False in the sense that it's not that predictable. It might be intended as one giant area of need and they really don't care. Either term might have been added as as sop to a (smaller) faction in the department, but not represent a real possibility (and that gets all the more complicated if other departments are in the mix, e.g. history, religious studies).
These jobs tend to be in history departments. Given that they are looking for an ancient historian, the search committee tends to be made up of the Medievalists in the department. Medievalists know that "Late Antiquity" feels an awful lot like the good ol' Middle Ages, with Christians, Bishops, Germanic kings, the same kind of things they are interested in. And so there will be a strong temptation for them to hire a brother/sister Medievalist, rather than someone who studies things that their small minds cannot understand, like polytheism or democracy.
Even if the Medievalists are open minded, some practical considerations incline History departments to hire Late Antiquarians. A good deal of Service teaching in History departments covers enormous time periods and are increasingly global in scope. Late Antiquarians tend to fall somewhat more center mass chronologically than say, someone who does Classical Greece. Also, since Late Antiquarians tend to have quite a good grasp on Christianity, this helps teaching other areas of European history, like the Reformation.
Another winning classicist in the news: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/columbia-university-professor-sexually-harassed-student-lawsuit-article-1.3537450
New year already? I am still grieving jobs from last season! It feels like when you get dumped and sort of hope if you hold out, it will seem romantic and they'll come back to you, but actually you're just in your pajamas drunk at 3 pm listening to Patsy Cline when they show up to drop off the last of your things.
At last! Someone has finally posted in this thread, giving me a 10-second distraction from my work. Bless you, stranger, whoever you are.
This does sound plausible, since in the not too distant past I had an interview with that department, and based on whom they hired I have suspected that the search was fixed. (This is not the only time I have lost out on a job, but it is the only time I have had that sense, so this is not sour grapes on my part.)
7:02 What do you mean by "inside candidate"? Normally that refers to someone who's already attached to the department as an adjunct, vel sim., and they don't appear to have any such person on the roster. And it's hard to imagine anyone on that list has a spouse who'd be up for an entry level classics job.
The spouse could be in any department at the university. Despite this information, I'll be applying for the UMass Amherst job anyway, since one really never knows what's going on behind the scenes. No doubt I am setting myself up for disappointment, but I do that every time I apply for anything.
You always have to apply. But it sometimes helps to suspect things are an inside hire, just so you don't feel as pissed off afterwards. I find it hurts less to fail when you known the game is rigged (although then one can be pissed about how rigged the system is!).
I appreciate that by this analogy the interview itself is a reanimated corpse. Somehow that seems fitting, given my experience with such things (interviews, that is, not necromancy).
Yes the one downside of applying for an "inside" position is that you might find yourself wasting your time with a Skype interview so that the Department can prove to HR that it ran a "real" search.
In hindsight, an overwhelming majority of my interviews turned out to be a waste of time. Arguably the entire job search is a waste of time. If only we could know ahead of time what jobs we were going to get, so that we wouldn't have to waste our time applying for the ones we won't.
"The spouse could be in any department at the university." Maybe, but at that point I'm not sure "inside candidate" means what it usually means on this site, i.e. a pre-determined hire. If the Classics department were colluding with the leading spouse's department, why write such a poorly targeted ad?
@8:09 (et al). Obviously the rules work differently in different places, but in my university a spousal search would not be advertised. The spousal department would conduct a process (interview, etc.) to determine whether the spouse is appointable, but if the spouse is not appointed, there is no appointment.
I don't know anything about this job, but a few years ago a prestigious private college hired the spouse of a faculty member with an ad that was extremely poorly targeted, such that it drew ire here after the fact for the department's willingness to waste everyone's time. This was a job that was identified here early on in the year as fixed, correctly as it turns out.
There are degrees of fixed-ness and fakeness. Sometimes the current VAP is the likely hire, but the right application might sway the committee's collective judgement. It is probably better to just say "there is an inside candidate" and explain who that is - recent Ph.D., current VAP/lecturer/adjunct, spouse of someone junior/someone senior. That helps to give people a sense of just how fake/fixed the search is, and whether it's worth applying.
I agree that Inside Hires and fake searches come in degrees. That is why it is always worth applying. But knowing it is a fake search can prevent you from wasting you time constantly checking the Wiki, or obsessively re-writing a cover letter to meet the search's oddly specific requirements.
Recently there was a search in my field where I knew the Search Committee Chair. I thought I might have an advantage, until I looked on the website and realized that the Search was fake, and that the highly specific add had been tailored to ensure that a longtime VAP was promoted to tenure track.
I did not even get an first round interview, but one advantage of knowing it was a fake search--almost transparently so--was that my next interaction with the Search Chair were affable and free from resentment, because I knew he was simply following through on a VAP promotion, rather than deliberately ignoring my application.
OP re: inside hire for Amherst job: I'm definitely still applying, you never know if something will sway them, what departmental politics are, and so on, I think everyone should still apply (who's eligible, of course).
Agreed. I know of one spousal hire search that went sideways, and resulted in the department hiring someone else altogether. In the end it worked out better for the candidate and the department, and even for the spouses, who eventually moved somewhere else.
Does anyone know if their recommenders have received a prompt from St Olaf yet? It sounds like recommendations will be solicited only after an initial cut.
I heard from many sources that you should never exceed the two-pages limit. 2.5 is a surprise! On a personal note I think it's always better to make an impression that you could write more about your stellar research, if not the silly restrictions, than to run out of things to say and exceed the limit.
@10:16 and 11:02. Mid-career prof at 'Middling State', here. I've been closely involved in eight or ten searches in my career, and I don't think that two versus two-and-a-half will irk anyone, provided that extra paragraph or so of text is actually doing something. Don't forget, however, that once we meet you in person at the SCS/AIA, the cover letter will be mostly forgotten, so its primary purpose from your perspective is that it gets you an interview there.
Don't forget, however, that once we meet you in person at the SCS/AIA, the cover letter will be mostly forgotten, so its primary purpose from your perspective is that it gets you an interview there.
Ooh, that's bad news. I bring my cover letter and copies of it to every conference interview, and whenever I am asked a question I respond with "Let me refer all of you to my statement in the second paragraph, fourth sentence" (vel sim.) before reading it aloud.
I would say keep the cover letter to two pages. If you are very new in the field, you simply cannot exceed two pages without filling it with all sorts of fluff. And once you've done real stuff (teaching, publications, etc.) these should speak for themselves, without having to elaborate in great detail. Besides, SCs are overwhelmed with thousands of pages of applications. Do they really want another half page to read?
I have it on good authority that the inside candidate for the UMass Amherst position is no longer in the running. I'm sorry, I wish I could say more, but I can't.
