@Wife of Bath - well, I hope the Ren Faire is still an option. I tried for the bearded lady job with the carnies, but thy preferred a younger candidate who had done less work and was more easily manipulated. and they told me i could not apply for the monkey boy job b/c i finished my degree more than 5 years ago. i guess i'll aim for King Henry VIII with a turkey leg at the Ren Faire, if my tights still fit, that is.
I have taught high school and interviewed at some very nice places. In my experience, almost everyone in education is impressed by a PhD in Classics, but what schools actually need is someone who likes working with teenagers and is willing to contribute in other ways to the "school community" I.e coaching, advising, etc. A PhD with high school experience makes you a great candidate. Without that, you're going to have work extra hard to prove you're not a head-in-the-clouds academic who's going to fold under the various pressures of high school teaching.
I have several friends who work in prep schools many of whom have at least an MA and are working towards their PhD. The key is to care deeply about teaching AND about teaching in that environment (being a dorm parent, coaching, etc). It is a 24/7 job that they all love, but it is not for someone who thinks of it as a "lesser fallback" to college teaching. They have no shortage of those applicants.
I agree with the previous posts--I was on several search committees when I was a high school teacher, and our main concern when hiring Latin teachers with Ph.D's was that we wanted to be sure that they really wanted to teach high-school-level Latin. If applicants were only interested in our AP courses, we didn't hire them, because most of the teaching was a lower level of Latin. If an applicant was really interested in teaching all levels, however, we grabbed them because of their obvious skills and knowledge.
At one point in my career, I left graduate school with an MA in Classics to become a high school Latin teacher. Not only did I love the job, but I was surprised to find that, at a good prep school, you can get paid more and teach better students a higher level of Latin than you can in many college posts.
Anybody else out there have an APA interview with Hendrix College? I had thought they said that their campus scheduling would occur by Jan. 15th, but I've heard nothing yet. If somebody else has a fly-out, could they please put me out of my misery?
The rumor is that the applicant pool was a bit underwhelming by Dartmouth's standards. You dirt-faced archaeologists but suck. Drop the trowel and pick up a Greek text once in a while.
Well, I don't know about "Dartmouth's standards," and my college isn't hiring this year, but at the APA three different friends on three different SCs commented to me that the candidate pool was exceptionally strong this year. All three of them said the real difficulty was going to be picking the three fly-outs since they'd all found that eight or ten of the first interviews were truly excellent. As for the final hire from the fly-outs, they all felt that they "just couldn't lose" this time around.
I know all of that's no real comfort to those of you who don't get fly-outs, but at the very least, don't listen to trolls who say the applicant pool was no good.
Wiki says that the TLL offered the fellowship position to their "first choice." That's strange. Normally they offer it to their third choice. Wacky Germans.
I was invited for oncampus and from the email I received it sounds like there is NO teaching practicum, only research talk. In the past, I always did the teaching practicum. Does this sound weird?
This isn't that strange -- every school does it differently. It should, though, give you a clue about their interests in a candidate. Start asking about tenure requirements now.
thanks to 7.24 anonymous. preliminary interview had more teaching- than research-related questions, and I found it odd for a school like this one. I will ask very many questions about tenure and all, that's for sure! thanks again.
so the placement svc website is still offline after two days (i doubt it is a SOPA protest). are there adverts for January? if so, how does one see them? i think the ps owes a refund - bad service, bad interview rooms at the meetings, bad karma.
Placement Service website is back up and there's a new job posting for Dartmouth -- 2 year visiting, generalist. Does this mean the ClArch search failed? Is this an additional position? Anyone know what's going on up there??
I agree: the interview rooms were nice. I did not, though, like that my interview got cut short because there was NO time lag between school change-overs. Everyone should be afforded the same time and ability to end an interview without another committee hovering at the door.
No, not having a person teach a class does not mean that teaching does not count or will not count for tenure. I am one of those who think that how well you jump into someone's else's class as a guest is useless for judging teaching ability. I read what the letters say about teaching ability (and measure it against what the person seems like), see how much experience they have, think about whether the grad program is good at training people to teach, observe how the person gives a lecture and answers questions, and talk to them about teaching one-on-one.
Have you guys seen the position for an antiquarian bookseller that's now up on the placement service website? I'm wondering if this guy is going to get rather more applications than he bargained for.
A week ago, I counseled patience, but does anyone else now feel that the wiki has gone stale? Surely Colgate, Georgetown, New Mexico et al. can't be waiting this long?
It usually goes stale at this point in the year. With three or so candidates left for each position, the stakes are higher and more personal, so people keep it close to the vest (read: don't update the wiki).
Ah, I see that Georgetown & Colgate have now shown up on the wiki! But perhaps I could follow up on the previous response with a philosophical question: why shouldn't this information be public? I.e. why shouldn't the departments in question notify candidates that campus visits are underway? If it's just university policy, what's the rationale behind that policy?
I assume the HR policy is don't notify applicants that they are out of the running until a job offer has been accepted. With that being the policy at a lot of places, I can see it being easier for folks not to make any contact in the meantime.
Also, has anyone heard anything about the position at Loyola University Maryland?
The Michigan Greek job is a sham. They claim that "demonstrated skill and experience in teaching, including in lecture courses, is essential" esp. re their Great Books course. But not one of the candidates is being asked to teach.
You can figure out a great deal about how somebody teaches from the job talk. Asking candidates to "teach" a class as a demonstration of pedagogical effectiveness is less than useless, on the other hand.
See Anon. Jan. 17, 3:03. People can assess likelihood of good teaching in other ways. I don't have particularly warm feelings toward that department, but I hardly think that not requiring a teaching demonstration makes their search a "sham."
However, the job talk isn't always the best indicator, either, because it's just as canned as a mock lesson, and the questions can be softballed by future colleagues who favor the candidate. A dossier with sample evaluations and teaching goals can look good on paper (especially if the candidate cherry-picks), but doesn't necessarily translate into good teaching in the classroom.
In previous searches I've not been overjoyed to ask faculty to give lesson time to a guest lecturer/job candidate (nor to receive such requests). But I don't know how else one can gauge teaching without putting candidate and students together in some sort of learning environment, artificial though it might be.
No, "sham" doesn't capture it. But perhaps MI will get what they didn't search for, if they're not careful.
Apropos of UNM, my partner just consoled me that, if they are still on intersession, the committee might not have met to discuss callbacks. Sounds plausible...I think. :)
Talk about naïve; who actually thinks anybody at Michigan cares about teaching? Of course they have to say that, and their interviews may even focus on teaching because it's something that everybody can have an opinion on, but really, folks, if you CAN teach well, that's a bonus, but being a mediocre teacher is not going to hurt you in a search like this one!
Hey Anon. 12:35, why don't you stop posting nonsense. I've been on campus visits to schools that care intensely about teaching that didn't ask me to teach on campus--for instance, Wesleyan.
Anon. 12:35 here. I don't think they care about teaching -- that's why it's a sham. They deserve whatever clueless hack they hire.
Personally, I can't believe that they passed up the opportunity to hire someone with such a sparkling personality. I'm sure you'd have been a delight to have around the department.
Thank you 3:43. Many of us are quite bitter about the job market as January is quickly sliding away. But there's no reason to become jerks, just because we made a horrible life choice.
Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind. Georgia, Georgia, a song of you Comes as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines.
I know Baylor interviewed 15 total between the APA, MLA, and Skype. And since they had different people at the concurrent meetings, maybe there are some difficulties in reaching a consensus.
I interviewed with Dartmouth and have heard nothing. If someone has an on-campus there, they're not on this wiki. Any word of mouth, news of a friend news?
Dartmouth interviewee here who has also not heard anything. I did Google it, but I can't come up with any evidence that they've had "at least 1 on campus visitor"...
You clarchs are putting out research more boring and irrelevant than the rest of us. So much for the we're-so-much-better-in-touch argument by you dirt faced malcontents. No wonder anthropology won't take you. Be thankful for what favour classics shows you.
You clarchs are putting out research more boring and irrelevant than the rest of us. So much for the we're-so-much-better-in-touch argument by you dirt faced malcontents. No wonder anthropology won't take you. Be thankful for what favour classics shows you.
back to feeling great about yourself because you read a Greek particle, you self-serving prig with clean hands.
Seriously, read all the clarch job talk titles and abstracts. You guys claim to have all the fancy 21st century methods and theories. Yet your talks sound like we're back in 1911 in some Back Bay parlor room. You think archaeologists practicing in the rest of the world won't see right through this? Worse yet, they simply will continue not to care. Leave it to the real professionals over in Europe and we'll use your squandered resources on keeping classics vibrant over here.
For many reading this forum, I do not need to say again that you are a total ass and just sad that your text-driven life has left you alone and boring (and, of course, bitter enough to lash out at anyone you can blame for your own inadequacy).
For some, the value of traditional research cannot be trumped by technology. But, isn't that what you prigs are always bitching about -- that we clarchs don't know how to use traditional sources? not.
Seriously, read all the clarch job talk titles and abstracts. You guys claim to have all the fancy 21st century methods and theories. Yet your talks sound like we're back in 1911 in some Back Bay parlor room.
Ok I'll bite. I don't know what talks you are referring to, but if you are in fact correct I'd say it has more to do with the preferences of SC's dominated by philologists than the state of classical archaeology. Try convincing a Vergil scholar why GIS or phytolith analysis is exciting. When's the last time a cutting edge archaeometrist got a job in a Classics department? As long as Classics departments think of archaeology as the pretty pictures to illustrate their texts, not much will change. But hey, this clarch would gladly sell his soul with pretty pictures if it meant stable employment.
Well, someone did mention that the clarch pool is a little shallow this year. This is a bit surprising considering the lack of positions during the Great Recession, but I don't think it's all that unusual. I know this will fall on deaf ears, but I'll argue that it's significantly more difficult becoming an attractive candidate as a junior clarch than a junior philologist. You know the good will you need from senior scholars? Multiply this tenfold for archaeologists. You're lucky to get hooked up with a good field project. If you do, you can't take a dump without the director's permission, let alone get any publishable material. There's hierarchy beyond belief and you're luck to get a trickle in the end. The best advise I have is to horde material during your diss research so you can spin it off postgraduation asap. I suppose the downside to this successful formula is the production of a bunch of senior scholars who really aren't active in the field anymore and have run out of material. This leaves their charges in a bit of a lurch, but I suppose it's the student's fault if they didn't research faculty before choosing a program. Pax
"Seriously, read all the clarch job talk titles and abstracts."
Yeah, because a title and an abstract tells you everything you need to know about a talk. I don't even read articles anymore, I just look at their titles and abstracts and deduce the content from that.
I'm tired of the clarchs taking all the heat and having all the fun. Let's grab our pitchforks and storm the classical philosophers' mansion. Who's with me?
"When's the last time a cutting edge archaeometrist got a job in a Classics department?"
Not to diminish your excellent point, but I find it a bit amusing that there actually IS one classicist who fits this description. Most archaeologists in our neck of the woods know who s/he is.
When's the last time a cutting edge archaeometrist got a job in a Classics department?
I think we all agree that these people perform a useful function. But so do X-ray technicians and lab techs. If you want some sort of useful understanding of that radiograph, though, you don't ask the tech; you go back to your doctor, who has some insight into what it might mean. So obviously it would be inappropriate for people who do this sort of thing to be hired into faculty positions, but it would be perfectly reasonable for them to be hired into assistantships or to serve as interns or volunteers, etc. working under the expert supervision of actual archaeologists.
No, you're thinking of a strict lab tech with a straight science background at the BS or MS level. PhDs that come out of archaeological science programs (almost exclusively Europe and the UK in particular) don't just pump out raw data for archaeologists to digest. It's like saying that most classicists are just language techs that should pass on their information to actual literary types who provide real insights and win Pulitzer prizes.
There are plenty of faculty positions in the UK that are X of archaeological science. I believe a number even have X of archaeological chemistry. Look at archaeology departments in the UK and you'll usually find one, if not several. In fact, I would say they are less endangered than classicists, especially outside of Oxbridge. Here in the US, they are typically in anthro departments. Our very own wiki even lists a faculty search at BU.
God, I hope for the sake of classical archaeology that you're a philologist.
Anyone know anything about NYU's ISAW postdocs? Neither the wiki nor friends of mine who have also applied seem to have heard anything yet, and the interview date is approaching.
