Did you know that if you put whiskey into a glass and then transfer the contents of that glass into your mouth, then continue in this wise for an interim, you can achieve a pleasurable effect?
Did you know that if you put whiskey into a glass and then transfer the contents of that glass into your mouth, then continue in this wise for an interim, you can achieve a pleasurable effect?
February 13, 2015 at 12:52 AM
P.S. I do know that. Almost every night. It's one of the best ways you can tell I'm a "Real Classicist" (tm).
Drinking without getting blitzed as fuck is like going full priapic and then saying to yourself: "Hmm, on the one hand my dick is like a mighty steel rod, but on the other hand, in the interest of moderation and the respect of my peers I should probably sit quietly without ejaculating."
I would like to ask a question that might seem naive and/or sarcastic, but please believe I am being fully earnest here. Feel free to bitch about archaeologists/historians/everyone never getting hired, but I would also really like to get some actual insight into this - or better yet, some advice on what to do. (And no, "leave the field" doesn't count.)
When I look at (especially non-R1) postings for Classical archaeology, the vast majority of them expect the applicant to be able to teach Greek and/or Latin, often "at all levels". Indeed, sometimes a perusal of the ad reveals that in reality, most of the teaching load would be in languages.
As an archaeologist who has done little language work at the graduate level (apart from passing the required exams) and zero teaching in them, am I completely, hopelessly doomed? Is the world rife with archaeologists capable of teaching advanced language classes? If not, what are programs *actually* looking for when they put up ads like this? Will they end up hiring a philologist with some experience in archaeology, or will they compromise on their expectations re: language teaching?
I see the same with ancient history jobs, but I would imagine historians typically do more language work during their graduate careers (at least that's the case at my university).
I find your question neither naive nor sarcastic, but reasonable. I teach at one of those places asking for exactly what you describe, so I'll give you my perspective. Others will probably disagree, given the nature of the place.
Consider that most jobs are at non-R1 institutions. Moreover, even some R1s don't have large Classics departments. Thus it is important to remember that the job you are likely to get will bear absolutely no resemblance to your advisor's. I don't know what the avg dept size is nationally, but I would guess 4 or 5.
In most cases, therefore, all members must pitch in and support a department whose focus must be on supporting both languages. Otherwise, why have a Classics dept at all? Such a department is then committed to offering, ideally, at least eight courses (minimally six) per semester in Greek and Latin, not counting multiple sections.
Do the math and you see why everybody has to teach languages, ideally both. Small departments (which most classics departments are) don't have much room in their FTE allocation to do much else. It does seem unfair, and it is harder on historians and archaeologists, but if you want a job in a classics dept then you best be prepared to present yourself as a team player who can support the central mission. That means being able to teach both Latin and Greek at all levels, whenever necessary, with a smile. :-)
If languages are not your thing then aim for the much smaller pool of R1 jobs in Classics depts, or in Anthro, etc. But if you do you must understand that this is a much riskier choice simply because you are limiting your options, and the profiles of such hires are more narrowly research focused.
If I was advising a student I would encourage them to maximize their chances at getting *a* job, and that means picking up some language teaching, or at the very least making sure to take a number of language seminars even while they work toward their degree as an archaeologist or historian. The hardest part is landing that first tenure track job, so I'd want to help my student do exactly that.
When I am interviewing you for our one archaeology slot (in a department of five), and you can't, to take one common example, talk intelligently about which texts and textbooks you would use to teach intermediate Greek and intermediate Latin, and explain your choices in a way that makes good pedagogical sense, you are not going to advance. There are plenty of other archaeologists who can do this, and who understand what it means to be in a classics department, so they will be much stronger candidates for our position.
I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but my world is a much different world than the one you know from your graduate training. I am dismayed by how little graduate faculty seem to understand these differences, and how ill-prepared some students are when they hit the market, which is brutal.
Polybius offers some sound advice. Depending on your outlook, I can offer an alternative. If you are a "real classicist" that wishes to dabble in material culture, I would most certainly follow the advice of Polybius.
If you truly live to play in the dirt, I would suggest otherwise. One major reason is that so many of the skills and connections you pick up as an archaeologist can only be obtained at one of a handful of programs - Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Texas, Chicago, Michigan, Cincinnati, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Penn. I would argue that it's even smaller depending on your field of specialization. This means you have a narrow window during graduate school that is much more critical for you than a philologist. If you wish to go all in as an archaeologist, it's quite difficult to do so when you're devoting the majority of your time in graduate school to the languages. Yes, you increase your odds at landing that elusive TT job out of school, but I would argue that very few of these generalist jobs in smaller departments could support and develop you as an archaeologist anyway. Once an archaeologist has been out for a number years, it becomes increasingly clearer whether you will have a self-standing career as an archaeologist.
So if you truly want a career as an archaeologist, I would pick up all the skills and connections you can in graduate school, get a post-doc or a VAP with a reasonable teaching load, publish, establish yourself as a senior staff member of a field project, and then go for a real archaeology position. If you don't pick up these archaeology bona fides, you'll have little chance of landing anything more than another generalist position. After you go all in, you can make a clean break and leave the field at a relatively early age rather than being stuck in VAP hell for the rest of your life.
I would also add to 3:43's comments that "archaeology bona fides" generally translate better to the real job market out there. As an archaeologist, you typically learn to deal with technology, people, marketing, project planning, schmoozing, fund raising, etc. that philologists generally don't encounter. The hyper specialized skills philologists pick up are typically overkill for what employers out there are targeting and don't make up for other shortcomings.
I can't disagree with 3:43, and I would say that the list of schools to make one truly competitive as an archaeologist is even smaller than that 3:43 has proffered.
It is riskier to do what 3:43 suggests, but if you are truly born to be a dirt archaeologist, then the rewards in that for you are also greater, so you might as well double-down on your dream.
But, one must really be aware that this route is harder in terms of landing a tenure track job, or even a VAP position. If you can make that choice with open eyes, and solid understanding, then it is a reasonable choice to make. Sadly, however, I'm not sure that advisors are doing a good enough job in making this clear to their students. I know far too many extraordinary people trained as classical archaeologists for whom the job market has been nothing but a shocking and soul-crushing machine.
As an archaeologist that is now tenured, I can agree with the 3:43's last paragraph since that was basically my path. In addition to post-docs and VAPs, another option IF you have your own money (or can be supported by a SO for a couple years) is a part-time lectureship. Even if it's one course per semester, it will get you institutional affiliation and teaching experience while leaving plenty of time to publish and work on field projects - the main factors that will land you an archaeology job.
as a highly trained dirt archaeologist with loads of past teaching experience, research & pubs who has now left the field of university employment, I agree that a) the number of places in the U.S. to legitimately be trained to be an archaeologist is small and that b) the mentality focused exclusively on the teaching of classical languages continues to drive competent professionals away from classics and is a worldview in serious need of re-examination. Else, stop training classical archaeologists who are focused on archaeology, simply to send them off to some professional death chamber. Teaching Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit is useful and important and can be rewarding - but language teaching alone should not be the key factor in landing or not landing a uni job in 'classics'.
So I can either try to be the best trained archaeologist possible, and likely end up unemployed as an archaeologist, or I can be less well trained as an archaeologist, but give myself a better chance at academic employment where I get to teach archaeology only occasionally?
I'm going to wrap myself in a blanket and watch Sophie's Choice in order to cheer up.
Two cents on the archaeology question: another alternative is to go for an art history job. There aren't tons of these either, but it is a possible direction. Rather than Greek or Latin, you would have to teach the ancient to medieval survey, and specialty courses within that range. I also offer a cultural heritage ethics seminar which covers antiquities for half the semester and Holocaust restitution, street art, galleries and auction houses, etc., for the other half. Art historians from other periods are comfortable with archaeologists' focus on material culture, and are generally more interesting people than classical philologists to boot.
I advise my students not to dabble. If you have the requisite skills and interest in Greek and Latin, become a Hellenist or Latinist. If the languages are a tool more than a passion, become a bona fide historian, archaeologist, art historian, etc. Most of the smaller programs will get downsized or combined with a language/lit department down the road, making the odds for a mutt increasingly long.