There is no point in trying to discern the "rules" for a job app, because every SC will enforce different ones. Does spilling over onto that extra page allow you to tailor the letter to a specific institution? For some SCs, that might just get you in the door -- or rather, failing to tailor will get you tossed. For other SCs, it is the extra space you take up with tailoring will get you tossed. They all make up their own rules which are essentially random, so don't bother worrying about it.
So does all this about Amherst mean that as more of a Romanist I'd have a shot? I disregarded it at first, because Greek, but would actually like to go there (wishful thinking...)
The W&M short-term hire from last year will likely be the long-term hire this year; word on the street is they just hadn't gotten official approval to offer a tt job last go-round.
Re WVH, the first group of people who deserve maximum sympathy are the victims, in this case those who had to endure his dirty old man groping routine. Some, including the accuser, have persevered to remain in the field, although one wonders how many submitted as the high price of staying in.
Secondly, one feels sympathy for his graduate students, especially those who have not yet landed TT jobs. Those who wrote dissertations under his supervision no doubt had high hopes that they would become part of his impressive placement record, but now he is a poison pill, or at best, something that must be hastily excused under the excuse "I had no idea."
The problem is, of course, that unlike Cruel Daddy, who surprised his colleagues and students (and it seems his wife) with his arrest for child pornography, WVH falls into the Weisensteinian category of "everybody knew." Hell, I knew and I have nothing to do with Columbia. To be fair, a decent person (male) could say "he has a reputation as a lech, and I've privately warned female colleagues about him, but he is an expert on the subject I wanted to write on, and he places people left and right." Fair enough. But it is still a taint on those individuals, unfairly or not, even if his behavior to more the product of the rot and inequality in academia that mirrors much of the rot and inequality we see in society more broadly.
More egregious than the teaching load -- it's clearly marked as a teaching position, so you're not expected to do research, and the odds are good that for some classes one would teach 2+ sections -- is this rather amazing requirement: "sample syllabi for three courses, one of which should be for a course in Comparative Mythology (to meet the Diversity Requirement); one for a course that fulfills the University’s Oral Communication Competency Requirement; and the third for an undergraduate course of the applicant’s choosing that would appeal to non-majors." A number of us have taught mythology and already have syllabi, but COMPARATIVE mythology? Probably not as many. And how in the world does that satisfy a diversity requirement, unless the mythologies are, say, African or Mayan, which few if any of us are qualified to teach, rather than the more pertinent Sumerian? And I don't know about you, but I've never taught a course that would meet some "oral communication competency requirement." So if one doesn't have such fantastical syllabi one either can't apply or has to spend countless hours creating them. What a messed up place FSU must be.
Comparative Mythology is actually fairly common, and there are some well-known (and undergraduate-appropriate) texts that work well with Classics. Prominent mythologies to include: Scandinavian/Norse Mythology, Indic mythology, Native American mythology. Those aren't normally things a Classicist might study formally, but they are things that a lot of us read voraciously as kids and less voraciously as adults. To make a Comp. Myth. syllabus is the work of some Googling and a couple hours' worth of thought. Yes, some people will have their own peculiar advantages, but that's how he job market is. It's not an egregious requirement. The 5-5 load for $48K is more egregious, although local CoL means $48K isn't really out of line either: it's comparable to a 50-55K+ pittance many other places, and easily to 95K in New York.
Comparative Mythology (aka "Ancient Mythology: East and West") has been taught as a diversity fulfillment, primarily by graduate students and in classes of 50+ students, for at least the last decade or more at FSU. The syllabus is simple and can probably be easily found/got, given the number of people who have taught this class in the past. It is a popular course at FSU.
The salary is decent for the area; the teaching load is not. Nor is the lack of tenure potential and tenure protection. And I suspect research funds and support for summer projects.
If there is a simple syllabus, then why ask people to provide one? Just provide them with the syllabus when you hire them, and say they are welcome to use this, modify it, or write a new one. Give me a break.
So here is how things look to me: 1) FSU's comparative mythology course is a simple one that can even be taught be grads. 2) Whether taught by faculty or grads, they are almost certain not to be actual experts at COMPARATIVE mythology, but rather will be competent in Greco-Roman mythology, and have done little if any work with the other mythologies. 3) The course apparently is quite popular, and since it seems to be taught by a rotating group of people rather than one popular professor its popularity is almost certainly due to its being an easy course about fun stories. Courses tend to be popular because of subject matter, quality of professor, or ease of grading (and often two or three of those), and since here it can't be quality of professor it has to be the first or third, or both.
I would therefore suggest that this is not a properly rigorous university-level course, but a dumbed down one taught by those who are not fully qualified to teach it, and its existence is mainly a way of boosting enrollments to please a dean while enabling the department to meet a diversity requirement. Otherwise, they would be offering a basic classical mythology course.
Ok, but if they wanted to communicate "we need you to be willing to teach our long-established, butts-in-seats pseudo-diversity course," there are ways to do that. The way they chose to handle it, asking applicants to custom-design a syllabus, adds another hurdle to an already onerous job app for a crappy job.
Yup. I don't think they should call for a tailored syllabus for a course that's been taught by dozens of MA and PhD students over the years, unless they are looking for a tailored class. @11:39 PM is absolutely on track with all three points, especially the last one.
You can see from a quick search on FSU's webpage that there are 8 sections of this course being taught during Fall 2017 alone. Four are taught by grad students, one by a post-doc, two by a non-tenure teaching prof, and one by a long-time tenured faculty member who often teaches it for some unknown reason. The sections range in enrollments from at least 50 to probably 150-200 or more. TAs would be provided for the large classes, but not the "smaller" (50) ones.
Also, @11:39, "its existence is mainly a way of boosting enrollments to please a dean while enabling the department to meet a diversity requirement" - are you talking about the comparative myth course, or the position itself? I know the answer, but it could apply with ease to the position. Why else create a position with no hope of tenure, crappy pay, and an absurd teaching load, if not to boost enrollments? On the plus side, they're not exploiting more graduate students. They're just exploiting those with the PhD.
By the way, I still haven't seen the full job ad (where is it?), so it's possible I could be totally off the mark...but this sure looks like CLT3378, especially if it meets the Diversity Requirement.
The excessive application for an shitty 1 year 5-5 adjunct position shows that the comfortably tenured in that department are more than happy to exploit the adjunct pool, to begin with by wasting the time of many applicants by having them write a syllabus of a course that the department routinely lets graduate students teach. Since only one (dumb and desperate) person will get the job, this is a waste of everyone else's time.
It is customary not to name names on this blog, but given that John Marincola was the President of the SCS (and therefore a public figure as well as a senior scholar), and given that he fashioned himself as an advocate of adjunct issues, it is in fact somewhat startling that his department could put out such a frankly predatory job ad.