Well, it sounds like we're fully in the silent, campus visit stage of the job cycle. Time to gear up for the VAP search - the other, other white meat. Better luck next time for us 99%ers who didn't get it this year!
Well, it sounds like we're fully in the silent, campus visit stage of the job cycle. Time to gear up for the VAP search - the other, other white meat. Better luck next time for us 99%ers who didn't get it this year!
having done this 5+ times without a t-t score, i can only tell you it gets worse and shelf-life gets to be a problem. if you don't score early, good luck to oyu.
Anybody else who interviewed with Hamilton at the APA remember when they said they'd start moving on campus visits? I think they mentioned that they'd wait "a bit" but I don't know what that means, exactly. Am I already screwed?
I also interviewed with Hamilton. They told me "late January or early February," so I keep hoping that I will hear from them this week. We aren't out of the running yet! (or maybe we are and they just haven't told us ...)
RE Hamilton: I also interviewed with them. They told me mid February, so as to accommodate people with TT opportunities (I heard nothing about January). I know three others who interviewed with them, and they were told a similar timeline.
It seems that Baylor and Dallas are genuinely delaying, but does anyone have any insight into what's happening at New Mexico and Georgia? They're really the last classics T-T holdouts on the wiki.
I can only access the newest comments here (everything after the first 200) by going to the 'blog archive' on the green sidebar. Is anybody else having this experience?
I can only access the newest comments here (everything after the first 200) by going to the 'blog archive' on the green sidebar. Is anybody else having this experience?
Are you in the "leave a comment" mode (white screen) or the read-only mode (yellow and green boxes on blue background)? In the latter, I often find that the links to "newer" and "newest" at the top of the page don't work, but the links at the bottom do, so I have to scroll down.
Or, on the main FV page, where there is a running tally of the five-or-so most recent comments (in the green box, right-hand side, at the bottom), if you click on the most recent one, it will take you straight to the "newest" page.
I sent a piece to AJP in 2008. I got 2 reports exactly 3 months later (exactly 3 months). Not sure if they now have a different chief editor. The one I dealt with was so very professional and nice. Good luck!
To AJP Q: I submitted this year during the summer and received the reports 3.5 months later. I find the current editor very pleasant, professional and easy to deal with. If you submitted, say, in Oct.-Nov., chances are it may take a little longer, since your referees may sit on SCs or graduate admissions which would makes their Dec.-Feb. a very busy time.
So if you knew that about UNM then why didn't you up date the wiki? Here I've been waiting on pins and needles for news, and I could have moved on and let the dream die. Adios White Oak City!
Alright...in the spirit of the last few posts...one last time: Roanoke anyone? The SC seems to have updated the Wiki themselves a while back but it has been crickets since.
ISAW and Joukowsky are the honey badgers of archaeology. They do what they want and don't give a shit. That's why they're so beloved by the discipline.
let's be honest - it is easy (and fun) to poke at ISAW and JIAAW but many places seem to be preferring very new people w/o pubs this year. just saying.
That's what happens when you're so well-endowed. You do what you want and ask questions later. Honey badger don't care. Honey badger don't give a shit. It just takes what it wants.
I'd like to comment on this from the perspective of a junior TT faculty member helping with a search this year. There are two sides to hiring based on pubs and no pubs. Some students and young postdocs/VAPs have published, and that's great. Their challenge is then publishing more, so it counts for the TT, and writing their book. In hiring them, we run the risk that they've already used up some good ideas on pubs that won't count for tenure, because they came out before the person was on the TT. Those candidates need to be able to outline clearly a couple of solid articles that will be written along with the book, once hired. So that can make a non-published candidate look attractive if that person has saved their pubs for the TT. Conversely, we take a risk in hiring someone who has good ideas but hasn't yet seen if they can navigate the publishing process. So it isn't as if it's a clear cut thing. In addition, while there are villainous search committee senior faculty out there, the majority are not, and usually they are juggling all sorts of university and departmental needs and stipulations that have little to do with the candidate's scholarly potential and a lot to do with random stuff. It's just we can't print those things in the ad, but if we could, you'd quickly see that it often isn't about you and your worth, but rather about weird things that are very frustrating to us. I know that doesn't get you a job (or me a job, if I don't get tenure), but I hope it helps a little in dealing with the yuckiness of rejection, which I remember all too well. Good luck to all.
"It's just we can't print those things in the ad, but if we could, you'd quickly see that it often isn't about you and your worth, but rather about weird things that are very frustrating to us."
This is exactly why this process is so stupid. The whole idea of publishing ads as widely as possible to attract the "best" candidates makes perfect sense to me, except in those (altogether too frequent) instances where the department hasn't printed what it really wants, or, more sinisterly, already has an inside person sitting in the "open" position. If "we can't print those things in the ad," then how can we expect all of our candidates to meet those criteria or jump through those hoops? In fact, if we can't print the things in the ad, isn't that just admitting that we don't run an open and honest search? How many silent objectors are allowed on the committee before blaming the nameless, faceless administration is just dodging the blame for something that we should actually be working to change? Let's figure out how to actually publish an accurate job ad, and then let's figure out how to avoid having to waste thousands and thousands of dollars running a fake search for the person sitting next to us in those faculty meetings. Nobody likes to sit through countless hours of meetings, and I can guarantee that that "administration" will be more than a little bit happy to save a couple bucks instead of having to shell out cash for an intentionally inefficient "search."
Just some reactions from that rare someone who does, in fact, have a job.
Hear, hear. I have to say my perspective on this has changed completely. Sure, a sham search is infuriating to candidates who go through the trouble to apply, but even worse, in some ways, is that some incumbent, who has done an excellent job and given selfless service to the department (since this is insisted upon, after all), might have to be paraded again through an empty "process" or even be cast aside for some unproven quantity. Hic pietatis honos? What other business works this way? "Yes, we're very happy with the work you're doing here, so we invite you to apply again for your position!" In fact, converting a temporary position to T-T is a time-honored way to get an academic job, but we are for some reason ashamed of it as a profession.
Echoing what another poster wrote a few days ago, there is most certainly something strange going on with this blog. When I click on this thread the way I always have I no longer get the Newer/Newest links, making it impossible to see posts beyond Oct. 15. Either there is a bug in the blogger.com software, or "Servius" clicked on something he/she should not have. But there can be no doubt that a problem with the user interface now exists. (Possibly useful info: I am using Google Chrome. That shouldn't be the cause of the problem, but perhaps the glitch is browser-specific.)
@8:46 am - there wasn't anything sinister about our reasoning, it's just a bunch of complicated stuff that would be confusing to explain in a job ad. I don't want to continue doing the same dumb thing by blaming the administration while still printing the job ad, but I don't think you should call it a matter of dishonesty. It's more a matter of the factors involved are so complicated that it would make for a long and confusing job ad. We were perfectly honest with candidates who made it to the interview stage about the factors involved, but we explained them in person. We didn't leave them out of the ad because they were shameful but rather because they were complicated. Yes, it isn't a good solution. It's an institutional problem that needs to be fixed at the university level so there aren't as many complicating factors in hiring. I'd rather fix the problem than just explain the problem in detail in the job ad so everyone understands it.
Are you really telling me that having published a few articles as a grad student may now work against me with some committees? Should I really have known that the incompetent tenured faculty who only had five publishable ideas in their lifetime might assume that I would be as unimaginative as they are?
Sweet Jesus. I'm trying to be nice, and you're being a total tool.
1) Having written articles pre-TT does NOT work against you if you can talk about articles that you want to write while on the TT. Having written articles pre-TT DOES work against you if you have exhausted your ideas for the moment. This has nothing to do with old dudes who don't write articles any longer. And for Christ's sake, I'm a junior faculty member, I am working my ass off to publish, and I'm on YOUR SIDE. Nobody is assuming anything about your ideas. Either you tell us that you have been publishing AND you have more ideas for more articles that the Dean can count for your TT portfolio, or you don't. If presented with two candidates, one who had great ideas for articles but hadn't published, and one who had published but had great ideas for MORE articles, we'd go with the second candidate. So no, it doesn't hurt you to have published UNLESS you have run out of ideas. And just because YOU haven't run out of ideas doesn't mean we don't see candidates who have. And you have an advantage over those candidates, at least in my department you do.
As for Tool #2, it's easy to publish an article, but it isn't easy to publish a GOOD article. I'm glad you're a genius who cranks out good articles with ease. Yay for you. I work hard to write good articles, and it isn't easy for me. I guess I'm unworthy of my job in your book.
Maybe you people are not being hired because you are so damn rude to those of us WHO ARE ON YOUR SIDE AND TRYING TO HELP YOU.
No, I'm pretty sure we're not being hired because the market is fucking terrible.
If you really are a junior tenure track faculty member, you need to examine what is motivating you to come onto famae volent in preacher mode in the first place, and why you are *freaking the fuck out* when the response isn't exactly what you'd hoped. You have a job, you are living the dream. Why do you need the respect of random peons on teh internetz?
Maybe, just maybe, I do not need respect of the internetz. Maybe it is because I remember how awful the job market is and wanted to be helpful. YOU might not find it helpful, but I would have found it helpful to know some of what is going on behind the 'magic curtain' when I was going through the hell of the job market myself. Maybe I am sympathetic to the concerns of people on the market and want to understand your views better. Maybe I am just learning about 'the other side' for the first time and thought I could share some insight to break up the bitter bitching and moaning. Maybe I need to keep up on the general vibe because I may get denied tenure in the very near future. You might not like what I say, but could you at least do me the courtesy of assuming that I meant well, however misguided you find my advice, and however little you appreciate it? I mean, seriously, random junior faculty member wanders onto FV, sees some people wondering what's up with the sucky search process, thinks, "Oh, hey, I'm seeing it from the other side for the first time, maybe I can't get these guys jobs, but I can at least share what I know," then gets railed against for trying to help, comes back, tries to help again, and then basically gets bitchslapped because FV might delete the obscenities I am guessing you wanted to use against me. But seriously, could you please just say, "Hey dude, I am going to assume you meant well, but I don't find it helpful info," instead of "You, sir, are an ass"? Don't worry, I won't be back anytime soon, so you can continue vilifying people who are TRYING TO BE ON YOUR SIDE.
"Hey dude, I am going to assume you meant well, but I don't find it helpful info," instead of "You, sir, are an ass"? Don't worry, I won't be back anytime soon, so you can continue vilifying people who are TRYING TO BE ON YOUR SIDE.
*if* you are a junior faculty member, here's hoping your tenure rejection arrives swiftly. I work with more poised and professional people here at the coffee shop
I did not mean to vilify any friendly faculty member who wants to post here.
What I did want to expose is the idea that publishing as a graduate student may reveal a lack of future ideas. Many of us on the job market have no chance to explain to committees that we do have future ideas. Instead, our CV's our quickly discarded for various reasons. If anyone on a search committee would assume that a young scholar might not have more ideas to publish because he has already published, that I think is worth exposing.
So, please do visit FV again, but don't have dumb ideas.
if the committee discounts our c.v. b/c of early career publications, and then maybe deigns to give us a 20-minute tap dance at the interview stage, then we will all lose to the flavor of the moment abd folks. some junior t-t faculty are also scared by hard-chargers who publish early (and often). like begets like.
My 'dumb idea' was to suggest that you make it clear in your cover letter that you have published (as evidenced on your CV) and that you mention articles that you have in mind for the TT. Then your application will land in the interview pile.
As for the lovely people who hope I'm not really a junior faculty member and want me to get denied tenure - man, if you guys are not on the TT yet, you have some eye-opening experiences ahead of you. In fairness, I would have thought the same things about my post before I started the TT. Not that I've gone over to the Dark Side, but all of this 'preaching' you say I'm doing, I meant in the spirit of helping. And as untenured faculty, I have just as much right to tell others off here as any of you.
Anyway, good luck, hope you all end up on the TT, even those of you who hope I lose my job so you can take it, and think back to this conversation a few years down the road, to see how you feel about it then.
Obviously those people with jobs and/or on current search committees, instead of showing up here trying to share their unwelcome wisdom and getting bitch-slapped by the bitter jobless rabble, should start their own blog listing all the silly things clueless job candidates put in their application dossiers, and also listing the crazy ridiculous things ungrateful job candidates say and do in their actual interviews. Now that would be FUN!!!
Give me a break. You did not win the pissing contest.
Of course, I'll say in my letter that I have more publishable ideas. I assume everyone on the planet does that.