Despite a previous comment, I think art history is the worst place to be a dabbler. History isn't too far behind. Who knows where the archaeologists will end up (anthropology?). Classics is already on shaky ground and it's highly doubtful it will last in its present form through the next economic downturn and it might not even take that to change the field dramatically.
On the archaeology question, I agree with Polybius. I consider myself a 'dirt archaeologist' (I am co-director of an archaeological survey). In graduate school I spent most of my falls and springs sharpening my language chops and I spent summers on field projects doing archaeology. I'm now associate at an R1 where about half of my teaching is in one ancient language (the department is big enough that I don't have to teach my other language). Going on the market, I felt confident that I could teach my strong language at all levels (UG and G) and my other language at all UG levels. It opened a lot of doors for me, especially because I had the flexibility to teach whatever for a couple of years post-PhD and pre-TT job. My advice would be, if you're going to do the languages, really do them. There's no point in half-assing things.
12:41 describes the best course of action to take. S/he is now tenured, and is obviously a "real" archaeologist, and no dabbler. It doesn't look like having to teach one of the languages now and then has meant professional death. Unemployment, however, would have. Be flexible, be ready to take on Greek and/or Latin teaching, and give yourself a decent chance.
Well, based on what seems to be the majority of classicists on here, 12:41 would not be considered a Real Classicist™ with his Latin deficit. He somehow lucked into a position, probably in a large department, despite this deficiency. I doubt he would be hired by the "average" classics department of 4-5 faculty mentioned earlier.
12:41 here. Thanks for the vote of confidence, 11:43! I'm glad to hear that I lucked out and wouldn't have been hired by an average department of 4-5 (since one of those offered me a job too; maybe they weren't sincere, though). I will say that I *did* luck out in that I was on the market before the economy tanked. Better lucky than good, I guess.
I'm not snarking at you, 1:04, but isn't "Better lucky than good" pretty much the rule for winning at life?
In this market/world, you have to be good first and then lucky on top of that to achieve success. So while 12:07 is right that this place (which I take to mean academia generally and not just FV) can really suck, I'd say that we're closer than ever to the worldview of the Greeks. Happiness only comes to those who work hard AND have good luck. Life as a whole is 1 or 2 parts pains (depending on whether you follow Homer or Pindar) to every one part happiness, and that's on average. Some people get it worse just as a matter of course.
So every time life seems especially awful, just think: that brings you closer to the people whom we study. And that is a cold comfort, as is only appropriate.
Don't listen to this silliness about "Real Classicists" or "Real Archaeologists." It is distracting and untrue.
If you want to be a classical archaeologist, and you want to maximize your chances of being employed as such, spend some time on the languages. Nobody gets into the top programs without strong languages in any case, so it is not that much of a burden to keep what you already have going fresh.
Let me give all of you fresh fish a hint: 90% of jobs in classics are really generalist jobs when it comes to teaching.
Most Latinists teach Greek, Latin, Roman Culture, Mythology, etc. Most Hellenists teach Latin, Greek, Greek Culture, Mythology, etc. Most Roman Historians teach Greek, Latin, Greek History, Roman History, etc. Most Greek Historians teach Latin, Greek, Roman History, etc. Most Roman Archaeologists teach ........... you get the picture.
This obsession with purity is not only stupid, it betrays ignorance of how most employment in the academy is figured. Just because those training you don't have jobs that are generalist jobs themselves does not mean that most of you won't be generalists. And there is *nothing wrong* with being a generalist in the classroom. You still pursue your own interests as far as research goes, and that includes running digs for archaeologists. Teaching languages and other non-archaeology classes is hardly career death. It is, rather, the best thing to do in order to keep doing what you really love doing: archaeology.
This generalist talk is all well and good, but it's hilarious that it's being presented as real talk (tm). Really real talk would advise everyone to get out of academia now; your chances of employment are very low no matter what you do, until you leave academia entirely and put your considerable talents to use producing something for which there is even a tiny bit of demand.
tough times. when your mentor(s) basically hold up being a "generalist" to be the equivalent of being an ebola-ridden leper, then it can be hard to mold yourself into that shape ... then coming to realize the error of your ways only too late (much too late for many).
(1) I wouldn't advise anyone to *be* a generalist, I'd just say that the more classes you can teach within a discipline, the better your odds are on the job market, especially in the short term.
Here is my response to the post-APA/SCS/AIA-meeting survey (addressed to the Program Committee). What do y'all think? *** I continue to get the impression that there are so many panels organized by individuals or affiliated groups, that there is no room left for the excellent individual abstracts you must be getting.
By my count, only 36 percent of all papers -- and only 31% of papers delivered before sunday afternoon! -- came from individual abstract submissions.
I assume that you are getting a lot of panel proposals, perhaps because the job market is scaring people. I heard it said at the conference that applying to an organized panel (or organizing your own) is the surest way to be accepted to speak at the conference. You are letting people use panel organizing to pad their tenure portfolios, or to look good to search committees. This won't accurately reflect the interests of the society as a whole.
One-third of panels were run by affiliated groups. Would you consider letting these groups have a panel only every-other year?
I hope you noticed what I said about sunday afternoon. Individual abstract submitters had a 1-in-4 chance of speaking in the very last panel on sunday afternoon. Perhaps you could fill this space with the members of affiliated groups, who are probably less likely to be grad students struggling to pay for their late flights?
Some might suspect that the program committee is letting a small group of affiliated organizations and go-getter individuals do 2/3 of their work for them. Whether or not that is the motivation, the result is a less engaging conference for many of us. To see how this works, try going to the CAMWS meeting, where there are still panels on authors and texts, instead of on "the body" (although I suppose this year it was "time" in stead of "the body").
I could agree more with previous post. I spoke at a panel last year and the organizers told me that they had only about ten abstracts. Also, could I protest for having to deliver my piece ALWAYS ON THE LAST PANEL ON THE LAST DAY? Shame on APA committees for relegating the unknown scholars to the least appealing sessions, when everybody is already gone.
9:07 asking about Classical archaeology and the job market here. I wanted to thank everyone for their views. I feel I might personally already be doomed - I'm just far enough into my program that extensive language work isn't feasible, and my (big, public) university only lets archaeologists teach languages under extraordinary circumstances - as a matter of fact, we do zero independent teaching and very little TAing in general. Ours is, indeed, a reality very far removed from that of most institutions.
The "archaeology or bust" voices give me a bit more hope, although I fret about adequate connections and skill sets. I am trying to look into part-time teaching and various ways to get me a bit more experience and connections while also not starving. (Alas, no savings or SOs here.)
Again, I really appreciate everyone's insight, even as I'm struggling to figure out how to apply it to my studies.
Not really related, but another small point of gratitude: I do appreciate the SCS' advocacy on our behalf. No, I don't believe it is possible to improve things, but it lends legitimacy to our plight, hopefully inspiring SCs not to just write off more "seasoned" job-seekers as obviously flawed in some way, and will maybe inspire some of the "oh suck it up, it's always been hard" chorus to rethink their stance.
Day in, day out I eat and drink and sit and think until I'm drunk and all thunk out. Though once a hunk I've turned to junk and now I think (through stein and stout) I've got the gout!
We can all stop complaining. The Classis job market is in better shape than other humanistic fields. In fact, 2013-2014 was a better year than 2003-2004:
In case you're not, then here are just two issues with the data: (1) The data do not differentiate types of jobs, so a "higher" number of jobs in one year could be from adjuncts, contingent faculty, or senior positions--i.e., not new, tenure-track or even full-time positions. [(1b) The data do not account for jobs advertised outside of the national organization. The "article" says that these do not affect the chart's reliability as an indicator of the health of the discipline, but it doesn't offer an argument for that, only a citation.] (2) The data do not account for number of job seekers (i.e., the job to seeker ratio). A market with 12 jobs and 200 seekers is much worse than a market with 10 jobs and 50 seekers, although this chart would suggest the opposite. The field, I would argue, is also much less healthy in the first instance, but this chart -- as I pointed out in item "1b" above--suggests that the two examples I've given are equally healthy.
