When people say "inside hire," am I right in assuming you believe the whole search was a ruse? Just because someone currently working in a department is hired for a t-t job does not mean the outcome of the search was predetermined and other candidates were not seriously considered.
Search Chair at Michigan indicated in email that offer was made, anticipated complicated negotiations, and indicated search will fail if first choice does not accept.
Very interesting. But if it fails, will contributors joke about the 'camouflage' candidates having had the consolation of nice meals and pleasant conversation? I do hope not. Insult/injury etc.
One hopes not. Campus visits generally are pleasant, yes, and food is good, yes, and it is an opportunity for a junior scholar to articulate their work. An invited talk without the honorarium. But they also take a lot of time to prepare and distract mightily from teaching and research (not to mention family and personal life). Finally, there is the inevitable sting (warranted or not) that the people you befriended and dined with did not want you as a colleague, even if it turned out to be a fake or rigged search.
Person who made a joke about the ‘consolation’ of nice meals and pleasant conversation. Sorry it was hurtful. It was intended as laughing in the dark, and comes from someone unemployed who fully sympathizes with the frustration of having one’s time wasted by the academic 1%, and was trying to mock them for wasting their own and everyone else’s time. DIXI ET ANIMAM MEAM LIBERAVI. Keep up the good fight.
Most finalists for any job (in any industry) won't be hired for reasons of arithmetic; that doesn't make the process fake/rigged/time-wasting. The Michigan search, in particular, was real.
So, out of curiosity, how do people feel about searches that are gender-specific? For example, I know of one search that, before the committee even began going through applications, was already determined to be only for a female scholar, but of course this was not written into the job posting.
Are these "fixed" searches to be reviled, or acceptable because they are meant to be beneficial to female students?
Of course there are ways that demography can help, or hurt, but in a 50% female field, I doubt there are many searches that hinge on gender. Anyway, that wouldn't be considered "fixed," because it was not a search that was aimed at/heavily skewed towards a specific individual. The searches that bother people are the ones that suggest nepotism -- somebody's spouse just happens to be the very best candidate on the job market!! -- or where someone with longstanding ties to the department gets the job. The latter situation is a bit more difficult: in the case of a long-term VAP, maybe they were originally hired because they are a good fit for the department's needs, which they can continue serving. But those are the instances where it may be thought of as "fixed" and when people start reading CVs skeptically to see if the department has behaved badly.
I don't completely disagree with you, but "The searches that bother people are the ones that suggest nepotism" is a rather selective reading of F.V., since plenty of times people have complained about wasting their time applying for a job at which they had no chance, and that's certainly the case for searches that ignore 50% of the applications for a different reason. So do we differentiate between some positions that waste people's time, or view them all as equally troubling?
But then someone will pipe up and say ‘even in a fake search, it is valuable to put your name and work out there. it may benefit you in other ways.’ Fake-search applications as networking by other means.
Yes, the networking is nice, and useful. Although again it is networking that is somewhat tainted---your best contacts are people who, when push came to shove, did not want you as a member of their department (this is truer, in fact, with a real search).
I wonder if it may be time to rethink the number of campus visits. Right now four is standard, with five not being unheard of. But that number was decided upon in the days when the market was revving along, and it might not be uncommon for everyone on the short-list to have a competing offer. I wonder if it make sense to limit campus visits to the top three, or maybe even the top two?
More than three on-campuses is totally unnecessary, but I think three is standard, not four. The networking accomplished by going on-campus is basically worthless, certainly not the worth of the pain and suffering and time that the on-campus costs. The people interviewing you are almost certainly not in your area, so they won't be refereeing your book proposal. Ok, you're acquainted with a handful more people in the field, albeit awkwardly from the moment they reject you, but what exactly comes of that? Unless it's an Ivy, they're not rolling in resources they can send your way. But I would contest the idea that they did not want you in their department: they only made an active decision not to hire you if the search fails. Otherwise there was just someone else they wanted more, it isn't necessarily, or even likely, that they truly didn't want you around.
Perhaps it is not the case that "they did not want you in the department," but they did want someone more. And you will soon learn who that someone is. You hope that you were bested by someone truly fantastic, with multiple books, a MacArthur fellowship, the rising star in the field. That ways you can at least say, "well, no way I could compete with that! No hard feelings, SC!" But chances are the person is pretty normal, maybe even someone you would otherwise quietly consider inferior to you. But now you know the SC--people you thought might just be your friends for life-- preferred this person over you, and in some cases were ready to let search fail in order to hire this person over you. So it is pretty awkward, and awkward networking is essentially useless networking.
Also, for SCs, a search can be a blur. I ran into a SC member at the SCS a year after I had a failed campus interview. I tried to be cheerful and say hello politely, but she did not seem to know who I was. So again, campus visits basically useless for networking.
Not all of us can recognize people when we see them a second time, but my guess is that she would have recognized your name instantly if she saw it on another job application, a fellowship application, etc. And a lot of what we do involves putting our names on paper for one reason or another. So there's that.
That is true. And she was a very nice person and good scholar, and I was not slighted that she did not to recognize me. My point is simply that campus interviews are not networking opportunities. Yes, she might recognize my name and CV. But, as someone above has noted, she was also completely outside of my field, as virtually all members of an SC will be given that they are trying to fill a vacancy in your field. It is unlikely she would ever be called upon to review my work. Campus visits are merely rituals that must be endured on that final rejection email.
By definition, networking is not a guarantee of anything. Having an unsuccessful on-campus visit may well lead to nothing, but, assuming one impresses, it increases the odds ever so slightly of something good happening down the road. And I do get the point about SC people generally being in a different field, but it's called "networking" because you don't stop with just one person: this spring someone has an on-campus visit, next January in Boston he/she sees one of the SC people and engages in conversation, then another person who knows that SC person comes up and, unless the SC person's manners are terrible (as some classicists' are), you get introduced. And maybe THAT person will be useful. Again, no guarantees, but in this market it's good to try to boost one's odds, and there's no predicting what will bear fruit. But performing well during an on-campus visit cannot hurt, and may prove helpful in unforeseen ways.
Though, of course, my optimism could be completely unfounded.
I don't think so, no, but you'd have to go back to earlier years to see. I counted just the tenure-track jobs from last year's wiki that ended up with names on them, and there were 28 women and 19 men. Could be a blip, could be a pattern. Either way, the wiki holds your answer.
thanks! there is a ton of valuable data on this wiki and wikis past. someone should crunch all the numbers, for gender/academic status (ABD/short-term employment/TT)/pedigree and maybe other markers.
@12:53 Do you mean in the context of conservative Catholic schools or evangelical Christian colleges that require a statement of faith? In those cases I think the religious preference is to be anticipated. Anywhere else I would really be surprised...
@April 11, 2017 at 1:06 PM No statement of faith required. It's unspoken and unannounced. Whether or not it's anticipated or not is up for debate. Should every school with a religious affiliation be given free rein to discriminate?
schools that have religious tests but don’t state them should be publically shamed. private institutions have the right to require belief in biblical inerrancy or whatever the hell they want, but they should be open about it.
April 11 @9:29AM: Judging by the names on the classics wiki in the last two years, at least, yes- it is par for the course. Women outnumbered men in both categories (temporary and TT). But there were also several jobs that didn't have a name listed, so maybe the final results were 50-50.
It will be interesting to see the gender balance higher up the scale (tenured positions, named chairs). The Virginia/Gildersleeve (not on the wiki?) and Bristol/Wills positions went to men, and the finalists for UCLA/Mellor are all male. I don't know anything about UNC/Paddison or Pittsburgh/Mellon, though the specialization of the latter makes another man more than likely.
I bet that like many competitive fields, it's about equal or skewed slightly toward women at the junior levels, and skewed heavily toward men at the senior.
I'm shocked at the number of smaller conferences that are almost entirely composed of men. Usually a woman is ushered in to give the opening remarks or moderate the closing discussion if that's the case. This happens even in fields that are not heavily dominated by men.
I recently attended multiple-day conference on religion in XYZ period and heard a total of two female speakers.
One also notices where females end up in the SCS program book (there are a few ghettos) but that's a more complicated process and I don't care enough to check which of the all-male sessions were put together by the SCS and which were organized panels.
The sad reality is this: no one blinks an eye at an all-male panel of "experts," no matter the topic. An all-female panel of "experts" is a special interest group: gender theory, perhaps, or motherhood in antiquity.
Not a challenge, but an innocent question: what do you mean about ghettos? It seems to me that more than half the panels are the same each year and cover plain-vanilla topics like Homer and Roman History, and then other than the specially put-together, one-time panels the ones created by the program committee are grouped together thematically as best they can. So where are the ghettos? And have I been ghettoized without even knowing it?
Hmm. If only there were a Latin phrase for "specially put-together, one-time..."
"One also notices where females end up in the SCS program book (there are a few ghettos) but that's a more complicated process and I don't care enough to check which of the all-male sessions were put together by the SCS and which were organized panels."
I can say as a male that is organizing a panel for next year's Boston SCS panel, that things are more complicated for Organizer Refereed Panels versus At Large Panels, since ORP organizers are operating under the same blind review of abstracts as the SCS Program Committee. In the case of my panel (as I only got to see after notifying the Program Committee which abstracts the reviewers chose), we received 12 submissions, but only 3 from women. Given this 1/4 proportion of abstracts written by women, we were it unfortunately made mathematical sense to have 1 of the 5 accepted abstracts being one of these three.
Of course, those of us organizing the panel immediately realized that this was a problem, and so we are in the process of finding a female respondent to bring the female presence on the panel to 1/3. Granted, this is still not ideal, but it's still better than the proportion we were selecting from without any way to tell which were written by women.
An all male panel is not necessarily the result of sexism (although it certainly often is). I once organized an all male panel at the SCS. The first four women I asked to be on the panel declined, while the first four men I asked said yes. I was disappointed not to get my first choice of panelists, and anyone in the audience who stewed about "another all male panel" would have at least been wrong about intent.
Both times I have co-organized APA/AIA panels it has been with a woman, the first time having a panel balanced towards women and the second time primarily male speakers; the one time I organized a panel all on my own all of the other speakers were women (though not the responder). In each case I/we went with the best possible people for that subject. But I have no doubt that if ever I put together a panel and it turns out best to have all or mostly men I'll be thought by some to be sexist. Not that that will stop me from trying to put together the ideal group for whatever that specialized topic might be.
I'm not the person who originally commented about all-male panels, but I think the issue is fundamentally different when it comes to boutique conferences, especially when many of the speakers are invited by the organizers. Sometimes (not all the time) it comes across as using university funds to run a boys' club. That doesn't mean every all-male or mostly-male conference/panel/poster session is sexist, and reasonable people know that.
It's still fair to point out that it happens, and sometimes, it is intentionally or unintentionally sexist. We are still part of a field whose "stars" are largely considered white and male. This is changing, but to pretend that we/you/our students don't reach for certain (white, male) names when they think of the "greats" - that's absurd. The world is changing, but we're not there yet. We all have to conduct self check-ups regularly.
I used to be involved with a series, and I was sent an invitation list for an upcoming gathering. I noticed 0 women and 0 people of color were invited to this (casual, informative) gathering, aside from the woman on the editorial board. Stuff like that. That should have embarrassed someone, but it didn't, not really. You see, the list was made hastily - names grabbed out of thin air. Excellent scholars. It showed me how a lot of people would construct our field if they had 3 minutes to scribble down as many excellent scholars as they could.
I'm a woman, and I would not assume an all-male panel was run by a sexist organizer. I do think that it is harder for women, but it is more subtle than that. It's more like anointing mostly men as "geniuses," or accepting a system that makes family life extremely difficult, especially now that most people are well into their 30s before you get a tt job. There's no excuse for not using blind referees for book manuscripts, especially given both men and women's well-documented tendency to favor men when judging work and intellect. "Mike Pence" sexism, men fleeing any degree of personal connection with a woman, was a big part of my advising experience, while my male colleagues got to be buddies with our advisor. Those subtle and structural issues definitely exist. Somebody deliberately excluding qualified and interested women from a panel would surprise me.
6:49, these points are all well taken. As for family life, people will point out spousal hires, but that in fact makes it especially tough on both men and women who aren’t married to another academic, or classicist. How many people, men or women, will relocate for a lecturer position if their partner already has a job that pays decently? To quote someone who left academia for greener pastures: ‘Is it really responsible to churn out all of these unemployable Ph.Ds? Is it really responsible to drag your family all across the country so you can spend your life learning about Horace?’’