Mid-career faculty member at another institution with a different read on the FSU job. It is a shitty position, but it's not an adjunct position. I have no inside information, but from what I have seen at my own institution, you could just as easily read this as the department's attempt to turn what would normally be courses taught by adjuncts into a sorta real job. Rather than paying three different people a pittance (maybe $2000-$4000 a course) to teach a couple of courses they've cobbled it all together and given it a low but at least real salary (and they are honest enough to publish it), benefits, and it sounds like a real contract with the possibility of renewal. Is it a sweet deal? Obviously not. Is it the most egregiously predatory job offering ever? Sadly, probably not by a long shot.
I would second the reading given at 1:28. What the members of the department want and are able to obtain from the administration (i.e. holders of the purse strings and final decisions) is often not ideal, but it seems to me that FSU's department has been able to make something less than horrible out of a bad situation. Again, is it perfect? Obviously not. Will it keep the holder of said position off of food stamps, minimize the number of preps (albeit with a lot of grading), and give them access to a library while they hit the ground for another season of applications? Yep.
All fair enough, given the current situation, but I don't think that people are complaining about the job itself. It's a crap job, but we know that is the reality these days. What people are complaining about is that they're being asked to reinvent the wheel simply to be considered for the crap job. And don't say "the syllabus is out there, just copy it," because nobody is simply going to copy and send them their own syllabus, they're going to spend hours painstakingly crafting a unique one -- at least if they want real consideration. That's the part of the process people find over the top. Added, of course, to the other unique demands of this particular job ad.
A few comfortably tenured folks have noted that at a certain level this looks like a decent job. As someone stuck in the VAP trap, I would say the FSU job has decent pay (considering lower COL), although the teaching load is hideous.
On the balance a decent, if suboptimal short term position, in a world where short term positions are become less remunerative, more onerous and ever harder to get.
As 3:55 notes so well, what is insulting is the requirement to write a unique syllabus for a unique course that is seldom taught in our field. This may be worth it for the winning candidate, but it will waste hours of the other 50+ candidates who will likely apply. Instead of making a syllabus they will probably never teach elsewhere, they could be working on their own research, finishing a dissertation, or preparing for the actual courses they are teaching this year that will benefit actual students.
One thing that SCs like those at FSU don't seem to realize is that when they create extra, idiosyncratic requirements, they waste the time of the entire profession. Let us say it takes 2 hours to put together a decent syllabus, and 50 people apply. Barring the successful candidate, thats 98 hours of Classicist time wasted, not spent on books, articles, teaching, etc.. That represents an opportunity cost in time not only to the candidates (and those applying for this position are by definition the most vulnerable members of the profession), but also to the field at large.
Don't forget the required sample syllabus for a course that "fulfills the University’s Oral Communication Competency Requirement." So in effect, you're writing TWO tailored syllabi, and spending time researching what those things mean (oral communication competency? Like...student presentations?).
Also don't forget the service component of this job: "assisting with training and supervising the graduate instructors of record teaching those courses." You might get some teaching relief for this, but you might not. Who really knows.
Also if you can write a sample syllabus from scratch for a course you've never taught before in a subject you are not familiar with, I applaud you.
Ooh, didn't see that FSU want TWO syllabi specific to the department.
So the department is happy wasting 196 hours of people's time (assuming fifty candidates and two hours per FSU specific syllabus to fill a position normally taught by a graduate student.
SHAME FSU, SHAME.
PS: FSU, here is how you write a job announcement that isn't the unprofessional and exploitative one you posted:
"We are looking for expertise in teaching Classical myth, and a willingness to develop a course on comparative mythologies and another that will meet the University's Oral Communication Competency requirement.
Please submit a Cover letter, a CV, a writing sample and a syllabus of a course of your own choosing that would appeal to non-majors."
I'm the one who had the three-point posting up above. One of you asked me:
Also, @11:39, "its existence is mainly a way of boosting enrollments to please a dean while enabling the department to meet a diversity requirement" - are you talking about the comparative myth course, or the position itself? I know the answer, but it could apply with ease to the position. Why else create a position with no hope of tenure, crappy pay, and an absurd teaching load, if not to boost enrollments? On the plus side, they're not exploiting more graduate students. They're just exploiting those with the PhD.
In response, I'll clarify that a course of this nature seems a way for a department boost its overall enrollment numbers, thus demonstrating relevance to the administration. The cost, quite likely, is that the course is not a rigorous one, and thus its being offered represents part of the dumbing down that happens at so many institutions of FSU's level.
Others have already made points I might have made, especially concerning the remarkable thoughtlessness of having people put together TWO syllabi on spec. To me, if you're a good teacher you can put together a good syllabus on any subject, given enough time, so why not have asked candidates to provide syllabi that they already have -- as is pretty standard -- but then tell the 10-12 who make the short list that they need to show specifically how they would teach these other two courses. Completely reasonable, and wastes no one's time. (To further drive home the point, I've been at this for a while, and do not remember ever seeing ANY posting requiring new syllabi to be made. Admittedly, I don't read every posting all the way through, so maybe I've missed an instance or two, but this is FAR from the norm, and FSU should learn a lesson and never do this again.)
I think having even 10-12 people write syllabi on spec is irresponsible. I think this should be a professional standard: no one should be required to produce work (outside of standard application materials) unless they have been hired and are being paid to teach the course.
Asking for a sample syllabus from a past course is perfectly reasonable, but demanding it address a specific course, especially one unique to the department, is absolutely wrong at any stage of the hire. This should be a professional standard. Again, it is odd that Marincola's department has so egregiously breached this standard, after his calls at SCS to be considerate to those of us off the TT.
The shaming of FSU is absolutely necessary. One insidious aspect of the jobs crisis has been materials creep. Rather than just asking for Cover letter, CV and writing sample, SCs ask for excessively tailored application materials. With many applicants on the market for 3,4,5 years thus is an enormous commitment to applications for jobs that never result in employment, or at best year to year short-term employment, like the mediocre job at FSU.
FSU's add takes this to another level. So SHAME, FSU.
Carping about the job application, unnecessarily onerous though it may be, seems to miss the point here. The fact that this job is being advertised at all is hugely problematic for our field and our profession. I don't think the fault entirely is with the department in this case, though, because they were likely put in a position of needing additional teaching capacity and feeling like they couldn't say no to a permanent-ish solution to their problem. My own R1 department is in a similar position: we have high Classics enrollments but insufficient teaching capacity, and when we go to the administration with a hiring request, the answer is not a TT line (with a 2-2 load) but either a 4-4 lecturer or a 3-3 teaching position analogous to the FSU job, both of which are significantly cheaper but nonetheless perpetuate the adjunctification of our profession. And every time a department is driven by necessity to accept one of these non-TT positions to address their teaching shortage, a TT line bites the dust. (This is why we have thus far refused such overtures from the administration.)