My concern is that you were legitimizing (if only implicitly) the fact that some faculty (apparently not you) entertain the notion that a grad student who has published has (unless they prove otherwise) already used up their good ideas.
By the way, if you are one of the poor saps teaching a 4/4 load at a place that also requires publications for tenure, then you have my sincerest sympathies. I applied for the UNC Asheville job this year, but that was the one school whose rejection did not bother me in the least.
1) I didn't win the pissing contest. YOU did. 2) I did not legitimize the dumb idea that grad students with pubs had no potential. I just said to make sure to mentioned planned articles in your cover letter. The old farts who run the show are the ones who make that assumption. 3) Just because YOU are intelligent enough to do it, doesn't mean others are similarly clued in. We saw lots of this in the applications, and we took the time to give the candidates the benefit of the doubt and asked, of those who left it out, to talk about their planned articles. Those emails, asking for further info, and then inserting it into candidate files, took up approximately 30 hours of my time one week. I was trying to help. 4) Sincere apologies to all who were offended by my obviously misguided attempt to share what I was seeing from 'the other side.' It really was meant well, but obviously it wasn't welcome. And yes, I am a poor sap who teaches too much, still has high publishing standards, cares for a severely disabled relative on a tiny salary, and am a woman who was denied family leave to help out during a critical time in said family member's treatment. And I have debt from grad school, when promised funding in my final years was yanked away. Am I bitter? No, I chose this path. Am I dumb for choosing it? Perhaps. Am I the enemy - certainly not. Was I sincerely trying to help, having been behind the curtain with The Wizard of Oz? Yes. Did I misjudge how to word my comments. Obviously.
Sincerely, honest, and hopeful good luck to all of you.
Just a comment, from an old person: for tenure, some places will count only things that you have written while on their faculty, some count mainly things written while on their faculty, many count both but worry if you stop or slow down on publishing after joining their faculty (a chair may have to address this in a letter--I've had to do this), and some count anything you have written since birth equally. You need to ask. If you publish articles while a grad student, and also a dissertation, I would assume your next publication(s) would be based on your dissertations. If your earlier publications have used up all of your ideas, I would expect your referees to say your diss. is boring.
this business of job seeking makes no sense, all of the blather and opining on FV notwithstanding. and there is not enough whiskey to wash it all away.
So Brown has one insider candidate and three already in TT positions at great school. Classic Honey Badger Joukowsky. The only thing that could make it more perfect is if they cancel the search after all the pyrotechnics.
Is it that surprising? Classical archaeology (and Old World archaeology to a degree) is so inbred that it's a small group of big egos playing house with each other. In my experience, it's those that really want it more than those who would be best at it that end up in the most prominent positions. Most of the latter are satisfied with less visible positions quietly producing excellent BA/MA students (who are then snapped up by the big egos in the Ph.D. programs).
Can I just say that the Boston College section of the wiki is awesome, and should be a model for every other one on there? We know how many applications they had, every step of the way is marked out, and each step is dated. I didn't get the job myself, but it is nice to see what cooperation among strangers can yield. Congrats to the lucky winner, and to the faculty at BC.
"So Brown has one insider candidate and three already in TT positions at great school. Classic Honey Badger Joukowsky. The only thing that could make it more perfect is if they cancel the search after all the pyrotechnics."
The most mind boggling thing to me is that the search reeks of laziness. No disrespect to the candidates, but none stand out to me as superstars worth plucking out of TT positions. They're safe choices, one insider and others presumably vetted by a previous search committee. With the HUGE benefit of having a search committee comprised of members with relatively light teaching loads and classes that are small and quite specific to their specialties, they couldn't unearth a true star on the rise? It's not like they had an extremely narrow search ad. As a relative outsider on the history side, the entire JIAAW and ISAW movement baffles me.
the JIAAW is egotistical, as they seek to replicate themselves. note that the 'ancient world' really means the eastern mediterranean and near east. ISAW and JIAAW lack broad coverage of the Mediterranean and especially miss the central, western Mediterranean and much of continental Europe.
I'm not sure you know what you're talking about when it comes to ISAW. I have zero affiliation with the place, but I at least know that their mission is not Greco-Roman, but rather pan-Eurasian+Middle Eastern+Egyptian. They have a small faculty, as their budget surely dictates, and that includes two Greco-Roman sorts (including the director). But among affiliated faculty from NYU the Latin West is certainly represented. They tend to have just 1-2 one-year visitors who work on the Roman or Medieval West -- but again, when their focus extends to China and Southeast Asia that's going to make Italy a bit peripheral.
Why someone should get angry at them over this is beyond me.
ISAW defender should read up on the advertised remit of ISAW:
the Institute focuses on the shared and overlapping periods in the development of cultures and civilizations around the Mediterranean basin, and across central Asia to the Pacific Ocean.
And the naturally cognate units at NYU don't collaborate so much. Just sayin'.
It's microwave academics. You can't just drop in tens of millions of dollars into a new situation and expect automatic success. The institutes are islands within their own universities. It's a double whammy because the universities are excellent in their own right so it's not like people who've been there are going to roll over and totally capitulate to the new kids on the block (especially when they've set themselves up as an institution within an institution).
The other question is one of need. A boatload of money will often steamroll over pragmatics and override planned systematic growth if things don't line up, which often takes luck.
Brown has a chance because there was an established, if moribund, predecessor. Still, I don't see how an elite PhD program by Old World standards gets established in a tertiary city with little to no day-to-day connections with other world class resources both within and outside the university. And that's what you're shooting for when you're at Brown with that much money - Michigan, Stanford, Penn, etc.
I see ISAW having little to no chance of being a traditional PhD power, not with the IFA down the street and NYU's status as second fiddle in the city. Perhaps that's what they're trying to do, which in that case they shouldn't have hired the most traditional of directors. It's the same problem that the University Museum is going through with their directors, but they have the benefit of being totally embedded into the university fabric.
Anyway, good luck to both as they are by default the harbinger of the discipline to the general academic world, for better or worse.
Some advice for those of you who'll be on the market again next year: If you are asked to teach an ancient-language class during an on-campus visit, PREPARE for it. Prepare the assignment you'll be teaching as though your career depended on it -- because it does.
Three times in the past five years (once at my own school, twice at different friends' schools) I have seen a candidate who was otherwise the SC's clear top pick lose the job because he/she made several elementary howlers in the on-campus Greek or Latin class. I'm not talking about one slip of the tongue, I'm talking about numerous basic errors of the kind one expects from first-years. Embarrassingly, in a couple of instances an error was pointed out by a first-year in the class, who asked the visiting candidate for clarification.
This is, unfortunately, exactly why many SCs ask on-campus candidates to teach a language class. There's no way to know if the candidate is actually competent in the ancient languages until you see him/her teach one of them. (Even then you have to take the other language on faith.) I wish we could trust that a PhD in classics means full competency in the languages, but these recent searches have opened my eyes. Particularly in a SLAC with a tiny department, anyone we hire will have to teach both languages at all levels. We can't afford to hire a tenure-track colleague who can't parse forms or explain the syntax of a sentence to students at the beginning of their second semester.
So, my advice -- when you're told "You'll be teaching Chapter X of Textbook Y," get hold of Textbook Y and prepare the bit you're teaching. Remember, you're not supposed to be sight-reading; the SC all knows that you've had the assignment and you've known you'll be teaching it in front of the SC. There should not be a single word that you can't parse backwards and forward; not a single construction that you can't explain, fluently, with examples of how it works; not a single obvious student question that you can't answer. I know this takes hours. I've been there (not all that long ago). Find the hours, somehow, take them, and prepare the lesson.
Some advice to search committee members who invite supposedly incompetent candidates for campus visits year after year: Re-evaluate the candidates that YOU are selecting and inviting to campus. In this market with 100-200 applicants for each position, there are more than enough OUTSTANDING teachers/scholars in the pool. Perhaps instead of being seduced by the 'sexy' dissertation topic, pedigree, and connections, you should take a closer look at evaluations, letters, and experience. Ask the candidates relevant and precise questions during the first round interview instead of questions about their third book project. Prepare YOUR questions carefully in advance and listen closely to answers.
to the poster of February 9, 2012 12:49 PM -- this is why you search committees with your precious SLAC positions should avoid inviting ABD candidates to campus and prefer people who have ACTUAL experience both as teachers and as scholars.
Hmmm, but if someone does not know the language well, but prepares the heck out of Chapter X so as to give the impression that they know the language well, is that a good thing? Wouldn't you rather have a person show his/her weaknesses, so you can avoid hiring them?
Anonymous said... Some advice to search committee members who invite supposedly incompetent candidates for campus visits year after year: Re-evaluate the candidates that YOU are selecting and inviting to campus. In this market with 100-200 applicants for each position, there are more than enough OUTSTANDING teachers/scholars in the pool. Perhaps instead of being seduced by the 'sexy' dissertation topic, pedigree, and connections, you should take a closer look at evaluations, letters, and experience. Ask the candidates relevant and precise questions during the first round interview instead of questions about their third book project. Prepare YOUR questions carefully in advance and listen closely to answers. February 9, 2012 1:42 PM
Thanks for the advice for search committees. I never would have thought to "look at evaluations, letters, and experience" or "Ask the candidates relevant and precise questions" or "Prepare [MY] questions carefully in advance and listen closely to answers." All these wasted years of asking people their favorite color and what the frequency is, Kenneth, and whether God could make a boulder so heavy he couldn't lift it, and then reading a magazine instead of listening closely to their answers. I'm such a fool!
So, comments on whether people think the finalists at specific schools are mediocre or not? Really? Hope it's you some day. But it probably won't be, given that you're a tool.
"to the poster of February 9, 2012 12:49 PM -- this is why you search committees with your precious SLAC positions should avoid inviting ABD candidates to campus and prefer people who have ACTUAL experience both as teachers and as scholars."
Why are you assuming the candidates who bombed were ABDs? I did not say that, nor is it the case. In all three instances I referred to, the candidate who blew it in the classroom was a couple of years out from the PhD and had held at least one VAP position.
To 1:42 p.m.: We did pick our on-campus interviews based in large part on class evaluations and on letters of recommendation. Class evals -- well, students aren't the best judges of their professors' grasp of grammar and syntax (how would they know if they've been taught mistakes?). And with letters of recommendation, there's such inflation of praise that they're almost worthless. When one professor in a major grad. program writes about FOUR separate candidates that "he/she is one of the two strongest graduate students I have seen in my 30-year career" (seriously, I'm not making that up; four of them were among the two strongest), then we know there's a problem with taking glowing letters about such candidates' abilities at face value.
To Anon. 2.20 -- yes, from the SC's point of view it would be better to have the person who's incompetent in the languages bomb in the classroom. On this blog, though, I was trying to offer advice to candidates, not to SCs. But of course, I'm getting flamed for it by the candidates. Oh well.
Two thoughts on the post re: poorly prepared candidates, and the subsequent responses:
1) It's idiotic to attack this person (and SC's in general) for somehow failing to weed out candidates who might flub basic grammar. The way languages are taught these days it's quite easy for people to get through grad programs with mediocre language skills, and that's not always evident to their supervisors. And while I agree that it's a reason to avoid ABD's, it won't always become evident the first year or two someone's out: if I've done my dissertation on Ovid and get my first VAP as a Latinist, I might be able to conceal the fact that my Greek has atrophied since my grad exams. So people are being narrow-minded buffoons to take this out on the faculty poster.
2) I'm in complete agreement with whoever pointed out that the faculty member's warning will only help people to conceal their failings, which helps no one. I understand the generous spirit that shows itself around here on occasion -- i.e., when people aren't being jackasses to one another, which is the default -- but question why people keep giving advice that helps bad candidates fool SC's. This not only can lead SC's to make bad hires, but can cost better candidates a chance. So please, NO MORE ADVICE ON INTERVIEWING!
I don't see how preparing a class well beforehand is "fooling the SC". Many of us have been thrown from pillar to post in VAP after VAP, teaching generalist courses and subjects not-really-in-our-area. It's possible not to teach the languages for years at a stretch, and not surprising that some once perfectly competent people have become rusty. I'd be more worried that someone who can't find the time to prep a *job interview class* will never find time to properly prep a normal class. Someone a little rusty and/or uncertain who can do it once is more likely to be able to continue to prep their classes so as not to make silly mistakes.