People try to accommodate, yes, but in most cases it just isn't possible. Spousal hires at the junior level, i.e. at precisely the time when a young family really needs two live-in parents, have gone the way of the dodo. Women face undeniable time constraints that men simply don't when it comes to starting a family, which are more likely to result in them being forced to leave academia given the rigidity and demands of academic life at the outset, even once/if you do get lucky enough to get a "real" job. The family issue isn't exclusive to women, but it falls heaviest on them. Of course R1 institutions need to stop churning out PhDs like it's 1999 if they want to imagine that they are in any way ethical entities, but as for those of us who are already here and have already invested more than a decade in this career path.... thus rending ourselves unfit for other career paths...
Ok, I no longer have skin in this game, but I just looked at this site again on a whim for the first time in many years. I just want to respond to 10.23 am right above me, along with his/her presumptive kindred spirits lurking around these parts.
You are not unfit for other career paths. You do not have to stay in academia. Certainly stay if that's what you want to do, but it's just not true that you can't leave.
I'm someone who left the field about 5 years ago after finishing the PhD and doing a bit of the temp/adjunct/VAP life, and who now has a 'real world career'.
Dropping out of academia sucked. It was an existential crisis. It was hard to get my foot in the door in a new career, or even figure out what a new career might be. I was not one of those people who had coding skills or anything of immediate use to anyone. Business type folks either had no idea what use I could be to them or were downright resentful and/or suspicious of my "over-education." I had to lean on whatever connections I could find (however tenuous) to get myself started. I had to start at a salary that I didn't like (even if it was a lot more than I'd ever made up to that point!). I was lumped in with 22 year olds just out college. All of this was true in my personal experience, and it was not fun.
BUT, all that said, transitioning to a business/office career is 100% completely something anyone with a PhD in the field can do. You might not get credit right away for all the analytical, writing, speaking and just plain thinking skills you have acquired over the course of the last 6-10+ years. But once you get that proverbial foot in the door, it's going to be game over for those 22 yr olds in the cubes next to you. You are going to seem more clever and smarter than 99% of your co-workers ... because the stuff you had to do to earn your degree was really hard. And it made you really good at thinking and words and stuff. You are going to crush it and get promoted quickly because your value is going to become glaringly obvious to your boss(es).
Again, I am a sample size of one person, so this is can only be purely anecdotal. My career now is something I *never* thought I'd be doing, but it is fulfilling and stable with the promise of future growth, I make more money than I'd make if I had stayed in the field and been super successful, I get to leave my work at the office (for the most part), I get to exercise all those brain muscles I built up over the years in school, and I get to live in a major city.
By all means people, stay in the field if you have the passion and drive to keep on doing it. But never think that you are "stuck" or somehow "unfit" for any other career or job. Staying in the field is a choice. Leaving the field is a choice. Do what is best for you! Don't worry about what your advisor will think. Don't worry about what that jerk from your prose comp class who now has that TT job at Chicago will think. None of that matters. Just worry about what you will think, and make what you believe will be the best decisions for your life.
Bravo, 2.17. I second that, having had a previous career before Classics and, now, after doc. scholarship, postdoc. fellowship, monograph published, book-chapters, edited volume in the pipeline, I'm making shortlists/campus visits but not nailing the jobs. They're going to people with fewer accolades, less published etc. No hard feelings though! Having already had a career in another field, I can safely say that academe is nothing special, and leaving it will only impact on how much power I have to dictate my own schedule - something that tt teaching would wreck anyway. The joy of being paid to read, think, and write whatever tickled my fancy was what brought me back to academe. But academe does give you excellent transferrable skills and a certain cachet elsewhere. A little strategic thinking and you could be happy, prosperous and fulfilled (e.g. language co-ordination for IT projects? Most of us have good French/German/Italian and would only need a little extra training). That said, where else would you get the addictive soap-opera insanity/hilarity of a hiring culture such as seen here!
Thank you for posting something about transitioning out of this crazy career that is for once uplifting and positive. The idea of even making the decision to quit (for all the reasons you list, including supervisor pressure and assholes from prose comp) is terrifying to many of us. I, for one, am grateful to you for showing us that one can come out the other end without deep bitterness and regret for a life not lived.
+1 thank you for being uplifting, positive and also, most importantly, realistic. Nothing drives me crazier than hearing people, usually fat and happy on the tenure track, talk about how easy it must be to transfer Classics skills to the outside world.
+1 thank you for being uplifting, positive and also, most importantly, realistic. Nothing drives me crazier than hearing people, usually fat and happy on the tenure track, talk about how easy it must be to transfer Classics skills to the outside world.
Yeah, I know. Those assholes trying to help. Pisses me off, too! Parse them in their parse holes, I say!
Serious for a moment--those "fat and happy" people on the tenure track (1) aren't ever very happy and aren't usually very fat unless they are at well-endowed R1s; (2) genuinely want to help their "disadvantaged" brethren. (At least, those younger than the Boomer generation, and even some of those maledicted Boomers.)
Here's the rub: they genuinely want to help but they've also bought into the system, so they see themselves as helping the "disadvantaged" rather than the "lucky" who won't be consigned to a life of no raises and arguing why Classics shouldn't be cut from the neoLIberal university. We (and here I reveal myself as one of those unlucky TT folks) want to express the value of the education we and you have received. We honestly believe that there is value to it, both for the person and for employment. Skills trump content. I may be in the minority -- or I may not -- in thinking that. I do believe I am correct.
Many of my colleagues, however, do not have the vocabulary to express exactly what the value is. Many of them do not like the idea of talking in terms of jobs. This is the same prejudice you see in the ancient world in which the highest class does not deign to (con)descend to bourgeoise merchantry.
This does not mean that there are not real, palpable skills that we learn in the process of our cult-like degrees. Classics, more than all the Humanities degrees, and equal to all the Liberal Arts degrees, expects precision, accuracy, and critical interpretation. Believe it. Love it. Learn to express it in terms of a resume. I myself expect to go this route in the next 2-5 years, and I am at peace with that as much as can be before the fact.
I expect to get tenure. I also expect the higher ed bubble to continue to retract or maybe even burst, so I'm trying to prepare for the day that my small university shuts down or decides to shutter most of its humanities departments to keep running. Maybe we'll be fortunate and that won't happen at my school, but who knows? We don't have anything special going for us.
I have no idea whether the following is relevant to the Princeton case, but just in case some people don't know: Generally, when someone is hired from one tenured position to another, they still have to go through a mini-tenure process (college and/or university committees; deans and provosts signing off; letters from people not chosen by the candidate). This almost never fails, but it's a slow process, and could delay official announcements in some cases (I know of one such elsewhere this year). In fact, I think Princeton tends not to announce hires officially until the trustees have rubber-stamped.
As will be very ovious, I'm just speculating: perhaps the Princeton position requires the drafting of two contracts if it turns out there's a (tenured) couple heading there. Musical chairs, including UMass, Yale, Princeton, and USC..?
If Princeton or Yale wants to make me an offer, not only do I promise not to attempt to negotiate, but I will not even read the contract. Presumably they will find this most refreshing.
No kidding. I was actually interviewed for one of those jobs: I would not have jerked anybody around if I had been offered it! It's ridiculous when searches fail in this environment because there's apparently such a dearth of acceptable candidates.
PLEASE SHARE: VISITING INSTRUCTOR JOB IN CLASSICS Notice the deadline. The Department of World Languages at the University of South Florida seeks a 9-month, non-tenure track, Visiting Instructor in Classics, starting August 7, 2017. The teaching load is four (4) courses per semester (12 credit hours). The successful applicant will teach Medical Terminology, Latin at all levels, and large lecture classes. Salary: $45,000. Minimum Qualification: Master's degree from an accredited institution in Classics or an appropriate field of specialization or equivalent qualifications based on professional experience and otherwise qualified to perform assigned duties. Must meet university criteria for appointment to the rank of Instructor. Applicants should submit 1) a letter of application 2) curriculum vitae; 3) a statement of teaching philosophy and sample syllabi. Materials should be sent to Claudine Boniec, Academic Services Administrator (to be sent to the mailing or email address below). Application Deadline: May 5, 2017. To apply, go HERE & click on "Access Careers@USF". From the list of jobs that appear, locate the job posting. When applying for an opening you will have the opportunity to upload a cover letter & other requested materials. The Department and USF encourage applications from minorities under-represented in the Humanities. Salary is competitive. Ms. Claudine Boniec (cboniec@usf.edu) Department of World Languages 4202 E. Fowler Ave, CPR107 Tampa, FL 33620 USF is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. For information regarding the USF System, please visit our website at http://system.usf.edu According to Florida Law, applications and meetings regarding them are open to the public. For ADA accommodations, please contact Claudine Boniec, (813) 974-5510 at least five working days prior to need. USF is an AA/EA/EO institution.
Link to apply to USF job ad posted by 9:09 above: https://gems.fastmail.usf.edu:4440/psp/gemspro-tam/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_APP_SCHJOB.GBL?Page=HRS_APP_SCHJOB&Action=U&FOCUS=Applicant&SiteId=1
Folks, if you've been keeping tabs on the USF "job" over the past five or so years, you'll see that they've hired and lost 3-4 times. Employ your close reading skills.
My close reading skills would suggest what I happen to know already. This is a leave replacement position. What difference does that departmental history make?
Enough with the sour grapes about USF. It is really time to move on. If someone out there wants to teach for a year for salary and benefits and build a stronger resume, then here is a job to apply for. The Classics faculty are friendly and supportive people, as are most of the other members of the department.
@11:09 The reality behind the junior TT position at USF is that after it opened up because of a colleague's untimely passing, it has been filled by two people, one who went elsewhere and the current holder of the position. In the time before and between these two searches, there have been VAPs, which is standard practice to keep course offerings on the books. Quit making insinuations about a delightful group of Classicists and a productive and functional program.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but their incredibly sloppy first-round interviews last year probably didn't leave many people with a good impression -- although I would certainly not call it "abusive."
I don't have a dog in the fight either, but if you are calling USF "a delightful group of Classicists" and "a productive and functional program," then you have not met all of them. You also have not met the department chair.
nothing scandalous happened in the interviews, they were just really short to start with and seemingly scheduled directly back to back without a buffer, and with a huge SC that all had to introduce themselves before the interview started. They ended up with roughly ten minutes of actual interview time for a tenure track job. Over the telephone: welcome to 1989.
3:43 here -- thats all i meant. when interviews go out, please update for the sake of the majority who didnt get an interview. some of us are going to have to figure out where we are living/what we are doing next year, and it would be nice to be able to plan knowing that xyz apps are definitely dead.
I'd say don't bother because (it appears) it's the same position they advertised last fall. But it doesn't look spousal to me. Why so broadly framed? And do rich private universities even do searches for spousal hires?
This is 9:08. As far as I know, they didn't fail the search from this fall, and the person that they (allegedly) picked is married to another senior scholar. I presume that they are required to do searches for spousal hires if the spouse in question is going to be hired as a Professor, not as a Lecturer.
Does this Princeton news mean Yale and UMass will soon be searching for replacements? If so this would be a hilarious scenario. After two searches, Yale not just at the status quo ante but actually minus one.
My own, definitely less fancy, institution doesn't ask for a search for spousal hires (or, in fact, for most hires to tenure, since those are usually understood as strategic, target-of-opportunity situations), but it's also true that I don't really know anything about how Princeton does business.
Anybody else follow the German market? I guess this year is the worst for TT jobs since 2009 for them: http://zugunglueck.blogspot.com/2017/04/2016-17.html
Someone should track this kind of data for Classics.
Since we actually did have Latin jobs, as opposed to last go round, I doubt this year was quite so bad in our field as others. Not that that's saying much.
@9:25 re: Carleton. I know someone who works there. They're legit open-search jobs, though I'm sure there are local people applying. Word is there is the strong possibility of at least one of them converting to tenure-track.
One notble thing this year: a near total collapse of the conference interview. Only 24 at the SCS. I wonder if the conference interview may be going the way of the dinosaur.
Sorry, not TT -- weird language. From the UVA jobs site:
The Department of Classics seeks applications to fill Assistant Professor positions on the Academic General Faculty (tenure-ineligible) during the 2017-2018 academic year. Subject areas of particular need include, but are not limited to, Greek, Greek Civilization, Latin, Greek and Roman drama. Compensation may take the form of part-time salary with part-time benefits or full-time salary with full-time benefits, depending upon the number of courses taught. Applicants must be on track to receive a Ph.D. (or appropriate terminal degree) in the relevant field by June 2017 and must hold the terminal degree at the time of appointment. Candidates must have a strong commitment to teaching. Applications will be considered beginning May 23, 2017.