Just an observation/question. On the wiki the ivy league placements seem rather abysmal. Is this due to incomplete data or do you think it represents a larger trend?
I have a completely unscientific and unsupportable supposition (based on gossip). We are moving more fully into a two-tiered system of the research Shangri-La and the lowly teaching institution. There are only so many of the former but of the latter, their name is legion.
There are issues on both sides of hiring. On the production side: The Ivies are still provide the vast majority of hires at the high ranked institutions, but they would prefer to keep back their students an extra year than have them take a lower position. The Ivies are also more likely to give special attention to their top students (like an extra year's fellowship to increase chances of that R1 job the next year) and to abandon utterly the ones who are less likely to get a top R1 job.
On the hiring side, I suspect that the rougher market has finally started to help those of us not from Ivies, at least when applying to more teaching-focused schools. We've all had to up our research productivity to be viable candidates, to the point that it doesn't matter any more to the teaching schools: anyone they hire will come in with more research than their tenure guidelines require. After that, who has demonstrated ability teaching a variety of student populations? Not the Ivy students. Who wants to go live out their days (or worse, stop by for a one year with no hope of renewal) at multi-direction-point-private-religious-college in Undesirable Location? Not the Ivy students, who look down their noses at such opportunities and/or would be abandoned by their own supervisors for such a thing. (Remember: I'm dealing in perceptions here, not necessarily reality, though I don't think they're far off from each other in this case.)
Of course, at some small schools you do still get some ancient troglodytes who haven't come out of their caves in the last 40 years to so much as attend a meeting, publish a paper, or read an article. At those places you can expect an irrational desire for Ivies to persist.
PS: We also have to remember that some of those Ivies are counseling their students against visiting or posting on FV. Many of those jobs that haven't been colored red or don't have listed the name of the person who accepted have likely gone to someone from an Ivy. Still, very many of the jobs that do have someone listed did not go to an Ivy-pedigreed phd.
If we really wanted to know whether my supposition above is accurate or not, we'd need to look at the complete hiring data over the past 4-5 years (better if longer).
Allegedly a spousal hire. One person highly sought by the History department, snagged a job (TT? VAP? Lectureship?) for the partner. Don't see a talk ever listed on UNC's calendar. Hopefully they held an interview?
With no small degree of trepidation, I enter this discussion. I have a very different perspective to offer. Are you wonderful (and I am not being ironic) Famae volent participants aware of the Classical Academy movement in the U.S.? All of the charter schools that are being built in multiple states that place the learning of the Latin language as one of the most critical components for their entire curriculum? I would think for the first time since I don't know when the demand for qualified Latin teachers would far outstrip the supply.
I fully understand if you are thinking, Oh, I don't want to be a high-school teacher. Are you, though, aware that a posh private school is now listing 120K as the upper range on their pay scale? That you will receive major retirement benefits on top of that? As in: after a year, the Independent School contributes a match in the amount of 9% of your salary into your retirement account. Plus, for instance, a life insurance policy worth twice your annual compensation. And multiple additional benefits? That for an "elite" prep school to compete, it needs Ph.D.s, a high percentage of Ph.Ds, on its faculty?
Being a teacher at a charter school reminds me of the Owen Wilson line from Bottle Rocket: "Just because the landscaping business is a front, doesn't mean someone doesn't actually have to cut the grass."
I have too, and it wasn't so bad. Of course, I was working in a bottom-feeder urban school setting, so it was a pretty cushy gig... If you can get past the occasional chair thrown at you in the classroom, you might notice that high school students are real human beings just like college kids, and sometimes better human beings too (yep, I just made a value statement). I did eventually have to move on to a full-time academic position, but that high school teaching gig made me a lot better at my job. I think.
None of this is quite relevant to the comments about prep school teaching, though - prep-school kids are probably all really well prepared, self-absorbed, and douchey. Based on my current (untested) prejudices, I think I'd rather teach in most public school systems than deal with the children raised by rich people's nannies.
I teach at a prep school. Some of them are self-absorbed and douchey (like some people everywhere), but lots of them are sweet, smart, enthusiastic learners. Overall, it's enjoyable.
For most prep schools having a PhD will be a problem. Maybe not for the Exeters and Andovers of the world, but for 99%, they'd rather have a bright young 22-year old from Brown or Dartmouth who knows the culture, can coach field hockey or lacrosse or crew (or anything) and is keen on living in a dorm for a few years. Day schools don't involve the dorm-parenting, but they do involve the extra-curriculars. These are not jobs, they are lifestyles.
Just wanted to throw some cold water on the idea that landing a private teaching gig is in any way easy. It is not. Plan accordingly.
likewise having a doctorate in the public school setting in a subject like Classics / Latin / Greek does not make things easy. the authorities then likely expect much re-tooling and jumping through hoops of various sorts. not necessarily all bad, but not a good fit for a lot of people exiting academia.
I taught at a middle-level, suburban private school (between the urban public school and the fancy prep schools mentioned here). I can attest that many of the kids were clearly entitled, conceited, and undisciplined. Furthermore, unlike most college students, they didn't take responsibility for their grades in any way. However, having said that, some of them were genuinely lovely people whom I would be ecstatic to have in a college class. Here's what I divined: the nicest or brightest students are always the nicest or brightest, regardless of setting; it's just that the bottom-most students at the age they are in high school are worse than the bottom-most students (in terms of both attitude and ability) in college. It's either age-maturity or life-experience maturity that makes them less exhausting and frustrating to deal with. (Also, to anyone considering secondary teaching, DO NOT underestimate the "parent" issue. Ask yourself, really and truly, what you would do in a parent-related worst-case scenarios. I don't just mean angry or oblivious parents. I mean parents who are super-involved and yet not in the right ways, who don't have realistic ideas about their child's personality or intelligence, who question the entire point of your existence as a Latin/Classics teacher. This is not for the weak of heart.)
April 14, 10:42 here. Although, as I noted, I find it enjoyable, I would second the warnings of those who posted subsequently. It is a demanding lifestyle, and in no way "easy." And the entitlement of some parents can be worse than that of the kids, since they have the power to influence administrators (if you have a weak willed administrator, this can become a real problem). But on the balance, I still like it. I should probably note, though, that although I'm at what is the best school in the region, it's deep in "fly-over territory." The stakes are no doubt lower than for those working at more elite, coastal schools. I should also note that at my school Latin is an elective, so I mainly get kids who like it and are choosing to be there. That may be another factor that contributes to my relatively more sanguine attitude.
what happened with ICCS jobs this year? did anyone, in fact, get hired? what about the rumors that their student applications for admission are tanking?
I wonder what you folks think the placement rate is (into genuine TT jobs), 5 years after degree. Are there still schools that put 80-100% of their graduates into jobs? If so, how many do you think do?
That's a really hard one. We've had a lot of discussion on this in the past, and there've been plenty of links to studies of the overall placement rates (posted here or on the Chronicle of Higher Ed--I don't recall which).
The overall rate seems to be that between 40-50% of those who actually complete a PhD and then continue looking for a job eventually land a TT of some kind.
The study I'm thinking of divided universities into four tiers. The numbers -- interestingly -- are very similar for institutions of every tier with one exception: one only gets a job at an institution of lower "tier" than the one from which one's PhD came. Therefore the Ivies (vel sim.) fare slightly better overall and universities of the fourth tier fare slightly worse. Unfortunately for us, that study didn't differentiate by discipline.
So you've got to imagine several bottlenecks on the way to a TT job:
(1) getting accepted to graduate school (anybody know what the attrition is here?) (2) completing the PhD (approx. 50% attrition here) (3) persevering in the yearly job market for, say, 4-5 years with 6+ new preps each year while publishing at or above the rate of a TT person and learning to adjust to a variety of teaching conditions quite different from one's doctoral training.
The exceptions to this are those with just the right pedigree, postdocs, and connections who get shepherded into jobs. As galling as those people are ("born" on third thinking they hit a triple, etc. etc.), there aren't that many of them compared to what the rest of us go through.
very little chance through the traditional means - once we're out for a while - for whatever reason - no one wants us much at all - in spite of experience, publications, grants. you will lose to the young, easily malleable newbies.
