^but doesn't this inconvenience SCs and potential fail a search? Even if not, won't you be blacklisted by the faculty on the SC of the postdoc you signed on for but later retracted from?
Yes, it creates inconvenience to the SC. But a heck of a lot less inconvenient than being a longterm VAP/adjunct would do to your life. You, as VAP, are the victim of legislatures and universities that increasingly refuse to invest in tenure track faculty. Everybody knows that. Anybody who would begrudge you dropping everything to accept a tenure track position, or even a more advantageous VAP, is not somebody you want as a colleague anyway. The SC's stakes are nothing compared to yours, and they know that.
Hey gang, a completely unrelated question. Is anyone else afraid that they've peaked intellectually? I'm 28, freshly-minted PhD, but sense that my scholarship will never approach the level of scholars I read and truly admire, some of whom published truly groundbreaking articles at my age. Do people "improve" in intellect over the decades or am I doomed to being sub-par forever.
No, that's absurd: if you accept a post-doc you cannot then reject it for a better post-doc. Word gets around about people who go back on their word, and that isn't worth the risk. It is a bit better to apply for a prestigious tenure-track position, but not a VAP, if you already have a post-doc. (Personally, I believe that once you accept a position you should stop applying for all new positions with the exception of tenure-track.)
I'll add that I was once screwed over by someone accepting a VAP position for which I was the #2 choice who then rejected it for a more prestigious VAP (think top-5 instead of top-6-10), and by the time I was offered the original VAP I'd already accepted one at a lesser place. It's not like there aren't victims when one breaks one's word. (I know who did this, but unfortunately he's proven to be a bust, teaching in a mediocre program and having a rather low profile, so I've never crossed paths with him. Still waiting...)
I agree with 11:58. If you have signed a contract to show up at X and teach a, b, and c next year, you most certainly do have a legal and moral obligation to them. Jumping ship for a t-t job is fine, but you must still be apologetic. Jumping ship for a more prestigious postdoc is a very bad idea.
If you haven't signed a contract or at least received and accepted a formal, written offer, then you are obviously free to do what you want.
I would say nothing wrong leaving a VAP or postdoc for a TT job, but it is bad form to commit to a VAP or Post-doc and then leave it for a better VAP or Postdoc.
I guess you'd have to consider whether you'd get a "bad reputation." But in general, don't give people more than they give you: don't sacrifice your own professional life over the long run for a place that hasn't offered you any security for the long run. However you balance that out, you don't really owe anybody any loyalty over a VAP.
It has nothing to do with loyalty: it has to do with the morality of keeping one's word, not to mention the legality of honoring a contract. Sounds like you were raised by the lawless Cyclopes.
So...turn down an opportunity to snag the rare bird known as the t-t position because reasons?
In theory the people sitting on search committees ought to know how this game is played, especially since they're the ones who help perpetuate such a garbage system. They shouldn't be surprised when somebody jumps ship from a temporary position to accept a permanent one. As for contracts and temporary positions, they generally aren't worth the paper they're written on and they are designed to protect the institution, not the employee.
I think the posters here all agree that you can turn down a VAP or a postdoc - even after the contract is signed - for a tenure-track or permanent position. The question is just if you can/should turn down one temporary position for another, slightly better one.
You maybe a lawless cyclops to exchange a VAP for a VAP.
But I would stress that no one should hesitate to pull out of a VAP contract to take a TT job offer. In many instances, the VAP SC will understand. But if they don't, FUCK THEM. Do not mortgage your future for a shitty one year job. Take the TT job. You would be doing yourself and your loved ones enormous professional and financial damage if you do not. And as noted above, the system is rigged against you. Don't nail yourself to the cross out of a sense of duty to the VAP search committee.
Also, it is VERY easy to fill a VAP position. You are slightly inconveniencing a committee, but they could easily get another top-flight candidate to replace you, even without running a national search.
Old former chair here. Regarding turning down a postdoc for a better postdoc or TT. I have been on the other end of this: we advertised a postdoc which was offered and accepted and then, two-weeks later, the candidate phoned to apologize about having been offered a better postdoc. (For context, we're middling, the other postdoc was ivy; ours was one year, if I recall, and theirs was three.) None of us took any offence; all agreed that the young man in question should take the ivy-postdoc. Was it inconvenient for us? Not very. We just went to the next name on our list.
Does anyone know anything about the politics of getting a fellowship at the CHS? How difficult is it for recent PhDs to receive a fellowship and have there been any evident trends historically as to who (or what topics) gets them?
Young people, this is a system designed to squeeze as much work out of you for as little pay and security as possible. Don't go flipping one VAP for a marginally better one, because that won't reflect well on you. But don't listen to any tenured boomer lecturing you about the importance of your word, if you are offered an opportunity to get a real leg up professionally. I'll believe it when I hear these same boomers getting on a pedestal about the importance of one's word when the next adjunct's contract gets cancelled the first day of class.
Uhm, 12:20 a.m., I'm the one who posted about keeping one's word, and I am as far from tenure as anyone here. And I'm not a boomer, either. To quote from an old Mad Magazine Charlie Chan parody that I somehow remember, "Assumptions, like antique bed, should not be jumped on." (Okay, quoting that does make me seem like a boomer. But seriously, I'm not one.)
I'll elaborate on this issue: when you accept a one-year position you should be letting the other programs to which you applied know that you are no longer available. First, though, you should check when any more desirable program will be deciding, before you even accept the first offer. If you are being considered for a VAP or post-doc that will take a bit longer to decide, you should share that information with the people making you your first offer. At worst, they will say you must choose right away, but sometimes they will let you wait to see if you get the other position -- after all, it doesn't benefit them to risk your accepting a position and then backing out, nor do they want someone who's going to be unhappy with his/her decision. But to accept an offer and sign a contract without telling the other programs where one is still under consideration is morally and legally wrong, and anyone who says otherwise needs to go back to kindergarten and have a refresher course in the "Golden Rule," that business about two wrongs and whether they make a right, etc. The ONLY exception to this would be tenure-track positions: as everyone here has been saying, you have every right to trade up to one of those.
While I agree that in principle it is good to keep one's word, the fact is no search committee should ever be surprised or out of sorts when someone trades up for a better position, including trading one temporary gig for another. We do what we must to improve our chances of success in this job market hellscape. Of course, I've never had the opportunity to do this myself...
And no crazy backroom deals and egregious misuse of disciplinary-wide authority. I suppose they don't need to resort to such dubious tactics with their inherent institutional prestige within the field.
Has anyone ever joined a department (either TT or VAP) suspecting that one or two members on the SC did not support your application, or knowing that your success was dependent on one powerful committee member (whom you did not know personally but with whom you have overlapping interests)? Or did you go into the confidently with no suspicions and start with a clean slate?
Yes, 8:23, this is certainly a common outcome - it was in my case as well, from what I can gather. Sometimes divided preferences and support among a faculty has more to do with their own issues with each other than with the candidate per se. And even if one or two were totally against you, they lost (i.e. they were not the majority). In the end, the job is yours. So be confident and don't dwell on suspicions. That said, these same individuals will be on your review committee, so I would do my best to win people over and make a good impression over the first couple years.
@8:23. Old guy here. I was in the same position when I was appointed. I consulted a senior figure in my department who told me that when they were appointed, it had been that way with them, but that the colleague who had been most adamantly opposed (or so they had heard) in fact turned out to be their most supportive colleague once they were hired. And so it was with me. Those who were skeptical of my appointment treated me well. I've seen this happen several times since.
How bad would it be to be affiliated with but not employed by my PhD institution for a year after I get the degree? My partner and I have a new baby and do not have the money for full-time daycare (which would allow me to do a bit of local adjuncting), but I could be the caregiver during working hours and then work on my portfolio on campus at night as an unpaid affiliate. If I did that, would I be doomed on the market thereafter?
@3:42, I'm not sure I understand the question. One, I think this is pretty common. Two, does anyone need to know that you're still using your PhD institution's resources? How would that hurt your prospects on the market, particularly if you're being productive with those resources? (ie, publishing)
And three (not directed at you, per se), when are we going to admit that adjuncting is nothing more than exploitative labor? Daycare probably costs more than you'd earn adjuncting.
I think seeking an unpaid appointment as a research associate is not a bad idea. Try to publish an article or two, or get a book under contract. Don't debase yourself adjuncting.
Don't debase yourself adjuncting? Publish an article or two while you take care of your newborn without a second source of income? Is that the sweet, tender voice of the Boomer generation I hear?
When I joined my (fairly large) department, I knew that I had won a very close vote, and a least a couple of faculty who later became friends/allies admitted to me that they had voted for the other candidate. (My sense in this particular case is that most of the department actually thought well of both candidates, but that there were differences in views of the needs of the department.)
In most cases, the people who voted against you didn't have any particular dislike of you, they just thought the other person would be a better fit for any of a number of reasons. It is painful to be on an SC and have to reject people who are good scholars and good people. (Of course, of course, this is NOTHING like the pain that the applicant feels -- I am not asking for sympathy for SC members.) But the unfortunate fact is they can only hire one of all the great people they get to know. Don't take it personally if you found out someone voted against you.
I was in an almost identical situation some years back. Here's what I did, and I would recommend it. I found a babysitter who could do a few hours a week (enough to cover my teaching commitment as an adjunct). This was much more affordable than full time daycare. I spent the rest of my time in the day as a caregiver. I wrote (not much, I grant you) in the evenings. Don't underestimate the value of the teaching experience as an adjunct--especially at other institutions beyond you PhD-granting U--for future applications. It is better to be doing SOME teaching in the field than none.
Did anyone else get an email from from the University of Cincinnati HR system with the subject line "Your UC Application For Assistant Professor - Classics Is Now Under Review"? Does this mean they're revisiting applications previously discarded, or is it just some sort of meaningless computer hiccup?
Cincy's HR department, especially its computer system, is the worst of any out there: they regularly send out spam to people who applied for a single job, and do dumb stuff like this. I got an e-mail too, and rolled my eyes rather than feeling a surge of hope. You should do the same.
Out of curiosity: why don't search committees ask for copies of the dissertation as a matter of course as part of the application? Certainly they ask for writing samples, but not the dissertation specifically. But given that most applicants are near finishing or done with the writing and would thus have something to submit, why don't SCs ask for them? (In fact, I don't even think they ask for the diss. from finalists, but I may be wrong)...
I posted on the wiki about Reed. This is what the email said:
"Since you applied, the job situation in the department has changed. In addition to hiring a two-year Visiting Assistant Professor, we are now also hiring a one-year Visiting Assistant Professor as a sabbatical replacement. We identified you as a candidate that we would like to interview for this one-year position, if you are interested, because we are looking for candidates with expertise in archaeology and/or ancient history."
Comments on various posts above from a lot of experience:
1. There was a single person on the hiring committee for my first TT job who did not want me, but another candidate. He did everything in his power to make my life miserable at the job including: telling the students to not take my classes, but do Greek with him instead; tell students in both our classes that his classes were more important than mine and to do his work instead of mine if they didn’t have time; sit in to evaluate my classes for reappointment and tell me “everything was fine” and then write a scathing report for my file because, as the Chair told me later, I didn’t “consult” with him on how I should teach my classes. I was, needless to say, not reappointed. And I found out later that this was not his first time doing this to someone. So, there are bad people in our field who punish everyone around them when they don’t get their way.
2. I adjuncted when I had my child and published. I had library access (important) and the department I adjuncted for then moved me into a full time spot (VAP) when I was ready to return to full time and then vigorously wrote me letters to try to help me get a full time job elsewhere. There is nothing debasing about adjuncting if you have a child and no full time prospects with parental leave. The shame there is not on you but employers.
Already some surprises in job offers: 1. TT positions do not always (often? 0/2 this season) go to the VAP candidate and 2. an Art History Ph.D. received an R1 offer in Late Antique History. Does the second speak to a growing trend in interdisciplinary training?
Not surprising at all. Disciplines have secret handshakes but History is relatively open, I'm guessing due to its size and resulting ability to take risks. For its small size, classics is pretty open as well (minus perhaps the prevalent bias for advanced Greek and Latin for all specialties, but this is still more open than dogmatically requiring that your degree be stamped by the discipline). Anthropology is particularly bad about requiring anthro degrees and speaking its particular disciplinary dialect rife with buzzwords and neologisms. I have to say Art History is not too far behind (and biases for a particular level of outward refinement and sartorial splendor). In the immortal words of Mars Blackmon, it's gotta be the shoes. Wear the right shoes, people, if you interview for Art History.
Wait a minute, didn't we have a long discussion some pages ago that History jobs wanted historians? Not classicists, not archaeologists, not art historians, but people actually trained in the specific discipline of history?
@1:49, in reference to the TT jobs not going to VAP candidates, I know of at least one such situation this year (probably one of the ones you're referring to) and from what I heard it was kind of a shitshow. Apparently there were TWO "inside" candidates, one the current VAP and one a former VAP. My source's impression (not one of the principle players so take this with a grain of whatever) was that the department had split over the two insiders and couldn't agree. The final choice was a compromise, more of the third-place candidate (or more accurately enough people's second-place candidate). I don't know for sure if this is all true, but it's supported if you check the CV's of all the candidates (for those in the know)--the offer was made to the person with the shortest/lightest CV and when that's the case it usually means some horse-trading has gone on. Paradoxically, candidates with less weighty CV's can have an advantage under these circumstances because they can be made to fit whatever contradictory roles the different members of a department have in mind for them. So I would say that at least this one instance doesn't necessarily reflect a trend in departments moving away from their own VAPs.