Very weird language, and part of a disturbing trend of using "Assistant Professor" to describe non-TT jobs. Already the notion of Visiting Assistant Professor, which once meant someone with the rights and approximate salary of a junior TT members of the department has been cheapened to mean nothing more than "poorly paid adjunct." But at least the "Visiting" or the acronym VAP let people know this was't a TT position. Once Assistant Professor comes to mean "poorly paid adjunct" then we really are done for.
In addition to the retiring Gildersleeve Professor, UVA lists *active* faculty who took their bachelor's degrees in 1962 and 1968. I assume turnover is coming.
UVA Classics is incredibly "old," but this is not as much about the department as the university, which is trying to give people better titles instead of better pay. The idea is that a lot of people would be willing to take what is basically an adjunct position if they could put "Assistant Professor at UVA" on their CV.
A lot of people are retiring from UVA this month and these are positions to fill the void until a TT search, if any. There is some concern that the university won't give back all the tenure lines (no foul play: they didn't properly belong to the department in the first place, so there's no real reason they should be renewed). My understanding is that the wording of the job ad has to do with the university's [new?] way of labelling this kind of position.
BUT there seems to be a trend at universities towards trying to get more non-tenure-track faculty, and one way is having "Assistant Professors" who have yearly contracts (so, better paid and more stable than adjuncts, but no tenure). I know some places where this is already happening.
An "Assistant Professor" with a one-year contract with salary and benefits dependent on teaching load availability is an adjunct by another name. We don't know the pay, but a key would have been if it specified "competitive" or "commensurate with experience" or some other indicator that this isn't just adjuncting.
mr jefferson would not approve! classless. (note that this is an attack on the UVA admin, not the classics dept. itself, which must have had nothing to do with the language).
PLEASE NOTE: I'm not at UVA, but my understanding is that THIS POSITION is NOT what I described in my second paragraph. Just an ordinary VAP with a weird name. I could be wrong, but that is my understanding.
As to the idea of a stable, yearly contract (NOT dependent on teaching load) "assistant professor": I was referring to OTHER universities, which I am not naming. This would be the same as a "Lecturer" at other universities (permanent, annual contract, but not tenure-track).
I was trying to answer the question by explaining at UVA these are VAPs to fill real, existing voids.
Would it be wrong to tell us which universities do that? I'm an inexperienced job seeker, so I can't tell what the fine print might be in every ad. Also, I've heard that there are TT positions that are not advertised as such - you only get to know that they are in fact TT during interviews. Thoughts on that?
The job ad will indicate whether or not the position is tenure-track. I have not yet encountered an "assistant professor = permanent lecturer"-type job in Classics yet, but, based on other fields, it will be spelled out in the ad.
As to mystery TT jobs: a unicorn, as far as I can tell. I've heard of a case where someone interviewed on campus for a VAP and while they were there it was revealed that this might actually be a TT position pending approval, but this was very unusual. Maybe this was more common before the Dark Times.
Anyone else on Columbia's scummy advertisement of their visiting position on the Liverpool list 7 days after the review date began? The job wasn't advertised via the SCS either. What gives?
@10:26 the other poster probably just doesn't want to out him/herself, it wouldn't be inappropriate to name universities.
There is at least one job this year that is likely to convert to TT. One hint is if it is longer term rather than a one year. But most of the longer term jobs are not going to convert. The university isn't holding that info back for any devious reasons, but most likely because they can't make any promises, and they don't want to make promises they can't keep.
I've heard the Columbia job is a stop-gap position. Several faculty will be on sabbatical. But yes, the deadline is insulting, if not embarrassing. They probably already have someone in mind as 8:18am said.
Columbia doesn't owe you plebeians advance notice. You should be grateful we even let you know the job existed. We have graciously afforded you the privilege of applying, you unworthy wretches.
Did everyone who applied to USC receive this email? Is that a nicety or are they actually interested in my application? Also, no idea who is the third person hired.
Rank ≠ tenure status and institutions are inconsistent WRT their use of titles. For example, "visiting" often means short-term, i.e., not that the person has a permanent home at another institution, which is what the name suggests and sometimes means. And of course not every place has tenure, so that no title at such a place is connected with that kind of status.
Naturally the rest of the world works differently as well.
Interestingly, the partner of one of the announced hires is listed as teaching courses this fall at his home institution, including in the department newsletter,
My understanding of the situation at Michigan is as follows. Last year Michigan ran an art history/curator search, but the person they hired deferred the appointment and took a one-year position at Yale. Now it appears that person has accepted a permanent job at Yale. This year Michigan ran a numismatics/curator search, but their first choice candidate received and accepted a very generous counter-offer from his/her current institution in Germany (I can't remember where). So I believe Michigan will have to run both searches again in future years.
Perhaps the most confusing thing is that with so many talented applicants, so many fail to obtain employment. Meanwhile, the insecure middle management, consisting of recently tenured or soon to be tenured faculty, often seem interested in hiring only the mediocre ones who will least likely overshadow their own tenuous achievements.
In the end, mediocrity is striking gold these days. It amazes me that so many mediocre individuals are being fought over by competing institutions, while so many other talented people are lucky to land a single interview.
I doubt anybody's SEEKING mediocrity. Willing to overlook it if that means getting to hire their buddy, their buddy's spouse, or their buddy's student, certainly. The Yale thing is absurd and probably indicates that there was only ever one candidate in the running. I know so many great young scholars who are publishing well while teaching the lecture/intro/writing intensive courses that entitled boomers are too special to teach. And good people, to boot. If Yale couldn't find anyone worth hiring in this market, something fishy has happened.
Like Constantine's economy, there are two markets here: the market of those who are of the right caste, and the market of the rest. The two do not meet.
The Yale thing is absurd, but even more absurd (if it's true) is the Michigan thing. Two positions, one supposedly filled but put on hold, both ultimately unfilled, with so many other people in need of a job.
I honestly don't see the absurdity. If there was no one that would fit their profile, why would they have to hire someone who is not what they need? It's not a question of being good/bad/mediocre, but just not exactly what they are looking for. Am I too naive or what?
Plus, one Michigan position is filled, just deferred until next year.
Have you seen the job market numbers lately? There are people who fit even the increasingly specific and odd requirements of any job that gets advertised. And there's something wrong with people who squander or risk lines through excess pickiness when the field, especially most of its young people, is in real trouble.
Yale's job ad was not particularly specific, if I recall - I should think there would be at least a few people who work on Classical and Archaic Greek History, especially considering there are so few Greek History jobs each year.
And if the rumors above are true, both Michigan curator jobs from this year and last year will have to be redone in the future. Again, having a hard time believing that the qualifications were so specific that they couldn't find someone willing and able to begin this academic year.
OK, guys, in case there is a misunderstanding or misunderstandings. This year there were two jobs:
(1) A junior Greek History job, which went to the current VAP. There was a search and it ‘succeeded.’
(2) A Classics & Humanities (at Yale Humanities is a ‘program,’ including an undergrad major) open rank job. There were 5 candidates, one of whom is senior and the spouse of a senior Yale classics faculty member. This search failed.
I wasn't really talking about requirements. I was thinking that if I were on a hiring committee, I'd probably find a lot of research topics uninteresting and not that important. You know, this 'meh' feeling. So I guess we can be happy I'm very far away from making any such decisions :)
So Yale attempted not one but two inside hires this year. One of them not succeeding, they couldn't find anybody else who might be suitable to teach in a liberal arts program, despite bringing five people on campus and running an open rank search!
Yea yea, I know, I'm sure these searches were perfectly open and legitimate and not at all predetermined...
In the case of the second job, keep in mind that the committee must have been a mix of Classics and Humanities faculty. So you can imagine how an attempt to run a fake search by one dept. would founder on the rocks of....other people who don’t have any incentive to make a spousal hire.
@11:23 sheeesh, no one is saying that fake searches are fine. I applied for the Yale thing myself, despite being forewarned that it isn't for me. what I'm saying is that very good research institutions look for something more than just the ability to teach students and fulfilled requirements.
I mean this in a kind way, but it doesn't sound like you've been around the block very many times. I promise you that some of the people who applied for what was, I believe, an open-rank, open-field search at Yale were not doing "meh" research and were also good teachers.
Re: 11:36 am / 11:48 am, I'd have to agree. That search died because of either the Humanities faculty (more likely) or the administration. This does not bode well for the health of "Archaia" at Yale, since the spouse currently employed at Yale would have to be super-humanly magnanimous not to be pissed.
Having been on the wrong end of an inside hire before, even I am surprised that they seemingly invited several graduate students alongside the associate-level spousal hire. There's stacking the deck in a strategic way, but this seems botched to me. The disparity between applicants indicates some dysfunction (even if it's a pre-determined search, it shouldn't be this obvious), and makes me wonder if the Humanities/Classics folks were on the same page from the get-go.
And bringing so many people on campus, putting junior people through the wringer of a visit, pitting them against a senior person when they don't have a real shot at the job, obviously, if all four other interviewees couldn't be made an offer... We'll never know exactly what happened here, but this ain't a good look on you, Yale.
I have no inside info from Yale, but it looks to me like like this wasn't a spousal hire from the get-go; having both a search and a split position are too cumbersome. Presumably, Classics hoped that they could use it opportunistically for that purpose. Maybe they were even able to negotiate an open-rank search for what was originally meant as an entry-level hire to make that possible. But it's hardly clear that the junior applicants had no real chance.
Yale's Greek history search was not fake. If it comforts people to tell themselves that it was, then they can do so. But they shouldn't make such claims in public, for reasons too obvious to need spelling out.
About the author: I applied for the position and did not get it, but have no concerns about the way the search was conducted.
None of us will know the internal workings of the Yale SC. Here's the problem, though. You know how English universities only hire Europeans or people already at English institutions and we all roll our eyes? Because how is it possible that all of the best candidates just happen to be English. When an awful lot of the best candidates in US searches just happen to turn out to be people the SC is already friends with, it is the same optic. When one university tries to hire two such people in the space of one year...
The search for the Yale Greek history position was probably decided before the first candidate was flown out. I wish that the other applicants for the position had known. It would have saved them the time and emotional energy of having to go through the application process.
As much as we would like to think that SCs as committees made up of impartial, brilliant minds, that's just not how the academic universe operates.
I'm sure Michigan also would have liked to know that the search for Yale Greek history was decided before the first candidate was flown out (if the rumor is correct).
It does boggle the mind that some many people seem to be fighting over such junior scholars which such limited records of publication. The Yale hire is undoubtedly quite bright and will have a fine career. But she has only a couple of minor publications, the sort of things not uncommon for graduate students to have. Nothing screams bidding war between Yale and Michigan. Many of the other successful candidates for top jobs at research universities this year also have surprising sparse CVs, again the sort of stuff one might expect from a decent graduate student. When so many candidates on the market multiple years rack up impressive and proven records, its disheartening that people are still being hired on "promise."
Interesting news/insights... I'd imagine that it's extremely disheartening to have a monograph (and more) out, and get so close, only to be pipped by someone with 2-3 articles, and who's also been fought over! The only consolation lies in assuming that the winner has a book or two in the pipeline that just isn't visible as yet on online profiles etc. We wish them well, but wonder at the SC and how it all played out.
Lol! (12.10 here again) Okay, the only consolation is that life is elsewhere? There's really no point in getting bitter and twisted, though I'm tempted... So much effort - a seminar on Theophrastus, for God's sake!
A Servius reminder: Critique of powerful groups who shape the future of our profession, such as SCs, is welcome here. But please do not cross the line into criticizing the CVs of specific junior scholars.
No one is critiquing the junior scholars. Their CVs are respectable for someone at that stage in the career. Their promise may well be genuine. The question is why do SCs prefer to hire rookies to especially prestigious positions when there are so many proven scholars with up to five or six years experience out there.
Why do SCs prefer to hire rookies? For the same reasons that venture capitalists are willing to blow huge amounts of money on risky investments, in the hopes that they're getting in on the ground floor to 'the next facebook'. People want to have a share in what could be the next huge thing (/scholar), even at the expense of a share in something that is already really solid (but is, they think, (therefore) unlikely to be stellar).
