people yelling at me for denigrating their specialty and training, which are vastly superior, and inflating my own, which are by nature vastly inferior ]
I have an interview with St. Joe's and am more on the "person who works with Roman material culture as well as texts" side than the pure archaeology side, if that answers your question.
I do not have an interview with St. Joe's and I am an actual Roman archaeologist (with a great deal of teaching experience in both languages at all undergraduate levels), if that further answers your question.
In my experience, I think Lemons and Platypodes accurately expressed the prevailing attitude of search committees for such jobs. Whether this is a valid perspective is another question. Sometimes people are more inclined to hire people with similar training to theirs simply because they are better equipped to evaluate these candidates. I don't know if this is a symptom or cause of this outlook, but it is worth noting that Classics at St. Joe's resides in a department of Foreign Languages, which our seers on this blog have been warning is the fate of departments that have such parochial attitudes towards realia.
As an archaeologist, I have no complaints about what type of candidate a department, especially a foreign language one, fancies. Nevertheless, I think the wording of the St. Joe's search is a bit misguided, and its ilk is quite common in "classical" searches. As a positive example, I point to this year's Trinity University advertisement when it comes to finding a classicist who dabbles in everything:
Assistant Professor of Classical Studies - Tenure-track appointment, August 2010. The Department of Classical Studies invites applications for a tenure-track position with the rank of Assistant Professor, beginning in August 2010. Candidates are expected to have a high demonstrated aptitude and enthusiasm for undergraduate teaching and a strong commitment to scholarship. The area of specialization is open but we hope to complement existing faculty strengths. (Possibilities include but are not limited to Greek and Roman history; late antiquity; cultural studies including material culture; and interdisciplinary approaches to the ancient world.)
What difference does it make? I, for one, do not want administrators who are anthropological archaeologists and archaeological art historians to think that the short list produced by this search committee is representative of classical archaeologists. Whether one wishes to admit it or not, the present wording makes it seem like they're looking for someone who's a bona fide Roman archaeologist, which is certainly not true based on comments here and past searches. Classical archaeologists have a difficult enough time demonstrating to the greater archaeological community that we're not just wealthy, Anglo, male philologists who get dirty once in a while in our pith helmets searching for Homer and Pausanius. We don't need these misleading searches to reinforce this unfortunate stereotype. Again, I point to Trinity's advertisement for how it should be done. Is that too much to ask?
While I agree that the wording of many job ads, not just those for "clarchs," is misleading, in the case of Trinity, they actually have a highly experienced archaeologist (who is one of the bigger names in her field) on staff and, given the small size of the department, who is presumably on the SC as well (unlike St. Joe's and a number of schools guilty of similar ads). I read ads like Trinity's - way more general than St. Joe's - as saying that the search is basically open: what they want, really, is a candidate who does interesting work and is a good teacher. I think such openness to ideas and all kinds of candidates is, if genuine, a good thing on the whole. Trinity ran a similar ad last year and had a very mixed bag of finalists, who covered from Greek poetry to Roman cultural history, thus proving their genuinely open intentions.
"which is to say, what they really *need* is someone who can teach everything"
"Everything" as defined by a dying discipline. At the minimum, with less stringent requirements for what passes as history and material culture than for Greek and Latin. Most clarchs I know can more than hold their own with both languages. To ask them to teach upper level classes in both Greek and Latin as well as specialists in each is bullshit. Again, most clarchs I know can teach upper level classes in their non-specialist language about as well as a non-archaeologist in their non-specialist language. To say that there is a huge discrepancy in how well an average Hellenist can teach upper level Latin compared to an average Greek archaeologist is baloney. I won't even go into how well a Hellenist can teach a Roman history or archaeology course, let alone a Greek history or archaeologist course. Same goes for a Latinist teaching Greek history or archaeology.
This leads to my other question. How many upper level Greek and Latin courses will be offered in a catch all foreign language department like St. Joe's? Yeah, I thought so. Classics is dead. Long live language departments.
I read ads like Trinity's - way more general than St. Joe's - as saying that the search is basically open: what they want, really, is a candidate who does interesting work and is a good teacher. I think such openness to ideas and all kinds of candidates is, if genuine, a good thing on the whole.
I'm not sure if you're agreeing, disagreeing, or making a random observation, but isn't this exactly what St. Joe's goal is for their search, at least according to the comments on here?
Pile on RP all you want, folks. As someone pointed out earlier, an antiquated culture for an antiquated discipline. I say this as a specialist in Greek tragedy, watching classics go down the toilet. Can anyone recommend that any classics major continue on to grad school with a clear conscience, or does the need for slave labor dismiss scruples?
Again, most clarchs I know can teach upper level classes in their non-specialist language about as well as a non-archaeologist in their non-specialist language.
Without weighing in on the general issue, I can't believe that the above statement is true of better-trained candidates. The best clarchs I know are great archaeologists, I'm sure, and should be hired for their archaeological expertise, but shouldn't be put within a mile of anything above intermediate language. In some cases nowhere near elementary language. In fact, statements like the one above make me worried that some people have no idea what actually ought to go on in an upper-level language class. Just to be clear, I think that archaeologists should be in classics departments teaching material culture, and there should be more of them and fewer philologists. But upper level language instructors on a par with philologists? I have to assume you're exaggerating, I'm afraid.
Oh, God. Whoever asked about St. Joe's has indeed incurred another rantfest. Cue the annual clarch whininess, the philologists' defensiveness, and the historians' hurt feelings when they try to get in on the action. Do any of us really have the time for this? Maybe, just maybe, this kind of inter-specialty bickering and status-insistence is one of the problems with classics today?
But upper level language instructors on a par with philologists? I have to assume you're exaggerating, I'm afraid.
