So you really think that the average Latino student will take Greek 101 or the life of the emperors before taking a course relating to Latino Studies or Latin America? How about the Asian student? I would venture to guess tha the average Asian would take Chinese archaeology before Roman.
No, your "average" Latino won't take Greek 101. Your "average" Anglo doesn't take Greek 101, either. And I think the guess about Chinese archaeology is totally wrong. Not to mention that there's no special reason why Asians of descent other than Chinese are going to be more interested in the archaeology of ancient China as opposed to that of ancient Rome.
Sure at CA schools you'll have a good number of Latino and Asian students in classics classes, but you better when they make up 80% of the student body.
But this is my whole point, and you've just dismissed it as insignificant! As the U.S. moves to "minority-majority," as CA has already done, there's no reason to think that Classics will die because all the Anglos forgot to breed.
I'm obviously less confident than many of you that arete will save classics in the coming decades.
Whoa, now. I'm totally pessimistic. But the humanities are going to get spiked not because they aren't interesting to plenty of people—they are!—but because they aren't lucrative and don't lead to a specific job and because the people who fork over the money and shovel it around don't really care if the humanities are interesting.
If there are dying classics programs, put some of the blame on the suicidal types in English depts. in particular who were afflicted with self-loathing and helped destroy core curricula in so many colleges...sometimes with classics allies.
If by "some of the blame" you mean "virtually none of the blame," then I agree completely. This is all about the money, and administrators would have gotten rid of core curricula that necessitated lots of humanists anyway.
I teach at a semi-elite SLAC (think top 30 USNWR) and the provost here has been chipping away at us for years. Once the Hellenist retires in a couple of years they won't replace him, and there goes Greek. Gone forever unless we all chip in and teach overloads (which we will, 'cause we are suckers). Then the Latinist will retire in about ten years and she'll not be replaced. At that point the historian will be moved over to the History dept. and the Art Historian to the Art History dept. No more Classics dept., and those old lines can be given to the sciences. After all, Biology and Chemistry *definitely* need a 15-member department to serve a student body of 1400 (yes, I'm bitter). It's crap, but as long as higher ed is driven by a business model we can't survive. We don't attract dollars and our language classes can't be scaled up like a lecture class. This whole "elite" argument is nonsensical. Administrations think only of the bottom line now, and Classics isn't seen as helping. This is a fundamentally different situation than the "crises" of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s because the very model of higher ed has changed. We're going the way of the dodo, and there isn't much we can do about it.
I do think that a liberal arts education, including Classics, will remain as part of a boutique educational experience for the highest social and economic elite. It's something that has been widely available for more than half a century but will become ever more restricted to the children of the very rich.
On the upside, these children will need butlers and other servants, which I expect to become the main sector of job growth in our economy.
I find it funny that we're blaming the economy, English departments, and the sciences yet we're not looking in the mirror. So many of you honestly think what we're doing now (see quote below) is "interesting" and it's just the bottom line that's killing us?
Fact is, the vast majority of places do not need 2 people to do Latin poetry, 2 people to do Greek poetry and then 2 to do Latin prose and 2 to do Greek prose, with maybe a token material culture person and/or a historian to round out a Classics department.
I'm not getting into a us vs. them debate again (especially since I'm a "biased" historian), but I think a small part of the blame can be attributed to our stubborn fixation on what classics should remain to be.
"What?! But we NEED three people teaching Greek? Why? Because this is Classics!" Dean thinks, "Wrong answer."
"Fact is, the vast majority of places do not need 2 people to do Latin poetry, 2 people to do Greek poetry and then 2 to do Latin prose and 2 to do Greek prose, with maybe a token material culture person and/or a historian to round out a Classics department."
Don't forget in this outdated but all too common model that the historian/MC person also teaches beginning/intermediate Latin and/or Greek, which is inexplicable to most outsiders (read: deans).
Another historian chiming in here. This is my fourth year in a history department after two VAP gigs in classics departments. My university is a second-tier R1 state school and I couldn't be happier. Yes, I need to teach a couple western civ courses every year, but my other two are Roman history and my last is an upper level in my particular speciality. I have a counterpart who teaches Greek history/archaeology. I think this is the future, at least at large state schools. It's not as if there would be more than two of us in a classics department. Unless you really miss teaching Latin, I think this is the way to go for most historians.
I really can't muster sympathy for a classics progra where someone teaches say 2-2 and can't manage to publish and then laments when their program is cut about how unjust it all is.
So it's decided! Why are historians/MC people sticking around on a sinking ship where they're treated like shite? I wish I knew this before I became the lone archaeologist merged into a miserable, deadend Department of Languages Not Yet Dropped.
Yes, ancient history will probably be the least hit followed by archaeology thanks to history, art history, and anthropology departments. Once classics dies off at all the non-elite schools, even the elite programs will be hard pressed to justify the number of grads churned out each year. There should be some modest cuts in historians and archaeologists, but classics grads should be trimmed in half, at least. The current levels are just not sustainable as departments get axed and merged.
I think the best analogy is the medical field in the 90s when even elite institutions (MGH/Brighams) needed to merge setting off a desperate period of consolidation where the not-quite-elites disappeared.
I really can't muster sympathy for a classics progra where someone teaches say 2-2 and can't manage to publish and then laments when their program is cut about how unjust it all is.
Yeah, publishing is an issue, but not how you think. The problem is that getting articles into AJP and JHS, and a book out by Cambridge, doesn't help expand enrollments one bit. Sure, those baubles will get you tenure, but once your dept. is gone and you are teaching in the dept. of NYCL, the field is toast. If we spent half as much time attracting a wide range of students as we do writing articles for a audience of six maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Hiring and tenuring expectations have gotten out of line with what is actually good for the field, long term. The same senior scholars who now demand one book out, another in the works, and three or four articles in top-tier journals in order to earn tenure at some crappy R1 themselves earned tenure with two articles and a so-called book manuscript that is still "in progress." If you want to blame anybody, blame those fools for increasing the stress and expectations on the current generation. Academic Boomers: The Leastest Generation.
So, as a result of these demands, we slit our own throats as we chase after lower teaching loads and more frequent sabbaticals. That stuff earns us prestige, but student tuition dollars pay our salary and keep departments in the black. Now, however, the students have fled, and we're all fucked.
I find it funny that we're blaming the economy, English departments, and the sciences yet we're not looking in the mirror.
What do you mean? Every second comment, including yours, has been blaming the Classicist in the mirror (or rather, every Classicist except the one in the mirror!). And I haven't seen anyone blame the sciences.
So many of you honestly think what we're doing now (see quote below) is "interesting" and it's just the bottom line that's killing us?
We have quotes below?
And yes, I think classical antiquity is pretty interesting, and so do lots of students. If you don't agree, then you should probably have packed it in a long time ago. (If what you mean, though, is that it would be interesting to students if we changed all of the classes to whatever you think they should be, that's different, but I'm not completely sure what you're saying.)
My point is that, whether students are interested in your subject or not, nobody's excited to pay you to teach it, because it doesn't bring in wads of research funding, doesn't have any practical application, and doesn't lead to an easily identifiable career.
So yes, I think this is a crisis of money, not a crisis of interest.
My point is that, whether students are interested in your subject or not, nobody's excited to pay you to teach it, because it doesn't bring in wads of research funding, doesn't have any practical application, and doesn't lead to an easily identifiable career.
Not true. If you can pack in the auditorium, that is serious revenue generation. In fact, a UCLA study from last year showed that humanities faculty generate MORE revenue than sciences because we are cheap. Sciences may get the grants, but they have to support lab costs, post-docs, etc. Classicists who offer courses with wide appeal can make a financial case for themselves. If you offer a 50-person lecture that only 6 people show up for, well, you're an idiot and deserve to be cut.
If you can pack in the auditorium, that is serious revenue generation.
I knew somebody was going to say that. Look, you're not seeing the big picture here. This is "serious revenue generation" only in the sense that it gets a bunch of students at once to pay in order to fulfill a liberal arts requirement, and you only have to pay one professor and maybe a few TAs to do it. But for how much longer do you suppose legislators, taxpayers, parents, and students (at least the ones not interested in the humanities!) are going to endure the existence of liberal arts requirements on the path to their vocational certificate? They've already been diminished significantly, and administrations don't have much reason to fight here, apart from resistance on the part of faculty.
In other words, my big lecture courses look cheap to the administration so long as they fulfill a requirement, but when those requirements are gone, the cheap option is not to have my position at all.
That is how the humanities are going to be gutted.
"But for how much longer do you suppose legislators, taxpayers, parents, and students (at least the ones not interested in the humanities!) are going to endure the existence of liberal arts requirements on the path to their vocational certificate?"
Legislators don't break down where state funds will go in a university, so that's irrelevant. Same with taxpayers. Parents will have a huge say in what their kids major in (bad for classics since it's not the best pre-whatever major when GPA is king), but not what specific classes their kids take in fulfilling their requirements AND electives. Well, you say humanities are being phased out of requirements. Very few parents will stand the total phasing out of humanities requirements. Yes, they don't want their kid majoring in classics, but they're not rooting for their kids to take all non-humanities courses either. Many, if not most, want their kids to be able write at a rudimentary level and have some semblance of a balanced education. Also, all pre-professional students need a break from long labs and ball-breaking major courses. I just don't see the future as all humanities requirements shoved aside and students loading up on non-humanities courses and earning a BS in two years. Perhaps at non-traditionals schools with a large number of commuters, but I just don't see it happening in general. I know very few traditional undergrads who want to blow past college and just get it over with. They want the full four years and non-major courses are a part of it along with all the college shenanigans.
So yes, the old model of classics where you have 80% language/lit faculty teaching 20% of the students enrolled in their department's course offerings will not work. Not when the discipline has to rely on non-majors to justify its existence. As an outsider, I would start wondering why there are so many faculty in a department when the average student is exposed to the department through an adjunct.
I've never understood one major thing common to many of the complaints here (over the last few years). The paradigm of evil is some Ivy League type university with four Hellenists studying Pindaric textual criticism, but the woeful consequences are always described in the context of some large state uni or SLAC. That just doesn't make much sense to me. The Ivies are by and large doing okay, and most of the state unis/SLACs don't have large multiples of highly specialized philologists in their dotage who refuse to teach large lecture courses (this is probably an inaccurate portrait of the Ivies too for that matter) - and certainly not for much longer. If South Washingtucky State or Nirvana College is going down the tubes it probably doesn't have very much to do with Princeford's hiring decisions. Or, to put in another way, if I've got a problem with my Toyota it'd be bizarre to call Aston Martin's customer service (even if they're doing a really shitty job with their own cars). I know at my school we hire based on what we need (inc. enrollment), not on what anyone else is doing.
A more genuine problem would seem to be this: you're a grad student in a good program - do you 1) aim for that elusive Ivy job (with all the specialization and screwing your teaching that entails) or 2) build a really diverse cv to cover all eventualities (but probably eliminate any chance of that Ivy job). Ten years ago you might not have had to make that decision in advance, but now you do (or you've already made it without knowing it). That sucks, even before you get to the crappy market.
As an outsider, I would start wondering why there are so many faculty in a department when the average student is exposed to the department through an adjunct.
That's exactly what's happening. I would venture to guess that most departments are down several lines from a decade or two ago. And when it comes to requesting a line and general priorities, those who are willing and best equipped to successfully teach some large enrollment classes don't usually factor in. If history departments take charge of ancient history courses en masse, it's definitely the end of classics as we know it and hello Department of Disparate Languages Who Will Never Replace My Line.
Very few parents will stand the total phasing out of humanities requirements. Yes, they don't want their kid majoring in classics, but they're not rooting for their kids to take all non-humanities courses either. Many, if not most, want their kids to be able write at a rudimentary level and have some semblance of a balanced education. Also, all pre-professional students need a break from long labs and ball-breaking major courses. I just don't see the future as all humanities requirements shoved aside and students loading up on non-humanities courses and earning a BS in two years.
The humanities will be preserved as recess. I love it.
As for earning a BS in two years, that will be a while. First we'll have the three year track, which is coming to a university near you in the future. Both sides of the question treated briefly here.
Note the quote from Zemsky, who supports the three-year idea:
"I suspect that what particularly worries the AAC&U is that, were a three-year baccalaureate to become the norm, what would be cut from the curriculum are the general education requirements which undergird liberal arts enrollments."
A more genuine problem would seem to be this: you're a grad student in a good program - do you 1) aim for that elusive Ivy job (with all the specialization and screwing your teaching that entails) or 2) build a really diverse cv to cover all eventualities (but probably eliminate any chance of that Ivy job). Ten years ago you might not have had to make that decision in advance, but now you do (or you've already made it without knowing it). That sucks, even before you get to the crappy market.
I don't think is so much of an issue anymore. You try to do both: publish like crazy while building a really diverse CV, and then pray you can find any job at all. Since the market is largely a crap shoot, a really good candidate has about the same chance of landing that T-T at Columbia as they do Missouri as they do at Beloit as they do a two-year at Kenyon. All odds are so vanishingly small that it pays to maximize your chances for every institution.
I'd say the "worst" throw of the dice is landing a teaching heavy job at a mid-range, but aspiring place. They'll kill you with course prep while still expecting that you publish at the same pace you would have at Columbia, had your number only come up a bit differently.
If history departments take charge of ancient history courses en masse, it's definitely the end of classics as we know it.
Our history department has always had the ancient history courses. I'm not dismissing the general "end of classics as we know it" proposition, only noting that classics can do large lecture courses without claiming ownership of the ancient history courses.
I'd say the "worst" throw of the dice is landing a teaching heavy job at a mid-range, but aspiring place. They'll kill you with course prep while still expecting that you publish at the same pace you would have at Columbia, had your number only come up a bit differently.
No, the worst throw of the dice is to crap out entirely on the market three years running, beg to get a job as a substitute teacher in your old high school, live with your parents to save money, and spend all of your free time negotiating with the Classical Bulletin to publish the 25 book reviews you've managed to write since getting your degree (circumstances altered slightly to protect the innocent). That, my friends, is the worst throw of the dice.
"I'm not dismissing the general "end of classics as we know it" proposition, only noting that classics can do large lecture courses without claiming ownership of the ancient history courses."
You mean like civ and archaeology courses? How long are the neglected and marginalized Ph.D.s who can teach these classes at a high level going to remain in classics along with the historians? The only high enrollment class that I see a good number of lang/lit profs teach with good results is myth. It's not enough though to boost enrollment and create interest in classics without the other lecture courses.
I saw this in an article from a completely different context, but does it remind you of anything...?
"If you give animals a predictable reward—say, a shot of sugar every time they press a lever—you can get them to press that lever quite regularly. But if you want irrational and addictive behavior, you make the reward unpredictable. Pressing the lever produces sugar, but only once every 10 tries. Sometimes, the animal might have to go 20 or 30 tries without a reward. Sometimes it gets a big jolt of sugar three tries in a row. If you train an animal to work for an unexpected reward, you can get it to work harder and longer than if you train it to work for a predictable reward."
I'm flabbergasted as usual, but the November ads will be late...again. And it's going to take a few more days to cut and paste 5 ads. The incompetency knows no bounds.
"The only high enrollment class that I see a good number of lang/lit profs teach with good results is myth."
Besides Myth, several places have large basic classes in "Greek Civ" or "Roman Civ." taught by language/lit profs; as well as "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Lit," Sex and/or gender; Women in Greece and/or Rome; Ancient Sport (taught by lit types or historians or MC types); Etymology; Greek Drama, Ancient & Modern Comedy, Classics & Film, Latin Lit in English Translation, Ancient Myth in Modern Lit; Ancient Epic; Greek Books (Homer to Dante or Tolkein in one or two terms); "Heroic Journey," Age of Augustus/ Pericles/ Nero; Cleopatra; Pagans and Christians; the Ancient Novel. A few of these may top off at 40-50, but many are suitable for (and somewhere thriving at right now) 100-150+ .
For what it's worth, here the size of our civ and myth courses is limited by the size of the lecture hall we can book and the number of TAs we can afford to pay to conduct the sections. If we could support more sections, we'd have students in those, too. And, here at least, these courses are taught almost exclusively by literary people.
If history departments take charge of ancient history courses en masse, it's definitely the end of classics as we know it and hello Department of Disparate Languages Who Will Never Replace My Line.
I don't know that the following is actually a good thing, but I find this hard to imagine happening in most history departments (certainly not at my institution). It's hard enough convincing most programs that history actually goes back that far or took place outside the US. I know of places where American colonial history is regarded as "far away."
Why are the moderators tolerating a stream of anonymous attacks on a named individual?