Keep this in mind: for $48,000 and no chance of tenure, FSU is getting the same amount of teaching (10 courses) they would get from 2.5 TT positions (assuming a 2-2 load), but at less than 1/3 the cost. If enough departments are willing to accept this -- no matter how desperate they are -- it becomes much more difficult in these times of budgetary crises (especially at state schools) for other departments to make the case for additional (or even replacement) TT lines. This is a bad precedent to set. I am sympathetic that FSU probably needs the teaching capacity, but this job ad is unethical and is bad for the field. And at least 50 hyper-qualified people will apply for it.
If you think teaching 10 classes a year is something you're up for, then teach high school. You'll make more money, and you'll still get the summers off.
Possible rationale for FSU 5-5. At my R1 State school, a TT appointment consists of 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% service. The teaching load is a 2-2, which would make a 100% teaching appointment a 5-5. (Note: course supervisory responsibilities, which I assume includes things like TA supervision and training is, for the most part, construed under “teaching.”) Doesn’t change the fact that the pay is low (about 75% of a normal starting TT salary). And the 3 syllabi AND writing sample is overkill and dumb (how many of those on the SC will actually read the writing sample?!?) and just plain abusive of applicants. And the (ahem) lack of clarity regarding the possibility of renewal or multi-year contracts should be, to say the least, disturbing to any potential applicant (MU position is *moderately* better in this respect). But In terms of the 5-5 part, I just don’t think it’s that unreasonable.
Two other things to keep in mind. First, FSU is a state school, so it could very well be the case that the dept (or even university) is bound by state law or the legislature or whatever when it comes to compensation. Second, $48k for what is probably 15-20 hours in the classroom per week is a better deal than what one will find at many public and private schools across the country. Again, not saying these observations justify the terms of this position—only that it doesn’t seem that unreasonable from a market perspective.
As for the logic that structures that market, well, that’s a much more depressing story....
somewhat less than 75% of a TT salary, given that most TT jobs are 9-month, and this one requires teaching during at least one summer session, for no additional renumeration.
The FSU job is sh*tty, but it's giving the lie to much sh*ttier jobs that don't admit to their sh*ttiness and are not as obviously sh8tty as the FSU job is.
Conclusion: Classics is a sh*tty field if you're not one of the super-elite / super-lucky / born-to-it-upper-class or one of the token not-born-to-it persons advanced to justify the rest.
If you're not wealthy, you're part of the problem. If you are wealthy, you're part of the problem.
@10:40 PM makes some good points, particularly about how TT FTE allotment (i.e., 40% teaching) does justify the logic of a 5-5 100% teaching position. I suppose we've seen variations on jobs like this in the past (though, to my knowledge, never with this heavy of a teaching load), but it always seems like those have been one-year gigs. What seems most concerning about this job and the others like it is that they portend a more seismic shift in the Classics job market. Whereas there is always the off chance that a one- or two- or three-year visiting position will be converted to a TT line—as we see every year—these "Teaching Faculty" lines will never get converted.
Perhaps not everybody sees this as a bad thing for the field: for some people, renewable longer-term contracts are surely preferable to the uncertainty of one-year positions. But, to my mind, this trend seems like one worth fighting, and I'd like to see the SCS put its money where its mouth is. Maybe there's nothing to be done, but just because the field and the job market look to be trending in this direction doesn't mean we have to sit by and let it happen.
What do you all think? Is there anything that can be done? Is there anything that should be done? Would any members of the departments that are being discussed on this blog care to weigh in anonymously on the internal discussions that led to these positions (and the department's feelings about them)?
I'm curious if anyone knows just what is happening at Vanderbilt. Their job posting stands out from most in our field because it almost seems anti-classics. The main part reads: "We seek an outstanding researcher and teacher of the ancient Greek world broadly defined. We welcome applications from scholars in related fields (history, material culture, language and literature, philosophy, religion) whose work interrogates or challenges traditional disciplinary boundaries.... The successful candidate will enhance the growing, energetic community of a new program dedicated to studying and teaching the ancient world in comparative perspective across cultures, regions, and periods." I this seems like more than being interdisciplinary. So what is this "new program," and is it something truly radical, or is this just boilerplate language?
My advisor told me that the department is deeply dysfunctional. I didn't know what to make of it and he wasn't particularly forthcoming with specifics, but he's a pretty cheery guy in general so I somewhat surprised.
The dysfunction might be old news by now: not only are there few associate or full professors left, but if you look at the department's faculty listing you will find something I've not seen before, a link to a "steering committee," some of whose members are outsiders to the field, which suggests some form of external oversight of a department that went through bad times. (Link: https://as.vanderbilt.edu/classics/people/index.php?group=steering-committee) It also suggests that junior faculty have no voice in the department's governance, since I see at least one person there who clearly should be involved in "steering" the department. Perhaps I'm reading too much into that, but SOMETHING rather strange has been happening over there.
I think 8:07 has it basically right, and this is the administration stepping in to fix what was long-term dysfunction. To my mind the more significant omission is a very senior person (who is still at the University, but apparently entirely out of Classics), rather than the junior one who (if we're talking about the same one) would probably be simpatico with this group and is in any case empowered in another department.
HOWEVER, it looks to me like the buried lede here is that "Classics and Mediterranean Studies" is no longer a "department" but a "program." I don't really know much about how Vanderbilt operates, but that would be a major demotion in importance at most universities.
I've heard it might be worse. The administration didn't support the MA, which is not accepting applications at the moment. As well their seem to have been tenure disputes, etc. Too bad because I really like the position and am hyper-qualified (along with a hundred of my brethren).
My view on the ISAW position, which is based on personal observations rather than any special knowledge, is that they're looking to hire to a fairly conventional classical archaeologist or ancient historian, since they don't have one of those yet. ISAW pays lip service to interdisciplinarity, but most of the faculty fit fairly conventionally into their native academic fields, and I don't get the impression that they're hunting for something specific. On the whole the institution doesn't seem to have a very clear sense of its own identity, and its hiring decisions hitherto have been opaque. So your guess is as good as mine. I'm going to apply (actually, I just did), but I'm not terribly optimistic about my chances (though I suppose the same goes for all my applications).
Roman historians, did it ever come to light who got the Roman history job at Michigan last year? I asked a medievalist grad student friend in the history department there, but she didn't have any info. You don't necessarily have to out the person, but please tell me that search didn't fail!
I'm 99% certain that Michigan hired someone, and even remember some specific details about her, but the History Department's website is so incompetently done that I can't find the person even after five minutes of searching. (The key detail I don't have is a name.)
Maybe she is getting a year off before showing up, in which case the website wasn't "incompetently done," though it is still poorly designed.
What's up with this year's job seekers' count? Is it still too early? Because 38 people on the market seems to be really low in comparison to previous years (ca. 70-80 people).