I guess reading comprehension is not a part of the package for some classicists. Anon. 9:28 specifically said there is no "huge discrepancy" between archaeologists and philologists in their non-specialist language. So a Greek archaeologist vs. a Hellenist teaching teaching an upper level Latin course. Or a Roman archaeologist vs. a Latinist teaching an upper level Greek course. I happen to think that s/he has a point, especially when it comes to a double standard vis a vis teaching expectations and, no, I'm not an archaeologist nor do I play one in the classroom.
I'm a bit sorry I've posted now, but from what I can gather, none of the posts between my last and this one came from an archaeologist. I can't speak for all archaeologists, but I personally have no dog in this fight. I was just pointing out that I don't think archaeology should be dragged into 99% of the all-inclusive generalist ads. The philologists who are steering the classics ship can figure this out (apparently, bar room style). I'm happily teaching in an anthro program and all my 20-something clarch friends who are truly trained in a holistic manner would sell a liver to somehow leave the admininstrative aegis of classics to ply their trade elsewhere. Judging by senior archaeologists flooding to Albania, the Black Sea region, Syria, etc. to conduct fieldwork, classical archaeology has already "left the building," so to speak.
Okay, back to our regular programming. This is better than cable tv.
Schliemann sucks, I suppose it could "out" you unwillingly, but have you considered putting together a roundtable for the AIA discussing the practical steps needed to get an anthro job as a clarch? I think you would have quite an audience.
If you're willing, can you tell us whether you were originally in another department and then combined with anthro, or did you specifically apply to anthro programs from the get-go? I've been told that an anthro Ph.D. or at least a double-major is needed to vie for an anthro position, but this seems to be loosening up a bit these days. One anthropologist suggested to me that it's possibly happening as anthropology departments split or gravitate to either socio-cultural or archaeology, opening up the door for clarchs. Any thoughts you have on these matters would be much appreciated. Better yet, start a blog!
So a Greek archaeologist vs. a Hellenist teaching teaching an upper level Latin course. Or a Roman archaeologist vs. a Latinist teaching an upper level Greek course.
Yeah, got it the first time. Something that clearly can't be said for everyone. My point was that if you want to hire a non-specialist to teach upper-level Greek, better to hire a Latinist than an archaeologist. That such a simple point requires so much clarification is, sadly, typical. The fact that I spoke in favor of archaeologists in general goes without mention, of course.
So whatever incremental advantage a department has with a non-specialist philologist over an archaeologist (apparently debatable at that) in the off chance that a catch-all department offers an upper level language class without a specialist at hand trumps the not even debatable fact that most philologists couldn't teach a history/archaeology course without Wikipedia? Right, this explains much about the current state of classics and where it's heading. Check, please!
Again, most clarchs I know can teach upper level classes in their non-specialist language about as well as a non-archaeologist in their non-specialist language. To say that there is a huge discrepancy in how well an average Hellenist can teach upper level Latin compared to an average Greek archaeologist is baloney.
In general, Classics Ph.D.s are expected to have meaningful training in both languages, and the translation exams that they take, in both languages, to qualify for the Ph.D. are considerably tougher than those that archaeology Ph.D.s must take.
I would also point out that Classics Ph.D.s are trained to teach literature, which it turns out is an important skill in a literature course. The idea that this kind of teaching is just about knowledge of the languages suggests a failure to understand what is supposed to be going on in upper division courses in Greek and Latin.
whatever incremental advantage...(apparently debatable at that)...in the off chance...a catch-all department...the not even debatable fact
Did you read this before you posted it? I think someone went off their meds.
I'm not sure where you went to grad school, but where I went, philologists did roughly equal work in both languages. They just wrote a dissertation on one or another. Skill level went a bit beyond "incremental advantage".
To assume that a Hellenist can't teach, say, Statius or Tacitus vel sim. (that's Latin, and I'm a Hellenist, see?) is incorrect. Can they teach it well? I guess that depends on the individual.
As I see it, you can count on a philologist to do two things well: Latin and Greek. You can count on a historian to do one thing well: history. And you can count on an archaeologist to do one thing well: archaeology. This is not to say that an archaeologist can't be a whiz at Greek, a historian a whiz at Latin, or a philologist a whiz at archaeology. Do you want to hire someone that's sure bet at 1 of 4 areas, or 2 or 4?
If you're a SLAC, and the deans are breathing down your neck, you want the most bang for your buck. That's a philologist. If you can find a philologist with some archaeological or historical training, that's icing.
And how many Statius or Tacitus classes do you imagine are going to be offered at St. Joe's over the next six years? In my experience, in small Classics programs 90% of the students taking languages are concentrated in the first two years. Moreover, non-language courses (including yes, history and archaeology courses) serve two or three times the number of students as language courses and serve as a hook for prospective majors. I reject the premise that decisions should be made on the basis of the few small language classes at the top of the curriculum. For that matter, why shouldn't history or archaeology seminars be the small protected courses at the top of the curriculum? Oh right, because that would require parity between philologists and archystorians.
anyone hear anything from NYU about the open-rank Hellenist?
It would be nice if this blog would move on from name calling and chest thumping by Greek and Latin types who believe they are the end-all-be-all of classics. Face it, folks - it isn't just about languages, not any more - nor should it ever have been. And to the delusional person who posted that the doctoral exams taken by Greek and Latin types are more difficult than those taken by archaeologists, I would have dared him/her to have passed my comprehensive exams in Roman archaeology - from the tone of your post, you would have failed, and big time. Oh, and I passed my comps in Greek and Latin, thanks very much. So you should think about your attitude toward this discipline, especially when you are fighting for scraps in that language department and losing to Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese ... good luck and good bye.