We've tried to catch them as they come and we've deleted many on arrival, but a couple slipped through. We also debated amongst ourselves about allowing a few of the more innocuous ones to stand, which caused some delay. Finally, the sheer number and, shall we say, "passion" of the comments on this matter have made this thread especially difficult to adjudicate in the last couple of days.
Criticism of the APA Placement Service seems to be an annual tradition here, and walks a fine line between attacks on individuals and critiques of a system. We mods aren't exactly the biggest fans of the current way of doing things either, but we do insist that you refrain from personal attacks in your criticisms of said system. Please feel free to point out flaws in institutional design, but not in the individuals hired to implement it.
If you wish to complain about the competency of certain individuals, we suggest that you address your concerns directly to those who are actually in a position to do something about them: the Director of the APA and members of the Placement Service Committee.
It's great that there appears to be one healthy program out there. You might be one of the few still around in several decades.
I didn't mean to show that it's a healthy program but that here literary people teach a range of popular large lecture courses. Maybe we aren't doing that everywhere, but there's no reason we can't.
As frustrating as some aspects of this month have been, I do want to thank the members of the FV community who have taken it upon themselves to report the jobs that would usually be posted on other listings in the forums here. As someone on the market for the first time who needs the extra time to get everything put together in time to get things off three weeks in advance (insert random snarky phrase about interfolio), your efforts have often made the difference between my being able apply to positions and not being able to.
I want to thank especially the faculty at hiring institutions who have posted their openings directly on the job boards. If everybody did this then we wouldn't fret so much about the APA getting the information out in a timely manner.
For example, I think I would have applied to Millsaps in any case, but once they posted the ad and kept everybody up to date on the deadline extension through FV I became excited about the job. Those are the sorts of people I want to work with.
Sure if you count all the VAPs, helot positions, senior positions, and fringe classics specialities. If you count permanent positions that a mainstream junior classicist has a chance at, it's definitely less than 50. But maybe we can make a 10 for 300 documentary. 10 assholes like you among the 290 rest of us.
One way of making the numbers look better: among the "300" applicants, the ones whose remarks on FV show them to be complete tools will probably have recommendation letters that mention or at least hint that they are complete tools, so they are not really competing with you. I once got a job because all the other interviewees came to the APA with the word TOOL on their foreheads in thick sharpie, and my mediocre interview impressed the department.
I don't know. Remember the tool on here who went on about how only fools offer help to others and it was in your best interest to undermine the candidacy of others? This person has either turned over a new leaf or doesn't post on here, suggesting that they are either out of the field or in a job. The cynical side of me thinks the latter. There are plenty of senior tools who will write a glowing letter for a student tool who kisses their ass.
anyone know where the furman job ad is listed? -- November 17, 2010 1:48 PM
It is in the Placement Service November "Early Edition," emailed out on Nov. 8th, and it was also emailed out by the WCC on Nov. 2nd. I notice the placement service website hasn't been updated yet, so it is still showing Oct. as the "most recent job listings." I'm not sure where you could find the ad online (I can't find any WCC listserv archives online, and I see Furman doesn't have it on their HR website).
Could somebody who actually subscribes to the PS post the details of the Furman job on the job board site? There are at least two of us who'd like to apply who haven't registered, and we'd prefer not to wait until the PS whips their hamsters to see the ad!
Could somebody who actually subscribes to the PS post the details of the Furman job on the job board site? There are at least two of us who'd like to apply who haven't registered, and we'd prefer not to wait until the PS whips their hamsters to see the ad!
It is my understanding that you have to register for the placement service in order for them to schedule your interviews at APA. Since Furman is using the PS, the PS will schedule Furman's interviews. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
I've arranged interviews before with institutions without going through the APA, so I know it can be done. If Furman wants to interview you, then they'll figure out a way. Often people who are currently employed don't want to use the placement service, so they'll understand.
There are also some institutions staffed by people who recognize the folly of using the PS. In the past, even new PhDs applying for tenure-track positions (i.e., those without employment) have not gone through the PS. It all depends on the institution and the Chair of the search committee. If the APA is unwilling or not able to fix things, perhaps this will become something of a trend.
Here's a question for you historians out there. How are you dealing with the fact that the AHA is at the same time as the APA? What are you telling search committees, and do you think it hurts your chance of landing an interview if they specify that they will interview at the AHA?
For the first time I'm flipping things and planning on attending the AHA. It only makes sense since I've applied to many more jobs in history departments than classics. This strategy has been vindicated because I've already heard back from a history department whose deadline was mid-October. If a classics department gets back to me, I'll ask for a phone/skype interview.
Hmm, I guess classics really is the "sick man" of the humanities. This is only my first year on the market, but I'll have to focus more on history departments next year. The odds look increasingly bad for historians to find homes in classics departments.
So the new APA Placement email came out today, with not a single job announcement I haven't already seen elsewhere. But on the bright side, there is a claim that interviews will be set up through an email system and not through the postal service (!) this year (details to come). So progress can be made, even in our dying field.
I'm Anon. November 19, 2010 1:26 PM, and even though I'm not a Greek or an Historian, I'm happier with the job situation this year than I have been in the past two years.
The jobs aren't abysmal but they're not great by any means. They're reflective of the uncertain economic times and shift away from the humanities and classics - senior positions, bizarre cross-appointments, VAPs, endowed chairs, etc.
There are more history jobs than any time in recent memory...??? Yeah, if you happen to be a goldfish. The history market is pretty poor (almost exclusively "Ancient Med" jobs in rural nowhere towns) and so help you if you're a Roman historian... there wasn't a real, open TT Roman History job last year, and it doesn't look like there will be a single one this year, either. In 2005/6/7 and even 8 there was actually A market for history, as opposed to this amount of dead air.
Seriously, if you're a Roman historian, I sometimes get the impression that you either have to luck into a classics job at an elite school or teach in history departments at glorified vocational/community colleges. Where are all the jobs in the middle?
Even though traditionally those of us who practice Classical archaeology have received no love from this message board, for what it's worth I'll point out that the job situation for entry level T-T jobs in Classical archaeology - particularly in Roman archaeology - are akin to the situation that the Roman historian posted about. The downward trend in T-T archaeology jobs has sunk below the nadir, it would seem.
Even though traditionally those of us who practice Classical archaeology have received no love from this message board
Um, I would say what you describe is generally a discipline wide phenomenon and not just restricted to this board. Forsooth, this board is almost certainly just a representative extension of the discipline (with a dollop of angst for good measure).
And, yes, Roman archaeology is in a similar situation to Roman History minus the vocational/community college-grade jobs (I would happily take one at this moment).
I think the "bizarre cross-appointments" are partially a result of the dangerous waters surrounding small humanities departments like classics. One can't be too insular in this day and age lest irrelevance be used as a reason for dissolution. Yet, one cannot get too chummy with cognate departments lest a penny-wise dean think consolidation is the obvious path. Not that consolidation is necessarily bad or even avoidable at non-elite schools, but it should be something done with input by the faculty and some semblance of agreement on their part.
There should be some modest cuts in historians and archaeologists, but classics grads should be trimmed in half, at least. The current levels are just not sustainable as departments get axed and merged.
And secondary school jobs are dying as well. Soon it will be the sole domain of some nostalgic prep schools in the Northeast. To the academy, the research that needs to be done does not justify the number of classicists produced either. So with these two pillars of education knocked out from underneath us, I'm afraid the future isn't bright for language/literature based classics.
welcome to the classic catch-22. without more grad students to fill the void, institutions can not justify funding classics, ergo too bad, grad student, good luck finding a position!
"To the academy, the research that needs to be done does not justify the number of classicists produced either."
This is why we need to fashion our overall research agenda in less narrow terms. As a specialist in Greek prose, even I can see what must be absurd to outsiders - that classics is essentially studying several centuries of literature. We can go on and on in our departmental homepages about how classics is interdisciplinary and how we study every aspect of the ancient Mediterranean world from the dawn of humanity to the rise of western civilization, but our research interests and course offerings betray us. Make no mistakes about it, deans are already forcing our hand and defining our research agenda by not renewing lines. Why not seize the initiative ourselves in the name of survival? Okay, the dean will not let us replace our third, or even second, Latinist. Why not ask for something who does ancient science? Neolithic archaeology? Late Antique history? As long as they have some grounding in the classics, I don't see an unworkable fit. They're not replacing that Latinist anyway, why not change the way the game is played? At least one program seems to have done this successfully judging by the breadth of courses described by a poster here.
"And secondary school jobs are dying as well. Soon it will be the sole domain of some nostalgic prep schools in the Northeast."
Any facts here? I thought that Latin study at the high school and middle school level was slowly increasing. Hiring could be hurt short-term by the economy, but long-term? I'm not in the Northeast, but our public school has Latin in middle and high school. Parents/voters think it helps with the SAT, builds study skills, helps with other languages, looks good on college apps, yadda yadda. The ACL site, http://spectrum.troy.edu/~acl/jobs1.htm, listed 200+ jobs from January to August 2010.
This story from UCLA http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/bottom-line-shows-humanities-really-155771.aspx argues that the Humanities pay for themselves. For this list, I guess I'd say that the Humanities pay for themselves when there is a decent mix of large and small courses and writing courses and courses that serve multiple departments. And everybody looking for a job needs to think a little bit about how to help the humanities pay for themselves. It's not rocket science and we don't need to reinvent ourselves completely or grow gills or make video games out of the Iliad. But we need to keep our heads up. The future looks rough, but not dystopian.
I don't think you even need the large lectures with over 100 students at most schools. If you have an overabundance of upper-level courses with less than ten students, then yes, you might need some of these, but I think humanities programs would do well to live by the thirty-ish lecture-discussion class. Once you get over thirty, you start to really lose that personal touch and require things like graders, but I think it's the sweet spot balancing quality with cost.
Yeah, cross-listing courses is a cost-saver, but I've usually found that classics is the one not willing to play ball with other departments, and not the other way around. Combined with the elitist label that already dogs us, most programs aren't doing the discipline any favors with their insularity.
Yeah, cross-listing courses is a cost-saver, but I've usually found that classics is the one not willing to play ball with other departments, and not the other way around. Combined with the elitist label that already dogs us, most programs aren't doing the discipline any favors with their insularity.
I'm not sure how accurate that is. I taught an established Ancient Novel course at a very good school, and learned that English refused the cross-listing. How would such a course not not have been fantastically useful to their majors?
There are two ways to be useful to other departments. One is to teach courses that their majors will need, or that will make their majors better, regardless of whether they are cross-listed, and I think this is what the earlier poster was suggested. (It's not always, "Do you need that third Grk or Lat person," but "what else can that third person you need do?") Whether a department will cross-list with you depends on a lot of factors. Some English/Hist/Phil/RelSt/Art departments will be happy to cross-list, but others will be hesitant, possibly because of internal politics, or the old-fashioned way some old person in your dept teaches, or more innocently just because their majors often wind up oversubscribed in the major (esp. in English). Some depts just like to control what their majors take. And every school has it sown ways of tracking who gets credit for enrollment in cross-listed courses.
If this is the case, then the specialities that one of the previous posts listed makes more sense. I can see Neolithic Mediterranean (anthropology), Late Antiquity (Art History, History), and ancient science (pre-med/sciences) being quite useful to other programs.
"As a specialist in Greek prose, even I can see what must be absurd to outsiders - that classics is essentially studying several centuries of literature."
Easy for you to say. I'm guessing that you're a tenured professor in a relatively plum position. Wait until I get a job and then I'll join your cause. Until then, screw the historians, archaeologists, Byzantinists, Etruscologists, etc.
there are lots of classicists who really, really don't like Classics.
Yeah, the junior ones who have to constantly deal with high-and-mighty sabretooths who've driven the discipline into a ditch on their watch and constantly harass us with unrealistic expectations when they got tenure with two mediocre articles and a dubious book based on their diss.
Which is itself an archaic rule deriving from Latin sensibilities. It's particularly apt that as classics (i.e. classical literature) becomes increasingly irrelevant to deans and the outside world, split infinitives are the concern. Were you playing a stringed instrument while posting that comment?
Since you are good at bringing many into the spotlight, including yourself with your recent marriage to Demi Moore, can you suggest who might be the appropriate Demi Moore of academia I (Classics) can marry? I need to ride on the coattails of someone to stay relevant. Thanks.
Those sabretooths who were tenured without as many publications also, on the whole, know Greek and Latin a hell of a lot better than quite a few of the newbies who show up on the job market.
Those sabretooths who were tenured without as many publications also, on the whole, know Greek and Latin a hell of a lot better than quite a few of the newbies who show up on the job market.
That's because the sabretooths mostly came from privilege. First they went to boarding school, then on to Yale/Williams/etc. for undergrad, where they had the luxury of honing the languages they'd begun when they were 10, and thence straight to graduate school at Princeton/Harvard/Oxford/etc. While there a bit of discreet trust fundage helped finance a life of cognac, the collection of Teubners and a devotion to genteel travel. At the end of this idyll their advisors made the requisite phone calls and they were handed a plum T-T gig. Safely ensconced in such a full-time position they could continue to hone those same long-studied languages without ever having to worry about publishing much. A couple of articles in AJP or TAPA, submitted when the right Old Boy was editor, inevitably did the trick.
Now, however, having demanded decreased teaching loads, increased research money, and ever more specialized courses for their tenured selves, they also ask that the new generation (those language deficient newbies who have massive student loans, children, and two-body problems) publish at least a book and four articles, with a second book on the way in order to get tenure.
So, yeah, our languages suffer in comparison to yours because we have never had the freaking time to devote to them, and we still don't thanks to your ridiculous expectations. And, btw, after said expectations cause us to leave, the dean will be more than happy to hand our FTE over to the Economics department. So congratulations on that.
You do know that publication expectations for tenure aren't in general determined by departments, right? That these are generally institution-wide, or "College of Arts and Sciences"-wide, expectations? When a dean or a president decides that a good way of boosting the university's reputation for research is to demand a second book for tenure, then a second book is demanded for tenure. Your colleagues on the faculty aren't in a position to change that.
This kind of inflation of expectations is a frustrating and I think self-defeating thing, but it's not as though older faculty invented it in order to be perverse and hypocritical. Deans invented it to try to raise the status of their own institutions.
Instead of mindlessly accepting this grammatical rule dictating that we not split infinitives I suggest that certain individuals investigate its origin, and then make an informed decision whether to continue following it.
In my case, I've decided to split infinitives left and right (though for the purpose of this post I decided not to be clever and do it deliberately).
This kind of inflation of expectations is a frustrating and I think self-defeating thing, but it's not as though older faculty invented it in order to be perverse and hypocritical. Deans invented it to try to raise the status of their own institutions.
True, to a certain extent. But older faculty are complicit in this inflation in two ways. First, they enjoy the fruits (less teaching, more research funding) that are used to justify the inflation, even though they themselves don't have to deal with the consequences of said inflation. Second, they have failed to argue against such increases, both locally in their own institutions, and nationally, by urging the APA to issue a clear statement about tenure expectations. The AIA has done this, and has made the lives of junior archaeologists (once they actually find a freaking tenure track job) much better. Including the AIA statement in tenure files of archaeologists clearly signals to the promotion committees that there is a reason they can't produce at the same pace as many other humanists. This has saved many a tenure case.
Many Deans suck, and their individual motivations are at odds with the long-term health of higher education, but we can't blame them for everything.
older faculty are complicit in this inflation in two ways. First, they enjoy the fruits (less teaching, more research funding) that are used to justify the inflation, even though they themselves don't have to deal with the consequences of said inflation.
No doubt, and it's not hard to see why that would happen: when we're talking about the subset of people who got tenure a long time ago without much publication, it's the same inertia that led them not to do much in the first place. The lone consolation should be that, if they've continued not to publish much, their salaries have probably languished. (And I do feel slightly bad about criticizing people for not publishing if they don't have anything to say: we already have an avalanche of basically pointless publications that are driven chiefly by promotion considerations.)
Second, they have failed to argue against such increases, both locally in their own institutions, and nationally, by urging the APA to issue a clear statement about tenure expectations. The AIA has done this, and has made the lives of junior archaeologists (once they actually find a freaking tenure track job) much better. Including the AIA statement in tenure files of archaeologists clearly signals to the promotion committees that there is a reason they can't produce at the same pace as many other humanists. This has saved many a tenure case.
Yeah, probably there hasn't been much resistance locally. Given the number of little battles, the ones that no longer apply to you are going to fade in importance, I guess. But that's pretty different from imagining a class of senior, relatively unproductive colleagues thinking up sadistic ways of shafting young faculty.