It is certainly unusual for a history department to hire someone with a degree in art history. However, the scholar in question (if you're familiar with her work) certainly puts the "history" in art history, and her topical research interests, productivity, and dynamism must have outweighed whatever parochial instincts the SC may have harbored.
On the contrary, there is nothing surprising in an "inside candidate" getting passed over; they are rarely hired, it's just that people notice and get bitter when they are.
I agree, it's actually more uncommon for the "insider" to get the offer, but when it happens it generates so much bitching and moaning that it appears more frequent than is accurate. It's the same phenomenon that leads to ABD's and fresh PhD's with lighter CV's getting hired over the more experienced/qualified candidates--SC's are drawn to what is shiny and new and seems to have unlimited possibilities. The person down the hall seems an ordinary mortal by comparison.
what's up with duke-kunshan university? Does anyone know if it's legit or a scam? I applied for a position there--it seems from the application that they are trying to hiring a ton of people at once to jumpstart the humanities division, but i have yet to hear from them nor it appears has anyone else....
I'm an archaeologist/art historian type, who could make a case for being historical AND who has plenty of sartorial sense. I never had interviews with history departments, but then again I had the bad luck of not applying to those particular departments. There have been a few such hires in the past few years, but not many. I have a feeling it might have to do with SC members being interested in archaeological work, but other than that, I can't figure out the logic either.
@7:09, I applied to tons of history positions and never had an interview. I thought it was because of what was discussed earlier, that history departments want actual historians who have been trained as historians, not art historians or Classical/Mediterranean historians. I'm also an art historian/archaeologist type with a strong grounding in social and cultural history, but all of it is ancient and I concluded that SCs assumed I'd be rubbish at teaching other geographical-temporal-methodological histories. I can't figure out the logic, either.
If I can't be the hire, I am often rooting for the VAP. The people who howl and moan about these fake, inside-hire searches are a) often surprised when the "fake" search turns out to be real (i.e. the VAP is not hired) and b) have likely never been a VAP during a TT search or during the lead-up to one.
For what it’s worth, I was the inside VAP for a TT hire a few years ago and it was by far the shittiest experience of a number of shitty experiences on the job market. It poisoned my relationships in the department for months, as I couldn’t have a 2-minute conversation without feeling evaluated. When I got to the interview stage, I actually felt my personal knowledge of the committee was a detriment since I couldn’t see them as a unit and was paralyzed knowing that an answer that pleased one person might annoy another member. I did get to the campus visit stage, only to see the offer go to someone else. And whatever anyone may say, it is impossible not to take it personally when people you know and like and work well with announce (rather publicly) that they don’t want to keep you around on a permanent basis. It certainly made the next few months extremely uncomfortable, and of course I still run into those people at the SCS—with me still interviewing, still looking, and wondering whether that department was my last, best hope for a TT job in this field.
It's for this reason I tell my students to resist getting too comfortable in a VAP or thinking that it could lead to something permanent. If it happens, great, but don't get your hopes up or factor it in at all. It's disingenuous and irresponsible for anyone in a department to intimate that you will have a better shot at a hypothetical permanent job both before and during the job. Ignore it when weighing the offer and perhaps even use the irresponsible selling point as a strike against them.
So far it looks like state schools are cleaning up in this year’s placement. Interesting in light of the conversation up the thread on graduate school rankings.
Re: 8:35 AM - how so? Only two listed for the T-T jobs - those from Berkeley, on everyone's Top 10 list - are from state schools for their PhDs, and Berkeley is a state school in name only, most of their money comes from endowments.
I'm not 8:35 but by my count, we have two from Berkeley and two from Cincinnati on the current wiki. Both programs are heavily supported by endowments, so your point still stands.
I hardly think Cincinnati is in the top 10/12 in everyone's esteem when we're not talking about archaeology. It would not have been in mine. Which makes the two TT placements from recent literature grads of that program more interesting. But if what people up the thread said about their recent TT placement (Professor Heavy aside) is true, perhaps they should be ranked higher across the board.
For those who think that Cincinnati's strong placement is the result of the disproportionate influence of the former American School director, there probably won't be any way to show that this is true for quite some time after the Heavy retires. Even then, it depends on what kind of retirement they opt for; they are associated with a major excavation and so may continue to work in that capacity and exercise influence for some years after they officially retire from their university appointment.
I doubt that an archaeology professor has much influence in placing philology graduate students into jobs. But having a year at ASCSA on your CV, and/or excavation experience, is certainly a bonus. I say this as an SC member who has participated in many job searches.
If you had an interview with a place and they sent out rejections to people who did not have one a while after this interview, but you haven't heard anything - does it mean they made a decision on their first choice?
No one is necessarily bullying anyone as snidely/defensively suggested. I don't personally know this person at all (no dog in this fight as a Roman historian), but I've read plenty of letters from senior scholars in important disciplinary-wide positions (e.g. president of scs) that overtly used their uncommon position to influence beyond their academic standing as professors of classics (the letters make clear they hold this important position and go on and on about how the candidate is better than all the students they've seen at this institution - powerful stuff, and I would argue dubious from an ethical standpoint). Perhaps this is normal and expected, but I would never feel comfortable flashing this disciplinary-wide standing to push for my students (e.g. I would use my university letterhead vs. AAR letterhead). Call me shitty, lazy, and disorganized...or perhaps overly ethical and a girl scout. My students seem to be doing well all things considered and I sleep at night.
Different strokes. With the job market as it is, if I had a position with discipline-wide influence then you'd better believe I would be using it to help my students obtain permanent employment.
That said, people upthread have already touched on the fact that Cincinnati isn't some podunk department that has no business having a PhD program; the influence of a particular Heavy is not the only reason that their students get job.
No, I think it is enough to say that the prestige of Departments in our discipline does not always match the overall mental map of prestige. Cincinnati is not an Ivy, but places people far better than many Ivies, including Harvard and Yale, which have been punching well beneath their weight lately. Indeed, I would unscientifically proclaim that the Top Five programs might in fact look like this (in no apparent order).
I agree that placement should be a consideration when evaluating the strength of a program. But programs such as Harvard, Yale, and Chicago take far fewer students per year than massive schools like Cincinnati and Berkeley. This wiki does not keep track of their ample numbers of unemployment, or more importantly, the number of drop-outs that a place like Cincinnati also yields (of which there are many. Many. At Cincinnati in particular). A place like Yale consistently sends its graduates into external post docs (Harvard SoF) or internal post docs; Harvard also keeps their PhDs alive and kicking for several years after graduation with internal Harvard post docs. Cincinnati does not attract the same caliber of graduate students as places like these; many incoming students lack other admissions offers, and few would and DO choose Cincinnati over Penn (for archaeology or literature) if they have this option.
Yep, if we repeat it often enough, it will continue to be true: Cincinnati (and its ilk) are appropriate for the unwashed, ill-born members of the aspiring class, but even if the program does seem to 'punch above its weight' for decades on end, it will still never be as categorically *elite* as the ELITE programs at the institutions that are naturally its better. We just need to keep saying this enough to Missouri Cincinnati and ensure that none of the people who 'don't deserve to go to graduate school and then get permanent jobs' actually do go on to graduate school and then take away OUR jobs. Go us!
Seriously, some of you really sound like that. I get it, some of you would (in the right position) intentionally hire ANY 'elite' PhD over ANY other PhD, no matter the individual qualities of the candidates. And I suppose that many people actually do this already. But doesn't that make the placement record of a Tier Two program like Cincinnati that much more impressive, against a loaded deck? Shouldn't we all be (grudgingly) impressed and/or jealous, as implied by several above? Or is the whole system just that much more corrupt 'when someone from a program that doesn't even deserve to exist gets' a job that we wanted?
It's on reading things like this that I thank the gods I'm from north of the border, so I don't have to put up with as much of the nonsense, eh?
4:54 p.m., How many graduate programs do you know well? In addition to your own, at how many departments with a Ph.D. program have you taught? If that answer is two or more, was one elite and the other non-elite? And if you can't answer this in the affirmative, how can you think that your opinion is valid?
There is a difference in the overall caliber of grads at the top programs and the lesser ones. It's not some weird class construct, but reality.
@1:14, I don't believe anyone here is saying incompetent or even unworthy people are getting jobs. There are so many great candidates. I happen to agree about the dubious nature of using one's station as a leader of an institution that represents the entire discipline to then tip the scales unduly and repeatedly in favor of one's own students. We need diversity in the field and a certain level of due process. I have no idea if this is the case here, but the "all's fair" responses and general bashing of excellent programs and faculty for being elitist is just as alarming to me as the potential for this to be happening. Please, try to take the high road as you're not doing Cincy any favors by reacting in such inflammatory fashion.
Jesus Christ, what a shitshow. Everyone here piling on Cincinnati is showing their elitist ass, to be honest. Quite frankly it sounds like a lot of entitled people who came from "better" programs than Cincinnati have a case of sour grapes because a department at some filthy public university in a flyover state is placing students left and right. Clearly this must be because of the Machiavellian string-pulling of an aging archaeologist at Cincinnati, since all the students there are unqualified, unintelligent lackwits. After all, they didn't go to Penn, Yale, or Haaarvard so they must be stupid.
5:31 P.M.: "We need diversity in the field and a certain level of due process."
...And we have that with the same handful of Ivy/Par-Ivy programs consistently populating the field with their graduates? Let's not pretend that the success of people from these programs isn't due as much to the influence of their advisors and the automatic thinking that Ivy=Always Excellent as it is due to their awe-inspiring brilliance.
The Ivies produce and place plenty of mediocre candidates. As a graduate student at an Ivy in my later years, I can say that it is quite breathtaking how many students who do get placed are producing very little of long-term value for the field of classics, and rather reproducing the field's now standardized ideas and tropes (but merely finding a new author or subject with which to do it with).
As someone pointed out on the Wiki earlier this year, plenty of students with some of the most creative and philologically substantive new ideas for the field, with very strong CVs and a great deal of teaching experience, get passed over for mousy candidates or the occasional Fake News pusher which our field is too scared to call out and challenge (especially if they are a woman or a minority candidate). After all, our field is a swamp full of fake news ("siccate paludem"), and often even newer venues that were supposed to challenge Fake News like Eidolon have become the new mouthpieces for the recycling of mundane identity politics and the Fake News that goes along with it.
Sure, call me bitter for not landing a job, but I see this crap repeated again and again, year after year, and sadly, many faculty are happy to hire the weaker, mousier candidate if that person will be the pawn in their middle-management syndrome for the next 5-7 years, rather than risk having their unconscious status quo threatened.
Last year Yale placed two grads in T-T jobs at USF and UCLA and one at the HSoF along with a slew of VAP's and adjuncts. This year it's looking like one more at the HSoF and a handful more waiting on the results of interviews.
7:30 PM: "As someone pointed out on the Wiki earlier this year, plenty of students with some of the most creative and philologically substantive new ideas for the field, with very strong CVs and a great deal of teaching experience, get passed over for mousy candidates or the occasional Fake News pusher which our field is too scared to call out and challenge (especially if they are a woman or a minority candidate). After all, our field is a swamp full of fake news ("siccate paludem"), and often even newer venues that were supposed to challenge Fake News like Eidolon have become the new mouthpieces for the recycling of mundane identity politics and the Fake News that goes along with it."
...I'm not even sure how to reply to this. This might be the most wrongheaded take I've ever seen on the state of the field. What's wrong with Classics? Clearly the answer is all the unqualified women and minorities taking the jobs! And Eidolon's identity politics. Who killed Homer? It was Hillary Clinton in her Chappaqua basement with an email server.
SERIOUSLY, whoever has THREE job offers, can you just take one already and give all of us beggars a heads up about the rest of them? (Update the wiki).
Dilemma: Columbia SOF or a Classics post doc? SOF is much better paid but the Classics post doc will give me more teaching experience in the field (which I am lacking).
"There is a difference in the overall caliber of grads at the top programs and the lesser ones. It's not some weird class construct, but reality."
How much more elitist can you get?
If you knew where I got my Ph.D. or, for that matter, knew me personally, you would realize what a laughable comment that is.
But permit me to ask you the same question I asked the other person: how many Ph.D. programs do you know from within, rather than by reputation? Your comment suggests not very many, though of course I could be as wrong as you were in your assumption about me.
Congratulations, it is nice to have options, even on the secondary market. Not knowing the details, I would suggest some considerations:
One Year or Multi-Year? A multi year temporary position is a very valuable asset, as it will allow you to stay in the field without having to move every year. This takes an enormous toll, and is one of the worst aspects of VAP-life.
Prestige: Whether we like it or not, prestige matters in our field. It sounds like Columbia SOF takes the cake here, although you do not say where the post doc is.
Pay: More money is always better. Also ancillary compensation like travel funding an research support.
Teaching: Not every SC values teaching. Personally, I would not turn down an SOF in order to do more teaching. Many SCs would prefer a book or articles (NB very much depends on where you are applying, SLACs value teaching highly, R1s say they do, but mostly don't). I had a post-doc that did not require any teaching, but arrange to teach for one semester so that my teaching portfolio would not be vacant.