You completely missed the point. It's only "fooling" a search committee if the candidate is too stupid/lazy to have prepared properly had he not had someone point out the need. From your post, I have no doubt that you're smart and responsible not to need this advice. But, to sum up my thoughts, anyone who NEEDS such advice shouldn't get the job, and the faculty member who was obviously prompted by a charitable impulse to share his/her advice might not have thought about it from this angle.
5:25: Yeah, I dunno. That cross-section of the population sounds very small to me. Someone who is perfectly capable of running a skillful class (with prep) but is somehow naive enough to not realize they might have to do so? Fictional person who eagerly takes the advice when offered ("Gee, I never thought I might actually have to be *good*! I thought I'd swan in there, say 'amo, amas, amat' and I'd get the job, but now you've opened my eyes!"). Who is this person??? (So I can engage him/her in card games at the APA). Personally, I don't think anyone who is ill-prepared in a job interview class is the kind of person who will eagerly take to the advice (to not be so) because it *just didn't occur to them*. I take the SC member's advice to be more along the lines of, "no, really, this is not a formality, it matters to us a great deal" for those of us who might be tempted to slack on the prep because we're stressed out of our minds with other things, not a cheat-tip for the willfully incompetent.
February 9, 2012 2:14 PM said... to the poster of February 9, 2012 12:49 PM -- this is why you search committees with your precious SLAC positions should avoid inviting ABD candidates to campus and prefer people who have ACTUAL experience both as teachers and as scholars.
How many ABDs do you think actually got campus invitations this year -- a year, I note, when some search committees started their review of applications by eliminating applicants without the Ph.D. in hand?
My department invited an ABD to campus. I'll bet even in a market this saturated, the egotistical imagination of search committee members sure they can spot the next great scholar ensures that this is not uncommon.
My impression from observing job seekers from our program is that recently ABDs have gotten many fewer interviews for t-t positions than you would have expected even a few years ago but that once they have the degree in hand and are searching from a temporary position they have a lot more success. I don't really see any reason why that trend should apply exclusively to people from one program, so I imagine it's a general trend in the market. Which is just to say that it seems like an odd moment to lament the reign of the ABD: when the market has changed to favor employers and employers have been thus able to exercise more choice, they have in the aggregate exercised that choice in such a way as to prefer people with degrees in hand and experience in teaching as faculty. That in turn gives a pretty good indication of what the average search committee to fill a t-t position tends to prefer: security about the degree being completed, more confidence that a candidate is able to teach independently at the college level, and the stamp of approval from the search that hired the candidate into the temporary job s/he's searching from.
While it's not a great moment to be looking for a job from any situation, it's really not a great moment if you're ABD.
How many ABDs do you think actually got campus invitations this year -- a year, I note, when some search committees started their review of applications by eliminating applicants without the Ph.D. in hand?
I know several ABD candidates for prominent posts a top schools this year.
Just wanted to point out that different schools have different policies regarding ABDs and completion. Everyone agrees that it is horrible to have an ABD come to campus TT and spend that first year trying to finish. But some schools have very strict policies about finishing and conferral deadlines, and if the new hire isn't finished and degreed by the job's starting date, the position becomes a non-renewable VAP, and the department could lose the line. Even if the department doesn't lose the line, the candidate isn't eligible for the new TT search. So it really depends on which school it is, when it comes to taking ABDs as risks. There is concern about whether they can publish, but with good mentoring, a good dissertation CAN produce good articles. The greater risk is that the person won't finish before the starting date, and EVERYBODY who writes rec letters swears up and down that they'll finish. So (and I am a search committee member) search committees should be asking to see as much of the dissertation as is available, and also they should ask the candidate to map out the article they'll work on their first year there. And it does nobody any good for diss committees to rush candidates with offers through the end of their dissertations.
Possible. Anyway, the result is that I am paranoid that I'm missing VAPs that have been announced somewhere obscure. It does seem that not many at all have been advertised, doesn't it? It's definitely less than half the number of TT jobs this year.
Well, it looks like many of the departments are advertising here on their own. Otherwise, check the Chronicle (though hardly any classics departments advertise there), other academic job sites, The Google, and, of course, the Wiki. For what it's worth, I really do think this is all there is so far. If it isn't on the Wiki, nobody knows about it.
It is still too early for most schools to advertise for VAPs. Look for a stream (not a flood, not a trickle) of them in March, after the various admins begrudgingly accept that Greek really does have to be offered next year. Or not. Of those we'll never know.
My university will be making funding decisions for visiting positions later this month, so any ads would go out in March. So I agree with the previous post, there's plenty of time for the slow coaches to post their jobs. There is also some time for those "fake" TT searches to be posted - fake because with the limited time they're likely just getting their current visitor rubber stamped by running a "search" for them. Blame the slow administration, not the department.
I do not want to support the ardent supporters of this blog.
And I do appreciate the work of those who run it.
Two notes for improvement:
1. In both Google Chrome and Apple Safari browsers, I am not able to access the most recent posts on "Rebel Angels" unless I click on the comments on the sidebar of the Famae Volent homepage, and then scroll down to the very ends of the first page of posts, and then click on show all. I know that I should just subscribe to the rss posts, but still.
2. On the homepage of FV, "World of Wonders" says that there are 28 comments. Every time I click (thinking "wow, maybe this time there actually are seven new jobs"; I'm just like Charlie Brown looking in the mailbox for valentines, but that's a different story), I come to the actual thread and am told that there are just the same old 21 comments.
In response to the comments above, and earlier observations.
1) We have no control over this since it is a problem with the platform itself, not FV. You'll have to contact Google and hope they act to correct it. Sorry.
2) What you are seeing is the difference between the total comments posted, and the total comments allowed. We've had to delete a few, for various reasons (spam, names, etc.). This, again, is an issue with Blogger, not FV. Sorry for the confusion.
just back from an oncampus. I could not be more disappointed. Candidates have to sell theselves to the school, but the school has to sell the job to the candidate. It should not be assumed that we are desperate. In fact, I am not. I regret having to waste my time for a job that was not nearly as good as I thought. And this is, supposedly, a top-notch school. sight.
just back from an oncampus. I could not be more disappointed. Candidates have to sell theselves to the school, but the school has to sell the job to the candidate. It should not be assumed that we are desperate. In fact, I am not. I regret having to waste my time for a job that was not nearly as good as I thought. And this is, supposedly, a top-notch school. sight. February 17, 2012 6:14 AM
Well, sight or not, I'd say you're both lucky to be rid of each other. It's too bad that they wasted your time, given that there are a lot of excellent candidates out there who are, to put it bluntly, a lot more desperate to have a job than you seem to be. I'd be interested to know in what ways they failed to sell themselves to you, because in my experience that can mean very different things to different candidates.
I think it's all too common. Many of the tenured faculty come on here pleading empathy and sympathy, but I've found reality quite different during flybacks. I'm not in a TT positions, but I'm a full-time lecturer with security of employment. I teach two more classes on the quarter system per year but I don't have to deal with all the political and administrative bs. I live in a beautiful, vibrant part of the country. Yet I visit obscure schools in obscure parts of the country and I generally get pity more than empathy, with a ring extended to my lips. It's automatically assumed that I'm not happy but I have everything I want except tenure, which is the exact opposite of many of these other people. They kick back, often jaded by yet another candidate, and wait for my song and dance. This is nothing new. I learned early on that the TT stamp if overrated.
Servius, Now this blog is malfunctioning even WORSE than before (when I mentioned the new glitches last week). This time I tried accessing the newest posts in this thread by clicking on the thread title, and when I opted for "Newest" it showed no messages at all, and when I clicked on the "Newest" link again it dumped me into the "World of Wonders" thread.
I'm sorry, but your comment that people with problems should consult Google is not helpful in the least -- there is something wrong with the Blogger.com software (at least as far as Chrome is concerned), and therefore it is for the person running the blog to let them know. Thank you for looking into this.
(My veiled threat: as of now, the only way I can see new messages is to click on "Post" -- so I might have to start posting inanities about the weather or TV/movies just to be able to get to the last page of this thread.)
Me again. No, that didn't work -- after I hit "Publish Your Comment" instead of taking me to the end of this thread, as ALWAYS used to happen, I was left on a screen with zero posts. Servius, please attend to this -- it's a real problem, and the custodian of this blog needs to see to it that someone is dealing with it. Thank you.
I'm the one who just wrote "Me again..." That "Me again" was in reference to a longer post I'd just posted pointing out to Servius that there are NEW glitches in this blog site's software. Not sure why my post was lost -- I got a message saying it might take some time to appear, which I'd not seen before. So perhaps it will appear soon, either in or out of order. Anyway, this is even further evidence that there is something decidedly freaky happening with the Blogger.com code, and therefore Servius should be letting them know this.
Anyway, this is even further evidence that there is something decidedly freaky happening with the Blogger.com code, and therefore Servius should be letting them know this.
Sounds pretty serious! Have you called 911 yet?!? What did they say?
1,406 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 1201 – 1400 of 1406 Newer› Newest»@Wife of Bath - well, I hope the Ren Faire is still an option. I tried for the bearded lady job with the carnies, but thy preferred a younger candidate who had done less work and was more easily manipulated. and they told me i could not apply for the monkey boy job b/c i finished my degree more than 5 years ago. i guess i'll aim for King Henry VIII with a turkey leg at the Ren Faire, if my tights still fit, that is.
'tis the season of the Epic Fail, multiplied now times, oh, five or six ... happy new year.
I have taught high school and interviewed at some very nice places. In my experience, almost everyone in education is impressed by a PhD in Classics, but what schools actually need is someone who likes working with teenagers and is willing to contribute in other ways to the "school community" I.e coaching, advising, etc. A PhD with high school experience makes you a great candidate. Without that, you're going to have work extra hard to prove you're not a head-in-the-clouds academic who's going to fold under the various pressures of high school teaching.
I have several friends who work in prep schools many of whom have at least an MA and are working towards their PhD. The key is to care deeply about teaching AND about teaching in that environment (being a dorm parent, coaching, etc). It is a 24/7 job that they all love, but it is not for someone who thinks of it as a "lesser fallback" to college teaching. They have no shortage of those applicants.
I agree with the previous posts--I was on several search committees when I was a high school teacher, and our main concern when hiring Latin teachers with Ph.D's was that we wanted to be sure that they really wanted to teach high-school-level Latin. If applicants were only interested in our AP courses, we didn't hire them, because most of the teaching was a lower level of Latin. If an applicant was really interested in teaching all levels, however, we grabbed them because of their obvious skills and knowledge.
At one point in my career, I left graduate school with an MA in Classics to become a high school Latin teacher. Not only did I love the job, but I was surprised to find that, at a good prep school, you can get paid more and teach better students a higher level of Latin than you can in many college posts.
Anybody else out there have an APA interview with Hendrix College? I had thought they said that their campus scheduling would occur by Jan. 15th, but I've heard nothing yet. If somebody else has a fly-out, could they please put me out of my misery?
Has anyone received word from Dartmouth about on campus interviews or knows about the timing of their schedule?
According to the wiki, Hendrix has requested on-campus interviews.
The rumor is that the applicant pool was a bit underwhelming by Dartmouth's standards. You dirt-faced archaeologists but suck. Drop the trowel and pick up a Greek text once in a while.
Well, I don't know about "Dartmouth's standards," and my college isn't hiring this year, but at the APA three different friends on three different SCs commented to me that the candidate pool was exceptionally strong this year. All three of them said the real difficulty was going to be picking the three fly-outs since they'd all found that eight or ten of the first interviews were truly excellent. As for the final hire from the fly-outs, they all felt that they "just couldn't lose" this time around.
I know all of that's no real comfort to those of you who don't get fly-outs, but at the very least, don't listen to trolls who say the applicant pool was no good.
Wiki says that the TLL offered the fellowship position to their "first choice." That's strange. Normally they offer it to their third choice. Wacky Germans.
Any news on New Mexico and Georgia?
I assume the current message on the Placement Service's website is a joke. Anyone know more?
Site off-line APA/AIA Placement Service is currently under maintenance. We should be back shortly. Thank you for your patience.
laugh riot.
!#*#!)!
I was invited for oncampus and from the email I received it sounds like there is NO teaching practicum, only research talk. In the past, I always did the teaching practicum. Does this sound weird?