As for a statement from the APA, there's no doubt that historical and literary Classics research requires somewhat more labor than a lot of what goes on in other fields of the humanities, but I'm not sure you could ever muster the kind of case you can make for archaeology. That is, it's easy to see why fieldwork introduces a thousand different delays and complications and demands a long view, but it's harder for an outsider to see why a Greek historian can't publish like an Americanist.
Overall, I think that if there'd been more resistance things would be a little better so far as tenure expectations are concerned, but not much. And so far, there's not any shortage of people who can meet tenure expectations, so I don't see any reason to doubt that those expectations will remain. It's not clear to me how these will change in the future as hard-copy academic monograph publication struggles and electronic publication becomes more familiar and accepted, but I doubt that new developments will favor the tenure-seeker. I am happy to be wrong about this, though.
"While there a bit of discreet trust fundage helped finance a life of cognac, the collection of Teubners and a devotion to genteel travel. At the end of this idyll their advisors made the requisite phone calls and they were handed a plum T-T gig. Safely ensconced in such a full-time position they could continue to hone those same long-studied languages without ever having to worry about publishing much. A couple of articles in AJP or TAPA, submitted when the right Old Boy was editor, inevitably did the trick. "
This is a gross caricature of life in classics departments as it currently exists. It's not that it was never this way (I hear it once was, so I guess it was). I mean that at least since the early 1960s it hasn't been this way. I actually know a couple of profs who got their jobs back then; some are still in the field. And they certainly tell me that they had to compete for their jobs, just like we do. That's certainly true for anyone who got their job later than that, in the 1970s or so, i.e. all those folks who are now approaching retirement age.
So this kind of caricature might have been more warranted 10 years ago or so, but it isn't anymore.
"It's not clear to me how these will change in the future as hard-copy academic monograph publication struggles and electronic publication becomes more familiar and accepted, but I doubt that new developments will favor the tenure-seeker. I am happy to be wrong about this, though. "
This is not going to happen, probably ever, I would guess. There was a greater fear in the 1990s that books would disappear in favor of electronic stuff than there is today. The model people seem to be going to is (the excellent one) started by Oxford Scholarship Online. (CUP probably has the same thing but I don't know what they call it.) On this model you write the book, they publish a limited number of copies, AND they make a full PDF-type version available to institutional subscribers. So you don't read the book in HTML format (which look cheesy, though I prefer it myself) and instead it looks like a PDF of a book. Eventually I would guess all the hard copies, or at least most of them, will go to print-on-demand from these online versions, but there's no reason to think the quality of the P-O-D versions will be worse than any hard copies of books we're seeing today.
Of course, this is largely the model journals and newsletters have already gone, sans the hard copy part.
So I wouldn't worry too much about the disappearance of the codex.
No, it's not weird. And the APA doesn't care one bit. The APA has no problem with what the Placement staff is perpetrating. The APA only seems to care if people pay to use the service. If not, too bad. It's a scandal, but it's an old scandal. And again, the APA doesn't care.
You do know that publication expectations for tenure aren't in general determined by departments, right?
Yes, a tenure committee and admins ultimately decide but it starts with the department. Admins are heavily reliant on senior colleagues in a department to provide perspective. You haven't been involved in too many tenure review cases or talked with many people if you don't know the dominating role that a sabretooth can play in the process, especially at less formal institutions. Even at top universities with official rules and processes in place, one is quite surprised by what type of mischief sabretooths have wrought in the past. The two most egregious examples of which I know include "favorites" who are pushed through with flimsy credentials and the unfortunate soul who somehow never clicked with powerful colleagues. I won't go into gorey details, but there are simple ways a senior colleague can easily make life hell for one person while paving the path in gold for another.
Wasn't there a case a number of years ago where "collegiality" was brought to the forefront when it was used as the sole reason for denying tenure? I understand that the person in question was a total tool, but still, one can clearly see based on this example how a department could significantly stretch or diminish a candidate's case.
Admins are heavily reliant on senior colleagues in a department to provide perspective. You haven't been involved in too many tenure review cases or talked with many people if you don't know the dominating role that a sabretooth can play in the process, especially at less formal institutions.
Hey, that's both weirdly aggressive and not really a response to my point! Nicely done.
Yes, the department faculty, and especially powerful individuals, strongly influence how a tenure case is received. The question here was where the broad trend of increased publication expectations comes from, and my answer was that it comes from administrators competing to raise the research profile of their institutions. Nothing about that implies that departments and individuals don't matter to each tenure case—they do!
And so far, there's not any shortage of people who can meet tenure expectations, so I don't see any reason to doubt that those expectations will remain.
I think you meant to say:
And so far, there's not any shortage of people who are so terrorized by the thought of career death and unemployment that they are not unwilling to work 80 hours/week in order to meet tenure expectations, so I don't see any reason to doubt that those expectations will remain.
Actually, there's not any shortage of people who are not unwilling to work 70-80 (slight adjustment) hours/week because they both really love the work and realize that that's the way to achieve mastery in any field. And time spent moaning on the internet about how it's too hard and the mean people should be nicer does not count.
Actually, there's not any shortage of people who are not unwilling to work 70-80 (slight adjustment) hours/week because they both really love the work and realize that that's the way to achieve mastery in any field. And time spent moaning on the internet about how it's too hard and the mean people should be nicer does not count.
And that ladies and gentlemen is why there are so few well-adjusted people in Classics. I'm sick and tired of being told that if I live a normal existence beyond my work that I'm not deserving of this career. Spend some time with your family, go for a walk, have a beer once in a while, you'll feel better, and be a far more pleasant person to work with!
Right, the best people in our field are, without question, the ones who don't care about people - colleagues, students, or their own families. Completely self-seeking scholars are the wave of the future, and these people do not contribute in any way to the perception of Classics (and many other humanities fields) as insular, old-fashioned, and, though of course this one doesn't matter to anyone, terrible at keeping the customers (students?) satisfied. Keep up those 80 hour work weeks, 6 people will someday care what you've published in some tiny journal!
"And that ladies and gentlemen is why there are so few well-adjusted people in Classics."
or science, or history, or music, or film, or journalism, or writing, or professional sports, or law, or medicine.
it's not that you're not "deserving" if you don't work hard or that there's any moral side to it; it's just that in any apprenticeship in a difficult and competitive field you have to work like a dog in your 20s and maybe 30s. Then after that you work like a... dog who has figured out how to work more efficiently and has built up a foundation of skill and knowledge
That's right. If someone wants to be a tenured professor of Classics, they probably should be putting in 70-80 hour work weeks...and some of us are. Even beyond tenure.
Essentially, there have been two categories of whiners here: 1) I didn't get to go to boarding school, and so I can't afford cognac and Teubners -- but kids, apparently no problem; 2) I don't want to work 70-80 hour weeks, and resent those who are willing to do so to get ahead.
It's all about choices. And some people chose cognac, Teubners, and 70-80 hour work weeks. Just because you chose beer and/or kids and want shorter weeks doesn't mean you've somehow been treated unfairly.
Just because you chose beer and/or kids and want shorter weeks doesn't mean you've somehow been treated unfairly.
Sorry but there is something amiss with this statement. The fact is, we reward those cutthroat individuals who make these kinds of choices at the expense of well-rounded and well-adjusted people. We all love what we do - we wouldn't put ourselves through this if we didn't - but shouldn't we as a discipline place higher value on colleagues who are both excellent scholars AND effective communicators, pleasant companions and good ambassadors for those outside of the ivory tower??
As long as I'm going on the market against someone who presents at every no-name conference there is, publishes five articles and relentlessly pads their cv's instead of focusing on building their personal lives, I'm at a disadvantage. And yes, I resent that.
I've met too many people in the field who have sticks shoved so high up their asses that they can't even exchange pleasantries, much less talk about a non-classical subject. Guess that's what it takes to join the club, though. If in the end I have a life outside of Classics, but no TT job, at least I'll have a life.
Welcome to the real world of any serious professional career.
Do you have any idea what medical students and interns go through?
In my experience (limited as it may be), quite a few newbie classicists really do feel shock when they have enormous trouble landing a tt position and moving successfully to tenure.
They don't work on their languages. They aren't aggressive about publishing. They whine about the APA wrecking their holidays; about how their spouse can't get a job tacked on to theirs; about being expected to teach any classical author whatsoever at a small liberal arts college; about how unfair it all is that someone who...gasp...spends more hours working than they do is more successful.
Yep, everyone else should slow down so you have time to play with your kids and have a life.
"shouldn't we as a discipline place higher value on colleagues who are both excellent scholars AND effective communicators, pleasant companions and good ambassadors for those outside of the ivory tower??"
There is no correlation between working less and being a better communicator, or producing work that other fields find interesting. Working hard enough doesn't have to make you narrow, or a jerk. Some of that 70 hrs/week can be spent learning about other fields, rewriting relentlessly until your prose is clear, helping draft position requests for deans, attending seminars in other departments in part out of interest and in part in order to learn how to request your diss into a book more people will want to read.
"I've met too many people in the field who have sticks shoved so high up their asses that they can't even exchange pleasantries, much less talk about a non-classical subject."
yeah, and they do real well on campus interviews, if they make it that far. the existence of these people does nothing to show that standards in the field for publication are too high
I would just like to weigh in for those of us who love our kids, love our spouses, love classics, love beer, maintain good relationships with our academic peers, have published as much (if not more!) than many of the folks who taught us, and teach 4 (or more) courses every semester with students so disconnected they don't even know what they are enrolled in. (Swear to God, I have students who refer to the class by the room number!) This either/or thinking is bullshit and I can only imagine what search committee members think of their applicant pools when they read this stuff. I remember reading about Einstein's annus mirabilis as an undergrad and an astonished friend commenting on how he worked on one of his papers while bouncing his son on his knee. And most of us will never achieve anything that important. If you love something you make the time so I just do not see where one choice has to preclude the other. Though personally nothing gives me greater pleasure, apart from a fugly brier stuffed with erinmore, than writing papers that might get me out of the barely academic pisspot I teach in and hopefully someday flyin' a bird to our officious dean as I wave goodbye.
Anon. 1:37 here. Thank you to the last poster for putting things in perspective. I apologize for my stress-induced invective. I've met just as many wonderful colleagues who I look up to for their productivity and time management skills as the aforementioned tools.
Here's to wishing the best for us all, tools and all! Now get off the computer, grab a glass of wine and spend some time fighting with your family over overcooked turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you to the last poster for putting things in perspective. I apologize for my stress-induced invective. I've met just as many wonderful colleagues who I look up to for their productivity and time management skills as the aforementioned tools.
Nooooooooooo!!!! Fight more!!! Fight fight fight fight fight!!!! There's like a whole nother month till everybody learns the true meaning of Christmas. So you guys march right back out there and do what we all came to see! Nobody bought their ticket to see gentle weeping, hugs, and the sharing of feelings.
Not to derail this fascinating exchange about CAMWS, but....
How many institutions are going to move to the Skype interview instead of the APA interview in the next couple of years? What are the downsides for doing so? Has anybody out there actually interviewed using Skype or some such system? As much as I love the APA, I'd like to be able to sit at home and field questions. Also, with Skype interviews perhaps departments could interview more people, and even bring an extra person to campus, both of which would help us job candidates. Any opinions out there on this?
It makes good sense to interview short-listed candidates using skype. In addition to saving money for institutions, I think it would lend a much more relaxed and collegial atmosphere to the APA. In terms of adoption, I think it's totally dependent on whether a search committee is comfortable with the idea, which probably means how comfortable the chair is. Judging by how pdfs befuddle professional paper shufflers in our discipline, I'm guessing it will take some time. Dare I say the younger the chair, the more likely it will happen?
I did have two skype interviews for VAPs last spring and they went quite well. When it came to visiting campus, none of us missed a beat despite meeting in person for the first time. Maybe this will encourage committees to apply the same process for tenure-track searches.
"It makes good sense to interview short-listed candidates using skype. In addition to saving money for institutions, I think it would lend a much more relaxed and collegial atmosphere to the APA."
Would the APA still hold a meeting if it weren't the annual hiring conference? It's not clear to me that it would. What would be left, other than a bunch of 15-minute long presentations?
Yes, the APA (and AIA) would still hold an annual meeting as it's the one time in the year when a host of committees, including external ones, meet to make decisions. And God forbid if a huge chunk of faculty and students could actually enjoy meeting old friends, hearing good papers, and seeing more of a town than the inside of a hotel and airport rather than sitting through tedious interviews.
I was not short-listed by Duquesne (not surprising since I'm still ABD), but I was wondering if a position like this looks for a certain disciplinary focus or just the most accomplished in their eyes.
I was wondering if a position like this looks for a certain disciplinary focus or just the most accomplished in their eyes.
This is a "generalist" position, which makes your question very hard to answer. Maybe they have several specific needs and have cast their net widely or maybe they need someone who can teach a very wide range of courses.
As for "accomplished," at this stage committees are (or should be) making an assessment of 1). fit and 2). promise as a scholar, teacher, and colleague. Scholarly promise may be indicated by accomplishment in terms of published articles etc., but the main thing is to have a really good dissertation that has clear potential to form the starting-point of a first book.
Should places like Duquesne (no offense intended, it's a good school) expect people to write books? This seems silly. At what point does this whole "book to tenure" idea for every durn school seem wildly inappropriate? Not every classicist should write a book, and some people should be able to get tenure on a couple of articles and good teaching and service. This research, research, research at all costs is becoming absurd, especially when ads ask for "generalists!"
Should places like Duquesne (no offense intended, it's a good school) expect people to write books? This seems silly. At what point does this whole "book to tenure" idea for every durn school seem wildly inappropriate? Not every classicist should write a book, and some people should be able to get tenure on a couple of articles and good teaching and service. This research, research, research at all costs is becoming absurd, especially when ads ask for "generalists!
I think there should be more flexibility, for sure, and that work that is "book-equivalent"—a heap of substantial articles and chapters, for example—should work for tenure, too.
I dispute, however, the notion that expecting a book for tenure equates to "research, research, research at all costs." Writing a book is a lot of work, but you can do it without neglecting your teaching and administrative responsibilities.
Also, personally I'm not crazy about the idea of giving tenure in the absence of substantial research of one kind or another, but I guess that's really up to the individual institution. If a college wants to grant tenure mainly on the basis of teaching, they should! And in fact it's sometimes the case that a SLAC expects less in the way of publication than an R1, because they value teaching more. And that all seems fine to me.
Why have tenure standards gotten so much higher? It isn't like now there are six hours more in a day than there were in 1990.
They're not wildly higher than in 1990; you had to write a book then, too. But if they're slightly higher, it's because individual institutions in order to raise their research profile decide to raise their expectations, usually in terms of quantity (which is an easy, objective metric) over quality (which is neither). And as long as people continue to meet those expectations—and they do—there's not much pressure to reduce them. The dangers are that 1). candidates with multiple job offers might avoid an institution with less reasonable expectations, 2). institutions might see good but not hyper-productive people fail to get tenure and have to search again, and 3). people will write lots of things that aren't very good instead of fewer things that are good. All of those things are bad, but apparently not enough to persuade some institutions that the best way to "get serious" isn't necessarily to ask for a second book for tenure.
Basically, the issue is that Ph.D.s are plentiful, and if you can't do it, they can very easily find somebody else who will.
These last comments about tenure are all interesting but I wonder how informed by reality they are. What I mean is, how many individuals can you or I or we think of who actually have been turned down for tenure in, say, the last ten years? And of those, on the basis of insufficient research? In other words, are tenure standards really that high, or do we only imagine they're that high? I think we need real data.
And I should add, ABSOLUTELY NO NAMES OR INSINUATIONS in response to this question, please. I grant that denial of tenure tends to be hushed up. But in all I can't think of more than 2 people in the last 7 years that didn't get tenure, and in both cases the individuals had published (good) books. So there must have been some other reason.
Let me amend this last comment (also by me). I can actually think of 4 persons turned down for tenure. 3 of the 4 had books already published. 1 did not and in fact had virtually nothing (one article total, I think).
Please refer to the Job Postings section of this wiki for a new position at Bucknell University. Applications received by Dec. 17 will receive fullest consideration.
Sorry everybody: The Bucknell job was posted twice -- I was impatient to get out the word so that you guys could start working on your applications. So, to confirm: Bucknell University has ONE 3-year Latinist position.
And also: Bucknell apologizes for the late date of this job, but it took a long time to argue for the creation of something new in Classics this year ;)
What I mean is, how many individuals can you or I or we think of who actually have been turned down for tenure in, say, the last ten years?