Let's just hold on one damn minute here! Can't we turn our rancor and deep-seated insecurities against a common enemy? Hell, everybody knows that the Taliban hates Classics; and they don't know the difference between a philologist or an archaeologist or an historian: they would just as soon kill us all in one worldwide anti-Classics Jihad (especially the women, whom they would first rape). So I say we stop this bickering, and put our hatred where it belongs--behind the fight against the Taliban. I know some of you are scared, but when you put your hand in a pile goo that was reading Virgil ten minutes ago, you'll know what to do.
God bless America. Again.
As I see it, you can count on a philologist to do two things well: Latin and Greek. You can count on a historian to do one thing well: history. And you can count on an archaeologist to do one thing well: archaeology. This is not to say that an archaeologist can't be a whiz at Greek, a historian a whiz at Latin, or a philologist a whiz at archaeology. Do you want to hire someone that's sure bet at 1 of 4 areas, or 2 or 4?
If you're a SLAC, and the deans are breathing down your neck, you want the most bang for your buck. That's a philologist. If you can find a philologist with some archaeological or historical training, that's icing.
What a strange landscape you describe here!
When I was a young lad in graduate school there were no such creatures as "historians" and "archaeologists" as you so conveniently describe them. One was a Roman historian or Roman archaeologist or a Greek historian or Greek archaeologist. I must have been buried in my Tibullus and Propertius when both space and time collapsed around me. Oh, my, but it must have been spectacular!
When a school hires either an archaeologist or an historian they are, in fact, getting a "sure bet" in 2 out of 4 areas since such people can teach both geographies of the discipline to the same extent philologists can teach both Greek and Latin.
The real pressing question is then what percentage of philologists are whizes at history or archaeology, versus what percentage of clarchs/historians are whizes at at least one language. Hmmmm?
My money says that the latter percentage is much, much higher. Somebody should go around and count, but I will put $1000 anonymous dollars on the table saying that you will find more historians and archaeologists, in all their multiplicity, teaching Greek and/or Latin at both introductory and upper levels than you will find philologists, in all their multiplicity, teaching intro and upper-level Roman and/or Greek history and/or archaeology courses.
You must have a very perverse sense of "bang for buck" if you think you are going to get both variety of teaching abilities and high enrollment numbers through hiring a philologist instead of either a historian or archaeologist!
The problem here is that those who are, for the most part, doing the hiring are philologists seemingly afflicted by such perversions of the senses.
Which is why next year, too, we will have this discussion. And every year after that, until the historians flee to the history departments and the archaeologists flee to the anthropology departments, or both flee from academia altogether. In this fallen age those who can fill the lecture halls are the bakers of wholesome and hearty cakes to Deans. The small language classes that struggle to make enrollments each semester are merely the icing on such offerings.
Graduate programs, which by and large are less vulnerable to the sorts of pressures afflicting the great majority of classics departments around the country, simply must do a better job of educating their students about the economic realities of institutional budgets and priorities! Anybody who leaves school thinking that their great little Latin seminar on Statius or Tacitus is nearly as valuable to the administration of a hiring institution as an upper-level seminar on the late Roman Republic, or the archaeology of Pompeii, is in for a nasty surprise.
In order to "earn" the languages, we must attend to numbers, numbers, numbers. I wish it weren't true. But, it is.
"The problem here is that those who are, for the most part, doing the hiring are philologists seemingly afflicted by such perversions of the senses."
Basically sums up the problem of classics in a nutshell.
To add insult to injury, don't forget that most, if not all, clarchs majored in the languages as undergrads, often taking them earlier in high/middle school. At the minimum, they minored in classics. How many history/archaeology classes did philologists take through all middle/primary/secondary school? 2? 3?
If archaeologists are so great at languages then why do they complain so bitterly about job ads which ask that they teach them?
to the delusional person who posted that the doctoral exams taken by Greek and Latin types are more difficult than those taken by archaeologists, I would have dared him/her to have passed my comprehensive exams in Roman archaeology - from the tone of your post, you would have failed, and big time. Oh, and I passed my comps in Greek and Latin, thanks very much.
I'm going to quote what I said, and in order to assist your reading comprehension highlight some important words that I think you have missed: "the translation exams that they take, in both languages, to qualify for the Ph.D. are considerably tougher than those that archaeology Ph.D.s must take."
Please let me know if that's clear yet, or if it needs further elucidation.
If archaeologists are so great at languages then why do they complain so bitterly about job ads which ask that they teach them?
Their answer is that they feel they shouldn't have to; they're archaeologists and they want to teach archaeology. And that's fair enough.
On the other hand, I don't want to teach giant civ or myth or humanities classes, and yet that's part of the deal for people who work in literature.
"On the other hand, I don't want to teach giant civ or myth or humanities classes, and yet that's part of the deal for people who work in literature."
Only as a line of last defense, if there are no historians or archaeologists handy to serve as enrollment fodder.
As a curious Medievalist reading this thread, I can't help but say that apartheid is alive and well in academia! It sounds like there is an abudance of well-qualified (and disgruntled) realia people in classics. I now know where our department should look to cherry pick some good scholars in the future.
I now know where our department should look to cherry pick some good scholars in the future.
Er, you're going to hire some bronze age archaeologist in a medieval dept.? Wow, how badly off are you?
Why only Bronze Age archaeologists? It sounds like mainly classical archaeologists specializing in later periods voicing their discontent on here. Besides, we have a Near Eastern person covering Aegean art in our department already. She will NOT do classical art, however.
Anybody who leaves school thinking that their great little Latin seminar on Statius or Tacitus is nearly as valuable to the administration of a hiring institution as an upper-level seminar on the late Roman Republic, or the archaeology of Pompeii, is in for a nasty surprise.