This isn't that strange -- every school does it differently. It should, though, give you a clue about their interests in a candidate. Start asking about tenure requirements now.
thanks to 7.24 anonymous. preliminary interview had more teaching- than research-related questions, and I found it odd for a school like this one. I will ask very many questions about tenure and all, that's for sure! thanks again.
Does anyone know if Auckland made a second offer after their first choice accepted and then rejected the position? Is the position back in play?
so the placement svc website is still offline after two days (i doubt it is a SOPA protest). are there adverts for January? if so, how does one see them? i think the ps owes a refund - bad service, bad interview rooms at the meetings, bad karma.
Has the Placement Service cancelled the job market? That would be kind of awesome.
Placement Service website is back up and there's a new job posting for Dartmouth -- 2 year visiting, generalist. Does this mean the ClArch search failed? Is this an additional position? Anyone know what's going on up there??
FWIW, I kind of liked the interview rooms this time around. I know it's generally not good form to compliment the ps, but there it is.
I agree: the interview rooms were nice. I did not, though, like that my interview got cut short because there was NO time lag between school change-overs. Everyone should be afforded the same time and ability to end an interview without another committee hovering at the door.
No, not having a person teach a class does not mean that teaching does not count or will not count for tenure. I am one of those who think that how well you jump into someone's else's class as a guest is useless for judging teaching ability. I read what the letters say about teaching ability (and measure it against what the person seems like), see how much experience they have, think about whether the grad program is good at training people to teach, observe how the person gives a lecture and answers questions, and talk to them about teaching one-on-one.
You're my hero, 3:03.
Have you guys seen the position for an antiquarian bookseller that's now up on the placement service website? I'm wondering if this guy is going to get rather more applications than he bargained for.
I've interviewed at "teaching" and "research" intensive places -- there has never been a corresponding pattern about which places want teaching demos.
Your job talk, for one, can be a great indication of how you teach, as can interacting with the students.
has anybody heard of U Michigan, Greek literature position? How many people are they flying in?
A week ago, I counseled patience, but does anyone else now feel that the wiki has gone stale? Surely Colgate, Georgetown, New Mexico et al. can't be waiting this long?
It usually goes stale at this point in the year. With three or so candidates left for each position, the stakes are higher and more personal, so people keep it close to the vest (read: don't update the wiki).
I've heard that Michigan (Greek Lit) has offered callbacks to four people (with a range of specialties).
Ah, I see that Georgetown & Colgate have now shown up on the wiki! But perhaps I could follow up on the previous response with a philosophical question: why shouldn't this information be public? I.e. why shouldn't the departments in question notify candidates that campus visits are underway? If it's just university policy, what's the rationale behind that policy?
I assume the HR policy is don't notify applicants that they are out of the running until a job offer has been accepted. With that being the policy at a lot of places, I can see it being easier for folks not to make any contact in the meantime.
Also, has anyone heard anything about the position at Loyola University Maryland?
I too interviewed with Loyola Maryland and haven't heard anything. But it seems to me that it's been too long since the APA for optimism.
I think Loyola Maryland has made its campus invites.
thanks for update re: Michigan. I am out of the race, sadly. A dream job, but out of my reach. On a different note, I love this wiki.
Yikes, you're either brilliant or a bit naive if U of M is your dream job.
This Michigan enthusiast doesn't have to be brilliant or naive. Maybe he just likes jogging naked.
Does anyone know anything about the status of the position at the U of Tennessee? Are the campus visits underway yet?
I am also curious about Tennessee, but I do recall them saying they would take a while, not until the end of Jan or even into Feb.
The Michigan Greek job is a sham. They claim that "demonstrated skill and experience in teaching, including in lecture courses, is essential" esp. re their Great Books course. But not one of the candidates is being asked to teach.
You can figure out a great deal about how somebody teaches from the job talk. Asking candidates to "teach" a class as a demonstration of pedagogical effectiveness is less than useless, on the other hand.
See Anon. Jan. 17, 3:03. People can assess likelihood of good teaching in other ways. I don't have particularly warm feelings toward that department, but I hardly think that not requiring a teaching demonstration makes their search a "sham."
@Anon. 12:35: That's too strong a term.
However, the job talk isn't always the best indicator, either, because it's just as canned as a mock lesson, and the questions can be softballed by future colleagues who favor the candidate. A dossier with sample evaluations and teaching goals can look good on paper (especially if the candidate cherry-picks), but doesn't necessarily translate into good teaching in the classroom.
In previous searches I've not been overjoyed to ask faculty to give lesson time to a guest lecturer/job candidate (nor to receive such requests). But I don't know how else one can gauge teaching without putting candidate and students together in some sort of learning environment, artificial though it might be.
No, "sham" doesn't capture it. But perhaps MI will get what they didn't search for, if they're not careful.
Apropos of UNM, my partner just consoled me that, if they are still on intersession, the committee might not have met to discuss callbacks. Sounds plausible...I think. :)
Talk about naïve; who actually thinks anybody at Michigan cares about teaching? Of course they have to say that, and their interviews may even focus on teaching because it's something that everybody can have an opinion on, but really, folks, if you CAN teach well, that's a bonus, but being a mediocre teacher is not going to hurt you in a search like this one!
Anon. 12:35 here. I don't think they care about teaching -- that's why it's a sham. They deserve whatever clueless hack they hire.
Hey Anon. 12:35, why don't you stop posting nonsense. I've been on campus visits to schools that care intensely about teaching that didn't ask me to teach on campus--for instance, Wesleyan.
Anon. 12:35 here. I don't think they care about teaching -- that's why it's a sham. They deserve whatever clueless hack they hire.
Personally, I can't believe that they passed up the opportunity to hire someone with such a sparkling personality. I'm sure you'd have been a delight to have around the department.
Thank you 3:43. Many of us are quite bitter about the job market as January is quickly sliding away. But there's no reason to become jerks, just because we made a horrible life choice.
Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through
Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind.
Georgia, Georgia, a song of you
Comes as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines.
Anyone?
ah, to be one of those "useless hacks" up for UM....(the michigan enthusiast again!)
You're sitting at home naked by the computer, aren't you?
You're sitting at home naked by the computer, aren't you?
Aren't we all?
I'm not sure if you guys were joking, but that is quite literally/seriously what I was doing when I read the previous posts.
About the TN job: I can confirm that campus visits have been arranged.
"Hacks"?!? My, my. Someone's grumpy because he/she didn't get invited to Ann Arbor.
Some of you need to grow up. Really.
Anyone hear any news yet about the Baylor "Great Texts" position?
I have not heard anything about Baylor. They did seem pretty disorganized. But that may just be hope talking.
I know Baylor interviewed 15 total between the APA, MLA, and Skype. And since they had different people at the concurrent meetings, maybe there are some difficulties in reaching a consensus.
Dartmouth archaeology position? Anybody?
if you use the Goog, you'll find Dmouth has had at least 1 on campus visitor.
I interviewed with Dartmouth and have heard nothing. If someone has an on-campus there, they're not on this wiki. Any word of mouth, news of a friend news?
Dartmouth interviewee here who has also not heard anything. I did Google it, but I can't come up with any evidence that they've had "at least 1 on campus visitor"...
then look harder and you'll find a newspaper article covering the candidate's talk.
You do realize that we are talking about archaeology candidates and not republican presidential candidates, right?
If that was a job talk then it was scheduled in world-record-setting time! Three days from the end of the APA to the campus visit? Incontheevable.
same candidate is giving same talk at another school hiring a clarch.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
You clarchs are putting out research more boring and irrelevant than the rest of us. So much for the we're-so-much-better-in-touch argument by you dirt faced malcontents. No wonder anthropology won't take you. Be thankful for what favour classics shows you.
well, you clearly don't know the right clarchs.
You clarchs are putting out research more boring and irrelevant than the rest of us. So much for the we're-so-much-better-in-touch argument by you dirt faced malcontents. No wonder anthropology won't take you. Be thankful for what favour classics shows you.
back to feeling great about yourself because you read a Greek particle, you self-serving prig with clean hands.
Seriously, read all the clarch job talk titles and abstracts. You guys claim to have all the fancy 21st century methods and theories. Yet your talks sound like we're back in 1911 in some Back Bay parlor room. You think archaeologists practicing in the rest of the world won't see right through this? Worse yet, they simply will continue not to care. Leave it to the real professionals over in Europe and we'll use your squandered resources on keeping classics vibrant over here.
For many reading this forum, I do not need to say again that you are a total ass and just sad that your text-driven life has left you alone and boring (and, of course, bitter enough to lash out at anyone you can blame for your own inadequacy).
For some, the value of traditional research cannot be trumped by technology. But, isn't that what you prigs are always bitching about -- that we clarchs don't know how to use traditional sources? not.
Seriously, read all the clarch job talk titles and abstracts. You guys claim to have all the fancy 21st century methods and theories. Yet your talks sound like we're back in 1911 in some Back Bay parlor room.
Ok I'll bite. I don't know what talks you are referring to, but if you are in fact correct I'd say it has more to do with the preferences of SC's dominated by philologists than the state of classical archaeology. Try convincing a Vergil scholar why GIS or phytolith analysis is exciting. When's the last time a cutting edge archaeometrist got a job in a Classics department? As long as Classics departments think of archaeology as the pretty pictures to illustrate their texts, not much will change. But hey, this clarch would gladly sell his soul with pretty pictures if it meant stable employment.
yes, by God, people in my subfield are much better than people in the other subfield, who all wet the bed. let's discuss this some more.
Well, someone did mention that the clarch pool is a little shallow this year. This is a bit surprising considering the lack of positions during the Great Recession, but I don't think it's all that unusual. I know this will fall on deaf ears, but I'll argue that it's significantly more difficult becoming an attractive candidate as a junior clarch than a junior philologist. You know the good will you need from senior scholars? Multiply this tenfold for archaeologists. You're lucky to get hooked up with a good field project. If you do, you can't take a dump without the director's permission, let alone get any publishable material. There's hierarchy beyond belief and you're luck to get a trickle in the end. The best advise I have is to horde material during your diss research so you can spin it off postgraduation asap. I suppose the downside to this successful formula is the production of a bunch of senior scholars who really aren't active in the field anymore and have run out of material. This leaves their charges in a bit of a lurch, but I suppose it's the student's fault if they didn't research faculty before choosing a program. Pax
"Seriously, read all the clarch job talk titles and abstracts."
Yeah, because a title and an abstract tells you everything you need to know about a talk. I don't even read articles anymore, I just look at their titles and abstracts and deduce the content from that.
I'm tired of the clarchs taking all the heat and having all the fun. Let's grab our pitchforks and storm the classical philosophers' mansion. Who's with me?
Classical philosopher's mansion? How many reside there? Two?
"When's the last time a cutting edge archaeometrist got a job in a Classics department?"
Not to diminish your excellent point, but I find it a bit amusing that there actually IS one classicist who fits this description. Most archaeologists in our neck of the woods know who s/he is.
When's the last time a cutting edge archaeometrist got a job in a Classics department?
I think we all agree that these people perform a useful function. But so do X-ray technicians and lab techs. If you want some sort of useful understanding of that radiograph, though, you don't ask the tech; you go back to your doctor, who has some insight into what it might mean. So obviously it would be inappropriate for people who do this sort of thing to be hired into faculty positions, but it would be perfectly reasonable for them to be hired into assistantships or to serve as interns or volunteers, etc. working under the expert supervision of actual archaeologists.
No, you're thinking of a strict lab tech with a straight science background at the BS or MS level. PhDs that come out of archaeological science programs (almost exclusively Europe and the UK in particular) don't just pump out raw data for archaeologists to digest. It's like saying that most classicists are just language techs that should pass on their information to actual literary types who provide real insights and win Pulitzer prizes.
There are plenty of faculty positions in the UK that are X of archaeological science. I believe a number even have X of archaeological chemistry. Look at archaeology departments in the UK and you'll usually find one, if not several. In fact, I would say they are less endangered than classicists, especially outside of Oxbridge. Here in the US, they are typically in anthro departments. Our very own wiki even lists a faculty search at BU.
God, I hope for the sake of classical archaeology that you're a philologist.
Anyone know anything about NYU's ISAW postdocs? Neither the wiki nor friends of mine who have also applied seem to have heard anything yet, and the interview date is approaching.
Why aren't the later comments showing?
Roanoke anyone? Anything?
Roanoke anyone? Anything?
Yes. "Roanoke" is an anagram of "ear nook."
to the above: unhelpful. but absolutely hilarious!
any news on dallas or trinity college?