There is a problem of small numbers here too. I would think the typical program only produces around 2 new PhDs per year on average. For 2009-14, that's only about 12 data points.
I also think that there are fewer than 4 tiers, for 90% of jobs maybe only 2, say top 15 and the rest. If you look at placements, its not just the ivies that place people. And everyone really has their own idea about which schools are the top 3-5 anyway.
When I entered my Ph.D. program, four other students entered the program with me. Two left before finishing. Three of us finished. It's now, roughly, five years since the last of us finished. To my knowledge, one of us has a TT position and the other two of us are doing other things.
My department had really high attrition pre-PhD, but just counting those who finished, six I know of got TT jobs and eleven didn't, at least not yet, and some of us are certainly starting to get "stale."
Regarding the ICCS- all the positions were filled months ago. I guess the individuals hired don't post on FV. While student applications are lower than in pre-recession years, there are still more than enough to fill the spots with qualified applicants. Since the Centro has a lot of financial aid available now, it is too bad more students aren't applying, especially from state schools.
so glad I found the Bangladesh Dance Database! My psychoses resulting from a crash-and-burn academic career are assuaged by this valuable resource. Thanks spammy trolls for being so helpful!
The psychoses are by far the worst part, though. Those don't go away even after you leave Classics behind and have what someone else would consider a fulfilling career in another industry. Long-term unemployment or underemployment simply fucks up the human mind, apparently irrevocably.
The Classics department invites applications for a tenure-track position.
The Classics Department at Hamilton College invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor to begin on July 1, 2016. Applicants should have the Ph.D. in hand or be in the very last stages of completing the dissertation. They should display evidence of accomplished teaching, a record of scholarship, and a clear vision of future scholarly work. Hamilton is a distinguished liberal arts college with very competitive salaries and a teaching load of five courses per year. Applicants should be prepared to teach all levels of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, including courses incorporating material culture and issues of gender. They should also possess the ability to make creative use of information technology. Hamilton College believes that diversity is essential to the excellence of its academic program.
Applicants should submit a cover letter, a current curriculum vitae, and a statement about how they would engage and sustain Hamilton’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. They should also arrange for submission of three letters of recommendation to Interfolio at http://apply.interfolio.com/30823. Materials sent to Interfolio should be addressed to Barbara Gold, Chair, Classics Department, Hamilton College. Questions should be submitted via email to bgold@hamilton.edu. The application deadline is November 15, 2015. Interviews will be conducted at the SCS meeting in San Francisco in January; on-campus interviews will be conducted in late January or early February.
Hamilton (www.hamilton.edu) is a residential liberal arts college located in upstate New York. Applicants with dual-career considerations can find other Hamilton and nearby academic job listings at www.upstatenyherc.org. Hamilton College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity in all areas of the campus community (www.hamilton.edu/diversity). Hamilton provides domestic partner benefits. Candidates from underrepresented groups in higher education are especially encouraged to apply.
Yeah. Jobs are coming out already and the SCS Placement Service isn't up yet. We need somewhere to aggregate the job ads.
See this quotation from https://placement.apaclassics.org: We apologize for the delay in launching the Placement Service online site for 2015-2016. We now expect it to be available during the week of August 24. In the interim, we want to make sure that SCS members are informed about positions in the field that are currently being advertised. We urge institutions seeking applications for positions in classics or archaeology to send those announcements to scsclassics@sas.upenn.edu. Starting on August 18, we will post those announcements at no charge until the new site is launched.
So who will start up a new site, and a new wiki, and administer both? Perhaps a different format, like they have in political science would be more useful:
Famae Volent is actually pretty good. It aggregates jobs, has a designated b!tch and moan page (this one), a designated page for departments to post ads, a list of useful reads (okay--that needs to be updated), and a good aesthetic.
Regardless of what approach is taken with the wiki for this coming job cycle, I wish to recognize Servius' foresight and civic-mindedness in setting it up in the first place. I for one have been very grateful to have this resource.
Maybe Servius just figures that it would be beyond embarrassing for the SCS Placement Service if the wiki is up and running while the SCS keeps saying the PS will be up but isn't. Or, you know, maybe Servius has a job and is busy teaching classes.
I may be in a minority, but I don't particularly care about what happens to the FV site; I think it is best for everyone's sanity to avoid it during job season. But the wiki is pretty invaluable. So if Servius et al. aren't going to renew it for the 15-16 cycle, who is? The best thing would be for Servius to turn the current site over to new management to preserve continuity. But so far it's beginning to seem as though Servius has perhaps died.
. But the wiki is pretty invaluable. So if Servius et al. aren't going to renew it for the 15-16 cycle, who is? The best thing would be for Servius to turn the current site over to new management to preserve continuity. But so far it's beginning to seem as though Servius has perhaps died.
August 29, 2015 at 3:34 PM
Agreed.
Servius / Servii, would you be willing to pass on moderatorship or to empower additional moderators so that we can keep this site going? If so, how would you like us to contact you?
Yes, I think so. I was hoping one of the Servii would show up here and confirm that they're checking that email first, but I suppose if they were going to do that, they'd have updated the wiki, too.
I know one of the old Servii (from 4 years ago or so) and she thinks that things are in transition. So maybe the new moderators still have to get things going?
I like the new Placement website, but where are the job ads??? Is it just me? It just tells me that there are no ads in the system, when there obviously are.
728 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 601 – 728 of 728Can't it be both?
Indeed it can! If being a Classicist has taught me anything, it's that pleasure and pain are essentially the same thing.
I"m suddenly reminded of the Hellraiser films....
Oh I'll raise hell all right...inside your anus!
Go home, Witty Rejoinder. You're drunk.
I am drunk! And go!
Did you know that if you put whiskey into a glass and then transfer the contents of that glass into your mouth, then continue in this wise for an interim, you can achieve a pleasurable effect?
But as Aristotle said (Nic. Eth., made-up.citation), pleasurable effect is the mean between sober and blitzed. Witty Rejoinder is blitzed.
Did you know that if you put whiskey into a glass and then transfer the contents of that glass into your mouth, then continue in this wise for an interim, you can achieve a pleasurable effect?
February 13, 2015 at 12:52 AM
P.S. I do know that. Almost every night. It's one of the best ways you can tell I'm a "Real Classicist" (tm).
You are filled with unaccountable folly! Get blitzed or go home, and get blitzed when you get there!
Drinking without getting blitzed as fuck is like going full priapic and then saying to yourself: "Hmm, on the one hand my dick is like a mighty steel rod, but on the other hand, in the interest of moderation and the respect of my peers I should probably sit quietly without ejaculating."
I thought orgies were the domain of Fake Classicists™?
Orgies are a universal, like eating cottage cheese.
I would like to ask a question that might seem naive and/or sarcastic, but please believe I am being fully earnest here. Feel free to bitch about archaeologists/historians/everyone never getting hired, but I would also really like to get some actual insight into this - or better yet, some advice on what to do. (And no, "leave the field" doesn't count.)
When I look at (especially non-R1) postings for Classical archaeology, the vast majority of them expect the applicant to be able to teach Greek and/or Latin, often "at all levels". Indeed, sometimes a perusal of the ad reveals that in reality, most of the teaching load would be in languages.
As an archaeologist who has done little language work at the graduate level (apart from passing the required exams) and zero teaching in them, am I completely, hopelessly doomed? Is the world rife with archaeologists capable of teaching advanced language classes? If not, what are programs *actually* looking for when they put up ads like this? Will they end up hiring a philologist with some experience in archaeology, or will they compromise on their expectations re: language teaching?
I see the same with ancient history jobs, but I would imagine historians typically do more language work during their graduate careers (at least that's the case at my university).
I find your question neither naive nor sarcastic, but reasonable. I teach at one of those places asking for exactly what you describe, so I'll give you my perspective. Others will probably disagree, given the nature of the place.
Consider that most jobs are at non-R1 institutions. Moreover, even some R1s don't have large Classics departments. Thus it is important to remember that the job you are likely to get will bear absolutely no resemblance to your advisor's. I don't know what the avg dept size is nationally, but I would guess 4 or 5.