That search seems like it was problematic from the start. I wouldn't waste too much time trying to discover what was the SC's motivation and why "so many proven scholars with up to five or six years out there" didn't get it. That hire was determined early on. If anything, the SC should apologize to the other finalists for wasting their time
I have to agree with @5:36. The question is whether these young hires will pay off in the long run. Looking at some of the more recent ones, it seems that some do and don't make it (i.e. gain tenure). Often these young hires are hired off the word of their supervisors and references-- I know of more than one instance where this has happened in the last five years at R1 universities and the successful candidate had not a single publication to their name, but they had some big names vouch for them. And it's usually some thing that happens *among* R1 universities, just as the discussion here as has focused on the Yale, Michigan, and Brown hires (among others) from what I can see.
Nevertheless, every SC is entirely entitled to gamble on a candidate, which seems to be one reason (there are others) why some supervisors will still tell their students not to publish at all, or very little, while in graduate school.
It does seem that R1s can afford to gamble in the way that a SLAC or R2- cannot. At a place like Yale, an Assistant Professor can be little more than a glorified 6 year post-doc, and there is little risk the department will lose the tenure line if the first round rookie hire becomes the next Alex Smith rather than the next LeBron (apologies for mixing football and basketball references).
I wonder if there is also an element of conspicuous consumption. Many R1s this year have hired people for whom tenure is not a slam dunk, in the sense they do not have proven record of publication (not a knock on the successful candidates; this is the simple reality of hiring ABDs/1 year out) to guarantee that they will likely meet the inordinately high standards these institutions require. That may be the point. They don't need to hire someone who can get tenure. In the worst case scenario, they can always discard failed golden child to snatch up the next golden child who comes along six years from now, or hold a senior search to acquire some eminent Oxbridge scholar.
A lot of truth in what 8:13 says, but I'd differ on one point. The tenure requirements at the very top universities (except perhaps Harvard and Yale, both theoretically trying to reform) aren't especially tough, at least in terms of quantity. The toughest places to get tenure are slightly further down the food chain, where defensive and status-conscious administrators make outrageous demands.
8:18, interesting to hear this....can you give some examples of schools where this is the case? are we talking about national public research universities? OSU/UT, that kind of thing?
@5:51 PM: As someone who applied for not only the Yale History position, but also the Michigan position, it is embittering to learn this news. If it was truly an inside hire from the beginning, the SC should indeed explain the rationale. But it seems like their new hire was not an example of someone who "had not a single publication to their name", but as an ABD had 2 (3? not clear from website) peer-ref'd articles/chapters. The one person in my cohort who had something comparable before defending also was snatched up into TT job heaven.
The Yale position looks like an inside hire but I doubt the SC would ever explain its rationale. Anyways, that department is balkanized and has become acrimonious. Consider yourself fortunate, 8:38, that you didn't end up there.
FYI, the ARCHAIA post-doc may also go to an inside candidate. Apologies for those who invested time and effort applying
It is possible that ABDs or recent PhDs can emerge as "dark horse" candidates, particularly in unpleasant and Balkanized departments (i.e. Yale). A candidate with many publications has more for each member of the search committee to find something to object to, in terms of topic, methodology or conclusion. For the ABD with no publications, or even a recent PhD with, hypothetically, a couple of uncontroversial book chapters and a short, relatively innocuous peer reviewed article, it is easier to avoid such pitfalls. A candidate with more hard-hitting stuff or worse, a book that makes an serious argument suggesting other scholars are wrong, is more likely to find detractors, rather than allies, among the SC.
Speaking for my own university, there are a LOT of people with publications as graduate students who get nary an interview. And real peer reviewed publications, not half-credits like book chapters.
Ironically, I think in the bizarre neverland we find ourselves in, book chapters may count for more with SCs than peer reviewed publications.
A peer reviewed publication i s a lonely exercise. Your work is read by two strangers. This makes it harder to do, and traditionally more prestigious. By design, you don't get to published peer review articles based on where you got your PhD or who your advisor was.
Book chapters involve a much more cozy process. You get invited to contributed based on your academic network, and your work is seldom rejected. It also tends to be less hard-hitting, because you are convincing an editor who already likes you, rather than two skeptical strangers.
Now think of the dynamics of a Search. SCs do not know much about the speciality to the hire---the hire is supposed to be the specialist. But they do care about academic networks, social capital and prestige etc. The result is a mediocre book chapter may be more valuable to a candidate, because it reveals them to be part of a prestigious social network, rather than a well placed peer reviewed piece.
I may not be right about this, but if I am, it is not good for the field at large.
We should not forget that the majority of edited volumes at major academic presses go through anonymous readers as well as the book's editor(s). This is not to discount the points made about the tendency for edited volumes to favor the well connected and well funded (if derived from an international conference, for example), but it is to say that one usually has to convince several readers beyond the volume's editor(s).
True, but an editor who has already asked someone to contribute is less likely to reject them out right following bad reviews, although they might request revisions. Even one mediocre review can kill a piece at a peer reviewed journal.
I think both @3:47 and @3:57 make good points - the invited book chapter can be both a reflection of one's ability to network as well have a peer-reviewed component.
At the end of the day, however, I still think it's all luck of the draw: you can do everything right (good publications, good recommendations, good research profile, etc.) and still not get anywhere, while someone else gets multiple offers, sometimes at the expense of positions going unfilled and even more people being left without jobs.
Is this with regard to the UCLA Greek hire? A certain case of absent publications for a TT job at an R1. Aside from a divided department, does anyone know how that happened?
This is bad for the field, if true, since the "network" of a young scholar is usually largely a proxy for class background. Blind peer reviewed journal publication, for all of its problems and arbitrariness, is the most objective indication of scholarly quality that we have. Of course a chapter counts for something, but it should not be viewed in the same category as an article. Nb that while book proposals are refereed, this process is usually not blind, allowing for elitism, gender bias, back scratching etc. in a way that articles do not.
I'm a big fan of peer-review for its intended purpose, but it's designed to assess particular arguments for particular purposes. It's a poor proxy for judging people, especially if a department is trying to project decades into the future.
I'm struck by the claims above about people being hired with no record. They've all spent a couple of years writing a dissertation. You could make a reasoned argument that those (and letters of recommendation from people who worked with a candidate for years) should be tossed out because they are admittedly subject to the various kinds of bias described above, but the cost is that you're choosing to ignore the vast majority of the actually available information. Maybe that's worth the cost, but I'd like to see the cost confronted.
I am on the market again (and again), and can point to specific jobs that went to people right out of grad school who are far less qualified than I in terms of publication records, so I am sympathetic to the arguments made above. HOWEVER, I have also taught PhD students as a VAP/Lecturer, and will tell you that I can think of specific grads who, even as 2nd- and 3rd-year students, were so clearly outstanding that as soon as they are on the market I would gladly support them in whatever way I could, even if they had no articles published yet. So there are TWO (at least) perspectives on this matter, and those of you trying to shame certain institutions -- not just now but also in the past -- ought to realize that there is more to choosing junior candidates than seeing their articles. And I write this as someone with an enviable number of articles.
Back in the 90s, when times were good, many people were hired with no record of all. Plum jobs were handed out on the basis of a few chapters of a dissertation. Some of those people hired on promise succeeded spectacularly, others washed out and failed to get tenure, or eeked through the tenure process only to become miserable Terminal Associates. In many instances, it would only be 2-3 years after the PhD when promise begins to gel into palpable success, as people publish, get book contracts, and develop their teaching competence.
That was then. Now there are very few jobs. There are many people 2-6 years out with proven records of teaching and research. They can show their promise in much more concrete fashion than just a nearly finished dissertation and couple of TA stints. Despite such a pool, very good jobs at very good places are going to ABDs.
Many fields in the sciences have a relatively strict expectation that PhDs will do one to two post-docs. Such an expectation is not necessarily a good thing, as post-docs are frequently enserfed labor. But it does mean that most hires go to people 2+ years out with some record of professional accomplishment, rather than allowing departments to snatch up the next shiny thing.
That recognition that some people are "so clearly outstanding that as soon as they are on the market" is also a result of networking and class. For the person just on the market who is working adjunct as they finish and unable to afford the SCS or other meetings, networking becomes a lot more difficult - and those people easily become invisible. After a few years of teaching 4-4s (or working a job in another field) and never having the time or resources to become visible enough so that people like @1:06 PM "notice" them, and not getting anywhere even with the good publication record, well, you can understand where the bitterness comes from.
There is an elephant in the room that no one is mention: the fact an article or book chapter is published is not actually a testament to its quality or excellence. Otherwise those of us into Homer or tragedy or Latin poetry (etc) would not have much significant and original work to do. So it might be that a person has articles or chapters that, to one or more members of a SC, do not seem all that good. And since newly-minted PhDs are graded on a curve, if they have a promising dissertation, they have an edge.
I asked an R1 faculty member once why some people are hired on the promise of a diss and some are not and the answer was interesting. S/he claimed that you could tell from the scope of the dissertation whether a person had a few articles, a book, or two books in them, and that at a PhD-granting R1 it was unwise to hire someone with at most 1 book in them, since that would make tenure iffy and full professor a moonshot.
Don't know how much sense that makes but it gave me an interesting glance at how one R1 faculty member reasons about a job candidate.
And the people who have been out a while don't suddenly NOT have the things that 8:40 mentioned: the PhD doesn't expire after your first round on the market!! Rather, they have all of them, plus publications, maybe a book contract, more conference presentations, an independent teaching record, maybe some undergraduate thesis direction, departmental service, letters from people who have worked with them as colleagues rather than just dissertation supervisors... I think the SCs must prefer inexperienced and untested golden children because that reminds them of their situation back in the day when they got jobs in the fat times, that is my only explanations.
Of course the situation described above applies to those lucky enough to get VAPs, which come with the opportunity to expand your CV. I would hope that SCs take the stresses facing adjuncts seriously when they're making their decisions, although I don't think that's likely.
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Poaching the Yale spouse to go with the failed Yale spousal hire! Or maybe not. Wow though... They must be climbing the walls of Phelps Hall.
I think that the Princeton poachers rumor is not true. It was true like two years ago.
When people say "inside hire," am I right in assuming you believe the whole search was a ruse? Just because someone currently working in a department is hired for a t-t job does not mean the outcome of the search was predetermined and other candidates were not seriously considered.
yes we all believe every time the VAP gets the job it was a conspiracy.
Does anyone know what happened with either of the two history positions at Michigan?
Why is Dartmouth being so cagey about their Roman Lit hire?
I think U of M is in the process of negotiations.
Search Chair at Michigan indicated in email that offer was made, anticipated complicated negotiations, and indicated search will fail if first choice does not accept.
Very interesting. But if it fails, will contributors joke about the 'camouflage' candidates having had the consolation of nice meals and pleasant conversation? I do hope not. Insult/injury etc.
One hopes not. Campus visits generally are pleasant, yes, and food is good, yes, and it is an opportunity for a junior scholar to articulate their work. An invited talk without the honorarium. But they also take a lot of time to prepare and distract mightily from teaching and research (not to mention family and personal life). Finally, there is the inevitable sting (warranted or not) that the people you befriended and dined with did not want you as a colleague, even if it turned out to be a fake or rigged search.
Person who made a joke about the ‘consolation’ of nice meals and pleasant conversation. Sorry it was hurtful. It was intended as laughing in the dark, and comes from someone unemployed who fully sympathizes with the frustration of having one’s time wasted by the academic 1%, and was trying to mock them for wasting their own and everyone else’s time. DIXI ET ANIMAM MEAM LIBERAVI. Keep up the good fight.
Most finalists for any job (in any industry) won't be hired for reasons of arithmetic; that doesn't make the process fake/rigged/time-wasting. The Michigan search, in particular, was real.
So, out of curiosity, how do people feel about searches that are gender-specific? For example, I know of one search that, before the committee even began going through applications, was already determined to be only for a female scholar, but of course this was not written into the job posting.
Are these "fixed" searches to be reviled, or acceptable because they are meant to be beneficial to female students?
would it be legal to say ‘women preferred’?
if so, they should do it. but i assume its illegal.
Of course there are ways that demography can help, or hurt, but in a 50% female field, I doubt there are many searches that hinge on gender. Anyway, that wouldn't be considered "fixed," because it was not a search that was aimed at/heavily skewed towards a specific individual. The searches that bother people are the ones that suggest nepotism -- somebody's spouse just happens to be the very best candidate on the job market!! -- or where someone with longstanding ties to the department gets the job. The latter situation is a bit more difficult: in the case of a long-term VAP, maybe they were originally hired because they are a good fit for the department's needs, which they can continue serving. But those are the instances where it may be thought of as "fixed" and when people start reading CVs skeptically to see if the department has behaved badly.