That is a part of the counter that doesn't work very well. People just don't add themselves, although some more will in the course of the year. But don't worry, you're not alone: there are roughly 600 people competing for the same jobs!!
By the end of the season, that list will look a lot longer. But most of the "normal" jobs -- i.e. the ones you might actually get -- are already there. Jobs that post from November on are often weird in some way. Maybe they're in England: you won't get that, unless you're English or have an English degree. Some attempts to hire people's spouses will probably appear, and lots more one-years, probably some more weird garbage like the "assistant professor" position at Missouri that are actually desperate attempts to meet teaching needs through exploitation. But there are only going to be a very few more legit tt postings from now on.
Well then, as a Greek literature person I can forget about finding a good job this season. But it does seem to come and go in waves? Last year was terrible for Roman historians and Latin literature people, so maybe next year I'll stand a chance...
A Prof I spoke to suggested that one reason why there has been an increase in art and archaeology jobs is that more and more universities are creating study abroad programs in Italy/Greece and need people who can teach these. But it may just be one of those waves... lots of archaeology and ancient history this year (with a few very good Latin lit. positions) and then not much for years...
'Some attempts to hire people's spouses will probably appear, and lots more one-years, probably some more weird garbage like the "assistant professor" position at Missouri that are actually desperate attempts to meet teaching needs through exploitation.'
And now Florida. The ads keep getting more and more bizarre.
U of Florida really needs to be censured. I pity the poor faculty member who had to actually write out the job description. All the way from teaching grad seminars to maintaining the Canvas website. I think it also says something about preparing meals for grad students during the summer.
There may be a good number of “ancient history” jobs, but it’s largely a bust for two key reasons. First, people with degrees in Classics will flood the applicant pool even though they aren’t properly trained historians. This isn’t necessarily remedied by search committees, as many will be seduced by philologists with degrees from Harvard, Chicago, etc.. most History Department search committees looking for an ancient historian will most definitely be composed of a mix of modern historians that don’t understand that a philologists cannot teach history. ...the second problem is when a history position opens up in a Classics Dept. This is a problem since they don’t *really* want a historian, but a phlilologist that doesn’t mind teaching a “classical civ” course or two. Classics Depts need to realize that philologists should teach only language, archaeologists only archaeology, and historians only history. The 19th century viewpoint that all faculty in a Classics Dept ought to teach “Latin and Greek at all levels” is just one of the many reasons why Classics is a dying field: the failure to adapt to a modern & more diversified world.
Anonymous 12:48, I'm an ancient historian, and with some pretty decent credentials on my C.V. I do see your point about teaching "Latin and Greek at all levels," since that's not what we should be teaching (other than Livy, Herodotus, etc.), but at the same time, if an ancient historian is not able to teach those languages at all levels then he or she cannot be much of a scholar, and should not be hired. So I don't get all worked up over that requirement.
I also question whether historians can only be "properly trained" in a history program. I know I sure wasn't, and yet I have those aforementioned decent credentials.
I agree that an ancient historian ought to be strong in the languages. Surely any scholar worth their weight should be able to easily read Latin and Greek—if not how could they possibly conduct solid research. ...but, what I think isn’t being considered on your part (and forgive me for assuming this ofnim incorrect) is that just because someone has the language skills does not mean that they are trained to actaully *teach* those language skills as well as a philologist. Imagine that you’re a historian of early modern France, or 20th century Germany, or of Renaissance Italy at a school such as Princeton, Stanford, or Yale. Well, in absolutely no case at all would any of the Language Depts at those institutions ever consider having a historian teach French, German, or Italian. Ever. Why? Well, not because they don’t have a deep understanding of the language in question (they all surely are fluent) but simply because *their* PhD, training, and teaching experience is in examining historical questions not in focusing on why a particular phrase uses a particular grammatical construction, et al. ...All of us here have complete command of the English language, yet, are any of here really qualified to teach a college English course examining literature? Likely not, otherwise English PhDs wouldn’t exist—they’d just pluck people off the street. ...I’m not frustrated with you, so please, don’t take my ranting and bowing off steam personal. :)
I think what’s not being differentiated here is that 12:48 is saying that he/she has a PhD in History and never had the opportunity as a grad student to teach Latin or Greek 101/2 like those of us from Classics. Without a doubt, if you have a PhD in History (not Classics) most Classics Depts will be weary, even if you may have a BA and/or MA in Classics prior to PhD. ...being said, I’m not sure how much of those statements in job ads are just cut-and-pasted and not really meant to be implemented; I mean, have any of us ever had a Greek Archaeology prof teach a Greek class ?
I am right now teaching in a program that last year had a Greek archaeologist teach intro-level Greek, and it did not go well. Though that happened under atypical circumstances. The point being, it does happen sometimes.
@12:48 (et al.). A job that requires a candidate who can teach both ancient history and classical languages will inevitably rule out people who can't do one or the other. From the Departmental perspective, however, they only need enough good candidates to fill out a short list, and one to be appointed. And in the present environment, they'll surely be embarrassed by choices.
Longtime lurker here. We’ll ik a bit heartbroken that I wasn’t contacted for an interview at UAlbany; of all that I applied to thus far, that’s the one I wanted more than any other. I felt that I was a good candidate (PhD from top-5; 3 published articles; 3 published reviews; 18-20 competitive grants; 7 conference presentations; numerous teaching awards; 6 years teaching experience during PhD and 2 years out as VAP at a top-10; etc..). I know it’s bad to ever take a lack of an interview request too bad, but this one really stung. ...just curious if the person who posted that they were contacted for a campus visit at UAlbany could share their basic stats ?? ...thanks in advance.
UAlbany was a weird posting. I’m 99% sure that whoever wrote it is confused on basic terminology. They said they wanted an historian of the ancient world who focused on “Hellenistic” history... surely they meant to say “Hellenic.” Odd, too, that they jumped right to campus visits... not sure if that means they received very very few applications or whole lot of dreadful ones.
Is anyone else surprised that a very prominent feminist in Roman history and Classics hasn't said anything about her old and now (publicly) disgraced friend, the current Weinstein of our world?
What I'm surprised about is that apparently everyone knew that he sexually harassed women, but gave him a silent permission to continue this. So sure, I guess that's included too.
"I mean, have any of us ever had a Greek Archaeology prof teach a Greek class ?"
What rock have you been under? Or perhaps you've only hung around larger departments. Just about every smaller department I know that is fortunate enough to have a bona fide archaeologist expects him/her to chip in with languages. And, yes, it's a major reason why classics is dying - the 19th century paradigm where literature is the almost exclusive means for studying antiquity.