@11:13, I'm a former Columbia SOF. You can def do some Classics teaching while at CU SOF: I taught a course on Roman religion; my classicist predecessors at SOF taught courses on the Greek novel and Vergil's Eclogues/Georgics respectively. Glad to correspond about this and other matters SOF; I can be reached at dpadilla@princeton.edu.
UNCG inside hire looks like a strong candidate, and no doubt deserves the position. But again the anger with the inside hire: why couldn't they promote a proven and talented VAP internally instead of doing so through a national search. And why on earth have an OPEN SEARCH, inviting hundreds of applications from all sub fields? At least they could have had the common courtesy to run a "Roman archaeology" search. UNCG just wasted a lot of the field's collective time: hundreds of application packets and letters of recommendation. This is why people hate fake searches. Its not that a worthy inside candidate doesn't get the job, its that we all wasted our precious time on it.
I've never been an inside candidate, but from the outside looking in it seems like a rough deal. If you are hired, there is a lot of snarking about inside hires and wasted searches. If you are not hired, there is the hurt and humiliation described by one former candidate above, and perhaps some uncharitable people will think worse of you for not being hired by your own institution. I hope we can all be kind to the insiders on both sides, and not assume the worst whether they are hired or not hired.
One clear trend is that none of the TT hires so far are ABDs -- it looks like everyone has spent some time beyond the PhD teaching or researching outside of their PhD institution.
Speaking of insiders, I see the Rutgers job (advertised as Augustan/Republican poetry) has gone to an Apuleius person with a Rutgers BA. Does having an undergraduate degree from the institution make the person an "inside hire"? I would say yes.
While occasionally and undergraduate BA gets hired back to their alma mater, it is a rare occurrence and tends to be more based on chance than any sort of good old boys network.
@12:53. Old guy here with no inside knowledge. Why an open search? I assume because it wasn't a fait accompli. Don't forget that a department is not a single being with a single will but a composite of its members. In this case, it is easy to imagine that some members knew from the outset that they wanted the insider. Some, however, may have been happy with the insider but wanted to see who else was available. And some may have been agnostic or even hostile to the insider. As the process moved forward, the collective decided that the good things they knew about their insider outweighed the unknowns about other applicants.
A question to those who are VAP or a postdoc -- on the whole, how do others, i.e. faculty, graduate students, undergrads, view your position at the university? Are you treated like a very advanced PhD student? Like a faculty member? Or a mix of the two? Do you feel like you need to interact with tenured faculty members like "professors" rather than as peers / colleagues? Just curious to know what to expect on the social level before starting my position in the fall...
Undergraduates do not know the difference (watch out for that). Graduate students are sometimes too busy to realise you're there. Every faculty member is different (but any decent one will hope that you turn out to be a peer).
You are visiting. Everyone hopes you'll make the place better, and maybe some lasting friendships will be formed.
There are a lot of rules about hiring processes at (especially public) universities, where they *have* to run open searches, even with an internal candidate. And based on what I know, UNCG took the process seriously and I didn't get the job, but I don't think it was corrupt. And the person who got the job seems eminently qualified and capable.
I have had two visiting teaching positions at two different universities -- one where I knew people in the department beforehand (which created the opening), and one where I was a complete stranger. At both the faculty treated me like a colleague, and when I have seen them on subsequent occasions I have been greeted very warmly indeed. At one institution I was seen as filling a significant (and enduring) gap in their teaching capacity, and at the other I was told that they would loved to have hired me permanently, but were not in a position to do so. Perhaps I am naive, but both sentiments seemed genuine to me. And both departments had graduate students, though on the whole I interacted with them very infrequently.
A warning: I had a foreign postdoc and was treated as an overgrown, inconvenient graduate student and locked out of campus-wide funding and professional development opportunities. I was also formally classed as a student, which I found belittling. I have a Ph.D.-there is no more school for me to do! (This was not a habilitation-in-Germany situation). I'm currently in a VAP in a department without graduate students. The undergraduates do not understand the difference between me and the TT people, and the department has treated me as a valued member of the department and protected me from onerous service/teaching burdens where possible.
@11:00, I also had a foreign postdoc. I wasn't belittled, but I was classified as a student in some respects (like library privileges) and faculty/staff in others (like I couldn't use the university health services, which were only for students). On the plus side, undergrad and grad students treated me very much like a faculty member. The faculty were mostly ambivalent towards my existence, so that could have been better, but it also could have been much worse.
I had a fellowship in Germany a few years back, and wasn't made to feel welcome by the faculty. They all were incredibly busy, but that's not a proper excuse to be anti-social. When I got there I assumed that there would have been an e-mail sent around telling them that I would be joining them for X amount of time, work on Y, am from Z school, etc., but after a week or so I realized that no one knew who I was or why I was there with the exception of the faculty member involved in the fellowship program. So over time I had to introduce myself to the faculty, some of whom were friendly, though most could not have cared less.
In the U.S., responding to other posts here, I have had several VAP's, and have come to recognize that some colleagues simply will not care about my presence and am not too bothered by it, but what I do resent are those department chairs who do not take the time to welcome me to their department, let alone bother to take me out for coffee or lunch soon after my arrival. It should be an eternal law of academia that every department chair in every department should feel it mandatory to make at least a minimal effort to welcome a new visiting colleague. (In one case I waited more than a week before finally visiting the chair's office to say hello, since even though he knew I was around he had not come looking for me.)
It's nearing the end of TT/post doc/SOF season and I've nothing. Anyone else in the same boat, or does everyone get at least *one thing* by the end of the year to continue in this profession? ....
Ditto. I applied to only one postdoc- Chicago. Even that is basically a waste of time. I noticed that last year they took no Classics people but that they had brought back one of their own recent PhDs- a guy who did German philosophy or political science or something- to teach the new Greece and Rome sequence. Really, why bother? And my impression is that for most of them you really do have to be from an elite institution. Columbia also charges you money for them to deign to throw your application in the trash if you're not one of the Great and the Good. No thanks!
Unless you have an connection through an advisor, or personally know a faculty fellow, applying to the SOFs tends to be a waste of time. Do not bother applying to the Harvard SOF, for example, if Greg Nagy is not on a first name basis with you.
ISAW finalists range from ABD to advanced Assistant Professor level. There have been other recent searches with a similar spread. In these instances, does the SC not know in advance what they want in the position (sheer number of pubs, or promise)? Or are they open to all of these different career levels, and it comes does to the personal "fit" criterion?
I would like to know about ISAW too. On a general note, I wish I could just get timely rejections, without the need to refresh wiki like a maniac. I know, I know, all that HR requirements, but damn, maybe all those HRs should change their guidelines.
It appears the ISAW "update" is not new, just a response to the jobs posted on the events calendar. Hold on to faith, those of you waiting to hear for a different ISAW position! This looks to be for the T-T History/Archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean position, and the wiki was already up to date about finalist campus visits.
@10:30, yes, IMO this would be where "fit" can be used to make the offer.
once you get an offer for a position, is it appropriate to take however long they give you to deliberate before signing the contract? Do you feel pressure to sign within a couple of days? Is it rude to take the whole weeks or however long the stipulation is on the contract?
It will vary depending on the institution and the position. In theory you should feel free to take all the time they allow you, though keep in mind that there are other finalists who are also waiting to hear to that they didn't get the job, and it is courteous not to keep them in suspense unnecessarily. But on the whole taking a few weeks to decide seems fairly reasonable to me, especially for a permanent or multi-year position.
It's fine to take the time allotted to you. I think the polite thing to do, though, is to alert the department to the fact that you will be taking some time to think it over, and whether you have/ or are waiting to hear about other offers.
If you don't have any reason to, then don't. If you do, then do. It's not a question of "rude" but of why you need or want the time to think about it or wait for other offers.
I didnt have a stake in it, but am I justified in being irked by the Oregon hire? It was a Late Antiquity posting; they hired a Classical Greek historian. Am I missing something?
12:09 here. ^^^^^disregard my post.. I was mistaken about the job posting; it was a broad “ancient” search that was also open to Late Antique folks, it was not a Late Antique job.
Often "including Late Antiquity" means, "we would really like Late Antiquity. And the successful candidate does to 2nd century AD, so right on the cusp of LA (which is now so broadly defined it can mean anything after the Severans)
Servii, can we get these comments about the Oregon hire removed? We've definitely crossed the line into impugning-junior-scholar territory a few times.
Unclear how any comments on Oregon candidate cross the line. The issue is not at all the scholar's work, but rather the nature of how the position was advertised. It seems fair game to discuss how an SC's job posting relates or doesn't relate to the final hire in relation to speciality advertised. This in no way impugns the work or the achievements of the successful candidate.
This discussion has nothing to do with the scholar who is now a T-T faculty member at a great school. Comments here only are with regards to trying to decipher the already-confusing job market just a bit more.
To be quite honest, it says far more positive things of her (I do believe it is a ‘her’) than anything negative. If, in fact, her specialty is Art History of Classical Greece and she managed to get land a job that desired a LA person, even larger congratulations are in order! We all apply for positions that are a stretch for us to be able to convince a SC of our fit, so for one to do so *this* well says an immense amount about her.
By chance, two scholars whom I respect were telling me positive things about the person in question several weeks ago, before this particular position was filled (or, at least before the wiki was updated).
Like any search committee, those who made the choice had the right to take the person it thought would be the most valuable addition, regardless of how an ad had been phrased months earlier. There really is nothing more to say about this matter. And I write this as an ancient historian, though I didn't apply because the posting seemed to want someone who does gender/sexuality, and I've learned not to spend my time on those.
(Servius, please note that I am avoiding mentioning the school, so that if you do make some deletions this might be spared.)
I agree with the more recent comments; this conversation has been generally respectful, with a big congratulations to all hires. It has been very helpful (at least for me) to understand how the job market can work, and instances where it is worth applying to jobs that might feel like a stretch with regard to your specific degree, so long as you have training or teaching experience in that field.
Hmm... I don't think it's much of a stretch, 3:29, 7:44, and 7:47, for someone who has her publication profile to apply for a history job. Her scholarship is unquestionably well within the parameters of the ad. And in general, I would say it's a bad idea to read so far between the lines of an ad and decide not to apply as a result, as some people here seem to have done. Apply widely.
*To departments that force poor job seekers to pay upfront for airfare costs. *To the professor who rejected me from a job immediately after my paper presentation at the conference, in front of other people, and didn't even comment on my paper > well, that tells you at once where you *don't* want to work… *To SUNY-Stony Brook for sending out an email to the 209 of us not selected for first-round interviews and NOT listing us as BCCs, but as open recipients. We all now can see the full names of every applicant.
To quote from the worst of Wiki Jeers this year—seriously? To all of the individuals associated with the above (especially the second one—are you fucking kidding me????): you deserve a massive public shaming. Although I must say, in the case of the last one, it might be reassuring to all 209 involved to see some friendly faces on that list, or at least I would imagine...
It would be worth contacting the department of the professor who publicly rejected the candidate. Email their department chair, email the Dean of their college, file a complain to the head of their H.R. This is deeply unprofessional behavior, and should be sanctioned. At the very least, prevent this person from being on future committees.
Does anyone get their airfare paid initially? I have always had to pay upfront. It is a huge financial burden that departments seem completely oblivious to; I have occasionally had to borrow money from my parents to pay the outlay for travel that would be reimbursed.
I posted the SUNY-Srony Brook jeer. What is your problem with it?
The SC chair was unbelievably irresponsible and made it so that we all could see the names and institutions of all applicants. That’s a major privacy violation and could seriously threaten the continued jobs for many who applied while hired elsewhere.
11:38, I've been on campus three times (no job, alas.....), and two paid upfront.
11:43, I think the above poster meant to second the unbelievable behavior of the jeer-ees, not to question the jeer-ers. I'm still blown away by the Furman jeer, if true.
Yes, the Furman Jeer––if true––is profoundly unprofessional and could also land the Furman SC in hot water. Imagine if just one protected category candidate was among those not provided with questions in advance. Furman could be subject to a massive lawsuit, which it would not doubt move to hastily settle.
And now to return to Georgetown... that should put to rest all of the naysayers out there. A fair search. (I know for a fact that the successful candidate has no "connections" with the department).
And even if the person did to a degree, some of the calling out done here is a bit of a stretch in our small world and only serves to call into question much nobler attempts to illuminate the darker areas of our discipline. Please, some of you get a grip and act like this isn't your first rodeo.
The Furman jeer is true. Like other candidates I received an SCS interview request and then had no contact from the SC prior to the annual conference. A few weeks after the interview, i found a posting on 12/26 with the interview questions that had apparently been sent to some candidates. I did not receive them in advance but they were identical to the questions asked in the interview.
If one African American candidate was not provided with interview questions, while a white applicant was, then Furman could be out millions of dollars. Regardless, a Dean should be informed of the SC's highly unethical behavior.
But this is th first rodeo for many of us, and we’re a bit disgusted to see just how inhumane they treat the animals here (to stick with your analogy).
I did not apply for the furman job but if what I hear is true, it makes me very concerned. I think it ought to be reported not only to the dean of their university but to scs folk in charge of professional matters too, to prevent such things from happening again.