After thinking for a minute, I've come up with eight in roughly that time span. I'm not sure in all cases what the state of their research was. My impression is that in general most people who go up for tenure get tenure. That said, sometimes people who don't expect to get it simply don't go up for it. That is, being denied tenure isn't the only method of not getting tenure.
I personally preferred when I could see the references of the other candidates competing for my same positions. That way I could have a clear understanding of whether they actually had more titles than me or just very many people using the phone to support their candidacies. It is a matter of transparency.
I liked having the CV book. I think it is nice to get a snapshot of who is coming up in the field. I always found a couple people whose interests jive with mine, whom I otherwise would not have met had I not sent an email after seeing their CV. I don't think it is useful from a hiring standpoint anymore, since so few places schedule at the APA. But I do think the APA should create a place where people could post CVs if they wish, or at least some sort of useful directory of members.
"I dispute, however, the notion that expecting a book for tenure equates to "research, research, research at all costs." Writing a book is a lot of work, but you can do it without neglecting your teaching and administrative responsibilities."
Maybe this person is a hell of a lot more productive than I am, but, really? I guess if you have a 2-2 or a 3-3 with 2 preps. The other thing is that most of us start reproducing about the time we get that job and having stuff, like kids, also takes some time. In other words, I think it can't but take a bite out of one's "teaching and administrative responsibilities" or at least cut into the four hours of sleep one gets (esp. if they're breast feeding). I mean teaching a 3-3 with new preps is time consuming enough and would HAVE to be cut for research, unless you're single...
Unfortunately, we live in a society overly infatuated with metrics. So the unsaid academic ideal at almost any university with a hint of research expectations IS the single person (or dink) who has no life and types away at the office until midnight chain smoking and chugging coffee. But can you imagine if a department was almost exclusively composed of these "productive" individuals? It would be like a football team exclusively composed of TOs and Randy Mosses. Yeah, I'm not idealistic enough to deny it's a job, but what we're talking about is hardly more than the white-collar version of a factory job. And we don't get compensated enough in this scenario for it to be a good profession at that point. The smart departments shelter a number of those who publish as moderate rates but do all the other things that a department needs but is difficult to measure.
So we've now determined that a one book standard for tenure can only be met by childless, soulless, unsleeping automatons? That's obviously not true.
It's not exactly a secret, though, that the academic life can take a little bit of a toll on home and hearth. That's one of the things they put in the "Should I go to grad school?" brochures. And it's totally true.
what we're talking about is hardly more than the white-collar version of a factory job. And we don't get compensated enough in this scenario for it to be a good profession at that point.
Ideally you find Classics somewhat more absorbing than the guy on the Toyota line finds Corolla doors. Also, ideally you find Classics somewhat more absorbing than a lawyer finds reviewing contracts. The opportunity to do something that doesn't leave you bored out of your skull every minute of every day is the attraction of academic life and the compensation for the (relatively) low pay and (relatively) high expectations in terms of work. If you don't actually like being able to pursue intellectual interests, then academia is a terrible deal for you and you should get out as soon as possible. Or move up into administration!
"So we've now determined that a one book standard for tenure can only be met by childless, soulless, unsleeping automatons? That's obviously not true."
You obviously don't have something similar to my 4-3 job that's replete with all kinds of service, some that does obvious good but much that's bs. And, yes, it's a given that you'll have a book with a solid publisher when you go up for tenure with at least several articles from fairly prestigious journals thrown in.
Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for a tenure track job, but most of us had no idea what an "average" academic job looked like coming out of elite graduate programs. Is this when you get all Thucydidean on me by saying I obviously made some bad choices in the past or else I would have landed a cush 2-2 gig at an elite school?
You obviously don't have something similar to my 4-3 job that's replete with all kinds of service, some that does obvious good but much that's bs.
No on the first part, yes on the second. But any way you look at it, 4-3 is fucked up. Once you're teaching that much, your institution's tenure standards for research should be more like those of community colleges.
Let's put it this way. If you're teaching 2-2, there's no reason you can't do a book and some articles. 4-3 is a different matter. This is an important distinction completely neglected in the earlier discussion.
Is this when you get all Thucydidean on me by saying I obviously made some bad choices in the past or else I would have landed a cush 2-2 gig at an elite school?
Definitely not. I think we all made at least a semi-bad choice, and some people have lucked out. Oddly, I think Thucydides would probably attribute a lot of it to tyche, too.
I guess we're in for a world of fucked up since the institutions that seem to be doing the majority of the hiring are glorified community colleges, third-tier public institutions, and obscure private colleges not that much bigger than my high school. It might be better going the CC route as they pay well and don't expect research on top of the crushing teaching/service load.
the institutions that seem to be doing the majority of the hiring are glorified community colleges, third-tier public institutions, and obscure private colleges not that much bigger than my high school.
Don't worry. Mainly, these places have no reason to hire classicists, so they won't be doing the majority of the hiring for long.
It might be better going the CC route as they pay well and don't expect research
Yes, depending on the state, a CC can be a very good arrangement. Unfortunately they don't have a lot of use for classicists, though. But they do have some.
Great, so we're basically Edwina, the dinosaur who didn't know she was extinct. We're around because of elite institutions and the good humor of a small number of mainstream universities, eh? This doesn't augur well for our future.
I am tired of the "get out of the kitchen if you can't stand the heat" attitude about research. My main point when I commented on the guy who says cranking out a book is possible without cutting into other things, was that it WILL cut into other things. The idea that it won't is ludicrous or merely the opinion of one who is either highly productive or/and or a hermit single person.
I knew what I was getting into, but when places discussed above (glorified community colleges) demand books from good publishers while teaching a de facto 4-3, I think the institutions are the problem and we, as academics, need to stand up and state that it's idiotic. Sure, we can do it, but at what cost? Perhaps we should think along those lines rather than bragging about how much less sleep we can take.
YES, I still love classics, and I don't consider my choice to enter the field a bad one or an error in judgment. I made the right choice no matter what I end up doing. I just think institutions of higher ed and those who thrive in the current system need to take a step back and realize what they're saying.
We're around because of elite institutions and the good humor of a small number of mainstream universities, eh? This doesn't augur well for our future.
That was what I was suggesting, yes.
My main point when I commented on the guy who says cranking out a book is possible without cutting into other things, was that it WILL cut into other things. The idea that it won't is ludicrous or merely the opinion of one who is either highly productive or/and or a hermit single person.
Your job description is to do research, administration, and teaching. It is expected that you will be able to divide your time in such a way as to do all of these things without neglecting any of them. Unless you're teaching a 4-3 and have absurd publication expectations, like the person who posted above. If I'm teaching a 2-2, it's reasonable to expect me to publish a book and a few articles as the "research" component of my expectations.
Perhaps we should think along those lines rather than bragging about how much less sleep we can take.
I don't think anybody did brag about this. And if this is about having kids... if you have them, God knows you don't sleep, inside the academy or out.
YES, I still love classics, and I don't consider my choice to enter the field a bad one or an error in judgment.
I do, too. But I still think it was a bad bet that has worked out well for me, and so an error in judgment. One of, oh, so many.
I just think institutions of higher ed and those who thrive in the current system need to take a step back and realize what they're saying.
The institutions realize what they're saying. Those who have "thrived" are pretty disinclined to see a problem in the system, precisely because they have thrived. How many people see a problem in a system that validates them and what they do?
But in any case, institutions in aggregate are what matters, and these obey a very predictable logic.
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
Well, I "dislike" most of what I've said, and I'd probably vote that way on this comment. I'm not sure it'd be a good indicator of whether it's correct or not.
We're around because of elite institutions and the good humor of a small number of mainstream universities, eh? This doesn't augur well for our future.
That was what I was suggesting, yes.
My main point when I commented on the guy who says cranking out a book is possible without cutting into other things, was that it WILL cut into other things. The idea that it won't is ludicrous or merely the opinion of one who is either highly productive or/and or a hermit single person.
Your job description is to do research, administration, and teaching. It is expected that you will be able to divide your time in such a way as to do all of these things without neglecting any of them. Unless you're teaching a 4-3 and have absurd publication expectations like the person who posted above, like the person who posted above. If I'm teaching a 2-2, it's reasonable to expect me to publish a book and a few articles as the "research" component of my expectations.
Perhaps we should think along those lines rather than bragging about how much less sleep we can take.
I don't think anybody did brag about this. And if this is about having kids... if you have them, God knows you don't sleep, inside the academy or out.
YES, I still love classics, and I don't consider my choice to enter the field a bad one or an error in judgment.
I do, too. But I still think it was a bad bet that has worked out well for me, and so an error in judgment.
I just think institutions of higher ed and those who thrive in the current system need to take a step back and realize what they're saying.
The institutions realize what they're saying. Those who have "thrived" are pretty disinclined to see a problem in the system, precisely because they have thrived. Would you see a problem in a system that validated you and what you do?
But in any case, the institution is what matters, and these obey a very predictable logic.
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
Well, I "dislike" most of what I've said, and I'd probably vote that way on my comments. I'm not sure it'd be a good indicator of whether something's correct or not.
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
DISLIKE!
See, that's really confusing, because you can't tell whether you're saying "dislike" in solidarity with the person who wants buttons or in protest against the pro-button agenda.
Even a makeshift button leads to chaos and confusion. Better just to converse directly.
So, just to be clear on this whole teaching/administration/publishing discussion, a 2-2 teaching load is "acceptable" whereas a 4-3 load is "unacceptable" and makes publishing at a decent rate impractical or impossible? At this point, I'm under the distinct impression that, a) a 4-3 load is, if not standard, at least very very common for people in our field, especially at SLACs and b) a book and several articles are pretty much standard for tenure everywhere. So the person who says you can, in fact, do it all, and who appears to be in a 2-2 teaching situation, may or may not know what they're talking about, but certainly doesn't have nearly the (in my view) standard teaching load that most of us do. But they're not going to be especially motivated to stand up for "our" rights any time soon, either (along with the administration at all these overly-demanding places), because, “Those who have ‘thrived’ are pretty disinclined to see a problem in the system, precisely because they have thrived. Would you see a problem in a system that validated you and what you do?” So is this the class struggle of the future for those of us who don’t land an academic job with a cushy teaching load, or has this tension been in the system for so long that most people don’t even think about it anymore?
I'll keep counting myself lucky that I don't have kids, I do love teaching, I can, for the most part, handle the research load I've taken on, and I'm generally happy in what I do. But I can't help but think that things could be better for most of us, if we just knew how to present our case better to the administration and the fortunate few who don't really know (or remember) what it's like for what I perceive to be the majority of people in our field.
So are we dead men walking and the only difference between all of us are those who admit it and those who don't? Just when I thought this place couldn't get more depressing, it hits a new low.
Don't worry. Mainly, these places have no reason to hire classicists, so they won't be doing the majority of the hiring for long.
So the good news about these places with unrealistic expectations is that they won't be offering jobs to classicists in the future anyway? Woohoo! For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.
The people who spend so much time whining about everything should spend more time reading some texts, writing some articles, and/or having a drink. Sheesh.
The people who spend so much time whining about everything should spend more time reading some texts, writing some articles, and/or having a drink. Sheesh.
1). Huh. Turns out you still can't leave a comment like this without looking like a hypocrite. Oh, well. Maybe next time?
2). "Sheesh"? Have you travelled here from 1977 to warn us of the error of our ways? I can dig it, but take a chill pill, jack.
Bridgewater State University seems to be conducting phone interviews next week for the English/Classics position. Sorry to put it here -- didn't see a place for it on the wiki.
Thanks for the info from the person who let us know abt the Bridgewater State position. I don't see any problem with putting that up on the Wiki site since, well, West Chester and SUNY Oneota are also up there. Moreover, we post all those philosophy positions which are really for those in that discipline...
Agree with above. The more positions we see here, on the wiki, etc. the better. I also know a couple of friends who are classicists, but who work on ancient philosophy, who appreciate all of the philosophy positions, so keep them coming!
Congratulations to the applicants out there who have a few interviews already! Purely out of curiosity, would those of you with three or more interviews be willing to say what field you are in, how many years out, or anything else helpful? Lit? Arch? Hist? Phil? ABD? VAP? Anything you are willing to share!
Here’s a scenario I’d like to run past folks here on the board: let’s say it is your first year with PhD in hand and the search came down to two offers. On the one hand you are offered a TT in tier 2, good school, average salary, average load, average duties. Or a contract position outside the US for 3 years (non-renewable) that is in an interdisciplinary program (so outside Classics proper but within humanities) has far superior research/library facilities, same teaching load but some of the classes are your design, no supervisory or committee work, and nearly double the salary? Lookin’ down the road, which way would you go if you felt fairly sure you would finish your book project in about half the time with the contract position? What are the factors to be weighed in hypothetical happy land where you actually have a choice?
If your goal is eventually a T-T at a tier 1 stateside then I would definitely choose the latter route. If you would be happy to make tenure at that tier 2 institution and remain there long-term then I would probably choose the first option now.
Hypothetical two choices guy/gal: when you say "twice the salary" make sure you know the cost of living, and all benefits/insurance costs etc. For US cities there are calculators online, not sure about your hypothetical foreign gig.
Some people would say it's hard to pass up a decent t.t. job, while optimists would say the market might be better after a stimulating three-year gig. It would be good to know whether you'd be free to apply for a couple of dream jobs during the first two years without getting scowled at. If you could that'd be sweeter.
If you have a book in the works that will be a surefire namemaker AND you're certain that you'll churn it out, the latter is a good bet. Tier 1 classics jobs aren't going away in the next ten years. The less certain you are of producing a great (not good) book, I would hedge my bets and choose the Tier 2 here. Only you know your life situation - kids, sick parents, etc. can easily change your perspective on life.
1,431 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 1431 Newer› Newest»So you really think that the average Latino student will take Greek 101 or the life of the emperors before taking a course relating to Latino Studies or Latin America? How about the Asian student? I would venture to guess tha the average Asian would take Chinese archaeology before Roman.
No, your "average" Latino won't take Greek 101. Your "average" Anglo doesn't take Greek 101, either. And I think the guess about Chinese archaeology is totally wrong. Not to mention that there's no special reason why Asians of descent other than Chinese are going to be more interested in the archaeology of ancient China as opposed to that of ancient Rome.
Sure at CA schools you'll have a good number of Latino and Asian students in classics classes, but you better when they make up 80% of the student body.
But this is my whole point, and you've just dismissed it as insignificant! As the U.S. moves to "minority-majority," as CA has already done, there's no reason to think that Classics will die because all the Anglos forgot to breed.
I'm obviously less confident than many of you that arete will save classics in the coming decades.
Whoa, now. I'm totally pessimistic. But the humanities are going to get spiked not because they aren't interesting to plenty of people—they are!—but because they aren't lucrative and don't lead to a specific job and because the people who fork over the money and shovel it around don't really care if the humanities are interesting.
If there are dying classics programs, put some of the blame on the suicidal types in English depts. in particular who were afflicted with self-loathing and helped destroy core curricula in so many colleges...sometimes with classics allies.
If by "some of the blame" you mean "virtually none of the blame," then I agree completely. This is all about the money, and administrators would have gotten rid of core curricula that necessitated lots of humanists anyway.
I agree with everything Anonymous November 14, 2010 9:27 AM says.
I teach at a semi-elite SLAC (think top 30 USNWR) and the provost here has been chipping away at us for years. Once the Hellenist retires in a couple of years they won't replace him, and there goes Greek. Gone forever unless we all chip in and teach overloads (which we will, 'cause we are suckers). Then the Latinist will retire in about ten years and she'll not be replaced. At that point the historian will be moved over to the History dept. and the Art Historian to the Art History dept. No more Classics dept., and those old lines can be given to the sciences. After all, Biology and Chemistry *definitely* need a 15-member department to serve a student body of 1400 (yes, I'm bitter). It's crap, but as long as higher ed is driven by a business model we can't survive. We don't attract dollars and our language classes can't be scaled up like a lecture class. This whole "elite" argument is nonsensical. Administrations think only of the bottom line now, and Classics isn't seen as helping. This is a fundamentally different situation than the "crises" of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s because the very model of higher ed has changed. We're going the way of the dodo, and there isn't much we can do about it.
I do think that a liberal arts education, including Classics, will remain as part of a boutique educational experience for the highest social and economic elite. It's something that has been widely available for more than half a century but will become ever more restricted to the children of the very rich.
On the upside, these children will need butlers and other servants, which I expect to become the main sector of job growth in our economy.
I find it funny that we're blaming the economy, English departments, and the sciences yet we're not looking in the mirror. So many of you honestly think what we're doing now (see quote below) is "interesting" and it's just the bottom line that's killing us?