I don't completely disagree with you, but "The searches that bother people are the ones that suggest nepotism" is a rather selective reading of F.V., since plenty of times people have complained about wasting their time applying for a job at which they had no chance, and that's certainly the case for searches that ignore 50% of the applications for a different reason. So do we differentiate between some positions that waste people's time, or view them all as equally troubling?
But then someone will pipe up and say ‘even in a fake search, it is valuable to put your name and work out there. it may benefit you in other ways.’ Fake-search applications as networking by other means.
Yes, the networking is nice, and useful. Although again it is networking that is somewhat tainted---your best contacts are people who, when push came to shove, did not want you as a member of their department (this is truer, in fact, with a real search).
I wonder if it may be time to rethink the number of campus visits. Right now four is standard, with five not being unheard of. But that number was decided upon in the days when the market was revving along, and it might not be uncommon for everyone on the short-list to have a competing offer. I wonder if it make sense to limit campus visits to the top three, or maybe even the top two?
More than three on-campuses is totally unnecessary, but I think three is standard, not four. The networking accomplished by going on-campus is basically worthless, certainly not the worth of the pain and suffering and time that the on-campus costs. The people interviewing you are almost certainly not in your area, so they won't be refereeing your book proposal. Ok, you're acquainted with a handful more people in the field, albeit awkwardly from the moment they reject you, but what exactly comes of that? Unless it's an Ivy, they're not rolling in resources they can send your way. But I would contest the idea that they did not want you in their department: they only made an active decision not to hire you if the search fails. Otherwise there was just someone else they wanted more, it isn't necessarily, or even likely, that they truly didn't want you around.
It is likely that each of (say) 4 finalists was somebodys favorite. You may not know who the somebody was...but still.
Perhaps it is not the case that "they did not want you in the department," but they did want someone more. And you will soon learn who that someone is. You hope that you were bested by someone truly fantastic, with multiple books, a MacArthur fellowship, the rising star in the field. That ways you can at least say, "well, no way I could compete with that! No hard feelings, SC!" But chances are the person is pretty normal, maybe even someone you would otherwise quietly consider inferior to you. But now you know the SC--people you thought might just be your friends for life-- preferred this person over you, and in some cases were ready to let search fail in order to hire this person over you. So it is pretty awkward, and awkward networking is essentially useless networking.
Also, for SCs, a search can be a blur. I ran into a SC member at the SCS a year after I had a failed campus interview. I tried to be cheerful and say hello politely, but she did not seem to know who I was. So again, campus visits basically useless for networking.
Not all of us can recognize people when we see them a second time, but my guess is that she would have recognized your name instantly if she saw it on another job application, a fellowship application, etc. And a lot of what we do involves putting our names on paper for one reason or another. So there's that.
That is true. And she was a very nice person and good scholar, and I was not slighted that she did not to recognize me. My point is simply that campus interviews are not networking opportunities. Yes, she might recognize my name and CV. But, as someone above has noted, she was also completely outside of my field, as virtually all members of an SC will be given that they are trying to fill a vacancy in your field. It is unlikely she would ever be called upon to review my work. Campus visits are merely rituals that must be endured on that final rejection email.
Not that I have to have the last word, but...
By definition, networking is not a guarantee of anything. Having an unsuccessful on-campus visit may well lead to nothing, but, assuming one impresses, it increases the odds ever so slightly of something good happening down the road. And I do get the point about SC people generally being in a different field, but it's called "networking" because you don't stop with just one person: this spring someone has an on-campus visit, next January in Boston he/she sees one of the SC people and engages in conversation, then another person who knows that SC person comes up and, unless the SC person's manners are terrible (as some classicists' are), you get introduced. And maybe THAT person will be useful. Again, no guarantees, but in this market it's good to try to boost one's odds, and there's no predicting what will bear fruit. But performing well during an on-campus visit cannot hurt, and may prove helpful in unforeseen ways.
Though, of course, my optimism could be completely unfounded.
women REALLY outperforming men this year. is that par for the course?
I don't think so, no, but you'd have to go back to earlier years to see. I counted just the tenure-track jobs from last year's wiki that ended up with names on them, and there were 28 women and 19 men. Could be a blip, could be a pattern. Either way, the wiki holds your answer.
thanks! there is a ton of valuable data on this wiki and wikis past. someone should crunch all the numbers, for gender/academic status (ABD/short-term employment/TT)/pedigree and maybe other markers.
@April 8, 2017 at 2:32 PM
There have been religion-specific searches too. Those are perhaps even more taboo than the gender-specific ones.
@12:53 Do you mean in the context of conservative Catholic schools or evangelical Christian colleges that require a statement of faith? In those cases I think the religious preference is to be anticipated. Anywhere else I would really be surprised...
@April 11, 2017 at 1:06 PM
No statement of faith required. It's unspoken and unannounced. Whether or not it's anticipated or not is up for debate. Should every school with a religious affiliation be given free rein to discriminate?
schools that have religious tests but don’t state them should be publically shamed. private institutions have the right to require belief in biblical inerrancy or whatever the hell they want, but they should be open about it.
re: should every school be given free rein to discriminate? ABSOLUTELY, but they need to be open about it and accept the consequences.
April 11 @9:29AM: Judging by the names on the classics wiki in the last two years, at least, yes- it is par for the course. Women outnumbered men in both categories (temporary and TT). But there were also several jobs that didn't have a name listed, so maybe the final results were 50-50.
It will be interesting to see the gender balance higher up the scale (tenured positions, named chairs). The Virginia/Gildersleeve (not on the wiki?) and Bristol/Wills positions went to men, and the finalists for UCLA/Mellor are all male. I don't know anything about UNC/Paddison or Pittsburgh/Mellon, though the specialization of the latter makes another man more than likely.
I bet that like many competitive fields, it's about equal or skewed slightly toward women at the junior levels, and skewed heavily toward men at the senior.
I'm shocked at the number of smaller conferences that are almost entirely composed of men. Usually a woman is ushered in to give the opening remarks or moderate the closing discussion if that's the case. This happens even in fields that are not heavily dominated by men.
I recently attended multiple-day conference on religion in XYZ period and heard a total of two female speakers.
One also notices where females end up in the SCS program book (there are a few ghettos) but that's a more complicated process and I don't care enough to check which of the all-male sessions were put together by the SCS and which were organized panels.
The sad reality is this: no one blinks an eye at an all-male panel of "experts," no matter the topic. An all-female panel of "experts" is a special interest group: gender theory, perhaps, or motherhood in antiquity.
Not a challenge, but an innocent question: what do you mean about ghettos? It seems to me that more than half the panels are the same each year and cover plain-vanilla topics like Homer and Roman History, and then other than the specially put-together, one-time panels the ones created by the program committee are grouped together thematically as best they can. So where are the ghettos? And have I been ghettoized without even knowing it?
Hmm. If only there were a Latin phrase for "specially put-together, one-time..."
"One also notices where females end up in the SCS program book (there are a few ghettos) but that's a more complicated process and I don't care enough to check which of the all-male sessions were put together by the SCS and which were organized panels."
I can say as a male that is organizing a panel for next year's Boston SCS panel, that things are more complicated for Organizer Refereed Panels versus At Large Panels, since ORP organizers are operating under the same blind review of abstracts as the SCS Program Committee. In the case of my panel (as I only got to see after notifying the Program Committee which abstracts the reviewers chose), we received 12 submissions, but only 3 from women. Given this 1/4 proportion of abstracts written by women, we were it unfortunately made mathematical sense to have 1 of the 5 accepted abstracts being one of these three.
Of course, those of us organizing the panel immediately realized that this was a problem, and so we are in the process of finding a female respondent to bring the female presence on the panel to 1/3. Granted, this is still not ideal, but it's still better than the proportion we were selecting from without any way to tell which were written by women.
*for next year's Boston SCS conference
An all male panel is not necessarily the result of sexism (although it certainly often is). I once organized an all male panel at the SCS. The first four women I asked to be on the panel declined, while the first four men I asked said yes. I was disappointed not to get my first choice of panelists, and anyone in the audience who stewed about "another all male panel" would have at least been wrong about intent.
Both times I have co-organized APA/AIA panels it has been with a woman, the first time having a panel balanced towards women and the second time primarily male speakers; the one time I organized a panel all on my own all of the other speakers were women (though not the responder). In each case I/we went with the best possible people for that subject. But I have no doubt that if ever I put together a panel and it turns out best to have all or mostly men I'll be thought by some to be sexist. Not that that will stop me from trying to put together the ideal group for whatever that specialized topic might be.
I'm not the person who originally commented about all-male panels, but I think the issue is fundamentally different when it comes to boutique conferences, especially when many of the speakers are invited by the organizers. Sometimes (not all the time) it comes across as using university funds to run a boys' club. That doesn't mean every all-male or mostly-male conference/panel/poster session is sexist, and reasonable people know that.
It's still fair to point out that it happens, and sometimes, it is intentionally or unintentionally sexist. We are still part of a field whose "stars" are largely considered white and male. This is changing, but to pretend that we/you/our students don't reach for certain (white, male) names when they think of the "greats" - that's absurd. The world is changing, but we're not there yet. We all have to conduct self check-ups regularly.
I used to be involved with a series, and I was sent an invitation list for an upcoming gathering. I noticed 0 women and 0 people of color were invited to this (casual, informative) gathering, aside from the woman on the editorial board. Stuff like that. That should have embarrassed someone, but it didn't, not really. You see, the list was made hastily - names grabbed out of thin air. Excellent scholars. It showed me how a lot of people would construct our field if they had 3 minutes to scribble down as many excellent scholars as they could.
I'm a woman, and I would not assume an all-male panel was run by a sexist organizer. I do think that it is harder for women, but it is more subtle than that. It's more like anointing mostly men as "geniuses," or accepting a system that makes family life extremely difficult, especially now that most people are well into their 30s before you get a tt job. There's no excuse for not using blind referees for book manuscripts, especially given both men and women's well-documented tendency to favor men when judging work and intellect. "Mike Pence" sexism, men fleeing any degree of personal connection with a woman, was a big part of my advising experience, while my male colleagues got to be buddies with our advisor. Those subtle and structural issues definitely exist. Somebody deliberately excluding qualified and interested women from a panel would surprise me.
6:49, these points are all well taken. As for family life, people will point out spousal hires, but that in fact makes it especially tough on both men and women who aren’t married to another academic, or classicist. How many people, men or women, will relocate for a lecturer position if their partner already has a job that pays decently? To quote someone who left academia for greener pastures: ‘Is it really responsible to churn out all of these unemployable Ph.Ds? Is it really responsible to drag your family all across the country so you can spend your life learning about Horace?’’
People try to accommodate, yes, but in most cases it just isn't possible. Spousal hires at the junior level, i.e. at precisely the time when a young family really needs two live-in parents, have gone the way of the dodo. Women face undeniable time constraints that men simply don't when it comes to starting a family, which are more likely to result in them being forced to leave academia given the rigidity and demands of academic life at the outset, even once/if you do get lucky enough to get a "real" job. The family issue isn't exclusive to women, but it falls heaviest on them. Of course R1 institutions need to stop churning out PhDs like it's 1999 if they want to imagine that they are in any way ethical entities, but as for those of us who are already here and have already invested more than a decade in this career path.... thus rending ourselves unfit for other career paths...
Ok, I no longer have skin in this game, but I just looked at this site again on a whim for the first time in many years. I just want to respond to 10.23 am right above me, along with his/her presumptive kindred spirits lurking around these parts.
You are not unfit for other career paths. You do not have to stay in academia. Certainly stay if that's what you want to do, but it's just not true that you can't leave.
I'm someone who left the field about 5 years ago after finishing the PhD and doing a bit of the temp/adjunct/VAP life, and who now has a 'real world career'.
Dropping out of academia sucked. It was an existential crisis. It was hard to get my foot in the door in a new career, or even figure out what a new career might be. I was not one of those people who had coding skills or anything of immediate use to anyone. Business type folks either had no idea what use I could be to them or were downright resentful and/or suspicious of my "over-education." I had to lean on whatever connections I could find (however tenuous) to get myself started. I had to start at a salary that I didn't like (even if it was a lot more than I'd ever made up to that point!). I was lumped in with 22 year olds just out college. All of this was true in my personal experience, and it was not fun.