Not sure why people are surprised about the Mediterranean and comparative job descriptions proliferating. Scares me more that folks are surprised about it. An admin recently buoyed our spirits by admitting the study of the ancient world is certainly a worthy endeavor. He followed up by saying something like, "But your privileging of literature, which illuminates a relatively narrow segment of the ancient world, is akin to ancient white lives matter." Now thanks to his support we're doing one of the Mediterranean hires that apparently flummoxes some of you.
@10:23 (and others). Truth be told, all historical disciplines are suffering right now, at least in my university and those in my neighborhood. Our Department of HIstory has seen its majors fall in half in the last decade. So has English, with the odd nuance that contemporary courses suffer. In Philosophy, history of philosophy is challenged; other parts, less so.
That Eidolon article seems a lot more relevant for high school teaching. I am hard pressed to think of any colleagues who try to whitewash slavery, rape, ephebophilia etc for their undergraduate students. It seems to me that teaching the *literature* with an emphasis on those issues is the very opposite of "ancient white lives matter" -- the goal is to expose the cracks in the facade, to expose the ugly underbelly of facile ideas about "the foundations of Western culture" precisely so we can critique and question it.
Our Greek Archaeologist teaches most of our Greek language courses, and the Classics department handles the Greek and Roman History classes because our History department doesn't have anyone who specializes in anything pre-Medieval. I think this is fairly common (my undergrad institution was similar). It's nice to have the chance to wear lots of different hats. I think I would get bored in a big department where I'm only ever allowed to teach within one specialty.
Not every Classicist should teach History (or vice versa), but some of us do a stellar job at both. Other Classicists do perfectly well teaching courses that are cross-listed with English or Philosophy. I think it's healthy for students and departments for some of the faculty to be able to cross disciplinary boundaries.
I agree with 2:16, but I have to say that unless the Classicist/Historian in question was trained in either a History Dept or one of the few cross-discipline PhD programs in ancient history (IPGRH @Michigan; UPenn’s Ancient History PhD program, etc..) there really is a great deal of disconnect from actual “history” training. Yes, one who holds a PhD in Classics will have a footing in the historical context (to varying degrees), but they more often than not (no fault of theirs, but due to how their PhD program is structured) they simply will NOT have the background in the scholarship that one coming from a History PhD has. For example, in most top History PhD programs in ancient history, the comp exams will require in-depth reading of historical approaches to varying topics of both Roman and Greek history. My program has a reading list of ca. 200-300 books/articles ( 12 topics for Roman & 12 topics for Greek history; each topic having a separate reading list of ca. 15-20 books/articles ). As such, an immensely deep understanding of the most significant aspects of both Greek/Roman history is cultivated. This isn’t tonsay that *all* history PhD programs are equal to this, but I have a very very hard time imagining that a standard Classics PhD would encompass anything even marginally similar—it would be quite unfair, as a Classics PhD student is buried with having to swim through Latin/Greek reading lists and schoalrship (perhaps on historical subjects) dealing with philological aspects. Again, that’s ok, nobody can be expected to be an expert in everything. But it’s my opinion that we ought to leave History to the historians and arguing about why something is in the dative and not the ablative for the philologists.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, my Classics PhD program neither required nor offered a single Greek or Roman history course during the time I was there. Yet it required PhD examinations in both Greek and Roman history.
Same thing at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill... top PhD programs in Classics yet no history courses offered by Classics Depts and no requirement. Though, a friend of mine at UNC said that many PhD candidates there are told to take an undergrad 100-level survey of either Greek or Roman History (from Hist. Dept) if their advisor thinks they are totally clueless about history (about 1/2 of all incoming Latin & Greek PhD students are deemed historically clueless). ...it seems that too many BA programs in Classics out there really don’t do a good job preparing students for graduate work, and add to that the fact that many (good ones, too!) PhD programs in Classics do little if anything to remedy this. :/
Anyone have any thoughts on the CAMWS letter re: counting tuition remission as taxable income? I hate to say this, but maybe it would be a good thing if graduate school was more restricted financially—we all know there’s a huge glut of Ph.D.’s who will never get a real job in their chosen field. Better to be driven to another, hopefully more lucrative, job now than 5-8 years of increasing debt / lost income later. I’m very sensitive to the social problem of making higher education even more financially out of reach, but if there were fewer graduate students there might be more money proportionally, and an actual possibility of a living wage while in grad school. With fewer grad students to teach introductory classes, there also might also be more incentive to hire TT or at least longer-term faculty. Basically, we’re facing an increasing supply of and decreasing demand for our services—would it be such a bad thing if the supply dried up a little?
"Truth be told, all historical disciplines are suffering right now, at least in my university and those in my neighborhood. Our Department of HIstory has seen its majors fall in half in the last decade. So has English, with the odd nuance that contemporary courses suffer. In Philosophy, history of philosophy is challenged; other parts, less so."
The problem for us is that our faculty and students are 95% white. Even the most ardent supporters of classics are having a difficult time defending this statistic when some of our institutions aren't even majority white at this point.
@9:42, this would set back our field so much. I grew up decidedly upper-middle-class and even with the tax break, I was one of the poorest in my graduate department and often felt less well off than many others in my field. How does this help us recruit people from diverse backgrounds into our field (which has historically been a place for academically-minded younger sons of elite families)? How does this help us make classics more relevant to economically disadvantaged students and students of color when only elites (and particularly white elites) teach courses? I agree that Ph.D. programs are creating too many students and not considering the consequences, but this tax burden isn't the solution.
One might, on the other hand, think that someone trained in 3:00's history program would be somewhat adrift in the real world once they had to leave behind what actually looks like a fairly narrow canon of topics, since (1) such emphasis on mastering secondary literature is kind of an archaic model of graduate training, regardless of discipline, (2) they won't have learned enough language skills to deal with a lot of the primary evidence, and (3) much of the methodology they will have picked up in their non-ancient studies will be irrelevant, since the "real" work of most history departments involves knowing how to handle too much evidence not (as in the ancient world) too little. Plus (4) the majority of the elite American ancient historians work in Classics departments, so the best training is going to be there (for instance, most of the classical winners of even the AHA's Breasted prize have their main appointment in Classics departments).
OK, I don't exactly believe all that. But I do really think that (at least in North America) the difference between ancient history learned in a Classics department and ancient history learned in a History department is not a matter of better/worse but of style and emphasis. Now, it is certainly true that a PhD in Classics doesn't automatically qualify someone to do ancient history, but the people who do history in a Classics department are just as good as those who do it in History. (Actually, if I were hiring and I had nothing by the degree to go on, I would pick "neither of the above" and go with someone from one of the interdisciplinary programs like Berkeley, Princeton, or Penn.)