In most cases, therefore, all members must pitch in and support a department whose focus must be on supporting both languages. Otherwise, why have a Classics dept at all? Such a department is then committed to offering, ideally, at least eight courses (minimally six) per semester in Greek and Latin, not counting multiple sections.
Do the math and you see why everybody has to teach languages, ideally both. Small departments (which most classics departments are) don't have much room in their FTE allocation to do much else. It does seem unfair, and it is harder on historians and archaeologists, but if you want a job in a classics dept then you best be prepared to present yourself as a team player who can support the central mission. That means being able to teach both Latin and Greek at all levels, whenever necessary, with a smile. :-)
If languages are not your thing then aim for the much smaller pool of R1 jobs in Classics depts, or in Anthro, etc. But if you do you must understand that this is a much riskier choice simply because you are limiting your options, and the profiles of such hires are more narrowly research focused.
If I was advising a student I would encourage them to maximize their chances at getting *a* job, and that means picking up some language teaching, or at the very least making sure to take a number of language seminars even while they work toward their degree as an archaeologist or historian. The hardest part is landing that first tenure track job, so I'd want to help my student do exactly that.
When I am interviewing you for our one archaeology slot (in a department of five), and you can't, to take one common example, talk intelligently about which texts and textbooks you would use to teach intermediate Greek and intermediate Latin, and explain your choices in a way that makes good pedagogical sense, you are not going to advance. There are plenty of other archaeologists who can do this, and who understand what it means to be in a classics department, so they will be much stronger candidates for our position.
I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but my world is a much different world than the one you know from your graduate training. I am dismayed by how little graduate faculty seem to understand these differences, and how ill-prepared some students are when they hit the market, which is brutal.
Best of luck!
Polybius
Polybius offers some sound advice. Depending on your outlook, I can offer an alternative. If you are a "real classicist" that wishes to dabble in material culture, I would most certainly follow the advice of Polybius.
If you truly live to play in the dirt, I would suggest otherwise. One major reason is that so many of the skills and connections you pick up as an archaeologist can only be obtained at one of a handful of programs - Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Texas, Chicago, Michigan, Cincinnati, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Penn. I would argue that it's even smaller depending on your field of specialization. This means you have a narrow window during graduate school that is much more critical for you than a philologist. If you wish to go all in as an archaeologist, it's quite difficult to do so when you're devoting the majority of your time in graduate school to the languages. Yes, you increase your odds at landing that elusive TT job out of school, but I would argue that very few of these generalist jobs in smaller departments could support and develop you as an archaeologist anyway. Once an archaeologist has been out for a number years, it becomes increasingly clearer whether you will have a self-standing career as an archaeologist.
So if you truly want a career as an archaeologist, I would pick up all the skills and connections you can in graduate school, get a post-doc or a VAP with a reasonable teaching load, publish, establish yourself as a senior staff member of a field project, and then go for a real archaeology position. If you don't pick up these archaeology bona fides, you'll have little chance of landing anything more than another generalist position. After you go all in, you can make a clean break and leave the field at a relatively early age rather than being stuck in VAP hell for the rest of your life.
I would also add to 3:43's comments that "archaeology bona fides" generally translate better to the real job market out there. As an archaeologist, you typically learn to deal with technology, people, marketing, project planning, schmoozing, fund raising, etc. that philologists generally don't encounter. The hyper specialized skills philologists pick up are typically overkill for what employers out there are targeting and don't make up for other shortcomings.
Polybius here.
I can't disagree with 3:43, and I would say that the list of schools to make one truly competitive as an archaeologist is even smaller than that 3:43 has proffered.
It is riskier to do what 3:43 suggests, but if you are truly born to be a dirt archaeologist, then the rewards in that for you are also greater, so you might as well double-down on your dream.
But, one must really be aware that this route is harder in terms of landing a tenure track job, or even a VAP position. If you can make that choice with open eyes, and solid understanding, then it is a reasonable choice to make. Sadly, however, I'm not sure that advisors are doing a good enough job in making this clear to their students. I know far too many extraordinary people trained as classical archaeologists for whom the job market has been nothing but a shocking and soul-crushing machine.
As an archaeologist that is now tenured, I can agree with the 3:43's last paragraph since that was basically my path. In addition to post-docs and VAPs, another option IF you have your own money (or can be supported by a SO for a couple years) is a part-time lectureship. Even if it's one course per semester, it will get you institutional affiliation and teaching experience while leaving plenty of time to publish and work on field projects - the main factors that will land you an archaeology job.
Definitely polish up your syllabi as many departments have the interest and resources to pay for an archaeology course during the term.
as a highly trained dirt archaeologist with loads of past teaching experience, research & pubs who has now left the field of university employment, I agree that a) the number of places in the U.S. to legitimately be trained to be an archaeologist is small and that b) the mentality focused exclusively on the teaching of classical languages continues to drive competent professionals away from classics and is a worldview in serious need of re-examination. Else, stop training classical archaeologists who are focused on archaeology, simply to send them off to some professional death chamber. Teaching Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit is useful and important and can be rewarding - but language teaching alone should not be the key factor in landing or not landing a uni job in 'classics'.
Happy Lupercalia, everybody! Who wants to roast a goat?
So I can either try to be the best trained archaeologist possible, and likely end up unemployed as an archaeologist, or I can be less well trained as an archaeologist, but give myself a better chance at academic employment where I get to teach archaeology only occasionally?
I'm going to wrap myself in a blanket and watch Sophie's Choice in order to cheer up.
Cheer up. You aren't getting a job no matter what you do, so there's no choice to make!
Two cents on the archaeology question: another alternative is to go for an art history job. There aren't tons of these either, but it is a possible direction. Rather than Greek or Latin, you would have to teach the ancient to medieval survey, and specialty courses within that range. I also offer a cultural heritage ethics seminar which covers antiquities for half the semester and Holocaust restitution, street art, galleries and auction houses, etc., for the other half. Art historians from other periods are comfortable with archaeologists' focus on material culture, and are generally more interesting people than classical philologists to boot.
I don't think it's interesting to boot anyone, and shame on you for saying so!
I advise my students not to dabble. If you have the requisite skills and interest in Greek and Latin, become a Hellenist or Latinist. If the languages are a tool more than a passion, become a bona fide historian, archaeologist, art historian, etc. Most of the smaller programs will get downsized or combined with a language/lit department down the road, making the odds for a mutt increasingly long.
Despite a previous comment, I think art history is the worst place to be a dabbler. History isn't too far behind. Who knows where the archaeologists will end up (anthropology?). Classics is already on shaky ground and it's highly doubtful it will last in its present form through the next economic downturn and it might not even take that to change the field dramatically.
On the archaeology question, I agree with Polybius. I consider myself a 'dirt archaeologist' (I am co-director of an archaeological survey). In graduate school I spent most of my falls and springs sharpening my language chops and I spent summers on field projects doing archaeology. I'm now associate at an R1 where about half of my teaching is in one ancient language (the department is big enough that I don't have to teach my other language). Going on the market, I felt confident that I could teach my strong language at all levels (UG and G) and my other language at all UG levels. It opened a lot of doors for me, especially because I had the flexibility to teach whatever for a couple of years post-PhD and pre-TT job. My advice would be, if you're going to do the languages, really do them. There's no point in half-assing things.
12:41 describes the best course of action to take. S/he is now tenured, and is obviously a "real" archaeologist, and no dabbler. It doesn't look like having to teach one of the languages now and then has meant professional death. Unemployment, however, would have. Be flexible, be ready to take on Greek and/or Latin teaching, and give yourself a decent chance.
Well, based on what seems to be the majority of classicists on here, 12:41 would not be considered a Real Classicist™ with his Latin deficit. He somehow lucked into a position, probably in a large department, despite this deficiency. I doubt he would be hired by the "average" classics department of 4-5 faculty mentioned earlier.
This place can really suck at times. :-(
12:41 here. Thanks for the vote of confidence, 11:43! I'm glad to hear that I lucked out and wouldn't have been hired by an average department of 4-5 (since one of those offered me a job too; maybe they weren't sincere, though). I will say that I *did* luck out in that I was on the market before the economy tanked. Better lucky than good, I guess.