"If one African American candidate was not provided with interview questions, while a white applicant was, then Furman could be out millions of dollars. Regardless, a Dean should be informed of the SC's highly unethical behavior."
Enough of this ridiculous insinuation that only POC receive consideration in these matters. Yeah, it's why we're jobless - those damn colored folks are taking our classics jobs, all five of them on the market!
Read the "colored" response to Mary Beard's obtuse Oxfam tweet plus nonpology follow-up and educate yourself on why Classics (and a large chunk of the Humanities) is on the road to extinction. https://medium.com/@zen.catgirl/response-to-mary-beard-91a6cf2f53b6
8:35 p.m., what you quote says the exact opposite of what you read it as saying -- it's obviously not an anti-POC post, as anyone with seventh-grade reading skills could tell you. Based on the way you brought in the irrelevant situation with Mary Beard you strike me as someone seeking every opportunity to vent about your social and political causes. And the sad thing is that it's behavior like this that harms all of academia, not just classics.
Point on Furman was the legal implications of the SC's unprofessional actions. Some applicants fall into categories protected by Federal discrimination law. Some are easier to prove than others. It would also be illegal if Furman distributed questions to men but not women, non-veterans vs. veterans or Catholics but not Jews. My point was the legal perils that Furman has waded into.
I believe it's generally illegal at state schools to treat applicants differently in some obvious manner regardless of their backgrounds. Even if what Furman did was kosher according to its own private uni rules, it was obviously stupid and clearly represents an uneven playing field whether it was malicious or not.
I was 9:45 p.m. That was my only post on this. I'm sure 10:06 p.m. would join me in mocking your reading skills.
I'm glad that 10:55 clarified the situation for those who don't understand: Furman not giving the questions to anyone is a violation, but if it was a protected group that's a much bigger problem, legally speaking. 8:35 seemed not to understand that, somehow.
Anyway, this is all a silly argument at this point. Obviously, Furman has done something wrong, and it's only a question of whether the victim(s) want to try to do something about it. Personally, I'd assume it was an unfortunate oversight and not try to destroy someone over it.
10:06 here. I am not 9:45, nor did I post the long thing about Classics being a Fake News Swamp. #MCGA.
Not sure why we are still arguing about this. Furman did something wrong; if what they did harmed protected classes, that's arguably the kind of discrimination could get them into lot$$$$$$$$$ of trouble. For what it's worth, there is a middle ground between forgiving and forgetting and destroying Furman. You might, for instance, try to get the SCS to publically censure them, or make the dept. issue a public apology...
That "Scientific American" table doesn't prove racism in Classics, genteel or otherwise. It suggests some interesting things, but this isn't the place to discuss them. Nor do I expect that anyone who would post such a thing while anonymously calling countless others genteel racists able to have an illuminating and civil discussion about these matters.
And I write this as someone who doesn't use phrases such as "Fake News" or MAGA, here or elsewhere.
I agree Furman was far more likely to have been incompetent than malicious, but if interview questions really were distributed to only some candidates, that is seriously not good, both for the careers of the neglected candidates and if the department has stumbled into a legally precarious situation. It's certainly not my first time to this rodeo, and I've never heard of such a thing before. People who didn't get questions, you checked your spam and everything?
"Classics, the stronghold of invisible hierarchy and genteel racism. And we wonder why Classics ranks at the bottom."
Couldn't agree more. Being gay, female, or poor doesn't stop one from reaching the top of classics these days. What does for whatever reason? Being brown or black apparently. And, no, it's not incumbent on POC to figure out why or explain why it is. If we see a problem with the results, it's incumbent on us, the people in charge, to figure out why unless we are happy with the status quo. But perhaps we really are and there's something to the claim by some that the classical world belongs to "us."
1:33 is exactly right. In market things, assume incompetence, especially if email systems are involved, but that's not to say it's acceptable--it's hard to think of any more objectively unfair situation than some candidates being officially given the exact questions in advance, and others left in the dark, regardless of all the other issues identified above.
1:14, I think it's pretty embarrassing for Scientific American to publish that chart with the given interpretation. Except for a couple of outliers (philosophy, education; math barely) it looks like there is little or no correlation: that is, at any given level of "genius-obsession," disciplines offer pretty much the full range. I assume that's why they just print the points plotted without any trend line. The upper edge of the cluster does to the right of the x-axis a bit, but I bet if you did a weighted regression it would be pretty much flat. So what does this tell us? That most academic fields are tremendously un-diverse, which we mostly already agreed to be bad. Adding on the very squishy "genius-obsession" factor doesn't seem to add much to the critique, even if the analysis were true. And of course, fields like philosophy know perfectly well that they have deep problems of racial and gender bias--knowing is only part of the story of fixing it, however. In any case, I don't really see what it had to do with any discussion taking place here?
I think it is EXTREMELY unlikely that Furman used this question thing to suppress diversity. Most likely, it was not intended to advantage any group. Conceivably, but highly unlikely, it was intended to advantage a specific candidate or few candidates. Most likely, this is just an example of the sloppiness on SCs that unfortunately results in some people getting jobs, others not, seemingly largely at random.
8:10 AM again: I agree with some people above that the legal problems will arise if one of the excluded candidates happens to belong to a protected group, but I doubt it would have been intentional.
FWIW, I interviewed with Furman at the SCS. When I saw the original "cheer" about the interview questions on the wiki in early January, I was upset because I had not, at that point, received them. I looked in my spam folder and voila, a two week old email from the SC was just sitting there. Fortunately, I still had a few days before my interview at that point to prep. I am not the person who posted the jeer, and I am disappointed to learn that this happened.
Whether it's one or more of you pointing out the genteel, patrician racism that's easy to read if you know what to look for (but apparently imperceptible and still too uncomfortable to confront by the vast majority of classicists) - THANK YOU from a PhD SOC. I can count four POC friends in the last five years that have dropped out of programs primarily for this reason.
K, let's get back to more comfortable discussions like the bashing of Furman...
I, too, received the Furman questions, and the e-mail was marked "suspicious" by my e-mail server because it was from a gmail account, not a .edu. I'm also a member of at least one, I think two "protected" categories, so I don't think that they were trying to exclude particular groups from this "advantage." Doesn't excuse it, if they did fail to provide all candidates with the questions in advance, but it *is* possible that the emails just didn't make it to candidates' main folders (as in the case above, where it was in spam, and in my case, where it was marked "suspicious").
@2:18, I suspect it is one well-intentioned person with a big blindspot doubling down and scrambling to salvage some sense of dignity (despite continued attempts to weave neo-liberal heroism into the Furman narrative). If he could, he would probably post a photo of himself crying. Try to stay positive and keep working towards change even if it's quietly in the background. A lot more people, I have to believe, are recognizing the blindspots and wish to support you.
We had a search this year with pre-circulated questions and I made sure to confirm with every candidate at the beginning of the interview that they had indeed received the questions, in order to at least mitigate this kind of fiasco. Fortunately, ours had all gotten them.
Question for the FV community: I recently had an on-campus interview during which a senior member of the search committee on two separate occasions inquired about my marital (and family) status. In the first instance, my answers were initially short and evasive, but the individual continued to press for more details, at which point I felt it would be more awkward to continue to stonewall, so instead confessed that my partner is also an academic currently at another institution. The next day, during another one-on-one meeting, the individual admitted that they knew they weren't supposed to ask certain questions, but then asked me point-blank what my partner and I were looking for long-term (professionally). Since this was at the very start of our 30-minute meeting, I again opted for what felt like the path of least resistance and admitted that our hope obviously is to be together somewhere. I'm contemplating reaching out to the Dean or HR to let them know this happened, especially because I know they have at least one more candidate coming to campus and I don't want that individual to be put in the same situation. Has this happened to any of you? If so, what did you do?
@12:26 This is absolutely against the law. If the individual admitted they knew they were not supposed to ask the question, this makes it even worse. Document by sending an email to someone you trust (or yourself) with names, date, and your best recollection of the situation. If the university in question, has an ombudsperson, you may want to try to have a confidential conversation to see who the best person in HR is to contact.
Personally, I would wait until the search is over and report whatever the outcome, but you are fully within your rights to lodge a complaint now. Waiting until after the decision is reached, can (1) make it look like sour grapes if you are not offered the position and (2) make the situation uncomfortable with your new department if you are offered and accept. It is a hard decision realpolitik wise, but a clear line legally. I am really sorry you had to deal with this and now have to face the decision to report it.
Just to clarify, and I agree with 12:33 on the thorniness of the matter and defer to their suggestions on how to handle the sitch, asking the question itself is not illegal, but its being asked can be used as evidence that there was intent to discriminate, should you not be offered the job.
A question to those who struck lucky and got offered *one* position. Do you celebrate and look forward, or does a part of you still question why everyone else rejected you and wonder what ulterior motives might have led the SC at your future department to offer you the job? I'm just recovering from the dire job market and receiving so many rejections -- despite a few interviews and one offer -- made a mark on me.
Yeah it's weird isn't it 2:55? Even though you received an offer, you still feel like your self-worth took a hit because of rejections for the vast majority of positions to which you applied. Here's a thought with which I attempt to console myself after my own post-interview rejections. Your essential worth is not determined by your time. Your time is relatively arbitrary and dependent on circumstances. Your time can fluctuate because it's based on the evaluation of other people in particular circumstances, for a particular job in a particular place in a competition with other particular job candidates. So your time qua job candidate really is, to use the parlance of our times, "socially constructed."
@1:37, there's a third option -- offer the trailing spouse a ridiculous job of some sort -- low pay, or not a ladder post, or in some other department -- so that they can say they made a "good faith effort" to accommodate both. Or offer to split the position, so that one family has two half-time people, meaning the school gets either two full-time people on one person's pay, or two maybe 3/4-ish people on one person's pay.
@12:26. My advice is to say and do nothing. First, this guy has tenure (I assume), and at least at my university, this means that the worst that could happen to him is a stern talking to by his chair and/or the dean. Second, and more importantly, Classics is a small world and if he knows that you've ratted him out (and you and he are the only ones who know of his conversation), he can do more damage to you than you can to him. So, as much as he deserves something bad to happen to him, leave that to karma.
@3:23 and 2:55. I don't know if this makes it any better, but the feeling of sad, second-guessed rejection is also very bad when the position ISN'T permanent. At least you know now that, going forward, you'll simply be judged on what you do and have done, not what people think you can do/ might do etc. esse quam videri and all that. Congratulations!
2:55pm: I want to empathize, but I really can't... Get out of your head and celebrate! It's a lottery and you happened to win it, just *once*. Some of us never will, and some (as the Wiki tells us), will win it more than once.
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«Oldest ‹Older 1601 – 1800 of 4546 Newer› Newest»^but doesn't this inconvenience SCs and potential fail a search? Even if not, won't you be blacklisted by the faculty on the SC of the postdoc you signed on for but later retracted from?
There is nothing wrong with turning down an accepted Post-doc to take a TT job. This is expect, and you would be insane not to.
Yes, it creates inconvenience to the SC. But a heck of a lot less inconvenient than being a longterm VAP/adjunct would do to your life. You, as VAP, are the victim of legislatures and universities that increasingly refuse to invest in tenure track faculty. Everybody knows that. Anybody who would begrudge you dropping everything to accept a tenure track position, or even a more advantageous VAP, is not somebody you want as a colleague anyway. The SC's stakes are nothing compared to yours, and they know that.
Hey gang, a completely unrelated question. Is anyone else afraid that they've peaked intellectually? I'm 28, freshly-minted PhD, but sense that my scholarship will never approach the level of scholars I read and truly admire, some of whom published truly groundbreaking articles at my age. Do people "improve" in intellect over the decades or am I doomed to being sub-par forever.
No, that's absurd: if you accept a post-doc you cannot then reject it for a better post-doc. Word gets around about people who go back on their word, and that isn't worth the risk. It is a bit better to apply for a prestigious tenure-track position, but not a VAP, if you already have a post-doc. (Personally, I believe that once you accept a position you should stop applying for all new positions with the exception of tenure-track.)
I'll add that I was once screwed over by someone accepting a VAP position for which I was the #2 choice who then rejected it for a more prestigious VAP (think top-5 instead of top-6-10), and by the time I was offered the original VAP I'd already accepted one at a lesser place. It's not like there aren't victims when one breaks one's word. (I know who did this, but unfortunately he's proven to be a bust, teaching in a mediocre program and having a rather low profile, so I've never crossed paths with him. Still waiting...)
I agree with 11:58. If you have signed a contract to show up at X and teach a, b, and c next year, you most certainly do have a legal and moral obligation to them. Jumping ship for a t-t job is fine, but you must still be apologetic. Jumping ship for a more prestigious postdoc is a very bad idea.
If you haven't signed a contract or at least received and accepted a formal, written offer, then you are obviously free to do what you want.
I would say nothing wrong leaving a VAP or postdoc for a TT job, but it is bad form to commit to a VAP or Post-doc and then leave it for a better VAP or Postdoc.
I guess you'd have to consider whether you'd get a "bad reputation." But in general, don't give people more than they give you: don't sacrifice your own professional life over the long run for a place that hasn't offered you any security for the long run. However you balance that out, you don't really owe anybody any loyalty over a VAP.