My schools (undergrad and grad) may not be typical, but here's my experience: the classes that bring students in are your basic Greek Civ or Roman Civ courses (which generally include some history and some pretty pictures of Pompeii, the Forum Romanum, or the Acropolis, but which are primarily literature courses in translation), or some courses in translation that are a little more specific but still pretty general, such as Ancient Comedy, Greek Tragedy, or even something like Age of Nero.
Literature in translation is what gets people in the door, not "an upper-level seminar on the late Roman Republic, or the archaeology of Pompeii."
That said, I'm in full agreement that we can't tailor ourselves and our teaching interests to graduate-level seminars or even to lower-level language classes: we have to get people in the door first, which means appealing to non-majors (a few of whom we can inspire enough to become majors or at least minors).
"If archaeologists are so great at languages then why do they complain so bitterly about job ads which ask that they teach them?"
As a historian, I can say it's because it's a glass ceiling by which to exclude non-philologists. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching Latin, as much, if not more, than teaching my ginormous Roman civ lecture. I'm pretty damned good at it, if I say so myself. It doesn't change the fact that this metric of teaching languages is often vaguely used to hire a like-minded philologist over a historian/clarch for generalist searches.
"This candidate's dissertation is on Romans satire, she obviously has a better grasp of the languages, which IS our main parameter after all..."
Only as a line of last defense, if there are no historians or archaeologists handy to serve as enrollment fodder.
This is just not true. Having at least one very large lecture course that you regularly teach is a minimum expectation for a literary classicist at any institution that has large lecture courses, and being able to teach two or more is normal. Myth, civ, and Western civ courses are widely taught by literary scholars.
I also think you're slightly off about historians and archaeologists being "enrollment fodder." Like literature, history and archaeology are in fact generally regarded by undergraduates, and by the general population, as boring and pointless subjects, and making any of them interesting to a wide audience of students requires good teaching.
"Like literature, history and archaeology are in fact generally regarded by undergraduates, and by the general population, as boring and pointless subjects, and making any of them interesting to a wide audience of students requires good teaching."
Sorry, this is just not true. Far from considering it 'boring and pointless', the general population thinks that archaeology is far more fascinating than it actually is in practice, and they are far more inclined toward hearing about it than either ancient history or classical literature. It is far easier to get a general audience to attend an archaeology lecture than History or Lit. and it's easier to raise money for it too. I'm not saying it's right, it's just my experience (as someone who gets asked to give archy lectures to the general public a lot).
"This candidate's dissertation is on Romans satire, she obviously has a better grasp of the languages, which IS our main parameter after all..."
Yeah, and let's ignore the fact that if you take away the seminar table and cozy class size that the candidate is a muttering mess in a lecture. Having duds for lecturers sure is helping our case to keep classics alive in the academy.
"the general population thinks that archaeology is far more fascinating than it actually is in practice."
Says you, my Philology magazine and I would beg to differ.
Deans should read this thread...quite eye opening.
the candidate is a muttering mess in a lecture
I resemble this remark, but whatev. I'm sitting here in a tenure track job and by the sounds of it you're not. I guess you should have nailed your conjugations and declensions better when you determined your career path.
the general population thinks that archaeology is far more fascinating than it actually is in practice, and they are far more inclined toward hearing about it than either ancient history or classical literature.
Yeah, let me take back the part about archaeology being as unappealing to the broader American public as history is.
Boy, I'm sure glad I posted that fake question about the St. Joe's search.
The resulting back and forth here has made everybody completely forget about that little ol' email I sent out not too long ago.
Brilliant!!
"Besides, we have a Near Eastern person covering Aegean art in our department already. She will NOT do classical art, however."
Mandela, you're a medievalist. Why don't YOU teach classical art. Am I missing something here? I know nothing about art history, but shouldn't medievalists know how to teach classical art?
Nuts to that!
Would you ask a Medieval historian to teach Greek and Roman history?
Do half these questions really matter? It's like asking whether classics sucks or blows. I don't care at this point.
I resemble this remark, but whatev. I'm sitting here in a tenure track job and by the sounds of it you're not. I guess you should have nailed your conjugations and declensions better when you determined your career path.
That's amazing! I don't think I've ever seen a twelve-year-old in a tenure-track job.
Greek and Roman historians in history departments often teach medieval history. I have two friends, one in Roman history, one in Greek history, who do so. So why not the other way around? It'd be better than a Early Modern Britain historian teaching Greek history.
"This is just not true. Having at least one very large lecture course that you regularly teach is a minimum expectation for a literary classicist at any institution that has large lecture courses, and being able to teach two or more is normal. Myth, civ, and Western civ courses are widely taught by literary scholars."
I find this hard to believe, as very few lit people in both my non-elite undergrad institution and elite grad institution taught large courses. Yes, a couple taught myth, but they were the exception, not the rule. I don't doubt *some* departments exist as you describe, but whose fault is it that they hired a lit person during their generalist search when the most pressing concern was to teaching large lectures? Unless, of course, you're saying lit people are generally better prepared and willing to teach these large courses than historaeologists.
Re: disciplinary fracas
Where would we be without stereotypes? It would be almost impossible to think!
toodle-pip,
Poldy
Poldy is back!
We have now officially jumped the shark back into the past.
"Deans should read this thread...quite eye opening."
I think the best theme brought up in this fracas was sustainability. I see now that classics is not. Once the large state schools such as MSU and UIC get rid of classics, it's only a matter of time before the regional schools follow, if they had a program to being with. Finally, the elite SLACs and Ph.D. programs will follow last. I don't think they're sacrosanct anymore, not with the rest of the classics landscape devestated. Once Constantinople lost Asia Minor, it was only a matter of time. There might be a grand battle at the end, but classics will slowly fade away rather than go down fighting.
Well...too bad for our grandkids, but I'm ready now for lunch!