Well, we do have deep language training here alongside our approach to secondary scholarship. For instance, we all have to take at lest one doctoral-level (900) seminar in both Latin and Greek. These courses are in the Classics Dept and we are completely expected to be able to succeed alongside philology PhD candidates. I’m not going to lie, they are a challenge, but all of us pursuing a PhD in ancient history from the History Dept must pass this requirement (as well as pass two modern language exams). On top of this, 90% of al accepted PhD students in ancient history here already have a MA in Classics before arrival. The profs here are well aware that a historian can not do research without a deep knowledge of Latin & Greek. ....if biggest difference between us and a Classics PhD that may focus on History is that here we view tha ancient texts as a mean to our end...not the end in themself. Plus, many History PhD folks chose to not do a Classics PhD since they have zero interest in ever teaching undergrads how to scan Latin poetry.
If counting tuition reimbursement as taxable income were the thing making Classics inaccessible to people who aren't independently wealthy, I would be against it. Since it is already inaccessible to those people and this would just make that more obvious earlier, I'm kind of in favor.
11:18 and 9:42 do realize that the proposed change would be for all PhD programs, not just Classics, right? The result would probably be that the elite universities commit to better funding for their graduate students-- by cutting little and un-remunerative programs like Classics entirely to give more support to a smaller number of PhDs in glitzier departments.
@3:00 and 8:21. Nothing is stopping those with long Greek & Latin reading lists from reading those 200+ articles/books, or those who read articles/books from reading 2000+ pages of Latin and Greek. Both systems are one step in a PhD, which is one step in one's lifelong education.
@11:39. True enough, but as we all know, the burdens of PhD programs leaves little (if any) extra time for extra reading that falls outside of that which is required. ...at the end of they day, many ancient historians with History PhDs will struggle to get T-T in a Classics Dept and Classics PhDs will equally be viewed with skepticism from History Dept search committees. ...ancient history falls into a very funny catergory and it’s tough to say which degree, ultimately, offers the greater opportunity for employment. One the one hand, a Classics PhD is good for Classics Depts and *may* be adequate for some History Dept jobs, yet a History PhD is rarely adequate for a Classics Dept (unless they state specifically no language teaching is required). So Classics maybiffer more versatility... on the other hand, there are VERY few “ancient history” gigs in a Classics Dept (most are *really* philology appointments by capable of teaching Classical Civ stuff), while there are quite a good number of Ancient History jobs in History Depts. Add to this that many smaller schools will have job listings for, simply, a “premodernist” historian, to which an ancient history PhD would apply.
So... Classics offers slightly more versatility while History offers more job opportunities. Plus, Classics Depts are very very often on the chopping block at many institutions and are among the first Depts to be downgraded to “programs” before (ultimately) being killed. History Depts, on the reverse, aren’t ever getting shut down. Ever. There’s something to be said for that. :/
As a younger academic I remember the stress I felt when I discovered that there were super smart people from the wrong kinds of programs whose languages were better than mine and whose subject knowledge clearly superior, not only in their own specialties but mine. The solution, I discovered, is to find some aspect of academia in which I could outdo all comers. After many years of trial and error, disappointment and self-doubt, I found myself an angle that I now share with you: sycophancy.
@5:09 what makes me laugh is that people seem to think that this would somehow even out the job market, rather than lead to the total conversation of TT to 5/5 adjunct positions at most places.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that fewer PhD slots means that our field will more or less be a reflection of privilege rather than merit. that said, it seems to me that it is already the case: it is just that the bottleneck comes later in people's lives. A middle class kid with a state school UG degree can get into classics graduate school, yes. But they're unlikely to get into an ivy school, because the ivies are accepting people with ivy UG degrees. Which, as we know, is most of the time not really an indicator of merit but that someone came from the very top economic bracket (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html). So your middle class kid can get a PhD from a non-ivy graduate school, but will they get a job? Unlikely. Wouldn't it be better to shut these people out sooner?
Less is never really better. And "to shut out people" who are pursuing their dreams and goals isn't really a great idea. Rather it is one that stinks of privilege and probably is indicative of the dying of our field. And the reality is that many an Ivy league grad is not really capable of teaching students from diverse (economic and otherwise) backgraounds, or of teaching at all . . . In other words don't forget the Novi Homines
We are dead - frogs in a slowly heated pot not realizing that the world has moved on from our privileged paradigm. There could be some radical and bold changes made but I've rarely seen anyone in positions of power have the stomach to do so or the willingness to jeopardize their own short-term security for the discipline's long term future.
"The problem for us is that our faculty and students are 95% white. Even the most ardent supporters of classics are having a difficult time defending this statistic when some of our institutions aren't even majority white at this point."
What does white even mean? It's a useless metric meant to divide. Other measures of "diversity" are exceedingly more important. Sorry, but it's a red herring.
It's about the experiences and perspectives we bring to our teaching and research. It's all good and fine to "expose the cracks in the facade" as previously mentioned, but there's something to be said for a critical mass of instructors in our field who have personally experienced these issues. For instance, I would be quite disappointed if my uni's gender and sexuality courses were all taught by men. Not sure why it seems okay that classics is basically taught by white people who have lived relatively (or extremely) privileged lives.
For the previous poster who asked what white means, if you shot up a concert and were deemed a "lone wolf" or "mentally troubled" with little chance of being tagged as a terrorist, you're white.
Plenty of “non-ivies” produce PhDs that get jobs. UNC-Chapel Hill; Berkeley; Chicago; Stanford; Duke; and Michigan, for instance. In fact, I’d bet that you’ll find more tenured faculty from any of these schools than from some of the “sub-par” ivies (Brown and Cornell).
@3:00 PM What are the other metrics that you think are more important for thinking about diversity? Not disagreeing, just curious to hear your thoughts.
Does anyone know if most schools will still view/consider your application if a letter of recommendation or two is missing? I noticed that 2/3 of my writers failed to upload for the UOregon job (they just yesterday emailed for interviews) and the online site says my application status is “halted-incomplete (2/3 letters missing).” ...Is it possible that a lazy/forgetful letter writer can prevent an applicant from even being viewed by a committee ?? (As if this horrible year with no positions isn’t bad enough as is)
Use Interfolio, don't trust your writers. Some people might write you to ask what happened to the missing letters (my dept. would), but others may never even see the incomplete application, if HR decides not to pass it on.
Some of the applications don't allow you to use Interfolio--you put in contact info and they email a request for a letter to each of your references. I hope that a letter missing or late doesn't get you kicked out of the pile (or never put in the pile in the first place)...one of my letter writers is always on top of things, but the other two are spotty and often submit their letters late no matter how much notice I give them.
Interfolio will allow you to use a "magic email address" rather than the real person's email address. If you use the magic interfolio address, the letter will go out to the university more or less instantaneously. I wouldn't count on late applications being considered.
As a departmental chair with a tt search this year, I'm sorry to say that the observation of 10:34 is probably sometimes correct: HR might control the system and may not pass along incomplete ones. (In the words of the poet, "If I had a rocket launcher, someone would pay".)