It has nothing to do with loyalty: it has to do with the morality of keeping one's word, not to mention the legality of honoring a contract. Sounds like you were raised by the lawless Cyclopes.
So...turn down an opportunity to snag the rare bird known as the t-t position because reasons?
In theory the people sitting on search committees ought to know how this game is played, especially since they're the ones who help perpetuate such a garbage system. They shouldn't be surprised when somebody jumps ship from a temporary position to accept a permanent one. As for contracts and temporary positions, they generally aren't worth the paper they're written on and they are designed to protect the institution, not the employee.
I think the posters here all agree that you can turn down a VAP or a postdoc - even after the contract is signed - for a tenure-track or permanent position. The question is just if you can/should turn down one temporary position for another, slightly better one.
You maybe a lawless cyclops to exchange a VAP for a VAP.
But I would stress that no one should hesitate to pull out of a VAP contract to take a TT job offer. In many instances, the VAP SC will understand. But if they don't, FUCK THEM. Do not mortgage your future for a shitty one year job. Take the TT job. You would be doing yourself and your loved ones enormous professional and financial damage if you do not. And as noted above, the system is rigged against you. Don't nail yourself to the cross out of a sense of duty to the VAP search committee.
Also, it is VERY easy to fill a VAP position. You are slightly inconveniencing a committee, but they could easily get another top-flight candidate to replace you, even without running a national search.
Old former chair here. Regarding turning down a postdoc for a better postdoc or TT. I have been on the other end of this: we advertised a postdoc which was offered and accepted and then, two-weeks later, the candidate phoned to apologize about having been offered a better postdoc. (For context, we're middling, the other postdoc was ivy; ours was one year, if I recall, and theirs was three.) None of us took any offence; all agreed that the young man in question should take the ivy-postdoc. Was it inconvenient for us? Not very. We just went to the next name on our list.
Does anyone know anything about the politics of getting a fellowship at the CHS? How difficult is it for recent PhDs to receive a fellowship and have there been any evident trends historically as to who (or what topics) gets them?
Young people, this is a system designed to squeeze as much work out of you for as little pay and security as possible. Don't go flipping one VAP for a marginally better one, because that won't reflect well on you. But don't listen to any tenured boomer lecturing you about the importance of your word, if you are offered an opportunity to get a real leg up professionally. I'll believe it when I hear these same boomers getting on a pedestal about the importance of one's word when the next adjunct's contract gets cancelled the first day of class.
Uhm, 12:20 a.m., I'm the one who posted about keeping one's word, and I am as far from tenure as anyone here. And I'm not a boomer, either. To quote from an old Mad Magazine Charlie Chan parody that I somehow remember, "Assumptions, like antique bed, should not be jumped on." (Okay, quoting that does make me seem like a boomer. But seriously, I'm not one.)
I'll elaborate on this issue: when you accept a one-year position you should be letting the other programs to which you applied know that you are no longer available. First, though, you should check when any more desirable program will be deciding, before you even accept the first offer. If you are being considered for a VAP or post-doc that will take a bit longer to decide, you should share that information with the people making you your first offer. At worst, they will say you must choose right away, but sometimes they will let you wait to see if you get the other position -- after all, it doesn't benefit them to risk your accepting a position and then backing out, nor do they want someone who's going to be unhappy with his/her decision. But to accept an offer and sign a contract without telling the other programs where one is still under consideration is morally and legally wrong, and anyone who says otherwise needs to go back to kindergarten and have a refresher course in the "Golden Rule," that business about two wrongs and whether they make a right, etc. The ONLY exception to this would be tenure-track positions: as everyone here has been saying, you have every right to trade up to one of those.
While I agree that in principle it is good to keep one's word, the fact is no search committee should ever be surprised or out of sorts when someone trades up for a better position, including trading one temporary gig for another. We do what we must to improve our chances of success in this job market hellscape. Of course, I've never had the opportunity to do this myself...
UC Berkeley 2 out of 3 positions so far this year...perhaps I should have gone there.
And no crazy backroom deals and egregious misuse of disciplinary-wide authority. I suppose they don't need to resort to such dubious tactics with their inherent institutional prestige within the field.
Has anyone ever joined a department (either TT or VAP) suspecting that one or two members on the SC did not support your application, or knowing that your success was dependent on one powerful committee member (whom you did not know personally but with whom you have overlapping interests)? Or did you go into the confidently with no suspicions and start with a clean slate?
Yes, 8:23, this is certainly a common outcome - it was in my case as well, from what I can gather. Sometimes divided preferences and support among a faculty has more to do with their own issues with each other than with the candidate per se. And even if one or two were totally against you, they lost (i.e. they were not the majority). In the end, the job is yours. So be confident and don't dwell on suspicions. That said, these same individuals will be on your review committee, so I would do my best to win people over and make a good impression over the first couple years.
@8:23. Old guy here. I was in the same position when I was appointed. I consulted a senior figure in my department who told me that when they were appointed, it had been that way with them, but that the colleague who had been most adamantly opposed (or so they had heard) in fact turned out to be their most supportive colleague once they were hired. And so it was with me. Those who were skeptical of my appointment treated me well. I've seen this happen several times since.
How bad would it be to be affiliated with but not employed by my PhD institution for a year after I get the degree? My partner and I have a new baby and do not have the money for full-time daycare (which would allow me to do a bit of local adjuncting), but I could be the caregiver during working hours and then work on my portfolio on campus at night as an unpaid affiliate. If I did that, would I be doomed on the market thereafter?
@3:42, I'm not sure I understand the question. One, I think this is pretty common. Two, does anyone need to know that you're still using your PhD institution's resources? How would that hurt your prospects on the market, particularly if you're being productive with those resources? (ie, publishing)
And three (not directed at you, per se), when are we going to admit that adjuncting is nothing more than exploitative labor? Daycare probably costs more than you'd earn adjuncting.
I think seeking an unpaid appointment as a research associate is not a bad idea. Try to publish an article or two, or get a book under contract. Don't debase yourself adjuncting.
Don't debase yourself adjuncting? Publish an article or two while you take care of your newborn without a second source of income? Is that the sweet, tender voice of the Boomer generation I hear?
8:23
When I joined my (fairly large) department, I knew that I had won a very close vote, and a least a couple of faculty who later became friends/allies admitted to me that they had voted for the other candidate. (My sense in this particular case is that most of the department actually thought well of both candidates, but that there were differences in views of the needs of the department.)
In most cases, the people who voted against you didn't have any particular dislike of you, they just thought the other person would be a better fit for any of a number of reasons. It is painful to be on an SC and have to reject people who are good scholars and good people. (Of course, of course, this is NOTHING like the pain that the applicant feels -- I am not asking for sympathy for SC members.) But the unfortunate fact is they can only hire one of all the great people they get to know. Don't take it personally if you found out someone voted against you.
@3:42
I was in an almost identical situation some years back. Here's what I did, and I would recommend it. I found a babysitter who could do a few hours a week (enough to cover my teaching commitment as an adjunct). This was much more affordable than full time daycare. I spent the rest of my time in the day as a caregiver. I wrote (not much, I grant you) in the evenings. Don't underestimate the value of the teaching experience as an adjunct--especially at other institutions beyond you PhD-granting U--for future applications. It is better to be doing SOME teaching in the field than none.
Did anyone else get an email from from the University of Cincinnati HR system with the subject line "Your UC Application For Assistant Professor - Classics Is Now Under Review"? Does this mean they're revisiting applications previously discarded, or is it just some sort of meaningless computer hiccup?
It's just their automated system, I suspect. I got one, too.
Cincy's HR department, especially its computer system, is the worst of any out there: they regularly send out spam to people who applied for a single job, and do dumb stuff like this. I got an e-mail too, and rolled my eyes rather than feeling a surge of hope. You should do the same.
Out of curiosity: why don't search committees ask for copies of the dissertation as a matter of course as part of the application? Certainly they ask for writing samples, but not the dissertation specifically. But given that most applicants are near finishing or done with the writing and would thus have something to submit, why don't SCs ask for them? (In fact, I don't even think they ask for the diss. from finalists, but I may be wrong)...
Reed just went green thus:
"Interview request for a 1-year VAP, which is apparently distinct from the 2-year position for which I had applied (2/9/18)"
Thoughts? Distinct as in supplanting? Or distinct as in addition?
*as in in addition [to]
I posted on the wiki about Reed. This is what the email said:
"Since you applied, the job situation in the department has changed. In addition to hiring a two-year Visiting Assistant Professor, we are now also hiring a one-year Visiting Assistant Professor as a sabbatical replacement. We identified you as a candidate that we would like to interview for this one-year position, if you are interested, because we are looking for candidates with expertise in archaeology and/or ancient history."
Thanks so much for the extra information. Best of luck with the interview!
@7:36
I'm a finalist and the SC asked for a copy of my dissertation.
Comments on various posts above from a lot of experience:
1. There was a single person on the hiring committee for my first TT job who did not want me, but another candidate. He did everything in his power to make my life miserable at the job including: telling the students to not take my classes, but do Greek with him instead; tell students in both our classes that his classes were more important than mine and to do his work instead of mine if they didn’t have time; sit in to evaluate my classes for reappointment and tell me “everything was fine” and then write a scathing report for my file because, as the Chair told me later, I didn’t “consult” with him on how I should teach my classes. I was, needless to say, not reappointed. And I found out later that this was not his first time doing this to someone. So, there are bad people in our field who punish everyone around them when they don’t get their way.
2. I adjuncted when I had my child and published. I had library access (important) and the department I adjuncted for then moved me into a full time spot (VAP) when I was ready to return to full time and then vigorously wrote me letters to try to help me get a full time job elsewhere. There is nothing debasing about adjuncting if you have a child and no full time prospects with parental leave. The shame there is not on you but employers.
Already some surprises in job offers: 1. TT positions do not always (often? 0/2 this season) go to the VAP candidate and 2. an Art History Ph.D. received an R1 offer in Late Antique History. Does the second speak to a growing trend in interdisciplinary training?
2. Art History is history (and if you look at the job ad, the late antique tag was a possibility I think, not a required AofE).
Not surprising at all. Disciplines have secret handshakes but History is relatively open, I'm guessing due to its size and resulting ability to take risks. For its small size, classics is pretty open as well (minus perhaps the prevalent bias for advanced Greek and Latin for all specialties, but this is still more open than dogmatically requiring that your degree be stamped by the discipline). Anthropology is particularly bad about requiring anthro degrees and speaking its particular disciplinary dialect rife with buzzwords and neologisms. I have to say Art History is not too far behind (and biases for a particular level of outward refinement and sartorial splendor). In the immortal words of Mars Blackmon, it's gotta be the shoes. Wear the right shoes, people, if you interview for Art History.
Wait a minute, didn't we have a long discussion some pages ago that History jobs wanted historians? Not classicists, not archaeologists, not art historians, but people actually trained in the specific discipline of history?
@1:49, in reference to the TT jobs not going to VAP candidates, I know of at least one such situation this year (probably one of the ones you're referring to) and from what I heard it was kind of a shitshow. Apparently there were TWO "inside" candidates, one the current VAP and one a former VAP. My source's impression (not one of the principle players so take this with a grain of whatever) was that the department had split over the two insiders and couldn't agree. The final choice was a compromise, more of the third-place candidate (or more accurately enough people's second-place candidate). I don't know for sure if this is all true, but it's supported if you check the CV's of all the candidates (for those in the know)--the offer was made to the person with the shortest/lightest CV and when that's the case it usually means some horse-trading has gone on. Paradoxically, candidates with less weighty CV's can have an advantage under these circumstances because they can be made to fit whatever contradictory roles the different members of a department have in mind for them. So I would say that at least this one instance doesn't necessarily reflect a trend in departments moving away from their own VAPs.
@3:17
Late Antique specification or not, Art History most certainly is not History.
It is certainly unusual for a history department to hire someone with a degree in art history. However, the scholar in question (if you're familiar with her work) certainly puts the "history" in art history, and her topical research interests, productivity, and dynamism must have outweighed whatever parochial instincts the SC may have harbored.
On the contrary, there is nothing surprising in an "inside candidate" getting passed over; they are rarely hired, it's just that people notice and get bitter when they are.
I agree, it's actually more uncommon for the "insider" to get the offer, but when it happens it generates so much bitching and moaning that it appears more frequent than is accurate. It's the same phenomenon that leads to ABD's and fresh PhD's with lighter CV's getting hired over the more experienced/qualified candidates--SC's are drawn to what is shiny and new and seems to have unlimited possibilities. The person down the hall seems an ordinary mortal by comparison.
what's up with duke-kunshan university? Does anyone know if it's legit or a scam? I applied for a position there--it seems from the application that they are trying to hiring a ton of people at once to jumpstart the humanities division, but i have yet to hear from them nor it appears has anyone else....
I'm an archaeologist/art historian type, who could make a case for being historical AND who has plenty of sartorial sense. I never had interviews with history departments, but then again I had the bad luck of not applying to those particular departments. There have been a few such hires in the past few years, but not many. I have a feeling it might have to do with SC members being interested in archaeological work, but other than that, I can't figure out the logic either.