Fact is, the vast majority of places do not need 2 people to do Latin poetry, 2 people to do Greek poetry and then 2 to do Latin prose and 2 to do Greek prose, with maybe a token material culture person and/or a historian to round out a Classics department.
I'm not getting into a us vs. them debate again (especially since I'm a "biased" historian), but I think a small part of the blame can be attributed to our stubborn fixation on what classics should remain to be.
"What?! But we NEED three people teaching Greek? Why? Because this is Classics!" Dean thinks, "Wrong answer."
"Fact is, the vast majority of places do not need 2 people to do Latin poetry, 2 people to do Greek poetry and then 2 to do Latin prose and 2 to do Greek prose, with maybe a token material culture person and/or a historian to round out a Classics department."
Don't forget in this outdated but all too common model that the historian/MC person also teaches beginning/intermediate Latin and/or Greek, which is inexplicable to most outsiders (read: deans).
Another historian chiming in here. This is my fourth year in a history department after two VAP gigs in classics departments. My university is a second-tier R1 state school and I couldn't be happier. Yes, I need to teach a couple western civ courses every year, but my other two are Roman history and my last is an upper level in my particular speciality. I have a counterpart who teaches Greek history/archaeology. I think this is the future, at least at large state schools. It's not as if there would be more than two of us in a classics department. Unless you really miss teaching Latin, I think this is the way to go for most historians.
I really can't muster sympathy for a classics progra where someone teaches say 2-2 and can't manage to publish and then laments when their program is cut about how unjust it all is.
So it's decided! Why are historians/MC people sticking around on a sinking ship where they're treated like shite? I wish I knew this before I became the lone archaeologist merged into a miserable, deadend Department of Languages Not Yet Dropped.
Yes, ancient history will probably be the least hit followed by archaeology thanks to history, art history, and anthropology departments. Once classics dies off at all the non-elite schools, even the elite programs will be hard pressed to justify the number of grads churned out each year. There should be some modest cuts in historians and archaeologists, but classics grads should be trimmed in half, at least. The current levels are just not sustainable as departments get axed and merged.
I think the best analogy is the medical field in the 90s when even elite institutions (MGH/Brighams) needed to merge setting off a desperate period of consolidation where the not-quite-elites disappeared.
I really can't muster sympathy for a classics progra where someone teaches say 2-2 and can't manage to publish and then laments when their program is cut about how unjust it all is.
Yeah, publishing is an issue, but not how you think. The problem is that getting articles into AJP and JHS, and a book out by Cambridge, doesn't help expand enrollments one bit. Sure, those baubles will get you tenure, but once your dept. is gone and you are teaching in the dept. of NYCL, the field is toast. If we spent half as much time attracting a wide range of students as we do writing articles for a audience of six maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Hiring and tenuring expectations have gotten out of line with what is actually good for the field, long term. The same senior scholars who now demand one book out, another in the works, and three or four articles in top-tier journals in order to earn tenure at some crappy R1 themselves earned tenure with two articles and a so-called book manuscript that is still "in progress." If you want to blame anybody, blame those fools for increasing the stress and expectations on the current generation. Academic Boomers: The Leastest Generation.
So, as a result of these demands, we slit our own throats as we chase after lower teaching loads and more frequent sabbaticals. That stuff earns us prestige, but student tuition dollars pay our salary and keep departments in the black. Now, however, the students have fled, and we're all fucked.
I find it funny that we're blaming the economy, English departments, and the sciences yet we're not looking in the mirror.
What do you mean? Every second comment, including yours, has been blaming the Classicist in the mirror (or rather, every Classicist except the one in the mirror!). And I haven't seen anyone blame the sciences.
So many of you honestly think what we're doing now (see quote below) is "interesting" and it's just the bottom line that's killing us?
We have quotes below?
And yes, I think classical antiquity is pretty interesting, and so do lots of students. If you don't agree, then you should probably have packed it in a long time ago. (If what you mean, though, is that it would be interesting to students if we changed all of the classes to whatever you think they should be, that's different, but I'm not completely sure what you're saying.)
My point is that, whether students are interested in your subject or not, nobody's excited to pay you to teach it, because it doesn't bring in wads of research funding, doesn't have any practical application, and doesn't lead to an easily identifiable career.
So yes, I think this is a crisis of money, not a crisis of interest.
"I think this is the way to go for most historians."
I can agree with this, especially if the alternative is teaching as a historian in a Department of Dead and Not Yet Dead Languages.
My point is that, whether students are interested in your subject or not, nobody's excited to pay you to teach it, because it doesn't bring in wads of research funding, doesn't have any practical application, and doesn't lead to an easily identifiable career.
Not true. If you can pack in the auditorium, that is serious revenue generation. In fact, a UCLA study from last year showed that humanities faculty generate MORE revenue than sciences because we are cheap. Sciences may get the grants, but they have to support lab costs, post-docs, etc. Classicists who offer courses with wide appeal can make a financial case for themselves. If you offer a 50-person lecture that only 6 people show up for, well, you're an idiot and deserve to be cut.
If you can pack in the auditorium, that is serious revenue generation.
I knew somebody was going to say that. Look, you're not seeing the big picture here. This is "serious revenue generation" only in the sense that it gets a bunch of students at once to pay in order to fulfill a liberal arts requirement, and you only have to pay one professor and maybe a few TAs to do it. But for how much longer do you suppose legislators, taxpayers, parents, and students (at least the ones not interested in the humanities!) are going to endure the existence of liberal arts requirements on the path to their vocational certificate? They've already been diminished significantly, and administrations don't have much reason to fight here, apart from resistance on the part of faculty.
In other words, my big lecture courses look cheap to the administration so long as they fulfill a requirement, but when those requirements are gone, the cheap option is not to have my position at all.
That is how the humanities are going to be gutted.
"But for how much longer do you suppose legislators, taxpayers, parents, and students (at least the ones not interested in the humanities!) are going to endure the existence of liberal arts requirements on the path to their vocational certificate?"
Legislators don't break down where state funds will go in a university, so that's irrelevant. Same with taxpayers. Parents will have a huge say in what their kids major in (bad for classics since it's not the best pre-whatever major when GPA is king), but not what specific classes their kids take in fulfilling their requirements AND electives. Well, you say humanities are being phased out of requirements. Very few parents will stand the total phasing out of humanities requirements. Yes, they don't want their kid majoring in classics, but they're not rooting for their kids to take all non-humanities courses either. Many, if not most, want their kids to be able write at a rudimentary level and have some semblance of a balanced education. Also, all pre-professional students need a break from long labs and ball-breaking major courses. I just don't see the future as all humanities requirements shoved aside and students loading up on non-humanities courses and earning a BS in two years. Perhaps at non-traditionals schools with a large number of commuters, but I just don't see it happening in general. I know very few traditional undergrads who want to blow past college and just get it over with. They want the full four years and non-major courses are a part of it along with all the college shenanigans.
So yes, the old model of classics where you have 80% language/lit faculty teaching 20% of the students enrolled in their department's course offerings will not work. Not when the discipline has to rely on non-majors to justify its existence. As an outsider, I would start wondering why there are so many faculty in a department when the average student is exposed to the department through an adjunct.
I've never understood one major thing common to many of the complaints here (over the last few years). The paradigm of evil is some Ivy League type university with four Hellenists studying Pindaric textual criticism, but the woeful consequences are always described in the context of some large state uni or SLAC. That just doesn't make much sense to me. The Ivies are by and large doing okay, and most of the state unis/SLACs don't have large multiples of highly specialized philologists in their dotage who refuse to teach large lecture courses (this is probably an inaccurate portrait of the Ivies too for that matter) - and certainly not for much longer. If South Washingtucky State or Nirvana College is going down the tubes it probably doesn't have very much to do with Princeford's hiring decisions. Or, to put in another way, if I've got a problem with my Toyota it'd be bizarre to call Aston Martin's customer service (even if they're doing a really shitty job with their own cars). I know at my school we hire based on what we need (inc. enrollment), not on what anyone else is doing.
A more genuine problem would seem to be this: you're a grad student in a good program - do you 1) aim for that elusive Ivy job (with all the specialization and screwing your teaching that entails) or 2) build a really diverse cv to cover all eventualities (but probably eliminate any chance of that Ivy job). Ten years ago you might not have had to make that decision in advance, but now you do (or you've already made it without knowing it). That sucks, even before you get to the crappy market.
As an outsider, I would start wondering why there are so many faculty in a department when the average student is exposed to the department through an adjunct.
That's exactly what's happening. I would venture to guess that most departments are down several lines from a decade or two ago. And when it comes to requesting a line and general priorities, those who are willing and best equipped to successfully teach some large enrollment classes don't usually factor in. If history departments take charge of ancient history courses en masse, it's definitely the end of classics as we know it and hello Department of Disparate Languages Who Will Never Replace My Line.
Very few parents will stand the total phasing out of humanities requirements. Yes, they don't want their kid majoring in classics, but they're not rooting for their kids to take all non-humanities courses either. Many, if not most, want their kids to be able write at a rudimentary level and have some semblance of a balanced education. Also, all pre-professional students need a break from long labs and ball-breaking major courses. I just don't see the future as all humanities requirements shoved aside and students loading up on non-humanities courses and earning a BS in two years.
The humanities will be preserved as recess. I love it.
As for earning a BS in two years, that will be a while. First we'll have the three year track, which is coming to a university near you in the future. Both sides of the question treated briefly here.
Note the quote from Zemsky, who supports the three-year idea:
"I suspect that what particularly worries the AAC&U is that, were a three-year baccalaureate to become the norm, what would be cut from the curriculum are the general education requirements which undergird liberal arts enrollments."
A more genuine problem would seem to be this: you're a grad student in a good program - do you 1) aim for that elusive Ivy job (with all the specialization and screwing your teaching that entails) or 2) build a really diverse cv to cover all eventualities (but probably eliminate any chance of that Ivy job). Ten years ago you might not have had to make that decision in advance, but now you do (or you've already made it without knowing it). That sucks, even before you get to the crappy market.
I don't think is so much of an issue anymore. You try to do both: publish like crazy while building a really diverse CV, and then pray you can find any job at all. Since the market is largely a crap shoot, a really good candidate has about the same chance of landing that T-T at Columbia as they do Missouri as they do at Beloit as they do a two-year at Kenyon. All odds are so vanishingly small that it pays to maximize your chances for every institution.
I'd say the "worst" throw of the dice is landing a teaching heavy job at a mid-range, but aspiring place. They'll kill you with course prep while still expecting that you publish at the same pace you would have at Columbia, had your number only come up a bit differently.
If history departments take charge of ancient history courses en masse, it's definitely the end of classics as we know it.
Our history department has always had the ancient history courses. I'm not dismissing the general "end of classics as we know it" proposition, only noting that classics can do large lecture courses without claiming ownership of the ancient history courses.
I'd say the "worst" throw of the dice is landing a teaching heavy job at a mid-range, but aspiring place. They'll kill you with course prep while still expecting that you publish at the same pace you would have at Columbia, had your number only come up a bit differently.
No, the worst throw of the dice is to crap out entirely on the market three years running, beg to get a job as a substitute teacher in your old high school, live with your parents to save money, and spend all of your free time negotiating with the Classical Bulletin to publish the 25 book reviews you've managed to write since getting your degree (circumstances altered slightly to protect the innocent). That, my friends, is the worst throw of the dice.
"I'm not dismissing the general "end of classics as we know it" proposition, only noting that classics can do large lecture courses without claiming ownership of the ancient history courses."
You mean like civ and archaeology courses? How long are the neglected and marginalized Ph.D.s who can teach these classes at a high level going to remain in classics along with the historians? The only high enrollment class that I see a good number of lang/lit profs teach with good results is myth. It's not enough though to boost enrollment and create interest in classics without the other lecture courses.
I saw this in an article from a completely different context, but does it remind you of anything...?
"If you give animals a predictable reward—say, a shot of sugar every time they press a lever—you can get them to press that lever quite regularly. But if you want irrational and addictive behavior, you make the reward unpredictable. Pressing the lever produces sugar, but only once every 10 tries. Sometimes, the animal might have to go 20 or 30 tries without a reward. Sometimes it gets a big jolt of sugar three tries in a row. If you train an animal to work for an unexpected reward, you can get it to work harder and longer than if you train it to work for a predictable reward."
So those of us with kids on the job market are doubly addicted. Great.
I'm flabbergasted as usual, but the November ads will be late...again. And it's going to take a few more days to cut and paste 5 ads. The incompetency knows no bounds.
"The only high enrollment class that I see a good number of lang/lit profs teach with good results is myth."
Besides Myth, several places have large basic classes in "Greek Civ" or "Roman Civ." taught by language/lit profs; as well as "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Lit," Sex and/or gender; Women in Greece and/or Rome; Ancient Sport (taught by lit types or historians or MC types); Etymology; Greek Drama, Ancient & Modern Comedy, Classics & Film, Latin Lit in English Translation, Ancient Myth in Modern Lit; Ancient Epic; Greek Books (Homer to Dante or Tolkein in one or two terms); "Heroic Journey," Age of Augustus/ Pericles/ Nero; Cleopatra; Pagans and Christians; the Ancient Novel. A few of these may top off at 40-50, but many are suitable for (and somewhere thriving at right now) 100-150+ .
For what it's worth, here the size of our civ and myth courses is limited by the size of the lecture hall we can book and the number of TAs we can afford to pay to conduct the sections. If we could support more sections, we'd have students in those, too. And, here at least, these courses are taught almost exclusively by literary people.
It's great that there appears to be one healthy program out there. You might be one of the few still around in several decades.
If history departments take charge of ancient history courses en masse, it's definitely the end of classics as we know it and hello Department of Disparate Languages Who Will Never Replace My Line.
I don't know that the following is actually a good thing, but I find this hard to imagine happening in most history departments (certainly not at my institution). It's hard enough convincing most programs that history actually goes back that far or took place outside the US. I know of places where American colonial history is regarded as "far away."
Why are the moderators tolerating a stream of anonymous attacks on a named individual?
Hey whaddayaknow: the email from the Placement Service about delayed November listings ended up in my spam folder.
Once again let it be said to you APA officials reading this: your Placement Service is a disgrace to our profession.
Why are the moderators tolerating a stream of anonymous attacks on a named individual?
We've tried to catch them as they come and we've deleted many on arrival, but a couple slipped through. We also debated amongst ourselves about allowing a few of the more innocuous ones to stand, which caused some delay. Finally, the sheer number and, shall we say, "passion" of the comments on this matter have made this thread especially difficult to adjudicate in the last couple of days.
Criticism of the APA Placement Service seems to be an annual tradition here, and walks a fine line between attacks on individuals and critiques of a system. We mods aren't exactly the biggest fans of the current way of doing things either, but we do insist that you refrain from personal attacks in your criticisms of said system. Please feel free to point out flaws in institutional design, but not in the individuals hired to implement it.
If you wish to complain about the competency of certain individuals, we suggest that you address your concerns directly to those who are actually in a position to do something about them: the Director of the APA and members of the Placement Service Committee.
Onward and upward!
Servius, I'm not convinced that it's quite so easy to distinguish tyranny from the individual tyrant.
It's great that there appears to be one healthy program out there. You might be one of the few still around in several decades.
I didn't mean to show that it's a healthy program but that here literary people teach a range of popular large lecture courses. Maybe we aren't doing that everywhere, but there's no reason we can't.
As frustrating as some aspects of this month have been, I do want to thank the members of the FV community who have taken it upon themselves to report the jobs that would usually be posted on other listings in the forums here. As someone on the market for the first time who needs the extra time to get everything put together in time to get things off three weeks in advance (insert random snarky phrase about interfolio), your efforts have often made the difference between my being able apply to positions and not being able to.
Exactly, Eek!
It never hurts to help.
I want to thank especially the faculty at hiring institutions who have posted their openings directly on the job boards. If everybody did this then we wouldn't fret so much about the APA getting the information out in a timely manner.
For example, I think I would have applied to Millsaps in any case, but once they posted the ad and kept everybody up to date on the deadline extension through FV I became excited about the job. Those are the sorts of people I want to work with.
The rest of you hosers can take off.
So it looks like 30 jobs for 300 applicants? 30 for 300. Sounds like a documentary waiting to happen.
If it is any consolation it looks like the other APA's placement service sucks as much as ours!
So it looks like 30 jobs for 300 applicants? 30 for 300. Sounds like a documentary waiting to happen.
About what? Bad math skills? There are ca. 100 jobs by my count.
Sure if you count all the VAPs, helot positions, senior positions, and fringe classics specialities. If you count permanent positions that a mainstream junior classicist has a chance at, it's definitely less than 50. But maybe we can make a 10 for 300 documentary. 10 assholes like you among the 290 rest of us.