BUT, all that said, transitioning to a business/office career is 100% completely something anyone with a PhD in the field can do. You might not get credit right away for all the analytical, writing, speaking and just plain thinking skills you have acquired over the course of the last 6-10+ years. But once you get that proverbial foot in the door, it's going to be game over for those 22 yr olds in the cubes next to you. You are going to seem more clever and smarter than 99% of your co-workers ... because the stuff you had to do to earn your degree was really hard. And it made you really good at thinking and words and stuff. You are going to crush it and get promoted quickly because your value is going to become glaringly obvious to your boss(es).
Again, I am a sample size of one person, so this is can only be purely anecdotal. My career now is something I *never* thought I'd be doing, but it is fulfilling and stable with the promise of future growth, I make more money than I'd make if I had stayed in the field and been super successful, I get to leave my work at the office (for the most part), I get to exercise all those brain muscles I built up over the years in school, and I get to live in a major city.
By all means people, stay in the field if you have the passion and drive to keep on doing it. But never think that you are "stuck" or somehow "unfit" for any other career or job. Staying in the field is a choice. Leaving the field is a choice. Do what is best for you! Don't worry about what your advisor will think. Don't worry about what that jerk from your prose comp class who now has that TT job at Chicago will think. None of that matters. Just worry about what you will think, and make what you believe will be the best decisions for your life.
Bravo, 2.17. I second that, having had a previous career before Classics and, now, after doc. scholarship, postdoc. fellowship, monograph published, book-chapters, edited volume in the pipeline, I'm making shortlists/campus visits but not nailing the jobs. They're going to people with fewer accolades, less published etc. No hard feelings though! Having already had a career in another field, I can safely say that academe is nothing special, and leaving it will only impact on how much power I have to dictate my own schedule - something that tt teaching would wreck anyway. The joy of being paid to read, think, and write whatever tickled my fancy was what brought me back to academe. But academe does give you excellent transferrable skills and a certain cachet elsewhere. A little strategic thinking and you could be happy, prosperous and fulfilled (e.g. language co-ordination for IT projects? Most of us have good French/German/Italian and would only need a little extra training). That said, where else would you get the addictive soap-opera insanity/hilarity of a hiring culture such as seen here!
@2:17 PM:
Thank you for posting something about transitioning out of this crazy career that is for once uplifting and positive. The idea of even making the decision to quit (for all the reasons you list, including supervisor pressure and assholes from prose comp) is terrifying to many of us. I, for one, am grateful to you for showing us that one can come out the other end without deep bitterness and regret for a life not lived.
+1 thank you for being uplifting, positive and also, most importantly, realistic. Nothing drives me crazier than hearing people, usually fat and happy on the tenure track, talk about how easy it must be to transfer Classics skills to the outside world.
+1 thank you for being uplifting, positive and also, most importantly, realistic. Nothing drives me crazier than hearing people, usually fat and happy on the tenure track, talk about how easy it must be to transfer Classics skills to the outside world.
Yeah, I know. Those assholes trying to help. Pisses me off, too! Parse them in their parse holes, I say!
Serious for a moment--those "fat and happy" people on the tenure track (1) aren't ever very happy and aren't usually very fat unless they are at well-endowed R1s; (2) genuinely want to help their "disadvantaged" brethren. (At least, those younger than the Boomer generation, and even some of those maledicted Boomers.)
Here's the rub: they genuinely want to help but they've also bought into the system, so they see themselves as helping the "disadvantaged" rather than the "lucky" who won't be consigned to a life of no raises and arguing why Classics shouldn't be cut from the neoLIberal university. We (and here I reveal myself as one of those unlucky TT folks) want to express the value of the education we and you have received. We honestly believe that there is value to it, both for the person and for employment. Skills trump content. I may be in the minority -- or I may not -- in thinking that. I do believe I am correct.
Many of my colleagues, however, do not have the vocabulary to express exactly what the value is. Many of them do not like the idea of talking in terms of jobs. This is the same prejudice you see in the ancient world in which the highest class does not deign to (con)descend to bourgeoise merchantry.
This does not mean that there are not real, palpable skills that we learn in the process of our cult-like degrees. Classics, more than all the Humanities degrees, and equal to all the Liberal Arts degrees, expects precision, accuracy, and critical interpretation. Believe it. Love it. Learn to express it in terms of a resume. I myself expect to go this route in the next 2-5 years, and I am at peace with that as much as can be before the fact.
3:17, if you feel comfortable answering: do you expect to leave the field because you don’t expect to get tenure, or for another reason?
3:17 here.
I expect to get tenure. I also expect the higher ed bubble to continue to retract or maybe even burst, so I'm trying to prepare for the day that my small university shuts down or decides to shutter most of its humanities departments to keep running. Maybe we'll be fortunate and that won't happen at my school, but who knows? We don't have anything special going for us.
Pton insiders, what is going on? Has the offer not been accepted?
I have no idea whether the following is relevant to the Princeton case, but just in case some people don't know: Generally, when someone is hired from one tenured position to another, they still have to go through a mini-tenure process (college and/or university committees; deans and provosts signing off; letters from people not chosen by the candidate). This almost never fails, but it's a slow process, and could delay official announcements in some cases (I know of one such elsewhere this year). In fact, I think Princeton tends not to announce hires officially until the trustees have rubber-stamped.
Wonder if this is also case with Michigan (both searches?), and perhaps some of the USC searches outside of the one announced.
As will be very ovious, I'm just speculating: perhaps the Princeton position requires the drafting of two contracts if it turns out there's a (tenured) couple heading there. Musical chairs, including UMass, Yale, Princeton, and USC..?
Oh, was one of the Yale finalists also a finalist at Princeton? That would be interesting.
If Princeton or Yale wants to make me an offer, not only do I promise not to attempt to negotiate, but I will not even read the contract. Presumably they will find this most refreshing.
6:33 is why FV needs a "like" button.
No kidding. I was actually interviewed for one of those jobs: I would not have jerked anybody around if I had been offered it! It's ridiculous when searches fail in this environment because there's apparently such a dearth of acceptable candidates.
PLEASE SHARE:
VISITING INSTRUCTOR JOB IN CLASSICS
Notice the deadline.
The Department of World Languages at the University of South Florida seeks a 9-month, non-tenure track, Visiting Instructor in Classics, starting August 7, 2017. The teaching load is four (4) courses per semester (12 credit hours). The successful applicant will teach Medical Terminology, Latin at all levels, and large lecture classes. Salary: $45,000.
Minimum Qualification: Master's degree from an accredited institution in Classics or an appropriate field of specialization or equivalent qualifications based on professional experience and otherwise qualified to perform assigned duties. Must meet university criteria for appointment to the rank of Instructor.
Applicants should submit 1) a letter of application 2) curriculum vitae; 3) a statement of teaching philosophy and sample syllabi.
Materials should be sent to Claudine Boniec, Academic Services Administrator (to be sent to the mailing or email address below).
Application Deadline: May 5, 2017.
To apply, go HERE & click on "Access Careers@USF". From the list of jobs that appear, locate the job posting. When applying for an opening you will have the opportunity to upload a cover letter & other requested materials. The Department and USF encourage applications from minorities under-represented in the Humanities. Salary is competitive.
Ms. Claudine Boniec (cboniec@usf.edu)
Department of World Languages
4202 E. Fowler Ave, CPR107
Tampa, FL 33620
USF is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. For information regarding the USF System, please visit our website at http://system.usf.edu
According to Florida Law, applications and meetings regarding them are open to the public. For ADA accommodations, please contact Claudine Boniec, (813) 974-5510 at least five working days prior to need. USF is an AA/EA/EO institution.
Link to apply to USF job ad posted by 9:09 above: https://gems.fastmail.usf.edu:4440/psp/gemspro-tam/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_APP_SCHJOB.GBL?Page=HRS_APP_SCHJOB&Action=U&FOCUS=Applicant&SiteId=1
For some reason the job has not posted to the USF site, but it's a real job. Will update.
Folks, if you've been keeping tabs on the USF "job" over the past five or so years, you'll see that they've hired and lost 3-4 times. Employ your close reading skills.
My close reading skills would suggest what I happen to know already. This is a leave replacement position. What difference does that departmental history make?
That you don't want that job if you have any other options, including leaving the field. They're not Arizona of yore, but they will abuse you.
@11:09
This is a leave replacement position for a junior faculty member who won the Loeb.
Enough with the sour grapes about USF. It is really time to move on. If someone out there wants to teach for a year for salary and benefits and build a stronger resume, then here is a job to apply for. The Classics faculty are friendly and supportive people, as are most of the other members of the department.
Someone needs to explain the sourness of sad grapes. Did they deny tenure to a couple people, or what?
@11:09 The reality behind the junior TT position at USF is that after it opened up because of a colleague's untimely passing, it has been filled by two people, one who went elsewhere and the current holder of the position. In the time before and between these two searches, there have been VAPs, which is standard practice to keep course offerings on the books. Quit making insinuations about a delightful group of Classicists and a productive and functional program.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but their incredibly sloppy first-round interviews last year probably didn't leave many people with a good impression -- although I would certainly not call it "abusive."
I don't have a dog in the fight either, but if you are calling USF "a delightful group of Classicists" and "a productive and functional program," then you have not met all of them. You also have not met the department chair.
We need anonymized stories!
nothing scandalous happened in the interviews, they were just really short to start with and seemingly scheduled directly back to back without a buffer, and with a huge SC that all had to introduce themselves before the interview started. They ended up with roughly ten minutes of actual interview time for a tenure track job. Over the telephone: welcome to 1989.
please update the wiki, folks! VAPs should not be neglected....anyone heard from wake forest?
People are probably waiting for contracts to be finalized before they're willing to make anything public.
Yeah, but turning a job green when the first round interviews go out would at least allow some people to cross a job off their lists.
3:43 here -- thats all i meant. when interviews go out, please update for the sake of the majority who didnt get an interview. some of us are going to have to figure out where we are living/what we are doing next year, and it would be nice to be able to plan knowing that xyz apps are definitely dead.
Yes, that is only decent: if you got to the next stage, be a good person and change the color.
So what the hell happened with the remaining 3 positions at a certain school in Southern Cali?
And does anyone know anything about the Chicago search?
FYI, the Princeton Greek job that got posted to higheredjobs last week is a spousal hire so don't bother.
I'd say don't bother because (it appears) it's the same position they advertised last fall. But it doesn't look spousal to me. Why so broadly framed? And do rich private universities even do searches for spousal hires?
This is 9:08. As far as I know, they didn't fail the search from this fall, and the person that they (allegedly) picked is married to another senior scholar. I presume that they are required to do searches for spousal hires if the spouse in question is going to be hired as a Professor, not as a Lecturer.
Does this Princeton news mean Yale and UMass will soon be searching for replacements? If so this would be a hilarious scenario. After two searches, Yale not just at the status quo ante but actually minus one.
The rumored Pton hires are in the UK, not at Yale. UMass is looking for a 4-3 lecturer, so maybe UMass IS searching for a replacement of some kind?
9:08/11:27
Interesting info on the personnel.
My own, definitely less fancy, institution doesn't ask for a search for spousal hires (or, in fact, for most hires to tenure, since those are usually understood as strategic, target-of-opportunity situations), but it's also true that I don't really know anything about how Princeton does business.
Anybody else follow the German market? I guess this year is the worst for TT jobs since 2009 for them: http://zugunglueck.blogspot.com/2017/04/2016-17.html
Someone should track this kind of data for Classics.
Scratch that, this is the worst year for them ever, INCLUDING 2009, the previous all-time low in tenure track positions.
Yeah, I also heard that Medieval Studies had 3 job openings this year and one of them was a fake search.
Someone will need to do a count, but this must at the very least tie the worst years since the recession hit.
does anyone know what the deal is with the Carleton jobs? are there internal candidates or are these spousal hires, or what?
Since we actually did have Latin jobs, as opposed to last go round, I doubt this year was quite so bad in our field as others. Not that that's saying much.
@9:25 re: Carleton. I know someone who works there. They're legit open-search jobs, though I'm sure there are local people applying. Word is there is the strong possibility of at least one of them converting to tenure-track.
One notble thing this year: a near total collapse of the conference interview. Only 24 at the SCS. I wonder if the conference interview may be going the way of the dinosaur.
If so, good riddance.
What’s with the UVA TT jobs recently posted? Spousal hire connected to the senior hire?
UVa spouse is not a classicist.
so why is there a new ad looking for TT prof(s) now? and not on SCS...hmm.
Where is the ad, exactly?