Has anyone heard from UC-Riverside?
Well, it sounds like we're fully in the silent, campus visit stage of the job cycle. Time to gear up for the VAP search - the other, other white meat. Better luck next time for us 99%ers who didn't get it this year!
http://www.emailyourinterviewer.com/
Well, it sounds like we're fully in the silent, campus visit stage of the job cycle. Time to gear up for the VAP search - the other, other white meat. Better luck next time for us 99%ers who didn't get it this year!
having done this 5+ times without a t-t score, i can only tell you it gets worse and shelf-life gets to be a problem. if you don't score early, good luck to oyu.
We may be ill paid or unemployed vagrants, but at least we're smart:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/01/classicists-are-smart/
Dammit. I knew I shoulda learned to play the guitar.
anyone have word on baylor?
U. N. Texas is, in fact, canceled? Can anyone confirm?
Why would you distrust the person who posted it? The Wiki is infallible.
Yes, I received an email yesterday that the funding for the position at U of North Texas fell through and the search was cancelled.
Anybody else who interviewed with Hamilton at the APA remember when they said they'd start moving on campus visits? I think they mentioned that they'd wait "a bit" but I don't know what that means, exactly. Am I already screwed?
Where oh where have my little VAPs gone?
I also interviewed with Hamilton. They told me "late January or early February," so I keep hoping that I will hear from them this week. We aren't out of the running yet! (or maybe we are and they just haven't told us ...)
RE Hamilton: I also interviewed with them. They told me mid February, so as to accommodate people with TT opportunities (I heard nothing about January). I know three others who interviewed with them, and they were told a similar timeline.
It seems that Baylor and Dallas are genuinely delaying, but does anyone have any insight into what's happening at New Mexico and Georgia? They're really the last classics T-T holdouts on the wiki.
I can only access the newest comments here (everything after the first 200) by going to the 'blog archive' on the green sidebar. Is anybody else having this experience?
I can only access the newest comments here (everything after the first 200) by going to the 'blog archive' on the green sidebar. Is anybody else having this experience?
Are you in the "leave a comment" mode (white screen) or the read-only mode (yellow and green boxes on blue background)? In the latter, I often find that the links to "newer" and "newest" at the top of the page don't work, but the links at the bottom do, so I have to scroll down.
Or, on the main FV page, where there is a running tally of the five-or-so most recent comments (in the green box, right-hand side, at the bottom), if you click on the most recent one, it will take you straight to the "newest" page.
Anybody out there submit something to AJP recently? About how long did it take them to get back to you with an initial decision?
I sent a piece to AJP in 2008. I got 2 reports exactly 3 months later (exactly 3 months). Not sure if they now have a different chief editor. The one I dealt with was so very professional and nice. Good luck!
I submitted a piece to AJP in 2011. It took about six weeks for them to get back to me with reader comments.
To AJP Q: I submitted this year during the summer and received the reports 3.5 months later. I find the current editor very pleasant, professional and easy to deal with. If you submitted, say, in Oct.-Nov., chances are it may take a little longer, since your referees may sit on SCs or graduate admissions which would makes their Dec.-Feb. a very busy time.
Has New Mexico scheduled campus visits yet?
I think New Mexico has already had campus visits and either made or will soon make an offer...
So if you knew that about UNM then why didn't you up date the wiki? Here I've been waiting on pins and needles for news, and I could have moved on and let the dream die. Adios White Oak City!
So ... surely Georgia is the same as UNM? Someone has to know something! How can they keep this a secret in the age of the interwebs!?!?@?!
I have a friend interviewing at Georgia shortly. I did not realize the blog had not been updated.
Any news from Baylor's Great Texts program?
Alright...in the spirit of the last few posts...one last time: Roanoke anyone?
The SC seems to have updated the Wiki themselves a while back but it has been crickets since.
I'm guessing ISAW has already contacted interviewees and the wiki just hasn't been updated. Can anyone confirm?
ISAW and Joukowsky are the honey badgers of archaeology. They do what they want and don't give a shit. That's why they're so beloved by the discipline.
Yeah, they totally go into houses full of bees (Hahvahd, Preenston) to get larva (ABDs with no pubs). They're total badasses. They even run backwards!
let's be honest - it is easy (and fun) to poke at ISAW and JIAAW but many places seem to be preferring very new people w/o pubs this year. just saying.
That's what happens when you're so well-endowed. You do what you want and ask questions later. Honey badger don't care. Honey badger don't give a shit. It just takes what it wants.
I'd like to comment on this from the perspective of a junior TT faculty member helping with a search this year. There are two sides to hiring based on pubs and no pubs. Some students and young postdocs/VAPs have published, and that's great. Their challenge is then publishing more, so it counts for the TT, and writing their book. In hiring them, we run the risk that they've already used up some good ideas on pubs that won't count for tenure, because they came out before the person was on the TT. Those candidates need to be able to outline clearly a couple of solid articles that will be written along with the book, once hired. So that can make a non-published candidate look attractive if that person has saved their pubs for the TT. Conversely, we take a risk in hiring someone who has good ideas but hasn't yet seen if they can navigate the publishing process. So it isn't as if it's a clear cut thing. In addition, while there are villainous search committee senior faculty out there, the majority are not, and usually they are juggling all sorts of university and departmental needs and stipulations that have little to do with the candidate's scholarly potential and a lot to do with random stuff. It's just we can't print those things in the ad, but if we could, you'd quickly see that it often isn't about you and your worth, but rather about weird things that are very frustrating to us. I know that doesn't get you a job (or me a job, if I don't get tenure), but I hope it helps a little in dealing with the yuckiness of rejection, which I remember all too well. Good luck to all.
Any word on Baylor?
"It's just we can't print those things in the ad, but if we could, you'd quickly see that it often isn't about you and your worth, but rather about weird things that are very frustrating to us."
This is exactly why this process is so stupid. The whole idea of publishing ads as widely as possible to attract the "best" candidates makes perfect sense to me, except in those (altogether too frequent) instances where the department hasn't printed what it really wants, or, more sinisterly, already has an inside person sitting in the "open" position. If "we can't print those things in the ad," then how can we expect all of our candidates to meet those criteria or jump through those hoops? In fact, if we can't print the things in the ad, isn't that just admitting that we don't run an open and honest search? How many silent objectors are allowed on the committee before blaming the nameless, faceless administration is just dodging the blame for something that we should actually be working to change? Let's figure out how to actually publish an accurate job ad, and then let's figure out how to avoid having to waste thousands and thousands of dollars running a fake search for the person sitting next to us in those faculty meetings. Nobody likes to sit through countless hours of meetings, and I can guarantee that that "administration" will be more than a little bit happy to save a couple bucks instead of having to shell out cash for an intentionally inefficient "search."
Just some reactions from that rare someone who does, in fact, have a job.
Hear, hear. I have to say my perspective on this has changed completely. Sure, a sham search is infuriating to candidates who go through the trouble to apply, but even worse, in some ways, is that some incumbent, who has done an excellent job and given selfless service to the department (since this is insisted upon, after all), might have to be paraded again through an empty "process" or even be cast aside for some unproven quantity. Hic pietatis honos? What other business works this way? "Yes, we're very happy with the work you're doing here, so we invite you to apply again for your position!" In fact, converting a temporary position to T-T is a time-honored way to get an academic job, but we are for some reason ashamed of it as a profession.
Echoing what another poster wrote a few days ago, there is most certainly something strange going on with this blog. When I click on this thread the way I always have I no longer get the Newer/Newest links, making it impossible to see posts beyond Oct. 15. Either there is a bug in the blogger.com software, or "Servius" clicked on something he/she should not have. But there can be no doubt that a problem with the user interface now exists. (Possibly useful info: I am using Google Chrome. That shouldn't be the cause of the problem, but perhaps the glitch is browser-specific.)
(I just want to thanks Silenus for correctly writing "Hear, hear." It's amazing how many people out there are dumb enough to think it's "Here, here.")
I can't read beyond the oldest 200 comments either. What is going on?
@8:46 am - there wasn't anything sinister about our reasoning, it's just a bunch of complicated stuff that would be confusing to explain in a job ad. I don't want to continue doing the same dumb thing by blaming the administration while still printing the job ad, but I don't think you should call it a matter of dishonesty. It's more a matter of the factors involved are so complicated that it would make for a long and confusing job ad. We were perfectly honest with candidates who made it to the interview stage about the factors involved, but we explained them in person. We didn't leave them out of the ad because they were shameful but rather because they were complicated. Yes, it isn't a good solution. It's an institutional problem that needs to be fixed at the university level so there aren't as many complicating factors in hiring. I'd rather fix the problem than just explain the problem in detail in the job ad so everyone understands it.
RE: February 4, 2012 8:20 AM.
Are you really telling me that having published a few articles as a grad student may now work against me with some committees? Should I really have known that the incompetent tenured faculty who only had five publishable ideas in their lifetime might assume that I would be as unimaginative as they are?
This. Writing articles isn't actually hard. You want someone who has figured this out already.
test
Sweet Jesus. I'm trying to be nice, and you're being a total tool.
1) Having written articles pre-TT does NOT work against you if you can talk about articles that you want to write while on the TT. Having written articles pre-TT DOES work against you if you have exhausted your ideas for the moment. This has nothing to do with old dudes who don't write articles any longer. And for Christ's sake, I'm a junior faculty member, I am working my ass off to publish, and I'm on YOUR SIDE. Nobody is assuming anything about your ideas. Either you tell us that you have been publishing AND you have more ideas for more articles that the Dean can count for your TT portfolio, or you don't. If presented with two candidates, one who had great ideas for articles but hadn't published, and one who had published but had great ideas for MORE articles, we'd go with the second candidate. So no, it doesn't hurt you to have published UNLESS you have run out of ideas. And just because YOU haven't run out of ideas doesn't mean we don't see candidates who have. And you have an advantage over those candidates, at least in my department you do.
As for Tool #2, it's easy to publish an article, but it isn't easy to publish a GOOD article. I'm glad you're a genius who cranks out good articles with ease. Yay for you. I work hard to write good articles, and it isn't easy for me. I guess I'm unworthy of my job in your book.
Maybe you people are not being hired because you are so damn rude to those of us WHO ARE ON YOUR SIDE AND TRYING TO HELP YOU.
No, I'm pretty sure we're not being hired because the market is fucking terrible.
If you really are a junior tenure track faculty member, you need to examine what is motivating you to come onto famae volent in preacher mode in the first place, and why you are *freaking the fuck out* when the response isn't exactly what you'd hoped. You have a job, you are living the dream. Why do you need the respect of random peons on teh internetz?
Maybe, just maybe, I do not need respect of the internetz. Maybe it is because I remember how awful the job market is and wanted to be helpful. YOU might not find it helpful, but I would have found it helpful to know some of what is going on behind the 'magic curtain' when I was going through the hell of the job market myself. Maybe I am sympathetic to the concerns of people on the market and want to understand your views better. Maybe I am just learning about 'the other side' for the first time and thought I could share some insight to break up the bitter bitching and moaning. Maybe I need to keep up on the general vibe because I may get denied tenure in the very near future. You might not like what I say, but could you at least do me the courtesy of assuming that I meant well, however misguided you find my advice, and however little you appreciate it? I mean, seriously, random junior faculty member wanders onto FV, sees some people wondering what's up with the sucky search process, thinks, "Oh, hey, I'm seeing it from the other side for the first time, maybe I can't get these guys jobs, but I can at least share what I know," then gets railed against for trying to help, comes back, tries to help again, and then basically gets bitchslapped because FV might delete the obscenities I am guessing you wanted to use against me. But seriously, could you please just say, "Hey dude, I am going to assume you meant well, but I don't find it helpful info," instead of "You, sir, are an ass"? Don't worry, I won't be back anytime soon, so you can continue vilifying people who are TRYING TO BE ON YOUR SIDE.
P.S., Mr. Tool - you win the pissing contest.
Love,
The "Preacher" Junior Faculty Member
God I hope you aren't really a faculty member.
"Hey dude, I am going to assume you meant well, but I don't find it helpful info," instead of "You, sir, are an ass"? Don't worry, I won't be back anytime soon, so you can continue vilifying people who are TRYING TO BE ON YOUR SIDE.
*if* you are a junior faculty member, here's hoping your tenure rejection arrives swiftly. I work with more poised and professional people here at the coffee shop
February 5, 2012 2:18 PM here.