Easy goes it there, Ginger. Plenty of pie for everybody.
One way of making the numbers look better: among the "300" applicants, the ones whose remarks on FV show them to be complete tools will probably have recommendation letters that mention or at least hint that they are complete tools, so they are not really competing with you. I once got a job because all the other interviewees came to the APA with the word TOOL on their foreheads in thick sharpie, and my mediocre interview impressed the department.
I don't know. Remember the tool on here who went on about how only fools offer help to others and it was in your best interest to undermine the candidacy of others? This person has either turned over a new leaf or doesn't post on here, suggesting that they are either out of the field or in a job. The cynical side of me thinks the latter. There are plenty of senior tools who will write a glowing letter for a student tool who kisses their ass.
anyone know where the furman job ad is listed?
"Tool" is a really interesting word, elitist AND sexist at the same time. Perfect for a classicist!
anyone know where the furman job ad is listed? -- November 17, 2010 1:48 PM
It is in the Placement Service November "Early Edition," emailed out on Nov. 8th, and it was also emailed out by the WCC on Nov. 2nd. I notice the placement service website hasn't been updated yet, so it is still showing Oct. as the "most recent job listings." I'm not sure where you could find the ad online (I can't find any WCC listserv archives online, and I see Furman doesn't have it on their HR website).
Thanks for that. I have scrupulously avoided registering with the placement service, and I suppose I'm paying for it...
Could somebody who actually subscribes to the PS post the details of the Furman job on the job board site? There are at least two of us who'd like to apply who haven't registered, and we'd prefer not to wait until the PS whips their hamsters to see the ad!
Thanks!!!!
Blogger says "Everyone hates the APA" for its terrible website and how they don't provide the right help for jobsearches.
http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/everyone-hates-the-apa/
The philosophers' APA
'Tool' is elitist and sexist? That's news.
Perhaps 'tool' is elitist and sexist, but labeling classicists as elitists and sexists is just fucking cliché, not to mention false, which seems to trouble you less.
Could somebody who actually subscribes to the PS post the details of the Furman job on the job board site? There are at least two of us who'd like to apply who haven't registered, and we'd prefer not to wait until the PS whips their hamsters to see the ad!
It is my understanding that you have to register for the placement service in order for them to schedule your interviews at APA. Since Furman is using the PS, the PS will schedule Furman's interviews. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
I've arranged interviews before with institutions without going through the APA, so I know it can be done. If Furman wants to interview you, then they'll figure out a way. Often people who are currently employed don't want to use the placement service, so they'll understand.
There are also some institutions staffed by people who recognize the folly of using the PS. In the past, even new PhDs applying for tenure-track positions (i.e., those without employment) have not gone through the PS. It all depends on the institution and the Chair of the search committee. If the APA is unwilling or not able to fix things, perhaps this will become something of a trend.
So...will someone post the Furman ad?
Done.
Here's a question for you historians out there. How are you dealing with the fact that the AHA is at the same time as the APA? What are you telling search committees, and do you think it hurts your chance of landing an interview if they specify that they will interview at the AHA?
For the first time I'm flipping things and planning on attending the AHA. It only makes sense since I've applied to many more jobs in history departments than classics. This strategy has been vindicated because I've already heard back from a history department whose deadline was mid-October. If a classics department gets back to me, I'll ask for a phone/skype interview.
Hmm, I guess classics really is the "sick man" of the humanities. This is only my first year on the market, but I'll have to focus more on history departments next year. The odds look increasingly bad for historians to find homes in classics departments.
So the new APA Placement email came out today, with not a single job announcement I haven't already seen elsewhere. But on the bright side, there is a claim that interviews will be set up through an email system and not through the postal service (!) this year (details to come). So progress can be made, even in our dying field.
Leaner and leaner ....
"New" job listings are SIMPLY AWFUL
Actually, there are more ancient (and especially Greek) history jobs this year than any time in recent memory...
I'm Anon. November 19, 2010 1:26 PM, and even though I'm not a Greek or an Historian, I'm happier with the job situation this year than I have been in the past two years.
The jobs aren't abysmal but they're not great by any means. They're reflective of the uncertain economic times and shift away from the humanities and classics - senior positions, bizarre cross-appointments, VAPs, endowed chairs, etc.
Ok, fine, not AWFUL, but could be better...we'll take what we can get.
Bizarre cross-appointments was my favorite. Those are so common now, it's just annoying!
Yes, cross-appointments mean we institutions want more and more for less and less (security and money for you).
There are more history jobs than any time in recent memory...??? Yeah, if you happen to be a goldfish. The history market is pretty poor (almost exclusively "Ancient Med" jobs in rural nowhere towns) and so help you if you're a Roman historian... there wasn't a real, open TT Roman History job last year, and it doesn't look like there will be a single one this year, either. In 2005/6/7 and even 8 there was actually A market for history, as opposed to this amount of dead air.
Seriously, if you're a Roman historian, I sometimes get the impression that you either have to luck into a classics job at an elite school or teach in history departments at glorified vocational/community colleges. Where are all the jobs in the middle?
They're dying along with all the classics departments not named Princeford.
Even though traditionally those of us who practice Classical archaeology have received no love from this message board, for what it's worth I'll point out that the job situation for entry level T-T jobs in Classical archaeology - particularly in Roman archaeology - are akin to the situation that the Roman historian posted about. The downward trend in T-T archaeology jobs has sunk below the nadir, it would seem.
Even though traditionally those of us who practice Classical archaeology have received no love from this message board
Um, I would say what you describe is generally a discipline wide phenomenon and not just restricted to this board. Forsooth, this board is almost certainly just a representative extension of the discipline (with a dollop of angst for good measure).
And, yes, Roman archaeology is in a similar situation to Roman History minus the vocational/community college-grade jobs (I would happily take one at this moment).
I think the "bizarre cross-appointments" are partially a result of the dangerous waters surrounding small humanities departments like classics. One can't be too insular in this day and age lest irrelevance be used as a reason for dissolution. Yet, one cannot get too chummy with cognate departments lest a penny-wise dean think consolidation is the obvious path. Not that consolidation is necessarily bad or even avoidable at non-elite schools, but it should be something done with input by the faculty and some semblance of agreement on their part.
"What?! But we NEED three people teaching Greek? Why? Because this is Classics!" Dean thinks, "Wrong answer."
No, this is when the dean screamss, "THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY!" and kicks us down a well.
There should be some modest cuts in historians and archaeologists, but classics grads should be trimmed in half, at least. The current levels are just not sustainable as departments get axed and merged.
And secondary school jobs are dying as well. Soon it will be the sole domain of some nostalgic prep schools in the Northeast. To the academy, the research that needs to be done does not justify the number of classicists produced either. So with these two pillars of education knocked out from underneath us, I'm afraid the future isn't bright for language/literature based classics.
welcome to the classic catch-22. without more grad students to fill the void, institutions can not justify funding classics, ergo too bad, grad student, good luck finding a position!
Hey, I'll find a position somewhere. Don't burst my bubble!
"To the academy, the research that needs to be done does not justify the number of classicists produced either."
This is why we need to fashion our overall research agenda in less narrow terms. As a specialist in Greek prose, even I can see what must be absurd to outsiders - that classics is essentially studying several centuries of literature. We can go on and on in our departmental homepages about how classics is interdisciplinary and how we study every aspect of the ancient Mediterranean world from the dawn of humanity to the rise of western civilization, but our research interests and course offerings betray us. Make no mistakes about it, deans are already forcing our hand and defining our research agenda by not renewing lines. Why not seize the initiative ourselves in the name of survival? Okay, the dean will not let us replace our third, or even second, Latinist. Why not ask for something who does ancient science? Neolithic archaeology? Late Antique history? As long as they have some grounding in the classics, I don't see an unworkable fit. They're not replacing that Latinist anyway, why not change the way the game is played? At least one program seems to have done this successfully judging by the breadth of courses described by a poster here.
"And secondary school jobs are dying as well. Soon it will be the sole domain of some nostalgic prep schools in the Northeast."
Any facts here? I thought that Latin study at the high school and middle school level was slowly increasing. Hiring could be hurt short-term by the economy, but long-term? I'm not in the Northeast, but our public school has Latin in middle and high school. Parents/voters think it helps with the SAT, builds study skills, helps with other languages, looks good on college apps, yadda yadda. The ACL site, http://spectrum.troy.edu/~acl/jobs1.htm, listed 200+ jobs from January to August 2010.
"At least one program seems to have done this successfully judging by the breadth of courses described by a poster here."
ah, those courses I listed were not all being done at one place
This story from UCLA http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/bottom-line-shows-humanities-really-155771.aspx
argues that the Humanities pay for themselves. For this list, I guess I'd say that the Humanities pay for themselves when there is a decent mix of large and small courses and writing courses and courses that serve multiple departments. And everybody looking for a job needs to think a little bit about how to help the humanities pay for themselves. It's not rocket science and we don't need to reinvent ourselves completely or grow gills or make video games out of the Iliad. But we need to keep our heads up. The future looks rough, but not dystopian.
I don't think you even need the large lectures with over 100 students at most schools. If you have an overabundance of upper-level courses with less than ten students, then yes, you might need some of these, but I think humanities programs would do well to live by the thirty-ish lecture-discussion class. Once you get over thirty, you start to really lose that personal touch and require things like graders, but I think it's the sweet spot balancing quality with cost.
Yeah, cross-listing courses is a cost-saver, but I've usually found that classics is the one not willing to play ball with other departments, and not the other way around. Combined with the elitist label that already dogs us, most programs aren't doing the discipline any favors with their insularity.
Yeah, cross-listing courses is a cost-saver, but I've usually found that classics is the one not willing to play ball with other departments, and not the other way around. Combined with the elitist label that already dogs us, most programs aren't doing the discipline any favors with their insularity.
I'm not sure how accurate that is. I taught an established Ancient Novel course at a very good school, and learned that English refused the cross-listing. How would such a course not not have been fantastically useful to their majors?
If there is one thing that I have learned from this blog, it's that there are lots of classicists who really, really don't like Classics.
You are SO right. So right. Best comment on this thread.
There are two ways to be useful to other departments. One is to teach courses that their majors will need, or that will make their majors better, regardless of whether they are cross-listed, and I think this is what the earlier poster was suggested. (It's not always, "Do you need that third Grk or Lat person," but "what else can that third person you need do?") Whether a department will cross-list with you depends on a lot of factors. Some English/Hist/Phil/RelSt/Art departments will be happy to cross-list, but others will be hesitant, possibly because of internal politics, or the old-fashioned way some old person in your dept teaches, or more innocently just because their majors often wind up oversubscribed in the major (esp. in English). Some depts just like to control what their majors take. And every school has it sown ways of tracking who gets credit for enrollment in cross-listed courses.
If this is the case, then the specialities that one of the previous posts listed makes more sense. I can see Neolithic Mediterranean (anthropology), Late Antiquity (Art History, History), and ancient science (pre-med/sciences) being quite useful to other programs.
"As a specialist in Greek prose, even I can see what must be absurd to outsiders - that classics is essentially studying several centuries of literature."
Easy for you to say. I'm guessing that you're a tenured professor in a relatively plum position. Wait until I get a job and then I'll join your cause. Until then, screw the historians, archaeologists, Byzantinists, Etruscologists, etc.
there are lots of classicists who really, really don't like Classics.
Yeah, the junior ones who have to constantly deal with high-and-mighty sabretooths who've driven the discipline into a ditch on their watch and constantly harass us with unrealistic expectations when they got tenure with two mediocre articles and a dubious book based on their diss.
Though perhaps those "mediocre" and "dubious" publications don't contain split infinitives.
Oooohh, that last thread teached the thread before that a lesson!
we be using good english on this blogey...
Which is itself an archaic rule deriving from Latin sensibilities. It's particularly apt that as classics (i.e. classical literature) becomes increasingly irrelevant to deans and the outside world, split infinitives are the concern. Were you playing a stringed instrument while posting that comment?
Anon 12:47 was punked!
Dear Ashton,
Since you are good at bringing many into the spotlight, including yourself with your recent marriage to Demi Moore, can you suggest who might be the appropriate Demi Moore of academia I (Classics) can marry? I need to ride on the coattails of someone to stay relevant. Thanks.
Those sabretooths who were tenured without as many publications also, on the whole, know Greek and Latin a hell of a lot better than quite a few of the newbies who show up on the job market.
Sorry, I forgot to insert the soundbite of a sabretooth growl to last transmission...
Those sabretooths who were tenured without as many publications also, on the whole, know Greek and Latin a hell of a lot better than quite a few of the newbies who show up on the job market.
That's because the sabretooths mostly came from privilege. First they went to boarding school, then on to Yale/Williams/etc. for undergrad, where they had the luxury of honing the languages they'd begun when they were 10, and thence straight to graduate school at Princeton/Harvard/Oxford/etc. While there a bit of discreet trust fundage helped finance a life of cognac, the collection of Teubners and a devotion to genteel travel. At the end of this idyll their advisors made the requisite phone calls and they were handed a plum T-T gig. Safely ensconced in such a full-time position they could continue to hone those same long-studied languages without ever having to worry about publishing much. A couple of articles in AJP or TAPA, submitted when the right Old Boy was editor, inevitably did the trick.
Now, however, having demanded decreased teaching loads, increased research money, and ever more specialized courses for their tenured selves, they also ask that the new generation (those language deficient newbies who have massive student loans, children, and two-body problems) publish at least a book and four articles, with a second book on the way in order to get tenure.
So, yeah, our languages suffer in comparison to yours because we have never had the freaking time to devote to them, and we still don't thanks to your ridiculous expectations. And, btw, after said expectations cause us to leave, the dean will be more than happy to hand our FTE over to the Economics department. So congratulations on that.
Vos stulti estis.
Anon 2:55 got punk'd!
Until then, screw the historians, archaeologists, Byzantinists, Etruscologists, etc.
Can anyone else feel the overwhelming love here? Don't be shy. Why don't you just come out and tell us what your really think?
You do know that publication expectations for tenure aren't in general determined by departments, right? That these are generally institution-wide, or "College of Arts and Sciences"-wide, expectations? When a dean or a president decides that a good way of boosting the university's reputation for research is to demand a second book for tenure, then a second book is demanded for tenure. Your colleagues on the faculty aren't in a position to change that.
This kind of inflation of expectations is a frustrating and I think self-defeating thing, but it's not as though older faculty invented it in order to be perverse and hypocritical. Deans invented it to try to raise the status of their own institutions.
Instead of mindlessly accepting this grammatical rule dictating that we not split infinitives I suggest that certain individuals investigate its origin, and then make an informed decision whether to continue following it.
In my case, I've decided to split infinitives left and right (though for the purpose of this post I decided not to be clever and do it deliberately).
This kind of inflation of expectations is a frustrating and I think self-defeating thing, but it's not as though older faculty invented it in order to be perverse and hypocritical. Deans invented it to try to raise the status of their own institutions.
True, to a certain extent. But older faculty are complicit in this inflation in two ways. First, they enjoy the fruits (less teaching, more research funding) that are used to justify the inflation, even though they themselves don't have to deal with the consequences of said inflation. Second, they have failed to argue against such increases, both locally in their own institutions, and nationally, by urging the APA to issue a clear statement about tenure expectations. The AIA has done this, and has made the lives of junior archaeologists (once they actually find a freaking tenure track job) much better. Including the AIA statement in tenure files of archaeologists clearly signals to the promotion committees that there is a reason they can't produce at the same pace as many other humanists. This has saved many a tenure case.
Many Deans suck, and their individual motivations are at odds with the long-term health of higher education, but we can't blame them for everything.
older faculty are complicit in this inflation in two ways. First, they enjoy the fruits (less teaching, more research funding) that are used to justify the inflation, even though they themselves don't have to deal with the consequences of said inflation.
No doubt, and it's not hard to see why that would happen: when we're talking about the subset of people who got tenure a long time ago without much publication, it's the same inertia that led them not to do much in the first place. The lone consolation should be that, if they've continued not to publish much, their salaries have probably languished. (And I do feel slightly bad about criticizing people for not publishing if they don't have anything to say: we already have an avalanche of basically pointless publications that are driven chiefly by promotion considerations.)
Second, they have failed to argue against such increases, both locally in their own institutions, and nationally, by urging the APA to issue a clear statement about tenure expectations. The AIA has done this, and has made the lives of junior archaeologists (once they actually find a freaking tenure track job) much better. Including the AIA statement in tenure files of archaeologists clearly signals to the promotion committees that there is a reason they can't produce at the same pace as many other humanists. This has saved many a tenure case.