Sorry, not TT -- weird language. From the UVA jobs site:
The Department of Classics seeks applications to fill Assistant Professor positions on the Academic General Faculty (tenure-ineligible) during the 2017-2018 academic year. Subject areas of particular need include, but are not limited to, Greek, Greek Civilization, Latin, Greek and Roman drama. Compensation may take the form of part-time salary with part-time benefits or full-time salary with full-time benefits, depending upon the number of courses taught. Applicants must be on track to receive a Ph.D. (or appropriate terminal degree) in the relevant field by June 2017 and must hold the terminal degree at the time of appointment. Candidates must have a strong commitment to teaching. Applications will be considered beginning May 23, 2017.
Very weird language, and part of a disturbing trend of using "Assistant Professor" to describe non-TT jobs. Already the notion of Visiting Assistant Professor, which once meant someone with the rights and approximate salary of a junior TT members of the department has been cheapened to mean nothing more than "poorly paid adjunct." But at least the "Visiting" or the acronym VAP let people know this was't a TT position. Once Assistant Professor comes to mean "poorly paid adjunct" then we really are done for.
In addition to the retiring Gildersleeve Professor, UVA lists *active* faculty who took their bachelor's degrees in 1962 and 1968. I assume turnover is coming.
UVA Classics is incredibly "old," but this is not as much about the department as the university, which is trying to give people better titles instead of better pay. The idea is that a lot of people would be willing to take what is basically an adjunct position if they could put "Assistant Professor at UVA" on their CV.
ugh, that is disgusting
A lot of people are retiring from UVA this month and these are positions to fill the void until a TT search, if any. There is some concern that the university won't give back all the tenure lines (no foul play: they didn't properly belong to the department in the first place, so there's no real reason they should be renewed). My understanding is that the wording of the job ad has to do with the university's [new?] way of labelling this kind of position.
BUT there seems to be a trend at universities towards trying to get more non-tenure-track faculty, and one way is having "Assistant Professors" who have yearly contracts (so, better paid and more stable than adjuncts, but no tenure). I know some places where this is already happening.
An "Assistant Professor" with a one-year contract with salary and benefits dependent on teaching load availability is an adjunct by another name. We don't know the pay, but a key would have been if it specified "competitive" or "commensurate with experience" or some other indicator that this isn't just adjuncting.
mr jefferson would not approve! classless. (note that this is an attack on the UVA admin, not the classics dept. itself, which must have had nothing to do with the language).
May 9, 3:24 here, speaking to 12:07 and 12:10
PLEASE NOTE: I'm not at UVA, but my understanding is that THIS POSITION is NOT what I described in my second paragraph. Just an ordinary VAP with a weird name. I could be wrong, but that is my understanding.
As to the idea of a stable, yearly contract (NOT dependent on teaching load) "assistant professor": I was referring to OTHER universities, which I am not naming. This would be the same as a "Lecturer" at other universities (permanent, annual contract, but not tenure-track).
I was trying to answer the question by explaining at UVA these are VAPs to fill real, existing voids.
Would it be wrong to tell us which universities do that? I'm an inexperienced job seeker, so I can't tell what the fine print might be in every ad. Also, I've heard that there are TT positions that are not advertised as such - you only get to know that they are in fact TT during interviews. Thoughts on that?
The job ad will indicate whether or not the position is tenure-track. I have not yet encountered an "assistant professor = permanent lecturer"-type job in Classics yet, but, based on other fields, it will be spelled out in the ad.
As to mystery TT jobs: a unicorn, as far as I can tell. I've heard of a case where someone interviewed on campus for a VAP and while they were there it was revealed that this might actually be a TT position pending approval, but this was very unusual. Maybe this was more common before the Dark Times.
Anyone else on Columbia's scummy advertisement of their visiting position on the Liverpool list 7 days after the review date began? The job wasn't advertised via the SCS either. What gives?
they have an inside candidate. so not advertising is an act of mercy.
@10:26 the other poster probably just doesn't want to out him/herself, it wouldn't be inappropriate to name universities.
There is at least one job this year that is likely to convert to TT. One hint is if it is longer term rather than a one year. But most of the longer term jobs are not going to convert. The university isn't holding that info back for any devious reasons, but most likely because they can't make any promises, and they don't want to make promises they can't keep.
columbia advertising its job lol
@8:16am
I've heard the Columbia job is a stop-gap position. Several faculty will be on sabbatical. But yes, the deadline is insulting, if not embarrassing. They probably already have someone in mind as 8:18am said.
Columbia doesn't owe you plebeians advance notice. You should be grateful we even let you know the job existed. We have graciously afforded you the privilege of applying, you unworthy wretches.
we are lucky there is no processing fee for apps!
USC hired 3. 2 listed on the website...who is the 3rd?
Did everyone who applied to USC receive this email? Is that a nicety or are they actually interested in my application? Also, no idea who is the third person hired.
Rank ≠ tenure status and institutions are inconsistent WRT their use of titles. For example, "visiting" often means short-term, i.e., not that the person has a permanent home at another institution, which is what the name suggests and sometimes means. And of course not every place has tenure, so that no title at such a place is connected with that kind of status.
Naturally the rest of the world works differently as well.
1:57, did the email say they were interested, or just that they would be happy to consider your application? :-)
Just that they would be happy to consider it. If they aren't really interested, why not just a rejection letter?
Mine said I would be welcome to reapply. Not sure what they think I'm going to do for the next 12 months; sit around and wait to try again?
Every single one of us got the exact same rejection letter from USC encouraging us to reapply next year.
CLASSY, USC!
It was nice of them. On the other hand 500 rejects are now competing for one slot. Time to move on.
It _was_ nice of them to send something. And they said the right thing.
Hopefully there won't be 500 apps, as the position will likely be a little more specific (i.e. rank) than this years completely open ones.
I hope that there will be 500 applications -- it will make my victory all the more glorious.
I didn't get an email from USC... Maybe this means they're still considering my application! ;-)
Incidentally, now the USC webpage just shows one name: quid accidit?
I still see both there, though one still with fuller info than the other.
Any evidence on whether the spouse is the as-yet-undisclosed third hire?
May 17, 2017 at 8:30 PM here. Well, turns out the USC email just accidentally went to my spam folder. My dreams are crushed.
Interestingly, the partner of one of the announced hires is listed as teaching courses this fall at his home institution, including in the department newsletter,
Can anybody bring some light into the Michigan situation?
My understanding of the situation at Michigan is as follows. Last year Michigan ran an art history/curator search, but the person they hired deferred the appointment and took a one-year position at Yale. Now it appears that person has accepted a permanent job at Yale. This year Michigan ran a numismatics/curator search, but their first choice candidate received and accepted a very generous counter-offer from his/her current institution in Germany (I can't remember where). So I believe Michigan will have to run both searches again in future years.
Is this the same Yale person who was rumored to be a spousal hire?
No, this is the junior Yale person, who was a VAP at Yale. The rumored spousal hire was a finalist in the failed search.
This is all too confusing.
Perhaps the most confusing thing is that with so many talented applicants, any search fails.
Perhaps the most confusing thing is that with so many talented applicants, so many fail to obtain employment. Meanwhile, the insecure middle management, consisting of recently tenured or soon to be tenured faculty, often seem interested in hiring only the mediocre ones who will least likely overshadow their own tenuous achievements.
In the end, mediocrity is striking gold these days. It amazes me that so many mediocre individuals are being fought over by competing institutions, while so many other talented people are lucky to land a single interview.
Yeah, it must be nice to have multiple offers...
Don't worry though. I was mediocre in my day AND I never got a job, so sometimes things just work out!
I doubt anybody's SEEKING mediocrity. Willing to overlook it if that means getting to hire their buddy, their buddy's spouse, or their buddy's student, certainly. The Yale thing is absurd and probably indicates that there was only ever one candidate in the running. I know so many great young scholars who are publishing well while teaching the lecture/intro/writing intensive courses that entitled boomers are too special to teach. And good people, to boot. If Yale couldn't find anyone worth hiring in this market, something fishy has happened.
Dudes. Dudes.
Like Constantine's economy, there are two markets here: the market of those who are of the right caste, and the market of the rest. The two do not meet.
Make of this what you will.
The Yale thing is absurd, but even more absurd (if it's true) is the Michigan thing. Two positions, one supposedly filled but put on hold, both ultimately unfilled, with so many other people in need of a job.
I honestly don't see the absurdity. If there was no one that would fit their profile, why would they have to hire someone who is not what they need? It's not a question of being good/bad/mediocre, but just not exactly what they are looking for. Am I too naive or what?
Plus, one Michigan position is filled, just deferred until next year.
Have you seen the job market numbers lately? There are people who fit even the increasingly specific and odd requirements of any job that gets advertised. And there's something wrong with people who squander or risk lines through excess pickiness when the field, especially most of its young people, is in real trouble.
Yale's job ad was not particularly specific, if I recall - I should think there would be at least a few people who work on Classical and Archaic Greek History, especially considering there are so few Greek History jobs each year.
And if the rumors above are true, both Michigan curator jobs from this year and last year will have to be redone in the future. Again, having a hard time believing that the qualifications were so specific that they couldn't find someone willing and able to begin this academic year.
OK, guys, in case there is a misunderstanding or misunderstandings. This year there were two jobs:
(1) A junior Greek History job, which went to the current VAP. There was a search and it ‘succeeded.’
(2) A Classics & Humanities (at Yale Humanities is a ‘program,’ including an undergrad major) open rank job. There were 5 candidates, one of whom is senior and the spouse of a senior Yale classics faculty member. This search failed.
*two Yale jobs
I wasn't really talking about requirements. I was thinking that if I were on a hiring committee, I'd probably find a lot of research topics uninteresting and not that important. You know, this 'meh' feeling. So I guess we can be happy I'm very far away from making any such decisions :)
So Yale attempted not one but two inside hires this year. One of them not succeeding, they couldn't find anybody else who might be suitable to teach in a liberal arts program, despite bringing five people on campus and running an open rank search!
Yea yea, I know, I'm sure these searches were perfectly open and legitimate and not at all predetermined...
In the case of the second job, keep in mind that the committee must have been a mix of Classics and Humanities faculty. So you can imagine how an attempt to run a fake search by one dept. would founder on the rocks of....other people who don’t have any incentive to make a spousal hire.
I bet that's what happened.
@11:23 sheeesh, no one is saying that fake searches are fine. I applied for the Yale thing myself, despite being forewarned that it isn't for me. what I'm saying is that very good research institutions look for something more than just the ability to teach students and fulfilled requirements.
I mean this in a kind way, but it doesn't sound like you've been around the block very many times. I promise you that some of the people who applied for what was, I believe, an open-rank, open-field search at Yale were not doing "meh" research and were also good teachers.
Re: 11:36 am / 11:48 am, I'd have to agree. That search died because of either the Humanities faculty (more likely) or the administration. This does not bode well for the health of "Archaia" at Yale, since the spouse currently employed at Yale would have to be super-humanly magnanimous not to be pissed.
Having been on the wrong end of an inside hire before, even I am surprised that they seemingly invited several graduate students alongside the associate-level spousal hire. There's stacking the deck in a strategic way, but this seems botched to me. The disparity between applicants indicates some dysfunction (even if it's a pre-determined search, it shouldn't be this obvious), and makes me wonder if the Humanities/Classics folks were on the same page from the get-go.
And bringing so many people on campus, putting junior people through the wringer of a visit, pitting them against a senior person when they don't have a real shot at the job, obviously, if all four other interviewees couldn't be made an offer... We'll never know exactly what happened here, but this ain't a good look on you, Yale.
Since Archaia was mentioned, did an inside person get that, too?
I have no inside info from Yale, but it looks to me like like this wasn't a spousal hire from the get-go; having both a search and a split position are too cumbersome. Presumably, Classics hoped that they could use it opportunistically for that purpose. Maybe they were even able to negotiate an open-rank search for what was originally meant as an entry-level hire to make that possible. But it's hardly clear that the junior applicants had no real chance.
Yale's Greek history search was not fake. If it comforts people to tell themselves that it was, then they can do so. But they shouldn't make such claims in public, for reasons too obvious to need spelling out.
About the author: I applied for the position and did not get it, but have no concerns about the way the search was conducted.
None of us will know the internal workings of the Yale SC. Here's the problem, though. You know how English universities only hire Europeans or people already at English institutions and we all roll our eyes? Because how is it possible that all of the best candidates just happen to be English. When an awful lot of the best candidates in US searches just happen to turn out to be people the SC is already friends with, it is the same optic. When one university tries to hire two such people in the space of one year...