@7:09, I applied to tons of history positions and never had an interview. I thought it was because of what was discussed earlier, that history departments want actual historians who have been trained as historians, not art historians or Classical/Mediterranean historians. I'm also an art historian/archaeologist type with a strong grounding in social and cultural history, but all of it is ancient and I concluded that SCs assumed I'd be rubbish at teaching other geographical-temporal-methodological histories. I can't figure out the logic, either.
If I can't be the hire, I am often rooting for the VAP. The people who howl and moan about these fake, inside-hire searches are a) often surprised when the "fake" search turns out to be real (i.e. the VAP is not hired) and b) have likely never been a VAP during a TT search or during the lead-up to one.
7:51, word.
For what it’s worth, I was the inside VAP for a TT hire a few years ago and it was by far the shittiest experience of a number of shitty experiences on the job market. It poisoned my relationships in the department for months, as I couldn’t have a 2-minute conversation without feeling evaluated. When I got to the interview stage, I actually felt my personal knowledge of the committee was a detriment since I couldn’t see them as a unit and was paralyzed knowing that an answer that pleased one person might annoy another member. I did get to the campus visit stage, only to see the offer go to someone else. And whatever anyone may say, it is impossible not to take it personally when people you know and like and work well with announce (rather publicly) that they don’t want to keep you around on a permanent basis. It certainly made the next few months extremely uncomfortable, and of course I still run into those people at the SCS—with me still interviewing, still looking, and wondering whether that department was my last, best hope for a TT job in this field.
It's for this reason I tell my students to resist getting too comfortable in a VAP or thinking that it could lead to something permanent. If it happens, great, but don't get your hopes up or factor it in at all. It's disingenuous and irresponsible for anyone in a department to intimate that you will have a better shot at a hypothetical permanent job both before and during the job. Ignore it when weighing the offer and perhaps even use the irresponsible selling point as a strike against them.
Did any ever hear from BYU?
So far it looks like state schools are cleaning up in this year’s placement. Interesting in light of the conversation up the thread on graduate school rankings.
Re: 8:35 AM - how so? Only two listed for the T-T jobs - those from Berkeley, on everyone's Top 10 list - are from state schools for their PhDs, and Berkeley is a state school in name only, most of their money comes from endowments.
I'm not 8:35 but by my count, we have two from Berkeley and two from Cincinnati on the current wiki. Both programs are heavily supported by endowments, so your point still stands.
Plus both are on everyone's Top 10/Top 12, so they fit into the "elite" category.
Well surely the heavy from Cincinnati bullied people into hiring their students haha
-for those without a sense of humor that was a joke
Where there's smoke...lol.
Let's just admit that the rest of us are all jealous because our own sh***y, lazy, disorganized advisors didn't put in that effort...
I hardly think Cincinnati is in the top 10/12 in everyone's esteem when we're not talking about archaeology. It would not have been in mine. Which makes the two TT placements from recent literature grads of that program more interesting. But if what people up the thread said about their recent TT placement (Professor Heavy aside) is true, perhaps they should be ranked higher across the board.
For those who think that Cincinnati's strong placement is the result of the disproportionate influence of the former American School director, there probably won't be any way to show that this is true for quite some time after the Heavy retires. Even then, it depends on what kind of retirement they opt for; they are associated with a major excavation and so may continue to work in that capacity and exercise influence for some years after they officially retire from their university appointment.
I doubt that an archaeology professor has much influence in placing philology graduate students into jobs. But having a year at ASCSA on your CV, and/or excavation experience, is certainly a bonus. I say this as an SC member who has participated in many job searches.
If you had an interview with a place and they sent out rejections to people who did not have one a while after this interview, but you haven't heard anything - does it mean they made a decision on their first choice?
^yes, in my experience
No one is necessarily bullying anyone as snidely/defensively suggested. I don't personally know this person at all (no dog in this fight as a Roman historian), but I've read plenty of letters from senior scholars in important disciplinary-wide positions (e.g. president of scs) that overtly used their uncommon position to influence beyond their academic standing as professors of classics (the letters make clear they hold this important position and go on and on about how the candidate is better than all the students they've seen at this institution - powerful stuff, and I would argue dubious from an ethical standpoint). Perhaps this is normal and expected, but I would never feel comfortable flashing this disciplinary-wide standing to push for my students (e.g. I would use my university letterhead vs. AAR letterhead). Call me shitty, lazy, and disorganized...or perhaps overly ethical and a girl scout. My students seem to be doing well all things considered and I sleep at night.
Different strokes. With the job market as it is, if I had a position with discipline-wide influence then you'd better believe I would be using it to help my students obtain permanent employment.
That said, people upthread have already touched on the fact that Cincinnati isn't some podunk department that has no business having a PhD program; the influence of a particular Heavy is not the only reason that their students get job.
No, I think it is enough to say that the prestige of Departments in our discipline does not always match the overall mental map of prestige. Cincinnati is not an Ivy, but places people far better than many Ivies, including Harvard and Yale, which have been punching well beneath their weight lately. Indeed, I would unscientifically proclaim that the Top Five programs might in fact look like this (in no apparent order).
Princeton
Penn
Berkeley
Cincinnati
Stanford
I agree that placement should be a consideration when evaluating the strength of a program. But programs such as Harvard, Yale, and Chicago take far fewer students per year than massive schools like Cincinnati and Berkeley. This wiki does not keep track of their ample numbers of unemployment, or more importantly, the number of drop-outs that a place like Cincinnati also yields (of which there are many. Many. At Cincinnati in particular). A place like Yale consistently sends its graduates into external post docs (Harvard SoF) or internal post docs; Harvard also keeps their PhDs alive and kicking for several years after graduation with internal Harvard post docs. Cincinnati does not attract the same caliber of graduate students as places like these; many incoming students lack other admissions offers, and few would and DO choose Cincinnati over Penn (for archaeology or literature) if they have this option.
Yale Classics *consistently* places folks in Harvard SoF vel sim? That seems like fake news. Can anyone confirm?
My count for last year shows 2 TT placements for Yale and six for Berkeley.
Yep, if we repeat it often enough, it will continue to be true: Cincinnati (and its ilk) are appropriate for the unwashed, ill-born members of the aspiring class, but even if the program does seem to 'punch above its weight' for decades on end, it will still never be as categorically *elite* as the ELITE programs at the institutions that are naturally its better. We just need to keep saying this enough to Missouri Cincinnati and ensure that none of the people who 'don't deserve to go to graduate school and then get permanent jobs' actually do go on to graduate school and then take away OUR jobs. Go us!
Seriously, some of you really sound like that. I get it, some of you would (in the right position) intentionally hire ANY 'elite' PhD over ANY other PhD, no matter the individual qualities of the candidates. And I suppose that many people actually do this already. But doesn't that make the placement record of a Tier Two program like Cincinnati that much more impressive, against a loaded deck? Shouldn't we all be (grudgingly) impressed and/or jealous, as implied by several above? Or is the whole system just that much more corrupt 'when someone from a program that doesn't even deserve to exist gets' a job that we wanted?
It's on reading things like this that I thank the gods I'm from north of the border, so I don't have to put up with as much of the nonsense, eh?
4:54 p.m.,
How many graduate programs do you know well? In addition to your own, at how many departments with a Ph.D. program have you taught? If that answer is two or more, was one elite and the other non-elite? And if you can't answer this in the affirmative, how can you think that your opinion is valid?
There is a difference in the overall caliber of grads at the top programs and the lesser ones. It's not some weird class construct, but reality.
@1:14, I don't believe anyone here is saying incompetent or even unworthy people are getting jobs. There are so many great candidates. I happen to agree about the dubious nature of using one's station as a leader of an institution that represents the entire discipline to then tip the scales unduly and repeatedly in favor of one's own students. We need diversity in the field and a certain level of due process. I have no idea if this is the case here, but the "all's fair" responses and general bashing of excellent programs and faculty for being elitist is just as alarming to me as the potential for this to be happening. Please, try to take the high road as you're not doing Cincy any favors by reacting in such inflammatory fashion.
Don't forget shitty, lazy, and disorganized...so the scrappy underdogs are showing them elitist, misguided, ethical scum how it should be done.
Jesus Christ, what a shitshow. Everyone here piling on Cincinnati is showing their elitist ass, to be honest. Quite frankly it sounds like a lot of entitled people who came from "better" programs than Cincinnati have a case of sour grapes because a department at some filthy public university in a flyover state is placing students left and right. Clearly this must be because of the Machiavellian string-pulling of an aging archaeologist at Cincinnati, since all the students there are unqualified, unintelligent lackwits. After all, they didn't go to Penn, Yale, or Haaarvard so they must be stupid.
5:31 P.M.: "We need diversity in the field and a certain level of due process."
...And we have that with the same handful of Ivy/Par-Ivy programs consistently populating the field with their graduates? Let's not pretend that the success of people from these programs isn't due as much to the influence of their advisors and the automatic thinking that Ivy=Always Excellent as it is due to their awe-inspiring brilliance.
The Ivies produce and place plenty of mediocre candidates. As a graduate student at an Ivy in my later years, I can say that it is quite breathtaking how many students who do get placed are producing very little of long-term value for the field of classics, and rather reproducing the field's now standardized ideas and tropes (but merely finding a new author or subject with which to do it with).
As someone pointed out on the Wiki earlier this year, plenty of students with some of the most creative and philologically substantive new ideas for the field, with very strong CVs and a great deal of teaching experience, get passed over for mousy candidates or the occasional Fake News pusher which our field is too scared to call out and challenge (especially if they are a woman or a minority candidate). After all, our field is a swamp full of fake news ("siccate paludem"), and often even newer venues that were supposed to challenge Fake News like Eidolon have become the new mouthpieces for the recycling of mundane identity politics and the Fake News that goes along with it.
Sure, call me bitter for not landing a job, but I see this crap repeated again and again, year after year, and sadly, many faculty are happy to hire the weaker, mousier candidate if that person will be the pawn in their middle-management syndrome for the next 5-7 years, rather than risk having their unconscious status quo threatened.
Someone's sitting on three job offers? Damn. Well done, whoever...
"There is a difference in the overall caliber of grads at the top programs and the lesser ones. It's not some weird class construct, but reality."
How much more elitist can you get?
Last year Yale placed two grads in T-T jobs at USF and UCLA and one at the HSoF along with a slew of VAP's and adjuncts. This year it's looking like one more at the HSoF and a handful more waiting on the results of interviews.
7:30 PM: "As someone pointed out on the Wiki earlier this year, plenty of students with some of the most creative and philologically substantive new ideas for the field, with very strong CVs and a great deal of teaching experience, get passed over for mousy candidates or the occasional Fake News pusher which our field is too scared to call out and challenge (especially if they are a woman or a minority candidate). After all, our field is a swamp full of fake news ("siccate paludem"), and often even newer venues that were supposed to challenge Fake News like Eidolon have become the new mouthpieces for the recycling of mundane identity politics and the Fake News that goes along with it."
...I'm not even sure how to reply to this. This might be the most wrongheaded take I've ever seen on the state of the field. What's wrong with Classics? Clearly the answer is all the unqualified women and minorities taking the jobs! And Eidolon's identity politics. Who killed Homer? It was Hillary Clinton in her Chappaqua basement with an email server.
SERIOUSLY, whoever has THREE job offers, can you just take one already and give all of us beggars a heads up about the rest of them? (Update the wiki).
Dilemma: Columbia SOF or a Classics post doc? SOF is much better paid but the Classics post doc will give me more teaching experience in the field (which I am lacking).
7:52, you wrote in response to me:
"There is a difference in the overall caliber of grads at the top programs and the lesser ones. It's not some weird class construct, but reality."
How much more elitist can you get?
If you knew where I got my Ph.D. or, for that matter, knew me personally, you would realize what a laughable comment that is.
But permit me to ask you the same question I asked the other person: how many Ph.D. programs do you know from within, rather than by reputation? Your comment suggests not very many, though of course I could be as wrong as you were in your assumption about me.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a number of people on here are card carrying Trump supporters...make Classics great again!
Hey, 11:09, I'm not the person(s) you have in mind, but I can volunteer that I don't like Eidolon OR Trump. I hope that doesn't blow your mind.
Grab 'em by the preposition!
Re: SOF or Post Doc?
Congratulations, it is nice to have options, even on the secondary market. Not knowing the details, I would suggest some considerations:
One Year or Multi-Year? A multi year temporary position is a very valuable asset, as it will allow you to stay in the field without having to move every year. This takes an enormous toll, and is one of the worst aspects of VAP-life.
Prestige: Whether we like it or not, prestige matters in our field. It sounds like Columbia SOF takes the cake here, although you do not say where the post doc is.
Pay: More money is always better. Also ancillary compensation like travel funding an research support.
Teaching: Not every SC values teaching. Personally, I would not turn down an SOF in order to do more teaching. Many SCs would prefer a book or articles (NB very much depends on where you are applying, SLACs value teaching highly, R1s say they do, but mostly don't). I had a post-doc that did not require any teaching, but arrange to teach for one semester so that my teaching portfolio would not be vacant.
@11:13, I'm a former Columbia SOF. You can def do some Classics teaching while at CU SOF: I taught a course on Roman religion; my classicist predecessors at SOF taught courses on the Greek novel and Vergil's Eclogues/Georgics respectively. Glad to correspond about this and other matters SOF; I can be reached at dpadilla@princeton.edu.