Mandela, you're a medievalist. Why don't YOU teach classical art. Am I missing something here? I know nothing about art history, but shouldn't medievalists know how to teach classical art?
I'm guessing that Mandela is a late Medievalist, therefore tying himself (herself?) more to Renaissance art than Late Antiquity. Yes, Medieval art historians teach survey courses such as "caves to Renaissance," but few are usually called upon to teach specific classes in classical art. Yes, some Medievalists would be quite qualified to teach classical art, but that would almost surely be their prerogative, not the department's.
Poldy is back!
We have now officially jumped the shark back into the past.
How do we know it's the real Poldy? I don't remember "toodle-pip."
As I remember, the real Poldy used toodle pip once, though more usually he did sign off tinkerty tonk, at least, as far as I recall (and I'm not wading through the "discussions" of years past to find out).
At least there is some discussion. This place was dead compared to past years.
Though, it's just the same old inter-disciplinary squabbling as usual, so perhaps there was nothing missed.
"Though, it's just the same old inter-disciplinary squabbling as usual, so perhaps there was nothing missed."
I suppose the economy might be ratcheting up the usual squabbles a couple more notches, and all will be well in a couple years. It could also signal a watershed moment from which classics never recovers. Who knows? Hopefully, those of us who haven't bailed on this leaky ship can get along long enough to see where it all goes. Poldy, are you still on the ship or lying on a tropical beach somewhere?
Does anyone else feel like there is a Lord of the Flies vibe to all this?
My dept.'s situation isn't perfect by any means, but from here the FV jeremiads look a little unwarranted, or at least misdirected.
In the humanities, at least, Classics is one of the larger departments in terms of faculty, majors, and overall enrolment. We have a fairer distribution of hist., lit., and clarch faculty than most depts, and at least one person in each category has taught large civ. courses. Only myth and general civ. classes pull in numbers in the hundreds, but all other fields do reasonably well, except for advanced lit. courses, which we're all mostly happy to support. Like a few other places we have some Greek problems, but our other issues tend to be less serious. In general, we have more disagreements with the administration than with each other.
The real threats don't seem (to us at least) to be internal, but rather from an increasingly utilitarian attitude among students and administrators. Neither the lit. people nor the historians nor the clarchs have proven capable of solving this problem. This may disappoint all the partisans out there but I think it would be unrealistic to expect any one group to solve it. As much as I hate the idea of working in administration I think that may be the most useful thing I could do for the field.
Thank you SLACKer! A pleasure to hear a voice of reason amid all these petty squabbles. None of us can do much to prove our relevance or utility, so we would do better to present a unified front before our common foes.
News, news, I SEEK NEWS about the NYU Greek position! (This is my first year on the market so I probably don't have a shot at it anyway, but I'd like to KNOW that I'm dead in the water, at least.)
And a newbie question: if the APA is notifying us of interviews before the meeting, does that mean the colleges themselves won't?
Check last year's Wiki for the date of NYU's notification. I recall a phone call at a date closer to Xmas (I was already on holiday) than we are at now.
As for notification, some colleges do, some don't. The APA advance notice may well contain some surprises.
I would say the vast majority notify in advance. Emails are easy enough and I'm not sure if I would trust the placement machinery. They must use a generic government manual from the 50s to run the place...
I've been long-listed for a position run out of the dean's office (classics program but no official department). Are there any peculiar aspects to this type of search one should watch out for? Do these searches typically go straight to campus visits after they sort through the additional application material? I'm assuming that they won't be interviewing at the APA as an intermediate step. Any experience from similar searches in the past would be much appreciated.
To Anon. 2:51 - I'd imagine that they would have something like phone interviews to weed out the long list.
On surprise APA interviews - the Placement Service email last year revealed interviews with 3 schools that hadn't contacted me, so yeah, I'd say there's a chance of surprises. But don't count on it. Prior to last year, the most "surprises" I had got at the APA Placement office was one, and that only once.
Will the job market be better after the conference for those not seeking t-t positions?
RE: Non-TT positions.
Generally, yes. As people figure out if they are going on sabbatical, move to another place, etc. then positions open up. Look especially in Feb. and March.
One worry is that this year many places won't hire temporary replacements because of the budgets. No idea if this is a well-founded fear, however.
This past spring's temporary job market was poorer than usual. I expect the same this spring. If there's any way your grad program or your current position can keep you employed, I'd take it.
Re: NYU news and APA notification
Thank you!
So I noticed on the Classics-wiki that a 3-yr job at Elon was just added. I double-checked to verify that they in fact did not register the job with the APA Placement Service, and then discovered when I finally hunted down a listing of their ad on some random website that their deadline was on November 20th. Now I'll admit that this is my first year on the market and that I'm thus not completely familiar with all the idiosyncrasies that everyone on this thread has been so eager to laud, but honestly - if you're looking for Latinist, shouldn't you post your ad with the APA's PS?
Two-and-a-half serious follow-up questions, though: (1) Is what Elon did normal? If so, (1.5) where should I be looking for Classics job ads not registered/publicized by the APA Placement Service? And (2) If a job ad states, as does Elon's, that an application should be in by a certain date "for full consideration", do they still accept apps after that date? In other words, if I were to submit an app to them now, would they even consider it? I'm just a little peeved to have missed out on this one simply for not having known it existed!
Dear IFSA,
The Elon ad was posted the FamaeVolent Boards on Oct. 16th, well before the deadline. What obscure website did you find it on?
In the future, check H-Net, The Chronicle and FV regularly. I do find it very weird that Elon didn't advertise through the APA (so you have reason to be annoyed). It might mean they already have an inside candidate ready to go or, since they are a Foreign Language department, that they are simply clueless.
It can't hurt to email Elon and ask if it is worth sending in a late application. If they say no then you are no worse off than now.