Better lucky than good, I guess.
I'm not snarking at you, 1:04, but isn't "Better lucky than good" pretty much the rule for winning at life?
In this market/world, you have to be good first and then lucky on top of that to achieve success. So while 12:07 is right that this place (which I take to mean academia generally and not just FV) can really suck, I'd say that we're closer than ever to the worldview of the Greeks. Happiness only comes to those who work hard AND have good luck. Life as a whole is 1 or 2 parts pains (depending on whether you follow Homer or Pindar) to every one part happiness, and that's on average. Some people get it worse just as a matter of course.
So every time life seems especially awful, just think: that brings you closer to the people whom we study. And that is a cold comfort, as is only appropriate.
Don't listen to this silliness about "Real Classicists" or "Real Archaeologists." It is distracting and untrue.
If you want to be a classical archaeologist, and you want to maximize your chances of being employed as such, spend some time on the languages. Nobody gets into the top programs without strong languages in any case, so it is not that much of a burden to keep what you already have going fresh.
Let me give all of you fresh fish a hint: 90% of jobs in classics are really generalist jobs when it comes to teaching.
Most Latinists teach Greek, Latin, Roman Culture, Mythology, etc. Most Hellenists teach Latin, Greek, Greek Culture, Mythology, etc. Most Roman Historians teach Greek, Latin, Greek History, Roman History, etc. Most Greek Historians teach Latin, Greek, Roman History, etc. Most Roman Archaeologists teach ........... you get the picture.
This obsession with purity is not only stupid, it betrays ignorance of how most employment in the academy is figured. Just because those training you don't have jobs that are generalist jobs themselves does not mean that most of you won't be generalists. And there is *nothing wrong* with being a generalist in the classroom. You still pursue your own interests as far as research goes, and that includes running digs for archaeologists. Teaching languages and other non-archaeology classes is hardly career death. It is, rather, the best thing to do in order to keep doing what you really love doing: archaeology.
So woman up, and learn to love your Green and Yellows.
This generalist talk is all well and good, but it's hilarious that it's being presented as real talk (tm). Really real talk would advise everyone to get out of academia now; your chances of employment are very low no matter what you do, until you leave academia entirely and put your considerable talents to use producing something for which there is even a tiny bit of demand.
amen. run. run now. run away from the academy.
tough times. when your mentor(s) basically hold up being a "generalist" to be the equivalent of being an ebola-ridden leper, then it can be hard to mold yourself into that shape ... then coming to realize the error of your ways only too late (much too late for many).
(1) I wouldn't advise anyone to *be* a generalist, I'd just say that the more classes you can teach within a discipline, the better your odds are on the job market, especially in the short term.
(2) Yes, those odds are not good.
Here is my response to the post-APA/SCS/AIA-meeting survey (addressed to the Program Committee). What do y'all think?
***
I continue to get the impression that there are so many panels organized by individuals or affiliated groups, that there is no room left for the excellent individual abstracts you must be getting.
By my count, only 36 percent of all papers -- and only 31% of papers delivered before sunday afternoon! -- came from individual abstract submissions.
I assume that you are getting a lot of panel proposals, perhaps because the job market is scaring people. I heard it said at the conference that applying to an organized panel (or organizing your own) is the surest way to be accepted to speak at the conference. You are letting people use panel organizing to pad their tenure portfolios, or to look good to search committees. This won't accurately reflect the interests of the society as a whole.
One-third of panels were run by affiliated groups. Would you consider letting these groups have a panel only every-other year?
I hope you noticed what I said about sunday afternoon. Individual abstract submitters had a 1-in-4 chance of speaking in the very last panel on sunday afternoon. Perhaps you could fill this space with the members of affiliated groups, who are probably less likely to be grad students struggling to pay for their late flights?
Some might suspect that the program committee is letting a small group of affiliated organizations and go-getter individuals do 2/3 of their work for them. Whether or not that is the motivation, the result is a less engaging conference for many of us. To see how this works, try going to the CAMWS meeting, where there are still panels on authors and texts, instead of on "the body" (although I suppose this year it was "time" in stead of "the body").
I could agree more with previous post. I spoke at a panel last year and the organizers told me that they had only about ten abstracts. Also, could I protest for having to deliver my piece ALWAYS ON THE LAST PANEL ON THE LAST DAY? Shame on APA committees for relegating the unknown scholars to the least appealing sessions, when everybody is already gone.
Anyone know anything recent about the U. Arizona job?
You still don't want to go there.
Seriously. I'd rather fellate an army of gophers than work there.
9:07 asking about Classical archaeology and the job market here. I wanted to thank everyone for their views. I feel I might personally already be doomed - I'm just far enough into my program that extensive language work isn't feasible, and my (big, public) university only lets archaeologists teach languages under extraordinary circumstances - as a matter of fact, we do zero independent teaching and very little TAing in general. Ours is, indeed, a reality very far removed from that of most institutions.
The "archaeology or bust" voices give me a bit more hope, although I fret about adequate connections and skill sets. I am trying to look into part-time teaching and various ways to get me a bit more experience and connections while also not starving. (Alas, no savings or SOs here.)
Again, I really appreciate everyone's insight, even as I'm struggling to figure out how to apply it to my studies.
Not really related, but another small point of gratitude: I do appreciate the SCS' advocacy on our behalf. No, I don't believe it is possible to improve things, but it lends legitimacy to our plight, hopefully inspiring SCs not to just write off more "seasoned" job-seekers as obviously flawed in some way, and will maybe inspire some of the "oh suck it up, it's always been hard" chorus to rethink their stance.
Day in, day out
I eat and drink
and sit and think
until I'm drunk
and all thunk out.
Though once a hunk
I've turned to junk
and now I think
(through stein and stout)
I've got the gout!
I recommend this rum. It makes your teeth numb. This is a pleasant sensation.
6:54 was an original composition specially for FV.
11:53 sucks like a baby on its first pacifier.
I will suck your pacifier, sir. Five cents or a pat on the head.
We can all stop complaining. The Classis job market is in better shape than other humanistic fields. In fact, 2013-2014 was a better year than 2003-2004:
https://www.amacad.org/content/research/dataForumEssay.aspx?i=21673
I presume you're being sarcastic.
In case you're not, then here are just two issues with the data:
(1) The data do not differentiate types of jobs, so a "higher" number of jobs in one year could be from adjuncts, contingent faculty, or senior positions--i.e., not new, tenure-track or even full-time positions.
[(1b) The data do not account for jobs advertised outside of the national organization. The "article" says that these do not affect the chart's reliability as an indicator of the health of the discipline, but it doesn't offer an argument for that, only a citation.]
(2) The data do not account for number of job seekers (i.e., the job to seeker ratio). A market with 12 jobs and 200 seekers is much worse than a market with 10 jobs and 50 seekers, although this chart would suggest the opposite. The field, I would argue, is also much less healthy in the first instance, but this chart -- as I pointed out in item "1b" above--suggests that the two examples I've given are equally healthy.
Just an observation/question. On the wiki the ivy league placements seem rather abysmal. Is this due to incomplete data or do you think it represents a larger trend?
A bit of both, I suspect.
I have a completely unscientific and unsupportable supposition (based on gossip). We are moving more fully into a two-tiered system of the research Shangri-La and the lowly teaching institution. There are only so many of the former but of the latter, their name is legion.
There are issues on both sides of hiring.
On the production side:
The Ivies are still provide the vast majority of hires at the high ranked institutions, but they would prefer to keep back their students an extra year than have them take a lower position. The Ivies are also more likely to give special attention to their top students (like an extra year's fellowship to increase chances of that R1 job the next year) and to abandon utterly the ones who are less likely to get a top R1 job.
On the hiring side, I suspect that the rougher market has finally started to help those of us not from Ivies, at least when applying to more teaching-focused schools. We've all had to up our research productivity to be viable candidates, to the point that it doesn't matter any more to the teaching schools: anyone they hire will come in with more research than their tenure guidelines require. After that, who has demonstrated ability teaching a variety of student populations? Not the Ivy students. Who wants to go live out their days (or worse, stop by for a one year with no hope of renewal) at multi-direction-point-private-religious-college in Undesirable Location? Not the Ivy students, who look down their noses at such opportunities and/or would be abandoned by their own supervisors for such a thing. (Remember: I'm dealing in perceptions here, not necessarily reality, though I don't think they're far off from each other in this case.)