And for the inside hire win: UNCG!
UNCG inside hire looks like a strong candidate, and no doubt deserves the position. But again the anger with the inside hire: why couldn't they promote a proven and talented VAP internally instead of doing so through a national search. And why on earth have an OPEN SEARCH, inviting hundreds of applications from all sub fields? At least they could have had the common courtesy to run a "Roman archaeology" search. UNCG just wasted a lot of the field's collective time: hundreds of application packets and letters of recommendation. This is why people hate fake searches. Its not that a worthy inside candidate doesn't get the job, its that we all wasted our precious time on it.
I've never been an inside candidate, but from the outside looking in it seems like a rough deal. If you are hired, there is a lot of snarking about inside hires and wasted searches. If you are not hired, there is the hurt and humiliation described by one former candidate above, and perhaps some uncharitable people will think worse of you for not being hired by your own institution. I hope we can all be kind to the insiders on both sides, and not assume the worst whether they are hired or not hired.
One clear trend is that none of the TT hires so far are ABDs -- it looks like everyone has spent some time beyond the PhD teaching or researching outside of their PhD institution.
Speaking of insiders, I see the Rutgers job (advertised as Augustan/Republican poetry) has gone to an Apuleius person with a Rutgers BA. Does having an undergraduate degree from the institution make the person an "inside hire"? I would say yes.
While occasionally and undergraduate BA gets hired back to their alma mater, it is a rare occurrence and tends to be more based on chance than any sort of good old boys network.
Inside hire? That's quite a reach.
@12:53. Old guy here with no inside knowledge. Why an open search? I assume because it wasn't a fait accompli. Don't forget that a department is not a single being with a single will but a composite of its members. In this case, it is easy to imagine that some members knew from the outset that they wanted the insider. Some, however, may have been happy with the insider but wanted to see who else was available. And some may have been agnostic or even hostile to the insider. As the process moved forward, the collective decided that the good things they knew about their insider outweighed the unknowns about other applicants.
A question to those who are VAP or a postdoc -- on the whole, how do others, i.e. faculty, graduate students, undergrads, view your position at the university? Are you treated like a very advanced PhD student? Like a faculty member? Or a mix of the two? Do you feel like you need to interact with tenured faculty members like "professors" rather than as peers / colleagues? Just curious to know what to expect on the social level before starting my position in the fall...
Undergraduates do not know the difference (watch out for that).
Graduate students are sometimes too busy to realise you're there.
Every faculty member is different (but any decent one will hope that you turn out to be a peer).
You are visiting. Everyone hopes you'll make the place better, and maybe some lasting friendships will be formed.
There are a lot of rules about hiring processes at (especially public) universities, where they *have* to run open searches, even with an internal candidate. And based on what I know, UNCG took the process seriously and I didn't get the job, but I don't think it was corrupt. And the person who got the job seems eminently qualified and capable.
I have had two visiting teaching positions at two different universities -- one where I knew people in the department beforehand (which created the opening), and one where I was a complete stranger. At both the faculty treated me like a colleague, and when I have seen them on subsequent occasions I have been greeted very warmly indeed. At one institution I was seen as filling a significant (and enduring) gap in their teaching capacity, and at the other I was told that they would loved to have hired me permanently, but were not in a position to do so. Perhaps I am naive, but both sentiments seemed genuine to me. And both departments had graduate students, though on the whole I interacted with them very infrequently.
A warning: I had a foreign postdoc and was treated as an overgrown, inconvenient graduate student and locked out of campus-wide funding and professional development opportunities. I was also formally classed as a student, which I found belittling. I have a Ph.D.-there is no more school for me to do! (This was not a habilitation-in-Germany situation). I'm currently in a VAP in a department without graduate students. The undergraduates do not understand the difference between me and the TT people, and the department has treated me as a valued member of the department and protected me from onerous service/teaching burdens where possible.
@11:00, I also had a foreign postdoc. I wasn't belittled, but I was classified as a student in some respects (like library privileges) and faculty/staff in others (like I couldn't use the university health services, which were only for students). On the plus side, undergrad and grad students treated me very much like a faculty member. The faculty were mostly ambivalent towards my existence, so that could have been better, but it also could have been much worse.
@11:00 AM - thank you for your insights! By foreign do you mean Europe? Or are you not American and had a postdoc in the US?
I had a fellowship in Germany a few years back, and wasn't made to feel welcome by the faculty. They all were incredibly busy, but that's not a proper excuse to be anti-social. When I got there I assumed that there would have been an e-mail sent around telling them that I would be joining them for X amount of time, work on Y, am from Z school, etc., but after a week or so I realized that no one knew who I was or why I was there with the exception of the faculty member involved in the fellowship program. So over time I had to introduce myself to the faculty, some of whom were friendly, though most could not have cared less.
In the U.S., responding to other posts here, I have had several VAP's, and have come to recognize that some colleagues simply will not care about my presence and am not too bothered by it, but what I do resent are those department chairs who do not take the time to welcome me to their department, let alone bother to take me out for coffee or lunch soon after my arrival. It should be an eternal law of academia that every department chair in every department should feel it mandatory to make at least a minimal effort to welcome a new visiting colleague. (In one case I waited more than a week before finally visiting the chair's office to say hello, since even though he knew I was around he had not come looking for me.)
Anyone hear anything further about the Utrecht post?
It's nearing the end of TT/post doc/SOF season and I've nothing. Anyone else in the same boat, or does everyone get at least *one thing* by the end of the year to continue in this profession? ....
@8:59, I didn't last year. I didn't even bother trying this year.
Ditto. I applied to only one postdoc- Chicago. Even that is basically a waste of time. I noticed that last year they took no Classics people but that they had brought back one of their own recent PhDs- a guy who did German philosophy or political science or something- to teach the new Greece and Rome sequence. Really, why bother? And my impression is that for most of them you really do have to be from an elite institution. Columbia also charges you money for them to deign to throw your application in the trash if you're not one of the Great and the Good. No thanks!
Unless you have an connection through an advisor, or personally know a faculty fellow, applying to the SOFs tends to be a waste of time. Do not bother applying to the Harvard SOF, for example, if Greg Nagy is not on a first name basis with you.
replying to 2/15, 3.26pm, if you're talking about the Utrecht post-doc: it's done, someone has been hired. so sorry to hear that you weren't notified.
ISAW finalists range from ABD to advanced Assistant Professor level. There have been other recent searches with a similar spread. In these instances, does the SC not know in advance what they want in the position (sheer number of pubs, or promise)? Or are they open to all of these different career levels, and it comes does to the personal "fit" criterion?
How many ISAW finalists are there, for how many positions?
finalist notifications for ISAW have gone out this year?
I would like to know about ISAW too. On a general note, I wish I could just get timely rejections, without the need to refresh wiki like a maniac. I know, I know, all that HR requirements, but damn, maybe all those HRs should change their guidelines.
It appears the ISAW "update" is not new, just a response to the jobs posted on the events calendar. Hold on to faith, those of you waiting to hear for a different ISAW position! This looks to be for the T-T History/Archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean position, and the wiki was already up to date about finalist campus visits.
@10:30, yes, IMO this would be where "fit" can be used to make the offer.
I believe ISAW has also interviewed finalists for their visiting position, or at least one of them.
once you get an offer for a position, is it appropriate to take however long they give you to deliberate before signing the contract? Do you feel pressure to sign within a couple of days? Is it rude to take the whole weeks or however long the stipulation is on the contract?
It will vary depending on the institution and the position. In theory you should feel free to take all the time they allow you, though keep in mind that there are other finalists who are also waiting to hear to that they didn't get the job, and it is courteous not to keep them in suspense unnecessarily. But on the whole taking a few weeks to decide seems fairly reasonable to me, especially for a permanent or multi-year position.
It's fine to take the time allotted to you. I think the polite thing to do, though, is to alert the department to the fact that you will be taking some time to think it over, and whether you have/ or are waiting to hear about other offers.
If you don't have any reason to, then don't. If you do, then do. It's not a question of "rude" but of why you need or want the time to think about it or wait for other offers.
I didnt have a stake in it, but am I justified in being irked by the Oregon hire? It was a Late Antiquity posting; they hired a Classical Greek historian. Am I missing something?
12:09 here. ^^^^^disregard my post.. I was mistaken about the job posting; it was a broad “ancient” search that was also open to Late Antique folks, it was not a Late Antique job.
My apologies.
^^^Classical Greek *Art* Historian
FWIW, it seems like Oregon did interview some late antique people, so there may have been some motivation behind the special mention in the call.
Often "including Late Antiquity" means, "we would really like Late Antiquity. And the successful candidate does to 2nd century AD, so right on the cusp of LA (which is now so broadly defined it can mean anything after the Severans)
Servii, can we get these comments about the Oregon hire removed? We've definitely crossed the line into impugning-junior-scholar territory a few times.
Unclear how any comments on Oregon candidate cross the line. The issue is not at all the scholar's work, but rather the nature of how the position was advertised. It seems fair game to discuss how an SC's job posting relates or doesn't relate to the final hire in relation to speciality advertised. This in no way impugns the work or the achievements of the successful candidate.
I agree with 3:29.
This discussion has nothing to do with the scholar who is now a T-T faculty member at a great school. Comments here only are with regards to trying to decipher the already-confusing job market just a bit more.
To be quite honest, it says far more positive things of her (I do believe it is a ‘her’) than anything negative. If, in fact, her specialty is Art History of Classical Greece and she managed to get land a job that desired a LA person, even larger congratulations are in order! We all apply for positions that are a stretch for us to be able to convince a SC of our fit, so for one to do so *this* well says an immense amount about her.
By chance, two scholars whom I respect were telling me positive things about the person in question several weeks ago, before this particular position was filled (or, at least before the wiki was updated).
Like any search committee, those who made the choice had the right to take the person it thought would be the most valuable addition, regardless of how an ad had been phrased months earlier. There really is nothing more to say about this matter. And I write this as an ancient historian, though I didn't apply because the posting seemed to want someone who does gender/sexuality, and I've learned not to spend my time on those.
(Servius, please note that I am avoiding mentioning the school, so that if you do make some deletions this might be spared.)
I agree with the more recent comments; this conversation has been generally respectful, with a big congratulations to all hires. It has been very helpful (at least for me) to understand how the job market can work, and instances where it is worth applying to jobs that might feel like a stretch with regard to your specific degree, so long as you have training or teaching experience in that field.
Hmm... I don't think it's much of a stretch, 3:29, 7:44, and 7:47, for someone who has her publication profile to apply for a history job. Her scholarship is unquestionably well within the parameters of the ad. And in general, I would say it's a bad idea to read so far between the lines of an ad and decide not to apply as a result, as some people here seem to have done. Apply widely.
*To departments that force poor job seekers to pay upfront for airfare costs.
*To the professor who rejected me from a job immediately after my paper presentation at the conference, in front of other people, and didn't even comment on my paper > well, that tells you at once where you *don't* want to work…
*To SUNY-Stony Brook for sending out an email to the 209 of us not selected for first-round interviews and NOT listing us as BCCs, but as open recipients. We all now can see the full names of every applicant.
To quote from the worst of Wiki Jeers this year—seriously? To all of the individuals associated with the above (especially the second one—are you fucking kidding me????): you deserve a massive public shaming. Although I must say, in the case of the last one, it might be reassuring to all 209 involved to see some friendly faces on that list, or at least I would imagine...
It would be worth contacting the department of the professor who publicly rejected the candidate. Email their department chair, email the Dean of their college, file a complain to the head of their H.R. This is deeply unprofessional behavior, and should be sanctioned. At the very least, prevent this person from being on future committees.
Does anyone get their airfare paid initially? I have always had to pay upfront. It is a huge financial burden that departments seem completely oblivious to; I have occasionally had to borrow money from my parents to pay the outlay for travel that would be reimbursed.
@9:22,
I posted the SUNY-Srony Brook jeer. What is your problem with it?
The SC chair was unbelievably irresponsible and made it so that we all could see the names and institutions of all applicants. That’s a major privacy violation and could seriously threaten the continued jobs for many who applied while hired elsewhere.
11:38, I've been on campus three times (no job, alas.....), and two paid upfront.
11:43, I think the above poster meant to second the unbelievable behavior of the jeer-ees, not to question the jeer-ers. I'm still blown away by the Furman jeer, if true.
Yes, the Furman Jeer––if true––is profoundly unprofessional and could also land the Furman SC in hot water. Imagine if just one protected category candidate was among those not provided with questions in advance. Furman could be subject to a massive lawsuit, which it would not doubt move to hastily settle.
And now to return to Georgetown... that should put to rest all of the naysayers out there. A fair search. (I know for a fact that the successful candidate has no "connections" with the department).
And even if the person did to a degree, some of the calling out done here is a bit of a stretch in our small world and only serves to call into question much nobler attempts to illuminate the darker areas of our discipline. Please, some of you get a grip and act like this isn't your first rodeo.
Amen.
The Furman jeer is true. Like other candidates I received an SCS interview request and then had no contact from the SC prior to the annual conference. A few weeks after the interview, i found a posting on 12/26 with the interview questions that had apparently been sent to some candidates. I did not receive them in advance but they were identical to the questions asked in the interview.