Good luck!
Re: IFSA
I posted the Elon job on the wiki the other day because I noticed it wasn't there. Sorry for the frustration.
In any event, the job was posted on Chronicle, Higheredjobs and Insidehighered, I think. As for why they didn't go through APA, who knows. In my experience many smaller schools advertise to a smaller audience since they're not interested in a national search, nor do they have the budget to undertake such a venture. (I taught at small school in the northeast for a number of years and found their job simply listed on their HR site -- it was not posted anywhere else.)
As for applying late, I second the above poster's suggestion of emailing the department. My suspicion is that they won't take it; but I had to learn that one the hard way.
In the future, if you're interested in being in a specific location it never hurts to peruse small college HR sites. The experience is time consuming; but it sometimes works out.
Damn you people are pissy.
I'll just point out that the St. Joe's job is mostly likely going to the adjunct who's there already--regardless of description. Done and done.
Elon also may not know about the APA. I've seen that, too. Many schools figure the Chronicle is enough.
Servius has a bunch of links to academic job search sites up on the right sidebar. I'd add that now is also the time to start checking the UK jobs site regularly, since the UK job search season gets going in the spring, usually.
Re: NYU news and APA notification
NYU's search committee will meet on Dec. 17. They received about 170 applications.
Several people have mentioned the APA Placement Service sending out emails with interview schedules; when does this usually happen? And are there ever any changes between that email and the meeting itself in January?
Several people have mentioned the APA Placement Service sending out emails with interview schedules; when does this usually happen?
When the staff gets back from the dog track.
wait, I thought it was the topless bar at the race-track?
Whoever posted on the wiki about the job at University of Michigan at Dearborn, where did you see the ad for it?
Last year it wasn't an email of interview schedules, just a list of schools that wanted to interview you. So if you were hoping the Placement Service would let you know your actual schedule in advance so you could save money on flights or hotels, forget it.
I do recall it being quite late - after Christmas, maybe even after New Year's?
I checked my emails from the job search last year, and Renie notified me on 12/31.
I was wondering why our numbers are down on the wiki this year. Are people smarter this year and not obsessing as much as I have been (impossible). I know several people who know about it but refuse to sign up or even look at it. I mean I need other people to obsess with over this.
I know for a fact that one much sought after TT position is not or rather doesn't know to notify their interviewees via email, and has let the job placement service know already who is on their APA interview list, so some of you will be receiving a nice Holiday Gift whenever Renie lets us know. So don't all be so pessimistic.
I was wondering why our numbers are down on the wiki this year.
Might be more useful to see how many users the FV boards have. Assuming it's tracking different IP addresses, there were 115 individual users in the last 24 hours.
I've also noticed people are ID'ing themselves as on the market when they get an interview.
re: "I know for a fact that one much sought after TT position is not or rather doesn't know to notify their interviewees via email, and has let the job placement service know already who is on their APA interview list, so some of you will be receiving a nice Holiday Gift whenever Renie lets us know."
Without divulging any details of why you have this info, would you mind sharing with the rest of us which institution this is, that we might at least know not to expect word one way or the other from them? Thanks!
Topic: 230 applications for Trinity's position. Discuss.
RE: Trinity.
It was wide-open search, in terms of specialty and rank, right? Such searches almost always get high numbers of applicants.
It does mean that the person who gets the job had a .43% chance of getting it before the apps were whittled down further.
Are there even 230 classicists in the world? We need to be more elitist.
Topic: 230 applications for Trinity's position. Discuss.
That's going to be one tired search committee. Usually you can weed some applications out on the grounds that they don't fit the description, but how do you do that when you've advertised for, basically, anyone who does anything?
Also, it's got to be really hard to compare candidates.
Hard to sympathize with the SC when they have jobs...
Greetings wiki - long time lurker, first time poster - apropos the 230 applications at Trinity: I wonder if within that number there is a core of folks that are attractive regardless of the number of cacata charta received -- 50 or 500 only a given number are truly competitive? And I also wonder if the number of applications will increase much next year, especially for us Latin guys and gals who currently own the benches.
The thing that concerns me about, say, a job like the one at Trinity receiving 230 applications is the fact that the number would seem to represent a statically significant higher number of applications than the number I've heard bandied about at other comparable (in terms of size, region, and quality of institution as well as the scope of the search parameters) institutions that did hires last year. Say 30-40% higher (i.e. roughly 170 vs. 230).
How many of those candidates are "truly competitive" is another question, and it will always be a perennial question as to who "is" -- or at least, appears to be -- competent and/or competitive.
While there may be other factors at work in the case of Trinity (e.g. its apparent collegiality, regional economic strength, willingness to hire at all ranks), I -- for one -- find this (albeit) anecdotal information thoroughly disheartening. In particular, it makes me wonder about the numbers next year: 270-300 applicants for a very good SLAC TT position?
Still, kudos to the chair and committee for the candor. And kudos to those who got interviews.
It doesn't seem to me that there are that many truly open searches.
If you search for a t.t. job in e.g. material culture, without Greek/Roman specification, you get c. 80-100 files.
But if you search for anyone who does anything, so long as they're not senior, you're going to get a hell of a lot of applications. In fact, you'll probably get applications from nearly every junior person on the market. I don't think 250 or whatever is a lot, given the advertisement's refusal to specify any parameters for exclusion. Had they said "Greek" or "Roman," it would have been cut down by 40%. Had they said "poetry" or "history," it would have been cut by another 20-40%. Descriptions matter, and affect the pool a lot. So, when your description says "Anyone could be a winner!!!" you get a lot of applications.
Agree with the previous poster. And the better known the proram, the more apps - UT Austin regularly gets 300+ apps when it issues these general ads.