I did not mean to vilify any friendly faculty member who wants to post here.
What I did want to expose is the idea that publishing as a graduate student may reveal a lack of future ideas. Many of us on the job market have no chance to explain to committees that we do have future ideas. Instead, our CV's our quickly discarded for various reasons. If anyone on a search committee would assume that a young scholar might not have more ideas to publish because he has already published, that I think is worth exposing.
So, please do visit FV again, but don't have dumb ideas.
if the committee discounts our c.v. b/c of early career publications, and then maybe deigns to give us a 20-minute tap dance at the interview stage, then we will all lose to the flavor of the moment abd folks. some junior t-t faculty are also scared by hard-chargers who publish early (and often). like begets like.
My 'dumb idea' was to suggest that you make it clear in your cover letter that you have published (as evidenced on your CV) and that you mention articles that you have in mind for the TT. Then your application will land in the interview pile.
As for the lovely people who hope I'm not really a junior faculty member and want me to get denied tenure - man, if you guys are not on the TT yet, you have some eye-opening experiences ahead of you. In fairness, I would have thought the same things about my post before I started the TT. Not that I've gone over to the Dark Side, but all of this 'preaching' you say I'm doing, I meant in the spirit of helping. And as untenured faculty, I have just as much right to tell others off here as any of you.
Anyway, good luck, hope you all end up on the TT, even those of you who hope I lose my job so you can take it, and think back to this conversation a few years down the road, to see how you feel about it then.
Obviously those people with jobs and/or on current search committees, instead of showing up here trying to share their unwelcome wisdom and getting bitch-slapped by the bitter jobless rabble, should start their own blog listing all the silly things clueless job candidates put in their application dossiers, and also listing the crazy ridiculous things ungrateful job candidates say and do in their actual interviews. Now that would be FUN!!!
I won the pissing contest, so you decided to start taking a shit?
Well-played, sir. Well-played.
Give me a break. You did not win the pissing contest.
Of course, I'll say in my letter that I have more publishable ideas. I assume everyone on the planet does that.
My concern is that you were legitimizing (if only implicitly) the fact that some faculty (apparently not you) entertain the notion that a grad student who has published has (unless they prove otherwise) already used up their good ideas.
By the way, if you are one of the poor saps teaching a 4/4 load at a place that also requires publications for tenure, then you have my sincerest sympathies. I applied for the UNC Asheville job this year, but that was the one school whose rejection did not bother me in the least.
Sigh.
1) I didn't win the pissing contest. YOU did.
2) I did not legitimize the dumb idea that grad students with pubs had no potential. I just said to make sure to mentioned planned articles in your cover letter. The old farts who run the show are the ones who make that assumption.
3) Just because YOU are intelligent enough to do it, doesn't mean others are similarly clued in. We saw lots of this in the applications, and we took the time to give the candidates the benefit of the doubt and asked, of those who left it out, to talk about their planned articles. Those emails, asking for further info, and then inserting it into candidate files, took up approximately 30 hours of my time one week. I was trying to help.
4) Sincere apologies to all who were offended by my obviously misguided attempt to share what I was seeing from 'the other side.' It really was meant well, but obviously it wasn't welcome. And yes, I am a poor sap who teaches too much, still has high publishing standards, cares for a severely disabled relative on a tiny salary, and am a woman who was denied family leave to help out during a critical time in said family member's treatment. And I have debt from grad school, when promised funding in my final years was yanked away. Am I bitter? No, I chose this path. Am I dumb for choosing it? Perhaps. Am I the enemy - certainly not. Was I sincerely trying to help, having been behind the curtain with The Wizard of Oz? Yes. Did I misjudge how to word my comments. Obviously.
Sincerely, honest, and hopeful good luck to all of you.
The future of classics:
http://chronicle.com/article/Bucking-Cultural-Norms-Asia/130667/
Ugh. This kind of puerile exchange is why I hate myself for checking FV obsessively. I think I'm done for the season. Smell ya later, famosi ...
Just a comment, from an old person: for tenure, some places will count only things that you have written while on their faculty, some count mainly things written while on their faculty, many count both but worry if you stop or slow down on publishing after joining their faculty (a chair may have to address this in a letter--I've had to do this), and some count anything you have written since birth equally. You need to ask. If you publish articles while a grad student, and also a dissertation, I would assume your next publication(s) would be based on your dissertations. If your earlier publications have used up all of your ideas, I would expect your referees to say your diss. is boring.
this business of job seeking makes no sense, all of the blather and opining on FV notwithstanding. and there is not enough whiskey to wash it all away.
true dat
So Brown has one insider candidate and three already in TT positions at great school. Classic Honey Badger Joukowsky. The only thing that could make it more perfect is if they cancel the search after all the pyrotechnics.
the Brown people have no vision. they are building a ship that will sink, yet everyone wants to get on board.
Is it that surprising? Classical archaeology (and Old World archaeology to a degree) is so inbred that it's a small group of big egos playing house with each other. In my experience, it's those that really want it more than those who would be best at it that end up in the most prominent positions. Most of the latter are satisfied with less visible positions quietly producing excellent BA/MA students (who are then snapped up by the big egos in the Ph.D. programs).
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Any new on Tulane? Haven´t found anything on their homepage...
Can I just say that the Boston College section of the wiki is awesome, and should be a model for every other one on there? We know how many applications they had, every step of the way is marked out, and each step is dated. I didn't get the job myself, but it is nice to see what cooperation among strangers can yield. Congrats to the lucky winner, and to the faculty at BC.
"So Brown has one insider candidate and three already in TT positions at great school. Classic Honey Badger Joukowsky. The only thing that could make it more perfect is if they cancel the search after all the pyrotechnics."
The most mind boggling thing to me is that the search reeks of laziness. No disrespect to the candidates, but none stand out to me as superstars worth plucking out of TT positions. They're safe choices, one insider and others presumably vetted by a previous search committee. With the HUGE benefit of having a search committee comprised of members with relatively light teaching loads and classes that are small and quite specific to their specialties, they couldn't unearth a true star on the rise? It's not like they had an extremely narrow search ad. As a relative outsider on the history side, the entire JIAAW and ISAW movement baffles me.
the JIAAW is egotistical, as they seek to replicate themselves. note that the 'ancient world' really means the eastern mediterranean and near east. ISAW and JIAAW lack broad coverage of the Mediterranean and especially miss the central, western Mediterranean and much of continental Europe.
I'm not sure you know what you're talking about when it comes to ISAW. I have zero affiliation with the place, but I at least know that their mission is not Greco-Roman, but rather pan-Eurasian+Middle Eastern+Egyptian. They have a small faculty, as their budget surely dictates, and that includes two Greco-Roman sorts (including the director). But among affiliated faculty from NYU the Latin West is certainly represented. They tend to have just 1-2 one-year visitors who work on the Roman or Medieval West -- but again, when their focus extends to China and Southeast Asia that's going to make Italy a bit peripheral.
Why someone should get angry at them over this is beyond me.
ISAW defender should read up on the advertised remit of ISAW:
the Institute focuses on the shared and overlapping periods in the development of cultures and civilizations around the Mediterranean basin, and across central Asia to the Pacific Ocean.
And the naturally cognate units at NYU don't collaborate so much. Just sayin'.
It's microwave academics. You can't just drop in tens of millions of dollars into a new situation and expect automatic success. The institutes are islands within their own universities. It's a double whammy because the universities are excellent in their own right so it's not like people who've been there are going to roll over and totally capitulate to the new kids on the block (especially when they've set themselves up as an institution within an institution).
The other question is one of need. A boatload of money will often steamroll over pragmatics and override planned systematic growth if things don't line up, which often takes luck.
Brown has a chance because there was an established, if moribund, predecessor. Still, I don't see how an elite PhD program by Old World standards gets established in a tertiary city with little to no day-to-day connections with other world class resources both within and outside the university. And that's what you're shooting for when you're at Brown with that much money - Michigan, Stanford, Penn, etc.
I see ISAW having little to no chance of being a traditional PhD power, not with the IFA down the street and NYU's status as second fiddle in the city. Perhaps that's what they're trying to do, which in that case they shouldn't have hired the most traditional of directors. It's the same problem that the University Museum is going through with their directors, but they have the benefit of being totally embedded into the university fabric.
Anyway, good luck to both as they are by default the harbinger of the discipline to the general academic world, for better or worse.
Some advice for those of you who'll be on the market again next year: If you are asked to teach an ancient-language class during an on-campus visit, PREPARE for it. Prepare the assignment you'll be teaching as though your career depended on it -- because it does.
Three times in the past five years (once at my own school, twice at different friends' schools) I have seen a candidate who was otherwise the SC's clear top pick lose the job because he/she made several elementary howlers in the on-campus Greek or Latin class. I'm not talking about one slip of the tongue, I'm talking about numerous basic errors of the kind one expects from first-years. Embarrassingly, in a couple of instances an error was pointed out by a first-year in the class, who asked the visiting candidate for clarification.
This is, unfortunately, exactly why many SCs ask on-campus candidates to teach a language class. There's no way to know if the candidate is actually competent in the ancient languages until you see him/her teach one of them. (Even then you have to take the other language on faith.) I wish we could trust that a PhD in classics means full competency in the languages, but these recent searches have opened my eyes. Particularly in a SLAC with a tiny department, anyone we hire will have to teach both languages at all levels. We can't afford to hire a tenure-track colleague who can't parse forms or explain the syntax of a sentence to students at the beginning of their second semester.
So, my advice -- when you're told "You'll be teaching Chapter X of Textbook Y," get hold of Textbook Y and prepare the bit you're teaching. Remember, you're not supposed to be sight-reading; the SC all knows that you've had the assignment and you've known you'll be teaching it in front of the SC. There should not be a single word that you can't parse backwards and forward; not a single construction that you can't explain, fluently, with examples of how it works; not a single obvious student question that you can't answer. I know this takes hours. I've been there (not all that long ago). Find the hours, somehow, take them, and prepare the lesson.
Some advice to search committee members who invite supposedly incompetent candidates for campus visits year after year: Re-evaluate the candidates that YOU are selecting and inviting to campus. In this market with 100-200 applicants for each position, there are more than enough OUTSTANDING teachers/scholars in the pool. Perhaps instead of being seduced by the 'sexy' dissertation topic, pedigree, and connections, you should take a closer look at evaluations, letters, and experience. Ask the candidates relevant and precise questions during the first round interview instead of questions about their third book project. Prepare YOUR questions carefully in advance and listen closely to answers.
Of course no one actually knows Greek and Latin anymore. We spend all our time with useless theoretical bullshit.
to the poster of February 9, 2012 12:49 PM -- this is why you search committees with your precious SLAC positions should avoid inviting ABD candidates to campus and prefer people who have ACTUAL experience both as teachers and as scholars.
Hmmm, but if someone does not know the language well, but prepares the heck out of Chapter X so as to give the impression that they know the language well, is that a good thing? Wouldn't you rather have a person show his/her weaknesses, so you can avoid hiring them?
Anonymous said...
Some advice to search committee members who invite supposedly incompetent candidates for campus visits year after year: Re-evaluate the candidates that YOU are selecting and inviting to campus. In this market with 100-200 applicants for each position, there are more than enough OUTSTANDING teachers/scholars in the pool. Perhaps instead of being seduced by the 'sexy' dissertation topic, pedigree, and connections, you should take a closer look at evaluations, letters, and experience. Ask the candidates relevant and precise questions during the first round interview instead of questions about their third book project. Prepare YOUR questions carefully in advance and listen closely to answers.
February 9, 2012 1:42 PM
^
What that person said.
Thanks for the advice for search committees. I never would have thought to "look at evaluations, letters, and experience" or "Ask the candidates relevant and precise questions" or "Prepare [MY] questions carefully in advance and listen closely to answers." All these wasted years of asking people their favorite color and what the frequency is, Kenneth, and whether God could make a boulder so heavy he couldn't lift it, and then reading a magazine instead of listening closely to their answers. I'm such a fool!
So, comments on whether people think the finalists at specific schools are mediocre or not? Really? Hope it's you some day. But it probably won't be, given that you're a tool.
Anonymous 2:14 wrote:
"to the poster of February 9, 2012 12:49 PM -- this is why you search committees with your precious SLAC positions should avoid inviting ABD candidates to campus and prefer people who have ACTUAL experience both as teachers and as scholars."