If one African American candidate was not provided with interview questions, while a white applicant was, then Furman could be out millions of dollars. Regardless, a Dean should be informed of the SC's highly unethical behavior.
@12:57,
But this is th first rodeo for many of us, and we’re a bit disgusted to see just how inhumane they treat the animals here (to stick with your analogy).
I did not apply for the furman job but if what I hear is true, it makes me very concerned. I think it ought to be reported not only to the dean of their university but to scs folk in charge of professional matters too, to prevent such things from happening again.
"If one African American candidate was not provided with interview questions, while a white applicant was, then Furman could be out millions of dollars. Regardless, a Dean should be informed of the SC's highly unethical behavior."
Enough of this ridiculous insinuation that only POC receive consideration in these matters. Yeah, it's why we're jobless - those damn colored folks are taking our classics jobs, all five of them on the market!
Read the "colored" response to Mary Beard's obtuse Oxfam tweet plus nonpology follow-up and educate yourself on why Classics (and a large chunk of the Humanities) is on the road to extinction. https://medium.com/@zen.catgirl/response-to-mary-beard-91a6cf2f53b6
I largely agree with your post, but there is one glaring error. I severely doubt there are even five POC on the classics market.
8:35 p.m., what you quote says the exact opposite of what you read it as saying -- it's obviously not an anti-POC post, as anyone with seventh-grade reading skills could tell you. Based on the way you brought in the irrelevant situation with Mary Beard you strike me as someone seeking every opportunity to vent about your social and political causes. And the sad thing is that it's behavior like this that harms all of academia, not just classics.
For people who are supposedly experts on, well, reading and writing, some of us are not doing the field proud. Jesus....
Point on Furman was the legal implications of the SC's unprofessional actions. Some applicants fall into categories protected by Federal discrimination law. Some are easier to prove than others. It would also be illegal if Furman distributed questions to men but not women, non-veterans vs. veterans or Catholics but not Jews. My point was the legal perils that Furman has waded into.
I believe it's generally illegal at state schools to treat applicants differently in some obvious manner regardless of their backgrounds. Even if what Furman did was kosher according to its own private uni rules, it was obviously stupid and clearly represents an uneven playing field whether it was malicious or not.
Looks like 2/13 7:30 PM has returned now as 10:06 and 10:10. Lovely.
Make that 9:45 and 10:06.
I was 9:45 p.m. That was my only post on this. I'm sure 10:06 p.m. would join me in mocking your reading skills.
I'm glad that 10:55 clarified the situation for those who don't understand: Furman not giving the questions to anyone is a violation, but if it was a protected group that's a much bigger problem, legally speaking. 8:35 seemed not to understand that, somehow.
Anyway, this is all a silly argument at this point. Obviously, Furman has done something wrong, and it's only a question of whether the victim(s) want to try to do something about it. Personally, I'd assume it was an unfortunate oversight and not try to destroy someone over it.
Never believed whitesplaining was really a thing until reading Mary Beard of late and some of the posts on here...
10:06 here. I am not 9:45, nor did I post the long thing about Classics being a Fake News Swamp. #MCGA.
Not sure why we are still arguing about this. Furman did something wrong; if what they did harmed protected classes, that's arguably the kind of discrimination could get them into lot$$$$$$$$$ of trouble. For what it's worth, there is a middle ground between forgiving and forgetting and destroying Furman. You might, for instance, try to get the SCS to publically censure them, or make the dept. issue a public apology...
Classics, the stronghold of invisible hierarchy and genteel racism. And we wonder why Classics ranks at the bottom.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/this-is-what-the-race-gap-in-academia-looks-like/
That "Scientific American" table doesn't prove racism in Classics, genteel or otherwise. It suggests some interesting things, but this isn't the place to discuss them. Nor do I expect that anyone who would post such a thing while anonymously calling countless others genteel racists able to have an illuminating and civil discussion about these matters.
And I write this as someone who doesn't use phrases such as "Fake News" or MAGA, here or elsewhere.
I agree Furman was far more likely to have been incompetent than malicious, but if interview questions really were distributed to only some candidates, that is seriously not good, both for the careers of the neglected candidates and if the department has stumbled into a legally precarious situation. It's certainly not my first time to this rodeo, and I've never heard of such a thing before. People who didn't get questions, you checked your spam and everything?
"Classics, the stronghold of invisible hierarchy and genteel racism. And we wonder why Classics ranks at the bottom."
Couldn't agree more. Being gay, female, or poor doesn't stop one from reaching the top of classics these days. What does for whatever reason? Being brown or black apparently. And, no, it's not incumbent on POC to figure out why or explain why it is. If we see a problem with the results, it's incumbent on us, the people in charge, to figure out why unless we are happy with the status quo. But perhaps we really are and there's something to the claim by some that the classical world belongs to "us."
1:33 is exactly right. In market things, assume incompetence, especially if email systems are involved, but that's not to say it's acceptable--it's hard to think of any more objectively unfair situation than some candidates being officially given the exact questions in advance, and others left in the dark, regardless of all the other issues identified above.
1:14, I think it's pretty embarrassing for Scientific American to publish that chart with the given interpretation. Except for a couple of outliers (philosophy, education; math barely) it looks like there is little or no correlation: that is, at any given level of "genius-obsession," disciplines offer pretty much the full range. I assume that's why they just print the points plotted without any trend line. The upper edge of the cluster does to the right of the x-axis a bit, but I bet if you did a weighted regression it would be pretty much flat. So what does this tell us? That most academic fields are tremendously un-diverse, which we mostly already agreed to be bad. Adding on the very squishy "genius-obsession" factor doesn't seem to add much to the critique, even if the analysis were true. And of course, fields like philosophy know perfectly well that they have deep problems of racial and gender bias--knowing is only part of the story of fixing it, however. In any case, I don't really see what it had to do with any discussion taking place here?
does DIP to the right, I meant to write above.
The fact that Furman's application process and interview stressed heavily diversity and inclusion makes this even more problematic.
I think it is EXTREMELY unlikely that Furman used this question thing to suppress diversity. Most likely, it was not intended to advantage any group. Conceivably, but highly unlikely, it was intended to advantage a specific candidate or few candidates. Most likely, this is just an example of the sloppiness on SCs that unfortunately results in some people getting jobs, others not, seemingly largely at random.
8:10 AM again: I agree with some people above that the legal problems will arise if one of the excluded candidates happens to belong to a protected group, but I doubt it would have been intentional.
FWIW, I interviewed with Furman at the SCS. When I saw the original "cheer" about the interview questions on the wiki in early January, I was upset because I had not, at that point, received them. I looked in my spam folder and voila, a two week old email from the SC was just sitting there. Fortunately, I still had a few days before my interview at that point to prep. I am not the person who posted the jeer, and I am disappointed to learn that this happened.
Oh man, then Furman's emails must somehow just be going to people's spam box! How horrible for those who didn't figure this out in time.
February's almost over - is it normal that there are just a few VAP postings so far?
Whether it's one or more of you pointing out the genteel, patrician racism that's easy to read if you know what to look for (but apparently imperceptible and still too uncomfortable to confront by the vast majority of classicists) - THANK YOU from a PhD SOC. I can count four POC friends in the last five years that have dropped out of programs primarily for this reason.
K, let's get back to more comfortable discussions like the bashing of Furman...
Classics is a dead field, folks.
It's not dead. It's just resting.
I, too, received the Furman questions, and the e-mail was marked "suspicious" by my e-mail server because it was from a gmail account, not a .edu. I'm also a member of at least one, I think two "protected" categories, so I don't think that they were trying to exclude particular groups from this "advantage." Doesn't excuse it, if they did fail to provide all candidates with the questions in advance, but it *is* possible that the emails just didn't make it to candidates' main folders (as in the case above, where it was in spam, and in my case, where it was marked "suspicious").
@2:18, I suspect it is one well-intentioned person with a big blindspot doubling down and scrambling to salvage some sense of dignity (despite continued attempts to weave neo-liberal heroism into the Furman narrative). If he could, he would probably post a photo of himself crying. Try to stay positive and keep working towards change even if it's quietly in the background. A lot more people, I have to believe, are recognizing the blindspots and wish to support you.
"It's not dead. It's just resting."
Resting...just like the roadkill and millennial dreams I see lying on the side of the road on my drive to my $2k/class job.
We had a search this year with pre-circulated questions and I made sure to confirm with every candidate at the beginning of the interview that they had indeed received the questions, in order to at least mitigate this kind of fiasco. Fortunately, ours had all gotten them.
Question for the FV community: I recently had an on-campus interview during which a senior member of the search committee on two separate occasions inquired about my marital (and family) status. In the first instance, my answers were initially short and evasive, but the individual continued to press for more details, at which point I felt it would be more awkward to continue to stonewall, so instead confessed that my partner is also an academic currently at another institution. The next day, during another one-on-one meeting, the individual admitted that they knew they weren't supposed to ask certain questions, but then asked me point-blank what my partner and I were looking for long-term (professionally). Since this was at the very start of our 30-minute meeting, I again opted for what felt like the path of least resistance and admitted that our hope obviously is to be together somewhere. I'm contemplating reaching out to the Dean or HR to let them know this happened, especially because I know they have at least one more candidate coming to campus and I don't want that individual to be put in the same situation. Has this happened to any of you? If so, what did you do?
@12:26 This is absolutely against the law. If the individual admitted they knew they were not supposed to ask the question, this makes it even worse. Document by sending an email to someone you trust (or yourself) with names, date, and your best recollection of the situation. If the university in question, has an ombudsperson, you may want to try to have a confidential conversation to see who the best person in HR is to contact.
Personally, I would wait until the search is over and report whatever the outcome, but you are fully within your rights to lodge a complaint now. Waiting until after the decision is reached, can (1) make it look like sour grapes if you are not offered the position and (2) make the situation uncomfortable with your new department if you are offered and accept. It is a hard decision realpolitik wise, but a clear line legally. I am really sorry you had to deal with this and now have to face the decision to report it.
Just to clarify, and I agree with 12:33 on the thorniness of the matter and defer to their suggestions on how to handle the sitch, asking the question itself is not illegal, but its being asked can be used as evidence that there was intent to discriminate, should you not be offered the job.
https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/inquiries_marital_status.cfm
@12:26, nope, nope, NOPE. I would report this to HR regardless of what the outcome of the search is.
Let me guess; are you a woman? I can't imagine this line of questioning ever being directed at a man.
It seems more likely some asshole would ask a woman about this, but honestly I won't be shocked if it's a man.
because academics assume that everyone has two options: long-distance or spousal hire
This should also be reported to the SCS.
@1:25 FWIW, am a man, and have been asked these types of questions on multiple visits. However, I am not in the same situation as OP, whom I feel for.
Any idea of a timetable for when the names of the Gettysburg and Queensborough acceptances can be made public?
@1:40 - I am sorry to hear that as well.
A question to those who struck lucky and got offered *one* position. Do you celebrate and look forward, or does a part of you still question why everyone else rejected you and wonder what ulterior motives might have led the SC at your future department to offer you the job? I'm just recovering from the dire job market and receiving so many rejections -- despite a few interviews and one offer -- made a mark on me.
Yeah it's weird isn't it 2:55? Even though you received an offer, you still feel like your self-worth took a hit because of rejections for the vast majority of positions to which you applied. Here's a thought with which I attempt to console myself after my own post-interview rejections. Your essential worth is not determined by your time. Your time is relatively arbitrary and dependent on circumstances. Your time can fluctuate because it's based on the evaluation of other people in particular circumstances, for a particular job in a particular place in a competition with other particular job candidates. So your time qua job candidate really is, to use the parlance of our times, "socially constructed."
@2:55 @3:23 Must be rough!!
@1:37, there's a third option -- offer the trailing spouse a ridiculous job of some sort -- low pay, or not a ladder post, or in some other department -- so that they can say they made a "good faith effort" to accommodate both. Or offer to split the position, so that one family has two half-time people, meaning the school gets either two full-time people on one person's pay, or two maybe 3/4-ish people on one person's pay.
This is a field so decadent that 'discovering' fake, Christianizing acrostics in classical authors is treated as scholarship. Give me a break.
@12:26. My advice is to say and do nothing. First, this guy has tenure (I assume), and at least at my university, this means that the worst that could happen to him is a stern talking to by his chair and/or the dean. Second, and more importantly, Classics is a small world and if he knows that you've ratted him out (and you and he are the only ones who know of his conversation), he can do more damage to you than you can to him. So, as much as he deserves something bad to happen to him, leave that to karma.
@3:23 and 2:55. I don't know if this makes it any better, but the feeling of sad, second-guessed rejection is also very bad when the position ISN'T permanent. At least you know now that, going forward, you'll simply be judged on what you do and have done, not what people think you can do/ might do etc. esse quam videri and all that. Congratulations!
So far, no ABDs on the TT market.
2:55pm: I want to empathize, but I really can't... Get out of your head and celebrate! It's a lottery and you happened to win it, just *once*. Some of us never will, and some (as the Wiki tells us), will win it more than once.
@7:59
The Georgetown VAP's advisor = the same guy we read about in the NYT who "retired" from Columbia for sexually harassing Jane Doe
So, I'm guessing that advisor wasn't making many phone calls to Georgetown...
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