I had predicted on the FV boards that Grinnell would get over 250 applications. If Trinity received only 230, then maybe I'll have to revise that down to 200+.
One thing that may be driving these numbers is that people on the tenure-track in places hard-hit by the economy are looking to jump ship. I know many junior CSU and UC folks have sent out applications this year. Normally these types of applicants wouldn't be in the pool. But, where would you rather be, a well-heeled and well-run SLAC or part of a public system spiraling into the toilet?
Any guesses as to how many applicants Tufts has received?
Do people think the ability to send in digital applications affects the number? Assuming tha the vast majority of people on the market are footing their own bill for postage, wouldn't this have some kind of affect on how many applicants Trinity (snail mail only) gets vs. Tufts (snail mail or email)?
I'm on a search committee at a place that has non paper apps, and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about the number of applicants. I did notice a much higher number of egregiously late applications -- maybe when there's no postage at stake people are more likely to throw their hats into the ring late on the off chance that someone would actually still read the app.
Well, at least at our university, our legal folks won't allow us to accept late apps if we set a hard deadline.
I was wondering what exactly constitutes a "late" application? What I mean is that if you, the applicant, get in your materials (CV, letter of app, etc..) but the recs are not on file yet, if those materials were sent in on time, would that be considered on time? I ask since my recommendations have been late (two weeks late in the case of the early deadlines) because my adviser and the committee feel that search committees expect this and accept them. I am beginning to wonder how this might have adversely affected me.
posted November 30, 2009 8:46 PM
"Your first mistake is to imagine that the APA and the AIA care about you -- 'they' don't. They don't care about new PhDs, they don't care about adjuncts, they don't care about junior faculty. It shows in the big and small things. Go to the meetings and watch the backslapping silverbacks congratulate themselves and throw themselves big banquets and give each other awards. They don't give a fig about the 21st century or making your job search less painful or helping you get a job or preserving the discipline. If you want to see elitism, it's on parade at the annual meetings and you should be revolted rather than intimidated, and work to change it -- in big and small ways --the minute that you can."
Let a silverback respond about how we act at the APA meetings. We do backslap and congratulate each other. We’re friends after all, who see each other mostly only at these meetings, and some of us do deserve some congratulation. But don’t think that over drinks we don’t talk about the profession honestly and wonder about and hope for its future—which is you, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous. I myself am pessimistic about the outside forces working against us (which begin with the administration right outside my department walls) but optimistic when I see the quality of the young people (those at grad student conferences, giving talks at the APA, just beginning to publish). Why do you think we are elitist? Because we don’t know who you in particular are? This works both ways. Many times, when I see a group of young people (grad students or just past this) thoroughly enjoying themselves, I wish I could join them. So, the next time you see one of us old timers, come on over and introduce yourself, and let us know what you are working on. Ask for advice. We’d be pleased to meet you.
Dear Dr. Silverback,
I for one would be very interested in hearing more of your own take on these issues. These boards are dominated by the young and the restless, and too few grizzled veteran voices can be found here.
One thing that continues to give me pause is the lack of "official" recognition on the part of the APA about the seriousness of what we talk about here. Too many panels on niche topics attended by too few people. Why don't we have more places to actually meet and talk about matters of urgency at the APA? Why not a few panels addressing the role of archaeology in the classics, or how to get hired by non-classics departments, etc.?
Judging from the stories told my advisors, the job market in the 70s, 80s and 90s was every bit as bad as today's, so having veteran perspectives would be nice.
Thank you!
Re: The Untimely Application
I sent my application in to one of the very good SLACs this year about 10 days late, and still got an interview. Who knows when my letters arrived, certainly at least two weeks late.
One thing that continues to give me pause is the lack of "official" recognition on the part of the APA about the seriousness of what we talk about here. ... Why don't we have more places to actually meet and talk about matters of urgency at the APA?
So, you mean have FV, but live and in person?
I think there's a limit to how much shrieking, slap-fighting, and hair-pulling a conference hotel will put up with.
Re: Silverbacks and classics
Is there any way we can give the APA more teeth, vis a vis academia? What exactly is the executive director's job at the APA? If not the director, could we make a position that is akin to a full-time lobbyist in academia? As far as I know, the executive director is fairly invisible, working in the bowels of administration. The position of president seems largely ceremonial. It's obvious that classics is losing its foothold in academia and to me, it feels like we have our head in the sand. How about a senior scholar with administrative experience at or near retirement. As long as they have some lead left in the pencil, wouldn't they be a great advocate for classics?
What exactly is the executive director's job at the APA?
So far as I know, it's to hold the money and set up the meeting.
If not the director, could we make a position that is akin to a full-time lobbyist in academia?
To lobby whom? Congress? State legislatures? Santa? And with what money are you going to engage the services of a full-time lobbyist? APA dues? The APA isn't the UAW, and the APA dues you pay aren't even close to union dues.
As far as I know, the executive director is fairly invisible, working in the bowels of administration.
What administration? It's not part of a university; it's a professional society with a handful of officers.
The position of president seems largely ceremonial.
And it is.
It's obvious that classics is losing its foothold in academia and to me, it feels like we have our head in the sand.
The humanities in general is losing its foothold. The more profit-oriented colleges and universities become, the more education is valued for its ability to impart job-specific skills, the more research is supported only if it can bring in federal grants or lead to patents, the more the humanities (and Classics) will struggle. It's all part of the same problem, but we don't realize it (you might even say we have our heads in the sand!) because we don't give a crap what happens to English, modern languages, etc. (nor do they about us).
How about a senior scholar with administrative experience at or near retirement. As long as they have some lead left in the pencil, wouldn't they be a great advocate for classics?
OK, so, not an actual lobbyist with lobbying experience and the apparatus of a lobbying firm to do the lobbying of whoever is supposed to be lobbied, but instead some old dean?