Of course, at some small schools you do still get some ancient troglodytes who haven't come out of their caves in the last 40 years to so much as attend a meeting, publish a paper, or read an article. At those places you can expect an irrational desire for Ivies to persist.
PS: We also have to remember that some of those Ivies are counseling their students against visiting or posting on FV. Many of those jobs that haven't been colored red or don't have listed the name of the person who accepted have likely gone to someone from an Ivy. Still, very many of the jobs that do have someone listed did not go to an Ivy-pedigreed phd.
If we really wanted to know whether my supposition above is accurate or not, we'd need to look at the complete hiring data over the past 4-5 years (better if longer).
UNC has made two faculty hires without a listed search? huh?
Re: UNC, more info pleez. Linkses or the like will serve. Or you can pm me at notarealaddress@snoopbuster.fake
I don't know anything about hires at UNC--sounds like you know more than anyone else; do tell--but maybe one of them was related to this:
https://placement.apaclassics.org/ad/postdoctoral-research-appointment-classics
Allegedly a spousal hire. One person highly sought by the History department, snagged a job (TT? VAP? Lectureship?) for the partner. Don't see a talk ever listed on UNC's calendar. Hopefully they held an interview?
Oh great, another spousal hire. Most likely someone insecure, incompetent, unproductive, and likely to take it out on graduate students.
@9:26 That comment is ridiculous.
You're ridiculous.
Just posted Classics VAP (one year, sabbatical replacement, 3-3 load, generalist)
https://employment.plu.edu/postings/3447
With no small degree of trepidation, I enter this discussion.
I have a very different perspective to offer. Are you wonderful (and I am not being ironic) Famae volent participants aware of the Classical Academy movement in the U.S.? All of the charter schools that are being built in multiple states that place the learning of the Latin language as one of the most critical components for their entire curriculum? I would think for the first time since I don't know when the demand for qualified Latin teachers would far outstrip the supply.
I fully understand if you are thinking, Oh, I don't want to be a high-school teacher. Are you, though, aware that a posh private school is now listing 120K as the upper range on their pay scale? That you will receive major retirement benefits on top of that? As in: after a year, the Independent School contributes a match in the amount of 9% of your salary into your retirement account. Plus, for instance, a life insurance policy worth twice your annual compensation. And multiple additional benefits? That for an "elite" prep school to compete, it needs Ph.D.s, a high percentage of Ph.Ds, on its faculty?
All this and more, if you can stomach working with high schoolers!
Being a teacher at a charter school reminds me of the Owen Wilson line from Bottle Rocket: "Just because the landscaping business is a front, doesn't mean someone doesn't actually have to cut the grass."
I think working the chain gang would be less awful than teaching in public schools.
^(typed from a comfy leather-upholstered chair between sips from a snifter of brandy and while squinting through a monocle, one can only hope)
For all of your monocular needs:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3674
Be safe out there.
have actually done the public school teaching and it was rotten.
have actually done the public school teaching
I have too, and it wasn't so bad. Of course, I was working in a bottom-feeder urban school setting, so it was a pretty cushy gig... If you can get past the occasional chair thrown at you in the classroom, you might notice that high school students are real human beings just like college kids, and sometimes better human beings too (yep, I just made a value statement). I did eventually have to move on to a full-time academic position, but that high school teaching gig made me a lot better at my job. I think.
None of this is quite relevant to the comments about prep school teaching, though - prep-school kids are probably all really well prepared, self-absorbed, and douchey. Based on my current (untested) prejudices, I think I'd rather teach in most public school systems than deal with the children raised by rich people's nannies.
I teach at a prep school. Some of them are self-absorbed and douchey (like some people everywhere), but lots of them are sweet, smart, enthusiastic learners. Overall, it's enjoyable.
For most prep schools having a PhD will be a problem. Maybe not for the Exeters and Andovers of the world, but for 99%, they'd rather have a bright young 22-year old from Brown or Dartmouth who knows the culture, can coach field hockey or lacrosse or crew (or anything) and is keen on living in a dorm for a few years. Day schools don't involve the dorm-parenting, but they do involve the extra-curriculars. These are not jobs, they are lifestyles.
Just wanted to throw some cold water on the idea that landing a private teaching gig is in any way easy. It is not. Plan accordingly.
right on.
likewise having a doctorate in the public school setting in a subject like Classics / Latin / Greek does not make things easy. the authorities then likely expect much re-tooling and jumping through hoops of various sorts. not necessarily all bad, but not a good fit for a lot of people exiting academia.
I taught at a middle-level, suburban private school (between the urban public school and the fancy prep schools mentioned here). I can attest that many of the kids were clearly entitled, conceited, and undisciplined. Furthermore, unlike most college students, they didn't take responsibility for their grades in any way. However, having said that, some of them were genuinely lovely people whom I would be ecstatic to have in a college class. Here's what I divined: the nicest or brightest students are always the nicest or brightest, regardless of setting; it's just that the bottom-most students at the age they are in high school are worse than the bottom-most students (in terms of both attitude and ability) in college. It's either age-maturity or life-experience maturity that makes them less exhausting and frustrating to deal with. (Also, to anyone considering secondary teaching, DO NOT underestimate the "parent" issue. Ask yourself, really and truly, what you would do in a parent-related worst-case scenarios. I don't just mean angry or oblivious parents. I mean parents who are super-involved and yet not in the right ways, who don't have realistic ideas about their child's personality or intelligence, who question the entire point of your existence as a Latin/Classics teacher. This is not for the weak of heart.)
April 14, 10:42 here. Although, as I noted, I find it enjoyable, I would second the warnings of those who posted subsequently. It is a demanding lifestyle, and in no way "easy." And the entitlement of some parents can be worse than that of the kids, since they have the power to influence administrators (if you have a weak willed administrator, this can become a real problem). But on the balance, I still like it. I should probably note, though, that although I'm at what is the best school in the region, it's deep in "fly-over territory." The stakes are no doubt lower than for those working at more elite, coastal schools. I should also note that at my school Latin is an elective, so I mainly get kids who like it and are choosing to be there. That may be another factor that contributes to my relatively more sanguine attitude.
what happened with ICCS jobs this year? did anyone, in fact, get hired? what about the rumors that their student applications for admission are tanking?
Re: the fortunes of grads from the Ivies, looks like Penn at least is doing pretty well this round: 4 T-T hires plus a fellowship. :-P
Then again, they could just be more obsessive about checking/updating the wiki....
I always forget that Penn is one of the Ivies. Fortunately, Penn grads are always ready to remind me.
Penn being one of the Ivies is technically correct: the best kind of correct.
I wonder what you folks think the placement rate is (into genuine TT jobs), 5 years after degree. Are there still schools that put 80-100% of their graduates into jobs? If so, how many do you think do?
@2:47.
That's a really hard one. We've had a lot of discussion on this in the past, and there've been plenty of links to studies of the overall placement rates (posted here or on the Chronicle of Higher Ed--I don't recall which).
The overall rate seems to be that between 40-50% of those who actually complete a PhD and then continue looking for a job eventually land a TT of some kind.
The study I'm thinking of divided universities into four tiers. The numbers -- interestingly -- are very similar for institutions of every tier with one exception: one only gets a job at an institution of lower "tier" than the one from which one's PhD came. Therefore the Ivies (vel sim.) fare slightly better overall and universities of the fourth tier fare slightly worse. Unfortunately for us, that study didn't differentiate by discipline.
So you've got to imagine several bottlenecks on the way to a TT job:
(1) getting accepted to graduate school (anybody know what the attrition is here?)
(2) completing the PhD (approx. 50% attrition here)
(3) persevering in the yearly job market for, say, 4-5 years with 6+ new preps each year while publishing at or above the rate of a TT person and learning to adjust to a variety of teaching conditions quite different from one's doctoral training.