Yeah, probably there hasn't been much resistance locally. Given the number of little battles, the ones that no longer apply to you are going to fade in importance, I guess. But that's pretty different from imagining a class of senior, relatively unproductive colleagues thinking up sadistic ways of shafting young faculty.
As for a statement from the APA, there's no doubt that historical and literary Classics research requires somewhat more labor than a lot of what goes on in other fields of the humanities, but I'm not sure you could ever muster the kind of case you can make for archaeology. That is, it's easy to see why fieldwork introduces a thousand different delays and complications and demands a long view, but it's harder for an outsider to see why a Greek historian can't publish like an Americanist.
Overall, I think that if there'd been more resistance things would be a little better so far as tenure expectations are concerned, but not much. And so far, there's not any shortage of people who can meet tenure expectations, so I don't see any reason to doubt that those expectations will remain. It's not clear to me how these will change in the future as hard-copy academic monograph publication struggles and electronic publication becomes more familiar and accepted, but I doubt that new developments will favor the tenure-seeker. I am happy to be wrong about this, though.
"While there a bit of discreet trust fundage helped finance a life of cognac, the collection of Teubners and a devotion to genteel travel. At the end of this idyll their advisors made the requisite phone calls and they were handed a plum T-T gig. Safely ensconced in such a full-time position they could continue to hone those same long-studied languages without ever having to worry about publishing much. A couple of articles in AJP or TAPA, submitted when the right Old Boy was editor, inevitably did the trick. "
This is a gross caricature of life in classics departments as it currently exists. It's not that it was never this way (I hear it once was, so I guess it was). I mean that at least since the early 1960s it hasn't been this way. I actually know a couple of profs who got their jobs back then; some are still in the field. And they certainly tell me that they had to compete for their jobs, just like we do. That's certainly true for anyone who got their job later than that, in the 1970s or so, i.e. all those folks who are now approaching retirement age.
So this kind of caricature might have been more warranted 10 years ago or so, but it isn't anymore.
"It's not clear to me how these will change in the future as hard-copy academic monograph publication struggles and electronic publication becomes more familiar and accepted, but I doubt that new developments will favor the tenure-seeker. I am happy to be wrong about this, though. "
This is not going to happen, probably ever, I would guess. There was a greater fear in the 1990s that books would disappear in favor of electronic stuff than there is today. The model people seem to be going to is (the excellent one) started by Oxford Scholarship Online. (CUP probably has the same thing but I don't know what they call it.) On this model you write the book, they publish a limited number of copies, AND they make a full PDF-type version available to institutional subscribers. So you don't read the book in HTML format (which look cheesy, though I prefer it myself) and instead it looks like a PDF of a book. Eventually I would guess all the hard copies, or at least most of them, will go to print-on-demand from these online versions, but there's no reason to think the quality of the P-O-D versions will be worse than any hard copies of books we're seeing today.
Of course, this is largely the model journals and newsletters have already gone, sans the hard copy part.
So I wouldn't worry too much about the disappearance of the codex.
Is it weird that it's late afternoon on November 23 and the APA still hasn't bothered to list the November job announcements?
I hate to say it but this is bordering on incompetence. It's going to cause real-world problems for people.
No, it's not weird. And the APA doesn't care one bit. The APA has no problem with what the Placement staff is perpetrating. The APA only seems to care if people pay to use the service. If not, too bad. It's a scandal, but it's an old scandal. And again, the APA doesn't care.
You do know that publication expectations for tenure aren't in general determined by departments, right?
Yes, a tenure committee and admins ultimately decide but it starts with the department. Admins are heavily reliant on senior colleagues in a department to provide perspective. You haven't been involved in too many tenure review cases or talked with many people if you don't know the dominating role that a sabretooth can play in the process, especially at less formal institutions. Even at top universities with official rules and processes in place, one is quite surprised by what type of mischief sabretooths have wrought in the past. The two most egregious examples of which I know include "favorites" who are pushed through with flimsy credentials and the unfortunate soul who somehow never clicked with powerful colleagues. I won't go into gorey details, but there are simple ways a senior colleague can easily make life hell for one person while paving the path in gold for another.
Wasn't there a case a number of years ago where "collegiality" was brought to the forefront when it was used as the sole reason for denying tenure? I understand that the person in question was a total tool, but still, one can clearly see based on this example how a department could significantly stretch or diminish a candidate's case.
Admins are heavily reliant on senior colleagues in a department to provide perspective. You haven't been involved in too many tenure review cases or talked with many people if you don't know the dominating role that a sabretooth can play in the process, especially at less formal institutions.
Hey, that's both weirdly aggressive and not really a response to my point! Nicely done.
Yes, the department faculty, and especially powerful individuals, strongly influence how a tenure case is received. The question here was where the broad trend of increased publication expectations comes from, and my answer was that it comes from administrators competing to raise the research profile of their institutions. Nothing about that implies that departments and individuals don't matter to each tenure case—they do!
And so far, there's not any shortage of people who can meet tenure expectations, so I don't see any reason to doubt that those expectations will remain.
I think you meant to say:
And so far, there's not any shortage of people who are so terrorized by the thought of career death and unemployment that they are not unwilling to work 80 hours/week in order to meet tenure expectations, so I don't see any reason to doubt that those expectations will remain.
Somebody had to fix that for you.
Your welcome.
My welcome what?
Your welcome mat.
Duh.
Actually, there's not any shortage of people who are not unwilling to work 70-80 (slight adjustment) hours/week because they both really love the work and realize that that's the way to achieve mastery in any field. And time spent moaning on the internet about how it's too hard and the mean people should be nicer does not count.
Actually, there's not any shortage of people who are not unwilling to work 70-80 (slight adjustment) hours/week because they both really love the work and realize that that's the way to achieve mastery in any field. And time spent moaning on the internet about how it's too hard and the mean people should be nicer does not count.
And that ladies and gentlemen is why there are so few well-adjusted people in Classics. I'm sick and tired of being told that if I live a normal existence beyond my work that I'm not deserving of this career. Spend some time with your family, go for a walk, have a beer once in a while, you'll feel better, and be a far more pleasant person to work with!
Right, the best people in our field are, without question, the ones who don't care about people - colleagues, students, or their own families. Completely self-seeking scholars are the wave of the future, and these people do not contribute in any way to the perception of Classics (and many other humanities fields) as insular, old-fashioned, and, though of course this one doesn't matter to anyone, terrible at keeping the customers (students?) satisfied. Keep up those 80 hour work weeks, 6 people will someday care what you've published in some tiny journal!
"And that ladies and gentlemen is why there are so few well-adjusted people in Classics."
or science, or history, or music, or film, or journalism, or writing, or professional sports, or law, or medicine.
it's not that you're not "deserving" if you don't work hard or that there's any moral side to it; it's just that in any apprenticeship in a difficult and competitive field you have to work like a dog in your 20s and maybe 30s. Then after that you work like a... dog who has figured out how to work more efficiently and has built up a foundation of skill and knowledge
That's right. If someone wants to be a tenured professor of Classics, they probably should be putting in 70-80 hour work weeks...and some of us are. Even beyond tenure.
Essentially, there have been two categories of whiners here: 1) I didn't get to go to boarding school, and so I can't afford cognac and Teubners -- but kids, apparently no problem; 2) I don't want to work 70-80 hour weeks, and resent those who are willing to do so to get ahead.
It's all about choices. And some people chose cognac, Teubners, and 70-80 hour work weeks. Just because you chose beer and/or kids and want shorter weeks doesn't mean you've somehow been treated unfairly.
Just because you chose beer and/or kids and want shorter weeks doesn't mean you've somehow been treated unfairly.
Sorry but there is something amiss with this statement. The fact is, we reward those cutthroat individuals who make these kinds of choices at the expense of well-rounded and well-adjusted people. We all love what we do - we wouldn't put ourselves through this if we didn't - but shouldn't we as a discipline place higher value on colleagues who are both excellent scholars AND effective communicators, pleasant companions and good ambassadors for those outside of the ivory tower??
As long as I'm going on the market against someone who presents at every no-name conference there is, publishes five articles and relentlessly pads their cv's instead of focusing on building their personal lives, I'm at a disadvantage. And yes, I resent that.
I've met too many people in the field who have sticks shoved so high up their asses that they can't even exchange pleasantries, much less talk about a non-classical subject. Guess that's what it takes to join the club, though. If in the end I have a life outside of Classics, but no TT job, at least I'll have a life.
Welcome to the real world of any serious professional career.
Do you have any idea what medical students and interns go through?
In my experience (limited as it may be), quite a few newbie classicists really do feel shock when they have enormous trouble landing a tt position and moving successfully to tenure.
They don't work on their languages. They aren't aggressive about publishing. They whine about the APA wrecking their holidays; about how their spouse can't get a job tacked on to theirs; about being expected to teach any classical author whatsoever at a small liberal arts college; about how unfair it all is that someone who...gasp...spends more hours working than they do is more successful.
Yep, everyone else should slow down so you have time to play with your kids and have a life.
"shouldn't we as a discipline place higher value on colleagues who are both excellent scholars AND effective communicators, pleasant companions and good ambassadors for those outside of the ivory tower??"
There is no correlation between working less and being a better communicator, or producing work that other fields find interesting. Working hard enough doesn't have to make you narrow, or a jerk. Some of that 70 hrs/week can be spent learning about other fields, rewriting relentlessly until your prose is clear, helping draft position requests for deans, attending seminars in other departments in part out of interest and in part in order to learn how to request your diss into a book more people will want to read.
"I've met too many people in the field who have sticks shoved so high up their asses that they can't even exchange pleasantries, much less talk about a non-classical subject."
yeah, and they do real well on campus interviews, if they make it that far. the existence of these people does nothing to show that standards in the field for publication are too high
I would just like to weigh in for those of us who love our kids, love our spouses, love classics, love beer, maintain good relationships with our academic peers, have published as much (if not more!) than many of the folks who taught us, and teach 4 (or more) courses every semester with students so disconnected they don't even know what they are enrolled in. (Swear to God, I have students who refer to the class by the room number!) This either/or thinking is bullshit and I can only imagine what search committee members think of their applicant pools when they read this stuff. I remember reading about Einstein's annus mirabilis as an undergrad and an astonished friend commenting on how he worked on one of his papers while bouncing his son on his knee. And most of us will never achieve anything that important. If you love something you make the time so I just do not see where one choice has to preclude the other. Though personally nothing gives me greater pleasure, apart from a fugly brier stuffed with erinmore, than writing papers that might get me out of the barely academic pisspot I teach in and hopefully someday flyin' a bird to our officious dean as I wave goodbye.
Anon. 1:37 here. Thank you to the last poster for putting things in perspective. I apologize for my stress-induced invective. I've met just as many wonderful colleagues who I look up to for their productivity and time management skills as the aforementioned tools.
Here's to wishing the best for us all, tools and all! Now get off the computer, grab a glass of wine and spend some time fighting with your family over overcooked turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you to the last poster for putting things in perspective. I apologize for my stress-induced invective. I've met just as many wonderful colleagues who I look up to for their productivity and time management skills as the aforementioned tools.
Nooooooooooo!!!! Fight more!!! Fight fight fight fight fight!!!! There's like a whole nother month till everybody learns the true meaning of Christmas. So you guys march right back out there and do what we all came to see! Nobody bought their ticket to see gentle weeping, hugs, and the sharing of feelings.
Has anyone heard from CAMWS?
CAMWS is dead.
CAMWS is dead.
Elaborate.
Not to derail this fascinating exchange about CAMWS, but....
How many institutions are going to move to the Skype interview instead of the APA interview in the next couple of years? What are the downsides for doing so? Has anybody out there actually interviewed using Skype or some such system? As much as I love the APA, I'd like to be able to sit at home and field questions. Also, with Skype interviews perhaps departments could interview more people, and even bring an extra person to campus, both of which would help us job candidates. Any opinions out there on this?
It makes good sense to interview short-listed candidates using skype. In addition to saving money for institutions, I think it would lend a much more relaxed and collegial atmosphere to the APA. In terms of adoption, I think it's totally dependent on whether a search committee is comfortable with the idea, which probably means how comfortable the chair is. Judging by how pdfs befuddle professional paper shufflers in our discipline, I'm guessing it will take some time. Dare I say the younger the chair, the more likely it will happen?
I did have two skype interviews for VAPs last spring and they went quite well. When it came to visiting campus, none of us missed a beat despite meeting in person for the first time. Maybe this will encourage committees to apply the same process for tenure-track searches.
Tenured Radical has a recent post on Skype interviews: link.
On a slightly different note a poster says this:
"It makes good sense to interview short-listed candidates using skype. In addition to saving money for institutions, I think it would lend a much more relaxed and collegial atmosphere to the APA."
Would the APA still hold a meeting if it weren't the annual hiring conference? It's not clear to me that it would. What would be left, other than a bunch of 15-minute long presentations?
Would the APA still hold a meeting if it weren't the annual hiring conference?
There's always the free booze!
Yes, the APA (and AIA) would still hold an annual meeting as it's the one time in the year when a host of committees, including external ones, meet to make decisions. And God forbid if a huge chunk of faculty and students could actually enjoy meeting old friends, hearing good papers, and seeing more of a town than the inside of a hotel and airport rather than sitting through tedious interviews.
I was not short-listed by Duquesne (not surprising since I'm still ABD), but I was wondering if a position like this looks for a certain disciplinary focus or just the most accomplished in their eyes.
God knows what search committees look for.
I was wondering if a position like this looks for a certain disciplinary focus or just the most accomplished in their eyes.
This is a "generalist" position, which makes your question very hard to answer. Maybe they have several specific needs and have cast their net widely or maybe they need someone who can teach a very wide range of courses.
As for "accomplished," at this stage committees are (or should be) making an assessment of 1). fit and 2). promise as a scholar, teacher, and colleague. Scholarly promise may be indicated by accomplishment in terms of published articles etc., but the main thing is to have a really good dissertation that has clear potential to form the starting-point of a first book.
Should places like Duquesne (no offense intended, it's a good school) expect people to write books? This seems silly. At what point does this whole "book to tenure" idea for every durn school seem wildly inappropriate? Not every classicist should write a book, and some people should be able to get tenure on a couple of articles and good teaching and service. This research, research, research at all costs is becoming absurd, especially when ads ask for "generalists!"
Should places like Duquesne (no offense intended, it's a good school) expect people to write books? This seems silly. At what point does this whole "book to tenure" idea for every durn school seem wildly inappropriate? Not every classicist should write a book, and some people should be able to get tenure on a couple of articles and good teaching and service. This research, research, research at all costs is becoming absurd, especially when ads ask for "generalists!
I think there should be more flexibility, for sure, and that work that is "book-equivalent"—a heap of substantial articles and chapters, for example—should work for tenure, too.
I dispute, however, the notion that expecting a book for tenure equates to "research, research, research at all costs." Writing a book is a lot of work, but you can do it without neglecting your teaching and administrative responsibilities.
Also, personally I'm not crazy about the idea of giving tenure in the absence of substantial research of one kind or another, but I guess that's really up to the individual institution. If a college wants to grant tenure mainly on the basis of teaching, they should! And in fact it's sometimes the case that a SLAC expects less in the way of publication than an R1, because they value teaching more. And that all seems fine to me.
Why have tenure standards gotten so much higher? It isn't like now there are six hours more in a day than there were in 1990.
Why have tenure standards gotten so much higher? It isn't like now there are six hours more in a day than there were in 1990.
They're not wildly higher than in 1990; you had to write a book then, too. But if they're slightly higher, it's because individual institutions in order to raise their research profile decide to raise their expectations, usually in terms of quantity (which is an easy, objective metric) over quality (which is neither). And as long as people continue to meet those expectations—and they do—there's not much pressure to reduce them. The dangers are that 1). candidates with multiple job offers might avoid an institution with less reasonable expectations, 2). institutions might see good but not hyper-productive people fail to get tenure and have to search again, and 3). people will write lots of things that aren't very good instead of fewer things that are good. All of those things are bad, but apparently not enough to persuade some institutions that the best way to "get serious" isn't necessarily to ask for a second book for tenure.
Basically, the issue is that Ph.D.s are plentiful, and if you can't do it, they can very easily find somebody else who will.
These last comments about tenure are all interesting but I wonder how informed by reality they are. What I mean is, how many individuals can you or I or we think of who actually have been turned down for tenure in, say, the last ten years? And of those, on the basis of insufficient research? In other words, are tenure standards really that high, or do we only imagine they're that high? I think we need real data.