Why are you assuming the candidates who bombed were ABDs? I did not say that, nor is it the case. In all three instances I referred to, the candidate who blew it in the classroom was a couple of years out from the PhD and had held at least one VAP position.
To 1:42 p.m.: We did pick our on-campus interviews based in large part on class evaluations and on letters of recommendation. Class evals -- well, students aren't the best judges of their professors' grasp of grammar and syntax (how would they know if they've been taught mistakes?). And with letters of recommendation, there's such inflation of praise that they're almost worthless. When one professor in a major grad. program writes about FOUR separate candidates that "he/she is one of the two strongest graduate students I have seen in my 30-year career" (seriously, I'm not making that up; four of them were among the two strongest), then we know there's a problem with taking glowing letters about such candidates' abilities at face value.
To Anon. 2.20 -- yes, from the SC's point of view it would be better to have the person who's incompetent in the languages bomb in the classroom. On this blog, though, I was trying to offer advice to candidates, not to SCs. But of course, I'm getting flamed for it by the candidates. Oh well.
Two thoughts on the post re: poorly prepared candidates, and the subsequent responses:
1) It's idiotic to attack this person (and SC's in general) for somehow failing to weed out candidates who might flub basic grammar. The way languages are taught these days it's quite easy for people to get through grad programs with mediocre language skills, and that's not always evident to their supervisors. And while I agree that it's a reason to avoid ABD's, it won't always become evident the first year or two someone's out: if I've done my dissertation on Ovid and get my first VAP as a Latinist, I might be able to conceal the fact that my Greek has atrophied since my grad exams. So people are being narrow-minded buffoons to take this out on the faculty poster.
2) I'm in complete agreement with whoever pointed out that the faculty member's warning will only help people to conceal their failings, which helps no one. I understand the generous spirit that shows itself around here on occasion -- i.e., when people aren't being jackasses to one another, which is the default -- but question why people keep giving advice that helps bad candidates fool SC's. This not only can lead SC's to make bad hires, but can cost better candidates a chance. So please, NO MORE ADVICE ON INTERVIEWING!
I don't see how preparing a class well beforehand is "fooling the SC". Many of us have been thrown from pillar to post in VAP after VAP, teaching generalist courses and subjects not-really-in-our-area. It's possible not to teach the languages for years at a stretch, and not surprising that some once perfectly competent people have become rusty. I'd be more worried that someone who can't find the time to prep a *job interview class* will never find time to properly prep a normal class. Someone a little rusty and/or uncertain who can do it once is more likely to be able to continue to prep their classes so as not to make silly mistakes.
You completely missed the point. It's only "fooling" a search committee if the candidate is too stupid/lazy to have prepared properly had he not had someone point out the need. From your post, I have no doubt that you're smart and responsible not to need this advice. But, to sum up my thoughts, anyone who NEEDS such advice shouldn't get the job, and the faculty member who was obviously prompted by a charitable impulse to share his/her advice might not have thought about it from this angle.
5:25: Yeah, I dunno. That cross-section of the population sounds very small to me. Someone who is perfectly capable of running a skillful class (with prep) but is somehow naive enough to not realize they might have to do so? Fictional person who eagerly takes the advice when offered ("Gee, I never thought I might actually have to be *good*! I thought I'd swan in there, say 'amo, amas, amat' and I'd get the job, but now you've opened my eyes!"). Who is this person??? (So I can engage him/her in card games at the APA). Personally, I don't think anyone who is ill-prepared in a job interview class is the kind of person who will eagerly take to the advice (to not be so) because it *just didn't occur to them*. I take the SC member's advice to be more along the lines of, "no, really, this is not a formality, it matters to us a great deal" for those of us who might be tempted to slack on the prep because we're stressed out of our minds with other things, not a cheat-tip for the willfully incompetent.
February 9, 2012 2:14 PM said...
to the poster of February 9, 2012 12:49 PM -- this is why you search committees with your precious SLAC positions should avoid inviting ABD candidates to campus and prefer people who have ACTUAL experience both as teachers and as scholars.
How many ABDs do you think actually got campus invitations this year -- a year, I note, when some search committees started their review of applications by eliminating applicants without the Ph.D. in hand?
My department invited an ABD to campus. I'll bet even in a market this saturated, the egotistical imagination of search committee members sure they can spot the next great scholar ensures that this is not uncommon.
My impression from observing job seekers from our program is that recently ABDs have gotten many fewer interviews for t-t positions than you would have expected even a few years ago but that once they have the degree in hand and are searching from a temporary position they have a lot more success. I don't really see any reason why that trend should apply exclusively to people from one program, so I imagine it's a general trend in the market. Which is just to say that it seems like an odd moment to lament the reign of the ABD: when the market has changed to favor employers and employers have been thus able to exercise more choice, they have in the aggregate exercised that choice in such a way as to prefer people with degrees in hand and experience in teaching as faculty. That in turn gives a pretty good indication of what the average search committee to fill a t-t position tends to prefer: security about the degree being completed, more confidence that a candidate is able to teach independently at the college level, and the stamp of approval from the search that hired the candidate into the temporary job s/he's searching from.
While it's not a great moment to be looking for a job from any situation, it's really not a great moment if you're ABD.
How many ABDs do you think actually got campus invitations this year -- a year, I note, when some search committees started their review of applications by eliminating applicants without the Ph.D. in hand?
I know several ABD candidates for prominent posts a top schools this year.
Just wanted to point out that different schools have different policies regarding ABDs and completion. Everyone agrees that it is horrible to have an ABD come to campus TT and spend that first year trying to finish. But some schools have very strict policies about finishing and conferral deadlines, and if the new hire isn't finished and degreed by the job's starting date, the position becomes a non-renewable VAP, and the department could lose the line. Even if the department doesn't lose the line, the candidate isn't eligible for the new TT search. So it really depends on which school it is, when it comes to taking ABDs as risks. There is concern about whether they can publish, but with good mentoring, a good dissertation CAN produce good articles. The greater risk is that the person won't finish before the starting date, and EVERYBODY who writes rec letters swears up and down that they'll finish. So (and I am a search committee member) search committees should be asking to see as much of the dissertation as is available, and also they should ask the candidate to map out the article they'll work on their first year there. And it does nobody any good for diss committees to rush candidates with offers through the end of their dissertations.
someone posted an ad from DePauw earlier, but now it has gone away? what is up with this blog?
inorite? And posting ads for Wellesley and Wesleyan in succession? They're just trying to confuse us!
"what is up with this blog?"
Seems to work pretty well for something that's completely free and that you don't have to lift a finger to administer.
You are of course always welcome to start your own, superior blog; I'm sure that the local authorities would be happy to link to it.
Yeah, how dare you ask why the blog has been experiencing glitches lately, you vile ingrate!
First time on the market here. Is it normal that so many of the VAPs seem to have decided not to advertise through the APA Placement Service?
Are you sure they've decided not to, or has the PS just gone back to a 1st/15th schedule despite the availability of the new system?
Possible. Anyway, the result is that I am paranoid that I'm missing VAPs that have been announced somewhere obscure. It does seem that not many at all have been advertised, doesn't it? It's definitely less than half the number of TT jobs this year.
Well, it looks like many of the departments are advertising here on their own. Otherwise, check the Chronicle (though hardly any classics departments advertise there), other academic job sites, The Google, and, of course, the Wiki. For what it's worth, I really do think this is all there is so far. If it isn't on the Wiki, nobody knows about it.
It is still too early for most schools to advertise for VAPs. Look for a stream (not a flood, not a trickle) of them in March, after the various admins begrudgingly accept that Greek really does have to be offered next year. Or not. Of those we'll never know.
My university will be making funding decisions for visiting positions later this month, so any ads would go out in March. So I agree with the previous post, there's plenty of time for the slow coaches to post their jobs. There is also some time for those "fake" TT searches to be posted - fake because with the limited time they're likely just getting their current visitor rubber stamped by running a "search" for them. Blame the slow administration, not the department.
I do not want to support the ardent supporters of this blog.
And I do appreciate the work of those who run it.
Two notes for improvement:
1. In both Google Chrome and Apple Safari browsers, I am not able to access the most recent posts on "Rebel Angels" unless I click on the comments on the sidebar of the Famae Volent homepage, and then scroll down to the very ends of the first page of posts, and then click on show all. I know that I should just subscribe to the rss posts, but still.
2. On the homepage of FV, "World of Wonders" says that there are 28 comments. Every time I click (thinking "wow, maybe this time there actually are seven new jobs"; I'm just like Charlie Brown looking in the mailbox for valentines, but that's a different story), I come to the actual thread and am told that there are just the same old 21 comments.
Correction: I do not want to "anger" the ardent supporters of this blog.
In response to the comments above, and earlier observations.
1) We have no control over this since it is a problem with the platform itself, not FV. You'll have to contact Google and hope they act to correct it. Sorry.
2) What you are seeing is the difference between the total comments posted, and the total comments allowed. We've had to delete a few, for various reasons (spam, names, etc.). This, again, is an issue with Blogger, not FV. Sorry for the confusion.
Cheers,
Servius
I'm tenured, and I just heard about a fellowship I did not get. Someone else may have gotten one. That's where some VAP positions come from.
just back from an oncampus. I could not be more disappointed. Candidates have to sell theselves to the school, but the school has to sell the job to the candidate. It should not be assumed that we are desperate. In fact, I am not. I regret having to waste my time for a job that was not nearly as good as I thought. And this is, supposedly, a top-notch school. sight.
just back from an oncampus. I could not be more disappointed. Candidates have to sell theselves to the school, but the school has to sell the job to the candidate. It should not be assumed that we are desperate. In fact, I am not. I regret having to waste my time for a job that was not nearly as good as I thought. And this is, supposedly, a top-notch school. sight.
February 17, 2012 6:14 AM
Well, sight or not, I'd say you're both lucky to be rid of each other. It's too bad that they wasted your time, given that there are a lot of excellent candidates out there who are, to put it bluntly, a lot more desperate to have a job than you seem to be. I'd be interested to know in what ways they failed to sell themselves to you, because in my experience that can mean very different things to different candidates.
Wait. Did we just witness the first use of FV as a weapon to sabotage someone's campus visit?
I think it's all too common. Many of the tenured faculty come on here pleading empathy and sympathy, but I've found reality quite different during flybacks. I'm not in a TT positions, but I'm a full-time lecturer with security of employment. I teach two more classes on the quarter system per year but I don't have to deal with all the political and administrative bs. I live in a beautiful, vibrant part of the country. Yet I visit obscure schools in obscure parts of the country and I generally get pity more than empathy, with a ring extended to my lips. It's automatically assumed that I'm not happy but I have everything I want except tenure, which is the exact opposite of many of these other people. They kick back, often jaded by yet another candidate, and wait for my song and dance. This is nothing new. I learned early on that the TT stamp if overrated.
Servius,
Now this blog is malfunctioning even WORSE than before (when I mentioned the new glitches last week). This time I tried accessing the newest posts in this thread by clicking on the thread title, and when I opted for "Newest" it showed no messages at all, and when I clicked on the "Newest" link again it dumped me into the "World of Wonders" thread.
I'm sorry, but your comment that people with problems should consult Google is not helpful in the least -- there is something wrong with the Blogger.com software (at least as far as Chrome is concerned), and therefore it is for the person running the blog to let them know. Thank you for looking into this.
(My veiled threat: as of now, the only way I can see new messages is to click on "Post" -- so I might have to start posting inanities about the weather or TV/movies just to be able to get to the last page of this thread.)
Me again. No, that didn't work -- after I hit "Publish Your Comment" instead of taking me to the end of this thread, as ALWAYS used to happen, I was left on a screen with zero posts. Servius, please attend to this -- it's a real problem, and the custodian of this blog needs to see to it that someone is dealing with it. Thank you.
I'm the one who just wrote "Me again..." That "Me again" was in reference to a longer post I'd just posted pointing out to Servius that there are NEW glitches in this blog site's software. Not sure why my post was lost -- I got a message saying it might take some time to appear, which I'd not seen before. So perhaps it will appear soon, either in or out of order. Anyway, this is even further evidence that there is something decidedly freaky happening with the Blogger.com code, and therefore Servius should be letting them know this.
Anyway, this is even further evidence that there is something decidedly freaky happening with the Blogger.com code, and therefore Servius should be letting them know this.
Sounds pretty serious! Have you called 911 yet?!? What did they say?
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