Anything is better than what we're doing now. Considering what we got, I think we're doing much worse than an average humanities discipline. We go on and on about how we're the first interdisciplinary discipline, but it's all talk. What are are we doing to get this message across to administrators. Let me guess, that's not the job of a professional organization like the APA and there is no money. Regardless, something has to be done before there is no classics. Well, at least any more than there is still Hittiology and Sanskrit studies in academia.
Anything is better than what we're doing now. Considering what we got, I think we're doing much worse than an average humanities discipline.
Saying "why, seems to me that..." while stroking your beard is not a very good argument.
We go on and on about how we're the first interdisciplinary discipline, but it's all talk.
A). Can a discipline be interdisciplinary?
B). Even if it isn't all talk, it doesn't have anything to do with whether we're appealing to administrators.
What are are we doing to get this message across to administrators.
Which message?
Let me guess, that's not the job of a professional organization like the APA and there is no money.
Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. First I would need to hear what the message is.
Regardless, something has to be done before there is no classics. Well, at least any more than there is still Hittiology and Sanskrit studies in academia.
Well, for now, the best thing to do justify Classics' existence is to have some classes with good enrollments and a healthy major by, e.g., having a well-subscribed "civ" major along side the language majors. That makes Classics competitive with other kinds of humanities departments, in a way that Sanskrit and Hittite are just not going to be.
That is however only a temporary solution: it gives us a place alongside English, history, and other humanities departments.
That won't help us though as the humanities in general gets squeezed while colleges and universities move to a vocational training model; once the idea of a liberal arts education is dropped and humanities requirements for degrees sink, everyone in the humanities is in big, big trouble.
We suck.
because we don't give a crap what happens to English, modern languages, etc. (nor do they about us).
Yes, this is already upon us - competition between humanities depts for the ever-shrinking pie. Much as I respect the work coming out of History and the newer fields (Am. Studies, Af. Am., etc.), in a way these historically- and nationally-oriented fields do us a further disservice. It's always going to be easier to make a pragmatic, easily comprehensible, even ethical, argument for modern history and US identity than for anything old, obscure, and foreign. And while Myth and Gladiator courses may keep us in the game - which is vital - they hardly counter arguments from pragmatism about which fields should keep being funded. In other words, the pessimist in me fears that we'll be seen as nothing more than undergraduate entertainers, pleasant filler between macroeconomics 100 and history of the modern world. And any attempt to show Classics' relevance to these areas (whether social science or humanities) merely buttresses the argument that it's the modern stuff you really should be studying anyway. But if we go back to a more traditional vision of Classics, as everyone on here knows, we'll just die faster. A whirlpool and a monster come to mind...
It's always going to be easier to make a pragmatic, easily comprehensible, even ethical, argument for modern history and US identity than for anything old, obscure, and foreign. And while Myth and Gladiator courses may keep us in the game - which is vital - they hardly counter arguments from pragmatism about which fields should keep being funded.
Well, yes and no. To a dean, high enrollments are very practical.
In other words, the pessimist in me fears that we'll be seen as nothing more than undergraduate entertainers, pleasant filler between macroeconomics 100 and history of the modern world.
Actually, I think you're an optimist. You think we'll be seen as "entertainers" and "pleasant," and you think modern history courses are safe. And maybe you're right.
And any attempt to show Classics' relevance to these areas (whether social science or humanities) merely buttresses the argument that it's the modern stuff you really should be studying anyway.
I think that's right. And I think that the argument is right, too: if you're looking at higher education as job training for specific skills, then "Classics" isn't the first thing to spring to mind.
But then, neither is the "modern stuff." There aren't a huge number of jobs out there that demand knowledge of postmodern literature, and not that many more that require you to know about African decolonization, or the Great Leap Forward.
Once higher education is only about training people for industry, the humanities are mostly over, because there is no humanities industry.
But if we go back to a more traditional vision of Classics, as everyone on here knows, we'll just die faster.
Yes.
There aren't a huge number of jobs out there that demand knowledge of postmodern literature, and not that many more that require you to know about African decolonization, or the Great Leap Forward.
Well, there will be, and in fact already are, constrictions in these fields too: American history but not American literature, African American identity but not African history, Business in 21st c. China but not the Qing dynasty (exc. large endowments at particular universities designed specifically for such purposes). Students of Dickinson, the Bastille, Greek vases, Marcus Aurelius, Kant, the Upanishads, and the KMT will just be evolutionarily-challenged freaks. Nice to know we're ahead of our time. Anyone who thinks EITHER archaeology OR philology is going to save us just doesn't have a clue. And anyone who thinks that an admixture of quantitative skills in Classics will solve the problem is just chucking the baby out with the bilge water...
Re: values of education
The debate about the purpose and value of a university education is, as we all know, nearly as old as the institution itself. It is not hard to see a plus ça change quality to it all.
Thus it is not that hard to articulate a whole variety of responses to the pragmatic or professionalization argument.
Most of us have soapboxes of various sizes (e.g. classrooms) and surely we can use them to articulate the values we find in the study of classics beyond its undeniably entertaining aspects.
It is probably too pessimistic to diagnose the imminent demise of the study of antiquity as it is probably too sanguine to assume a constant and unchanging acceptance of its value.
So there is plenty for us to do on an individual level (I will make various arguments for the value of studying antiquity to about 500 students this year), even if it feels like we are swimming against the current at times.
tinkerty-tonk,
Poldy
I will make various arguments for the value of studying antiquity to about 500 students this year
And you and I will both get some perverse satisfaction from the few who buy it while minimizing the increasing infantilization which we have no choice but to abet. I'm proud to be a successful beggar and charlatan. That's what it's come down to.
How, exactly, are we abetting infantilization?
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