The exceptions to this are those with just the right pedigree, postdocs, and connections who get shepherded into jobs. As galling as those people are ("born" on third thinking they hit a triple, etc. etc.), there aren't that many of them compared to what the rest of us go through.
very little chance through the traditional means - once we're out for a while - for whatever reason - no one wants us much at all - in spite of experience, publications, grants. you will lose to the young, easily malleable newbies.
@2:47 and 6:40
There is a problem of small numbers here too. I would think the typical program only produces around 2 new PhDs per year on average. For 2009-14, that's only about 12 data points.
I also think that there are fewer than 4 tiers, for 90% of jobs maybe only 2, say top 15 and the rest. If you look at placements, its not just the ivies that place people. And everyone really has their own idea about which schools are the top 3-5 anyway.
Only 2 PhDs a year for a typical program? You're high as fuck; it's at least double that.
@9:57. I don't know. My program, which admitted 2-4 new grad. students every year while I was there, has produced 11 PhDs in the last 10 years.
As far as I know, the current placement is 2 TT, 4-5 in VAPs/post-docs, 2 that left the field, 2 that I haven't kept up with.
My phd institution has produced I think 12 or so since 2006. 6 are in TT jobs, 5 in VAPs, at least 1 I'm not sure on.
So I guess 50%.
Wow, that is a way higher TT placement rate than my program...
When I entered my Ph.D. program, four other students entered the program with me. Two left before finishing. Three of us finished. It's now, roughly, five years since the last of us finished. To my knowledge, one of us has a TT position and the other two of us are doing other things.
My department had really high attrition pre-PhD, but just counting those who finished, six I know of got TT jobs and eleven didn't, at least not yet, and some of us are certainly starting to get "stale."
I'd have thought for a top 10 program, 50% placement in a TT 5 years out is fairly typical.
Not anymore.
Top 5 dept. (top 1 if you ask me ;-)
Cohort of 6
3 finished
1 of us still in field
Regarding the ICCS- all the positions were filled months ago. I guess the individuals hired don't post on FV. While student applications are lower than in pre-recession years, there are still more than enough to fill the spots with qualified applicants. Since the Centro has a lot of financial aid available now, it is too bad more students aren't applying, especially from state schools.
True is always True..... Nice Thinking
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so glad I found the Bangladesh Dance Database! My psychoses resulting from a crash-and-burn academic career are assuaged by this valuable resource. Thanks spammy trolls for being so helpful!
Come now! If your academic career was anything like mine there were at least 7-8 years of uneventful flight before the horrific, flesh-mangling crash.
crashed? check
mangled? check
psychoses? oh, doctor!
#classicswasapoorchoice
The psychoses are by far the worst part, though. Those don't go away even after you leave Classics behind and have what someone else would consider a fulfilling career in another industry. Long-term unemployment or underemployment simply fucks up the human mind, apparently irrevocably.
Anybody here from SCS today?
*hear
Embarrassing...
Yeah. Rejected.
Accepted!
Turned into a pluot!
Time for a new wiki!
The Classics department invites applications for a tenure-track position.
The Classics Department at Hamilton College invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor to begin on July 1, 2016. Applicants should have the Ph.D. in hand or be in the very last stages of completing the dissertation. They should display evidence of accomplished teaching, a record of scholarship, and a clear vision of future scholarly work. Hamilton is a distinguished liberal arts college with very competitive salaries and a teaching load of five courses per year. Applicants should be prepared to teach all levels of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, including courses incorporating material culture and issues of gender. They should also possess the ability to make creative use of information technology. Hamilton College believes that diversity is essential to the excellence of its academic program.
Applicants should submit a cover letter, a current curriculum vitae, and a statement about how they would engage and sustain Hamilton’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. They should also arrange for submission of three letters of recommendation to Interfolio at http://apply.interfolio.com/30823. Materials sent to Interfolio should be addressed to Barbara Gold, Chair, Classics Department, Hamilton College. Questions should be submitted via email to bgold@hamilton.edu. The application deadline is November 15, 2015. Interviews will be conducted at the SCS meeting in San Francisco in January; on-campus interviews will be conducted in late January or early February.
Hamilton (www.hamilton.edu) is a residential liberal arts college located in upstate New York. Applicants with dual-career considerations can find other Hamilton and nearby academic job listings at www.upstatenyherc.org. Hamilton College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity in all areas of the campus community (www.hamilton.edu/diversity). Hamilton provides domestic partner benefits. Candidates from underrepresented groups in higher education are especially encouraged to apply.
HEY, SERVII!!!
Seriously, what do have to do to get a new wiki?
Yeah. Jobs are coming out already and the SCS Placement Service isn't up yet. We need somewhere to aggregate the job ads.
See this quotation from https://placement.apaclassics.org:
We apologize for the delay in launching the Placement Service online site for 2015-2016. We now expect it to be available during the week of August 24. In the interim, we want to make sure that SCS members are informed about positions in the field that are currently being advertised. We urge institutions seeking applications for positions in classics or archaeology to send those announcements to scsclassics@sas.upenn.edu. Starting on August 18, we will post those announcements at no charge until the new site is launched.
We thank SCS members for their patience.
Adam D. Blistein
Executive Director
Is anyone still an admin on this site? if so, time to do something to set up a new wiki space - or declare this one dead.
They were late with last year's wiki. Something about being at a conference, blah, blah. I'll bet they show up soon.
This site has become increasingly irrelevant. I only check it now when I am really desperate to procrastinate.
I think it needs to be re-started and not just copied for another year.
So who will start up a new site, and a new wiki, and administer both? Perhaps a different format, like they have in political science would be more useful:
http://www.poliscirumors.com
PSR is a sh!tshow.
Famae Volent is actually pretty good. It aggregates jobs, has a designated b!tch and moan page (this one), a designated page for departments to post ads, a list of useful reads (okay--that needs to be updated), and a good aesthetic.
Regardless of what approach is taken with the wiki for this coming job cycle, I wish to recognize Servius' foresight and civic-mindedness in setting it up in the first place. I for one have been very grateful to have this resource.
Checking back in. Any chance of a new wiki?
Anyone willing to open a mirror site?
Maybe Servius just figures that it would be beyond embarrassing for the SCS Placement Service if the wiki is up and running while the SCS keeps saying the PS will be up but isn't. Or, you know, maybe Servius has a job and is busy teaching classes.
I may be in a minority, but I don't particularly care about what happens to the FV site; I think it is best for everyone's sanity to avoid it during job season. But the wiki is pretty invaluable. So if Servius et al. aren't going to renew it for the 15-16 cycle, who is? The best thing would be for Servius to turn the current site over to new management to preserve continuity. But so far it's beginning to seem as though Servius has perhaps died.
Looks like not only a new Placement site, but a whole new SCS site is now up: https://classicalstudies.org
Is it me, or is this less user friendly than it used to be?
It's probably just an issue of familiarity. It looks sleeker and more user-friendly to me. It'll be even better once they get the jobs up.
. But the wiki is pretty invaluable. So if Servius et al. aren't going to renew it for the 15-16 cycle, who is? The best thing would be for Servius to turn the current site over to new management to preserve continuity. But so far it's beginning to seem as though Servius has perhaps died.
August 29, 2015 at 3:34 PM
Agreed.
Servius / Servii, would you be willing to pass on moderatorship or to empower additional moderators so that we can keep this site going? If so, how would you like us to contact you?
I'm guessing classicswiki@gmail.com is our best shot?
Yes, I think so. I was hoping one of the Servii would show up here and confirm that they're checking that email first, but I suppose if they were going to do that, they'd have updated the wiki, too.
It might be set up to forward to account he actually checks. That's what I would do.
I know one of the old Servii (from 4 years ago or so) and she thinks that things are in transition. So maybe the new moderators still have to get things going?
Here's hoping "in transition" isn't a euphemism for "hoping to find someone somewhere willing to do this thing".
I like the new Placement website, but where are the job ads??? Is it just me? It just tells me that there are no ads in the system, when there obviously are.
Sorry for delay but just back in country.
New wiki here:
http://classics.wikidot.com/1-2015-2016
More soon
Servius
No need to apologize! Thank you for your service, Servius (Servii?).
Thanks Servius/Servii!
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