The search for the Yale Greek history position was probably decided before the first candidate was flown out. I wish that the other applicants for the position had known. It would have saved them the time and emotional energy of having to go through the application process.
As much as we would like to think that SCs as committees made up of impartial, brilliant minds, that's just not how the academic universe operates.
I'm sure Michigan also would have liked to know that the search for Yale Greek history was decided before the first candidate was flown out (if the rumor is correct).
It does boggle the mind that some many people seem to be fighting over such junior scholars which such limited records of publication. The Yale hire is undoubtedly quite bright and will have a fine career. But she has only a couple of minor publications, the sort of things not uncommon for graduate students to have. Nothing screams bidding war between Yale and Michigan. Many of the other successful candidates for top jobs at research universities this year also have surprising sparse CVs, again the sort of stuff one might expect from a decent graduate student. When so many candidates on the market multiple years rack up impressive and proven records, its disheartening that people are still being hired on "promise."
Interesting news/insights... I'd imagine that it's extremely disheartening to have a monograph (and more) out, and get so close, only to be pipped by someone with 2-3 articles, and who's also been fought over! The only consolation lies in assuming that the winner has a book or two in the pipeline that just isn't visible as yet on online profiles etc. We wish them well, but wonder at the SC and how it all played out.
Seriously....
Lol! (12.10 here again) Okay, the only consolation is that life is elsewhere? There's really no point in getting bitter and twisted, though I'm tempted... So much effort - a seminar on Theophrastus, for God's sake!
As a Yalie who has yet to comment on these hires so far, I am both amused and impressed by the accuracy of these comments
A Servius reminder: Critique of powerful groups who shape the future of our profession, such as SCs, is welcome here. But please do not cross the line into criticizing the CVs of specific junior scholars.
11:54,
Buy on the rumor, sell on the news.
No one is critiquing the junior scholars. Their CVs are respectable for someone at that stage in the career. Their promise may well be genuine. The question is why do SCs prefer to hire rookies to especially prestigious positions when there are so many proven scholars with up to five or six years experience out there.
Why do SCs prefer to hire rookies? For the same reasons that venture capitalists are willing to blow huge amounts of money on risky investments, in the hopes that they're getting in on the ground floor to 'the next facebook'. People want to have a share in what could be the next huge thing (/scholar), even at the expense of a share in something that is already really solid (but is, they think, (therefore) unlikely to be stellar).
That search seems like it was problematic from the start. I wouldn't waste too much time trying to discover what was the SC's motivation and why "so many proven scholars with up to five or six years out there" didn't get it. That hire was determined early on. If anything, the SC should apologize to the other finalists for wasting their time
I have to agree with @5:36. The question is whether these young hires will pay off in the long run. Looking at some of the more recent ones, it seems that some do and don't make it (i.e. gain tenure). Often these young hires are hired off the word of their supervisors and references-- I know of more than one instance where this has happened in the last five years at R1 universities and the successful candidate had not a single publication to their name, but they had some big names vouch for them. And it's usually some thing that happens *among* R1 universities, just as the discussion here as has focused on the Yale, Michigan, and Brown hires (among others) from what I can see.
Nevertheless, every SC is entirely entitled to gamble on a candidate, which seems to be one reason (there are others) why some supervisors will still tell their students not to publish at all, or very little, while in graduate school.
It does seem that R1s can afford to gamble in the way that a SLAC or R2- cannot. At a place like Yale, an Assistant Professor can be little more than a glorified 6 year post-doc, and there is little risk the department will lose the tenure line if the first round rookie hire becomes the next Alex Smith rather than the next LeBron (apologies for mixing football and basketball references).
I wonder if there is also an element of conspicuous consumption. Many R1s this year have hired people for whom tenure is not a slam dunk, in the sense they do not have proven record of publication (not a knock on the successful candidates; this is the simple reality of hiring ABDs/1 year out) to guarantee that they will likely meet the inordinately high standards these institutions require. That may be the point. They don't need to hire someone who can get tenure. In the worst case scenario, they can always discard failed golden child to snatch up the next golden child who comes along six years from now, or hold a senior search to acquire some eminent Oxbridge scholar.
A lot of truth in what 8:13 says, but I'd differ on one point. The tenure requirements at the very top universities (except perhaps Harvard and Yale, both theoretically trying to reform) aren't especially tough, at least in terms of quantity. The toughest places to get tenure are slightly further down the food chain, where defensive and status-conscious administrators make outrageous demands.
8:18, interesting to hear this....can you give some examples of schools where this is the case? are we talking about national public research universities? OSU/UT, that kind of thing?
@5:51 PM: As someone who applied for not only the Yale History position, but also the Michigan position, it is embittering to learn this news. If it was truly an inside hire from the beginning, the SC should indeed explain the rationale. But it seems like their new hire was not an example of someone who "had not a single publication to their name", but as an ABD had 2 (3? not clear from website) peer-ref'd articles/chapters. The one person in my cohort who had something comparable before defending also was snatched up into TT job heaven.
Some people have comparable (or even more) and still don't manage to get a single TT or even a VAP interview. There's the sense of embitterment.
The Yale position looks like an inside hire but I doubt the SC would ever explain its rationale. Anyways, that department is balkanized and has become acrimonious. Consider yourself fortunate, 8:38, that you didn't end up there.
FYI, the ARCHAIA post-doc may also go to an inside candidate. Apologies for those who invested time and effort applying
It is possible that ABDs or recent PhDs can emerge as "dark horse" candidates, particularly in unpleasant and Balkanized departments (i.e. Yale). A candidate with many publications has more for each member of the search committee to find something to object to, in terms of topic, methodology or conclusion. For the ABD with no publications, or even a recent PhD with, hypothetically, a couple of uncontroversial book chapters and a short, relatively innocuous peer reviewed article, it is easier to avoid such pitfalls. A candidate with more hard-hitting stuff or worse, a book that makes an serious argument suggesting other scholars are wrong, is more likely to find detractors, rather than allies, among the SC.
Speaking for my own university, there are a LOT of people with publications as graduate students who get nary an interview. And real peer reviewed publications, not half-credits like book chapters.
Ironically, I think in the bizarre neverland we find ourselves in, book chapters may count for more with SCs than peer reviewed publications.
A peer reviewed publication i s a lonely exercise. Your work is read by two strangers. This makes it harder to do, and traditionally more prestigious. By design, you don't get to published peer review articles based on where you got your PhD or who your advisor was.
Book chapters involve a much more cozy process. You get invited to contributed based on your academic network, and your work is seldom rejected. It also tends to be less hard-hitting, because you are convincing an editor who already likes you, rather than two skeptical strangers.
Now think of the dynamics of a Search. SCs do not know much about the speciality to the hire---the hire is supposed to be the specialist. But they do care about academic networks, social capital and prestige etc. The result is a mediocre book chapter may be more valuable to a candidate, because it reveals them to be part of a prestigious social network, rather than a well placed peer reviewed piece.
I may not be right about this, but if I am, it is not good for the field at large.
We should not forget that the majority of edited volumes at major academic presses go through anonymous readers as well as the book's editor(s). This is not to discount the points made about the tendency for edited volumes to favor the well connected and well funded (if derived from an international conference, for example), but it is to say that one usually has to convince several readers beyond the volume's editor(s).
True, but an editor who has already asked someone to contribute is less likely to reject them out right following bad reviews, although they might request revisions. Even one mediocre review can kill a piece at a peer reviewed journal.
I think both @3:47 and @3:57 make good points - the invited book chapter can be both a reflection of one's ability to network as well have a peer-reviewed component.
At the end of the day, however, I still think it's all luck of the draw: you can do everything right (good publications, good recommendations, good research profile, etc.) and still not get anywhere, while someone else gets multiple offers, sometimes at the expense of positions going unfilled and even more people being left without jobs.
I agree with the invited book chapter thing. I've seen it: the network created by the volume got someone a job.
Is this with regard to the UCLA Greek hire? A certain case of absent publications for a TT job at an R1. Aside from a divided department, does anyone know how that happened?
This is bad for the field, if true, since the "network" of a young scholar is usually largely a proxy for class background. Blind peer reviewed journal publication, for all of its problems and arbitrariness, is the most objective indication of scholarly quality that we have. Of course a chapter counts for something, but it should not be viewed in the same category as an article. Nb that while book proposals are refereed, this process is usually not blind, allowing for elitism, gender bias, back scratching etc. in a way that articles do not.
I'm a big fan of peer-review for its intended purpose, but it's designed to assess particular arguments for particular purposes. It's a poor proxy for judging people, especially if a department is trying to project decades into the future.
I'm struck by the claims above about people being hired with no record. They've all spent a couple of years writing a dissertation. You could make a reasoned argument that those (and letters of recommendation from people who worked with a candidate for years) should be tossed out because they are admittedly subject to the various kinds of bias described above, but the cost is that you're choosing to ignore the vast majority of the actually available information. Maybe that's worth the cost, but I'd like to see the cost confronted.
I am on the market again (and again), and can point to specific jobs that went to people right out of grad school who are far less qualified than I in terms of publication records, so I am sympathetic to the arguments made above. HOWEVER, I have also taught PhD students as a VAP/Lecturer, and will tell you that I can think of specific grads who, even as 2nd- and 3rd-year students, were so clearly outstanding that as soon as they are on the market I would gladly support them in whatever way I could, even if they had no articles published yet. So there are TWO (at least) perspectives on this matter, and those of you trying to shame certain institutions -- not just now but also in the past -- ought to realize that there is more to choosing junior candidates than seeing their articles. And I write this as someone with an enviable number of articles.
Back in the 90s, when times were good, many people were hired with no record of all. Plum jobs were handed out on the basis of a few chapters of a dissertation. Some of those people hired on promise succeeded spectacularly, others washed out and failed to get tenure, or eeked through the tenure process only to become miserable Terminal Associates. In many instances, it would only be 2-3 years after the PhD when promise begins to gel into palpable success, as people publish, get book contracts, and develop their teaching competence.
That was then. Now there are very few jobs. There are many people 2-6 years out with proven records of teaching and research. They can show their promise in much more concrete fashion than just a nearly finished dissertation and couple of TA stints. Despite such a pool, very good jobs at very good places are going to ABDs.
Many fields in the sciences have a relatively strict expectation that PhDs will do one to two post-docs. Such an expectation is not necessarily a good thing, as post-docs are frequently enserfed labor. But it does mean that most hires go to people 2+ years out with some record of professional accomplishment, rather than allowing departments to snatch up the next shiny thing.
That recognition that some people are "so clearly outstanding that as soon as they are on the market" is also a result of networking and class. For the person just on the market who is working adjunct as they finish and unable to afford the SCS or other meetings, networking becomes a lot more difficult - and those people easily become invisible. After a few years of teaching 4-4s (or working a job in another field) and never having the time or resources to become visible enough so that people like @1:06 PM "notice" them, and not getting anywhere even with the good publication record, well, you can understand where the bitterness comes from.
There is an elephant in the room that no one is mention: the fact an article or book chapter is published is not actually a testament to its quality or excellence. Otherwise those of us into Homer or tragedy or Latin poetry (etc) would not have much significant and original work to do. So it might be that a person has articles or chapters that, to one or more members of a SC, do not seem all that good. And since newly-minted PhDs are graded on a curve, if they have a promising dissertation, they have an edge.
I asked an R1 faculty member once why some people are hired on the promise of a diss and some are not and the answer was interesting. S/he claimed that you could tell from the scope of the dissertation whether a person had a few articles, a book, or two books in them, and that at a PhD-granting R1 it was unwise to hire someone with at most 1 book in them, since that would make tenure iffy and full professor a moonshot.
Don't know how much sense that makes but it gave me an interesting glance at how one R1 faculty member reasons about a job candidate.
*is mentioning
And the people who have been out a while don't suddenly NOT have the things that 8:40 mentioned: the PhD doesn't expire after your first round on the market!! Rather, they have all of them, plus publications, maybe a book contract, more conference presentations, an independent teaching record, maybe some undergraduate thesis direction, departmental service, letters from people who have worked with them as colleagues rather than just dissertation supervisors... I think the SCs must prefer inexperienced and untested golden children because that reminds them of their situation back in the day when they got jobs in the fat times, that is my only explanations.
Of course the situation described above applies to those lucky enough to get VAPs, which come with the opportunity to expand your CV. I would hope that SCs take the stresses facing adjuncts seriously when they're making their decisions, although I don't think that's likely.
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