And I should add, ABSOLUTELY NO NAMES OR INSINUATIONS in response to this question, please. I grant that denial of tenure tends to be hushed up. But in all I can't think of more than 2 people in the last 7 years that didn't get tenure, and in both cases the individuals had published (good) books. So there must have been some other reason.
Let me amend this last comment (also by me). I can actually think of 4 persons turned down for tenure. 3 of the 4 had books already published. 1 did not and in fact had virtually nothing (one article total, I think).
Please refer to the Job Postings section of this wiki for a new position at Bucknell University. Applications received by Dec. 17 will receive fullest consideration.
Dear Bucknell,
Thanks for posting these, it is quite helpful!
Are these two different positions, or is it an accidental double-post?
Thanks,
Lewisburg Fan
Sorry everybody: The Bucknell job was posted twice -- I was impatient to get out the word so that you guys could start working on your applications. So, to confirm: Bucknell University has ONE 3-year Latinist position.
And also: Bucknell apologizes for the late date of this job, but it took a long time to argue for the creation of something new in Classics this year ;)
What I mean is, how many individuals can you or I or we think of who actually have been turned down for tenure in, say, the last ten years?
After thinking for a minute, I've come up with eight in roughly that time span. I'm not sure in all cases what the state of their research was. My impression is that in general most people who go up for tenure get tenure. That said, sometimes people who don't expect to get it simply don't go up for it. That is, being denied tenure isn't the only method of not getting tenure.
What do you people think about the APA having eliminated the brochure containing the candidates' CVs?
FYI
Generalist positions are getting 200+ applications this year.
Polish up your "will work for food" signs.
I'm doing fine living in my parents' basement and mooching off their dinner table, thank you very much.
Polish up your "will work for food" signs.
I've been polishing this thing for hours and it still looks all brown and cardboardy. Tips?
I've been polishing this thing for hours and it still looks all brown and cardboardy. Tips?
One word: plastics
What do you people think about the APA having eliminated the brochure containing the candidates' CVs?
It's about time.
I personally preferred when I could see the references of the other candidates competing for my same positions. That way I could have a clear understanding of whether they actually had more titles than me or just very many people using the phone to support their candidacies. It is a matter of transparency.
I liked having the CV book. I think it is nice to get a snapshot of who is coming up in the field. I always found a couple people whose interests jive with mine, whom I otherwise would not have met had I not sent an email after seeing their CV. I don't think it is useful from a hiring standpoint anymore, since so few places schedule at the APA. But I do think the APA should create a place where people could post CVs if they wish, or at least some sort of useful directory of members.
I love that in the wiki everyone says that interviews have been "requested," as if anyone would ever turn down an interview.
as if anyone would ever turn down an interview
It happens. But, granted, not at this stage.
The wiki lists an open-rank position at NYU, but it doesn't seem to be listed with the APA placement service. What gives?
The NYU job is in Comp Lit.
"I dispute, however, the notion that expecting a book for tenure equates to "research, research, research at all costs." Writing a book is a lot of work, but you can do it without neglecting your teaching and administrative responsibilities."
Maybe this person is a hell of a lot more productive than I am, but, really? I guess if you have a 2-2 or a 3-3 with 2 preps. The other thing is that most of us start reproducing about the time we get that job and having stuff, like kids, also takes some time. In other words, I think it can't but take a bite out of one's "teaching and administrative responsibilities" or at least cut into the four hours of sleep one gets (esp. if they're breast feeding). I mean teaching a 3-3 with new preps is time consuming enough and would HAVE to be cut for research, unless you're single...
Unfortunately, we live in a society overly infatuated with metrics. So the unsaid academic ideal at almost any university with a hint of research expectations IS the single person (or dink) who has no life and types away at the office until midnight chain smoking and chugging coffee. But can you imagine if a department was almost exclusively composed of these "productive" individuals? It would be like a football team exclusively composed of TOs and Randy Mosses. Yeah, I'm not idealistic enough to deny it's a job, but what we're talking about is hardly more than the white-collar version of a factory job. And we don't get compensated enough in this scenario for it to be a good profession at that point. The smart departments shelter a number of those who publish as moderate rates but do all the other things that a department needs but is difficult to measure.
So we've now determined that a one book standard for tenure can only be met by childless, soulless, unsleeping automatons? That's obviously not true.
It's not exactly a secret, though, that the academic life can take a little bit of a toll on home and hearth. That's one of the things they put in the "Should I go to grad school?" brochures. And it's totally true.
what we're talking about is hardly more than the white-collar version of a factory job. And we don't get compensated enough in this scenario for it to be a good profession at that point.
Ideally you find Classics somewhat more absorbing than the guy on the Toyota line finds Corolla doors. Also, ideally you find Classics somewhat more absorbing than a lawyer finds reviewing contracts. The opportunity to do something that doesn't leave you bored out of your skull every minute of every day is the attraction of academic life and the compensation for the (relatively) low pay and (relatively) high expectations in terms of work. If you don't actually like being able to pursue intellectual interests, then academia is a terrible deal for you and you should get out as soon as possible. Or move up into administration!
"So we've now determined that a one book standard for tenure can only be met by childless, soulless, unsleeping automatons? That's obviously not true."
You obviously don't have something similar to my 4-3 job that's replete with all kinds of service, some that does obvious good but much that's bs. And, yes, it's a given that you'll have a book with a solid publisher when you go up for tenure with at least several articles from fairly prestigious journals thrown in.
Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for a tenure track job, but most of us had no idea what an "average" academic job looked like coming out of elite graduate programs. Is this when you get all Thucydidean on me by saying I obviously made some bad choices in the past or else I would have landed a cush 2-2 gig at an elite school?
You obviously don't have something similar to my 4-3 job that's replete with all kinds of service, some that does obvious good but much that's bs.
No on the first part, yes on the second. But any way you look at it, 4-3 is fucked up. Once you're teaching that much, your institution's tenure standards for research should be more like those of community colleges.
Let's put it this way. If you're teaching 2-2, there's no reason you can't do a book and some articles. 4-3 is a different matter. This is an important distinction completely neglected in the earlier discussion.
Is this when you get all Thucydidean on me by saying I obviously made some bad choices in the past or else I would have landed a cush 2-2 gig at an elite school?
Definitely not. I think we all made at least a semi-bad choice, and some people have lucked out. Oddly, I think Thucydides would probably attribute a lot of it to tyche, too.
I guess we're in for a world of fucked up since the institutions that seem to be doing the majority of the hiring are glorified community colleges, third-tier public institutions, and obscure private colleges not that much bigger than my high school. It might be better going the CC route as they pay well and don't expect research on top of the crushing teaching/service load.
the institutions that seem to be doing the majority of the hiring are glorified community colleges, third-tier public institutions, and obscure private colleges not that much bigger than my high school.
Don't worry. Mainly, these places have no reason to hire classicists, so they won't be doing the majority of the hiring for long.
It might be better going the CC route as they pay well and don't expect research
Yes, depending on the state, a CC can be a very good arrangement. Unfortunately they don't have a lot of use for classicists, though. But they do have some.
Great, so we're basically Edwina, the dinosaur who didn't know she was extinct. We're around because of elite institutions and the good humor of a small number of mainstream universities, eh? This doesn't augur well for our future.
I am tired of the "get out of the kitchen if you can't stand the heat" attitude about research. My main point when I commented on the guy who says cranking out a book is possible without cutting into other things, was that it WILL cut into other things. The idea that it won't is ludicrous or merely the opinion of one who is either highly productive or/and or a hermit single person.
I knew what I was getting into, but when places discussed above (glorified community colleges) demand books from good publishers while teaching a de facto 4-3, I think the institutions are the problem and we, as academics, need to stand up and state that it's idiotic. Sure, we can do it, but at what cost? Perhaps we should think along those lines rather than bragging about how much less sleep we can take.
YES, I still love classics, and I don't consider my choice to enter the field a bad one or an error in judgment. I made the right choice no matter what I end up doing. I just think institutions of higher ed and those who thrive in the current system need to take a step back and realize what they're saying.
When I typed this:
"Sure, we can do it, but at what cost? Perhaps we should think along those lines rather than bragging about how much less sleep we can take."
I meant that we can crank out books, not we can fight for our right to crank out several articles instead.
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
We're around because of elite institutions and the good humor of a small number of mainstream universities, eh? This doesn't augur well for our future.
That was what I was suggesting, yes.
My main point when I commented on the guy who says cranking out a book is possible without cutting into other things, was that it WILL cut into other things. The idea that it won't is ludicrous or merely the opinion of one who is either highly productive or/and or a hermit single person.
Your job description is to do research, administration, and teaching. It is expected that you will be able to divide your time in such a way as to do all of these things without neglecting any of them. Unless you're teaching a 4-3 and have absurd publication expectations, like the person who posted above. If I'm teaching a 2-2, it's reasonable to expect me to publish a book and a few articles as the "research" component of my expectations.
Perhaps we should think along those lines rather than bragging about how much less sleep we can take.
I don't think anybody did brag about this. And if this is about having kids... if you have them, God knows you don't sleep, inside the academy or out.
YES, I still love classics, and I don't consider my choice to enter the field a bad one or an error in judgment.
I do, too. But I still think it was a bad bet that has worked out well for me, and so an error in judgment. One of, oh, so many.
I just think institutions of higher ed and those who thrive in the current system need to take a step back and realize what they're saying.
The institutions realize what they're saying. Those who have "thrived" are pretty disinclined to see a problem in the system, precisely because they have thrived. How many people see a problem in a system that validates them and what they do?
But in any case, institutions in aggregate are what matters, and these obey a very predictable logic.
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
Well, I "dislike" most of what I've said, and I'd probably vote that way on this comment. I'm not sure it'd be a good indicator of whether it's correct or not.
We're around because of elite institutions and the good humor of a small number of mainstream universities, eh? This doesn't augur well for our future.
That was what I was suggesting, yes.
My main point when I commented on the guy who says cranking out a book is possible without cutting into other things, was that it WILL cut into other things. The idea that it won't is ludicrous or merely the opinion of one who is either highly productive or/and or a hermit single person.
Your job description is to do research, administration, and teaching. It is expected that you will be able to divide your time in such a way as to do all of these things without neglecting any of them. Unless you're teaching a 4-3 and have absurd publication expectations like the person who posted above, like the person who posted above. If I'm teaching a 2-2, it's reasonable to expect me to publish a book and a few articles as the "research" component of my expectations.
Perhaps we should think along those lines rather than bragging about how much less sleep we can take.
I don't think anybody did brag about this. And if this is about having kids... if you have them, God knows you don't sleep, inside the academy or out.
YES, I still love classics, and I don't consider my choice to enter the field a bad one or an error in judgment.
I do, too. But I still think it was a bad bet that has worked out well for me, and so an error in judgment.
I just think institutions of higher ed and those who thrive in the current system need to take a step back and realize what they're saying.
The institutions realize what they're saying. Those who have "thrived" are pretty disinclined to see a problem in the system, precisely because they have thrived. Would you see a problem in a system that validated you and what you do?
But in any case, the institution is what matters, and these obey a very predictable logic.
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
Well, I "dislike" most of what I've said, and I'd probably vote that way on my comments. I'm not sure it'd be a good indicator of whether something's correct or not.
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
DISLIKE!
I also want to add that I wish there were a "Like" and "Dislike" button for some of the comments. It would be interesting to see the tallies.
DISLIKE!
See, that's really confusing, because you can't tell whether you're saying "dislike" in solidarity with the person who wants buttons or in protest against the pro-button agenda.
Even a makeshift button leads to chaos and confusion. Better just to converse directly.
I'd prefer a "meh" button.
So, just to be clear on this whole teaching/administration/publishing discussion, a 2-2 teaching load is "acceptable" whereas a 4-3 load is "unacceptable" and makes publishing at a decent rate impractical or impossible? At this point, I'm under the distinct impression that, a) a 4-3 load is, if not standard, at least very very common for people in our field, especially at SLACs and b) a book and several articles are pretty much standard for tenure everywhere. So the person who says you can, in fact, do it all, and who appears to be in a 2-2 teaching situation, may or may not know what they're talking about, but certainly doesn't have nearly the (in my view) standard teaching load that most of us do. But they're not going to be especially motivated to stand up for "our" rights any time soon, either (along with the administration at all these overly-demanding places), because, “Those who have ‘thrived’ are pretty disinclined to see a problem in the system, precisely because they have thrived. Would you see a problem in a system that validated you and what you do?” So is this the class struggle of the future for those of us who don’t land an academic job with a cushy teaching load, or has this tension been in the system for so long that most people don’t even think about it anymore?
I'll keep counting myself lucky that I don't have kids, I do love teaching, I can, for the most part, handle the research load I've taken on, and I'm generally happy in what I do. But I can't help but think that things could be better for most of us, if we just knew how to present our case better to the administration and the fortunate few who don't really know (or remember) what it's like for what I perceive to be the majority of people in our field.
So are we dead men walking and the only difference between all of us are those who admit it and those who don't? Just when I thought this place couldn't get more depressing, it hits a new low.
Don't worry. Mainly, these places have no reason to hire classicists, so they won't be doing the majority of the hiring for long.
So the good news about these places with unrealistic expectations is that they won't be offering jobs to classicists in the future anyway? Woohoo! For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.
The people who spend so much time whining about everything should spend more time reading some texts, writing some articles, and/or having a drink. Sheesh.
Will Cornell interview Lat Lit or Archy candidates?
The people who spend so much time whining about everything should spend more time reading some texts, writing some articles, and/or having a drink. Sheesh.
1). Huh. Turns out you still can't leave a comment like this without looking like a hypocrite. Oh, well. Maybe next time?
2). "Sheesh"? Have you travelled here from 1977 to warn us of the error of our ways? I can dig it, but take a chill pill, jack.
Stop whining
I would stop if only you stopped producing so much cheese for our consumption.
Bridgewater State University seems to be conducting phone interviews next week for the English/Classics position. Sorry to put it here -- didn't see a place for it on the wiki.
Thanks for the info from the person who let us know abt the Bridgewater State position. I don't see any problem with putting that up on the Wiki site since, well, West Chester and SUNY Oneota are also up there. Moreover, we post all those philosophy positions which are really for those in that discipline...
Agree with above. The more positions we see here, on the wiki, etc. the better. I also know a couple of friends who are classicists, but who work on ancient philosophy, who appreciate all of the philosophy positions, so keep them coming!
Mesa St. University appears to have also run a similar ancient lit/classics search this year: http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/Comparative_2011
Anybody know what Boise State is looking for? Roman, Greek, Other? Advanced Asst., ABD, Other?
Someone who hates the BCS.
Congratulations to the applicants out there who have a few interviews already! Purely out of curiosity, would those of you with three or more interviews be willing to say what field you are in, how many years out, or anything else helpful? Lit? Arch? Hist? Phil? ABD? VAP? Anything you are willing to share!
Thanks.
I'm an ABD Latinist (Prose). Don't wish to share more for fear of outing myself.
Hope this helps.
Here’s a scenario I’d like to run past folks here on the board: let’s say it is your first year with PhD in hand and the search came down to two offers. On the one hand you are offered a TT in tier 2, good school, average salary, average load, average duties. Or a contract position outside the US for 3 years (non-renewable) that is in an interdisciplinary program (so outside Classics proper but within humanities) has far superior research/library facilities, same teaching load but some of the classes are your design, no supervisory or committee work, and nearly double the salary? Lookin’ down the road, which way would you go if you felt fairly sure you would finish your book project in about half the time with the contract position? What are the factors to be weighed in hypothetical happy land where you actually have a choice?
If your goal is eventually a T-T at a tier 1 stateside then I would definitely choose the latter route. If you would be happy to make tenure at that tier 2 institution and remain there long-term then I would probably choose the first option now.
What are the factors to be weighed in hypothetical happy land where you actually have a choice?
Is the department friendly or hostile, with possible infighting? This can make your life miserable.
Hypothetical two choices guy/gal: when you say "twice the salary" make sure you know the cost of living, and all benefits/insurance costs etc. For US cities there are calculators online, not sure about your hypothetical foreign gig.
Some people would say it's hard to pass up a decent t.t. job, while optimists would say the market might be better after a stimulating three-year gig. It would be good to know whether you'd be free to apply for a couple of dream jobs during the first two years without getting scowled at. If you could that'd be sweeter.
If you have a book in the works that will be a surefire namemaker AND you're certain that you'll churn it out, the latter is a good bet. Tier 1 classics jobs aren't going away in the next ten years. The less certain you are of producing a great (not good) book, I would hedge my bets and choose the Tier 2 here. Only you know your life situation - kids, sick parents, etc. can easily change your perspective on life.
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