Thanks for that tip, 11:48 AM. I had no idea Interfolio would do that. My department chair and department secretary told me years ago that late letters didn't matter and that search committees expect a lot of them to trickle in after the due date. Sadly for me, it seems the TT window is mostly closed for this year and I now know that at least 1/4 of my applications might not even be considered.
I'm sorry to hear that. It is a painful lesson to learn: people giving advice, even people in positions of authority, sometimes have no idea what they're talking about because they don't realize how limited their own perspective is. Many of us have been down this road before you. Almost certainly some of your late apps will be considered.
11/10, 11:56: Yes, administrators are not going to shut down the biggies -- History, Chemistry, English, etc. -- but when they are looking to reduce budgets and close lines, the big departments are big targets. Decades ago U Wisconsin had a purge: History was asked as I recall to dump 10% of its faculty, something like six or seven people; Classics had so few people it got a complete pass. Life is not necessarily beer and skittles in the big departments. If you have a faculty of 80 people, it's hard to defend each and every one of them as being mission-critical.
I have also been told that late letters don't matter (and was even admonished for being concerned about it). It's remarkable to me that people feel justified in making these authoritative pronouncements about issues that have real consequences for people's lives/futures without any evidence whatsoever.
"I'm sorry to hear that. It is a painful lesson to learn: people giving advice, even people in positions of authority, sometimes have no idea what they're talking about because they don't realize how limited their own perspective is. Many of us have been down this road before you."
This x infinity. Always seek advice outside of your department/college/university, too, in as broad a forum as possible (such as the Chronicle of Higher Ed fora). It's not that folks are lazy or aren't well-meaning, is that, as in so many areas of life, we don't always know what we don't know. This doesn't even make the advice you have received bad; it is just particular and is likely to run smack into another opinion that is equally particular.
In my experiences, late letters are usually okay. The one exception was a school in which HR ran significant portions of the search (and we didn't have a choice; it was university policy).
Speaking of HR running searches, I recently applied to Cincinnati and had to deal with their unparalleled requirement that everyone applying for a job there write about how he or she would further diversity and inclusion. To my surprise, the statement was not supposed to be uploaded as one of the files forming part of the application, but instead had to be copied into a field in the HR-related part of the online application (along with answering questions about whether one is disabled, a veteran, etc.). Does anyone know if this means that HR will be looking over what we write before clearing applications for the search committee?
Since the Cincinnati online application is rather poorly done -- they actually ask one to provide COUNTY as part of one's address, since obviously the same application is used for any type of job opening on campus -- this might be done in all innocence, but it sure is strange.
Also, remember that few faculty have experience as candidates on this ruthless job market. Many senior faculty got their jobs in the easy job market of the 1990s. I've had more than one senior faculty member tell me how "I gave a terrible job talk," but still got the job. In short, the rules have changed, but many senior faculty do not sufficiently appreciate how they have.
Talk to junior people, and people who have been on the market multiple years. They have the best insights for today's kamikaze market.
12:43 a.m.: Uhm... No. You are mistaken. I just checked Hamilton's online listing of all jobs on campus for non-teaching positions, and the postings do not mention any such requirement. Same for Furman. Cincinnati, however, has gone off the deep end, since EVERY position of any sort can only be obtained by those writing a statement about how they plan to contribute to diversity and inclusion, even if the position has nothing to do with that. For example, I found postings for a veterinarian's assistant, a data analyst, a post-doc fellow in biomedical ultrasound, a web developer for the administration, etc., all expected to promote diversity and inclusion once they're hired. Even an hourly grad student worker at a research institute cannot be hired without the same statement (!!!): https://jobs.uc.edu/job/Cincinnati-Student-Worker-IPR-Hourly-OH-45201/425612600
So, back to my question, does anyone know who exactly at Cincinnati is the judge of these statements -- faculty or HR technocrats?
(In other words, when I wrote "...everyone applying for a job there write about how he or she would further diversity and inclusion" I meant EVERYONE applying for a job there. That's unparalleled.)
Sometimes being in a position of authority convinces people that they ARE authorities. Thus you get people making blithe pronouncements about things like late letters not mattering, don't publish before you have the PhD, etc. And unfortunately, their graduate students may also accept them as all-knowing godlike figures. They don't mean to mislead, they've just lost perspective. Getting a job with an incomplete application in 1993 -- maybe you could. MAYBE it even happens today. But I wouldn't do anything that has any chance of jeopardizing a single application in this market.
That answer (how do you go through 100+ applications) probably varies a lot from person to person, so I hope you get multiple responses, but for me (at a fairly research-oriented institution)...
1) Heavy reliance on letters (both the cover and the recommendations). If the candidate's project description isn't interesting, I likely won't look at the writing sample in hopes that it is better than advertised. For the recommendations, the standards are pretty high, and seeing ones that seem genuinely individualized is key.
2) Fit becomes very important. This is not, despite the way the word is often used in complaints about the hiring process, a matter of general affinity, but a very narrow comparison of what the candidate works on and what areas we imagine we want covered. [That's not to say that discriminatory affinity-testing doesn't exist, just that it doesn't have anything to do with the word "fit."]
3) For entry-level jobs, I don't rely much on number of publications. On the one hand, pretty much anybody who can get a PhD in Classics is capable of something published somewhere, and the reasons they might not have done so yet are numerous. On the other, eventually we'd be reading their work carefully, a more detailed investigation than counting CV lines
4) At this screening stage *almost* any level of teaching experience is ok. A European degree might be suspicious or and if someone is from from a very fancy Ivy/Stanford/Chicago institution we'd look at their individual record of teaching, but generally just holding a normal American PhD is fine.
"For the recommendations, the standards are pretty high, and seeing ones that seem genuinely individualized is key."
Do you mean individualized for the candidate, or for the hiring institution? The issue of letters came up last year and some people insisted that they needed to be customized for every application. So...do I ask my letter writers to customize their letters, knowing that at least one will probably be submitted late, or do I circumvent them and use Interfolio to submit the same letter to every job? What a bind for those us who depend on people who are of the opinion that late letters don't matter.
12:43 here (@2:46/2:48 AM)--I misunderstood; thought you meant that a diversity statement was unusual for faculty jobs. It does seem unusual to require it for ALL jobs, including regular staffing positions. I wonder if anyone reads these things, or if it is just the university covering its ass...but it does seem a bit like requiring a declaration of allegiance to a certain set of beliefs, which--however much I myself agree with those beliefs--is worrisome in an academic context.
I realise the impetus behind Diversity Statements, in that they do make candidates think (even to a small extent) about diversity and inclusion in their pedagogy, but the problem is that that anyone can write this "statement", even a white supremacist, homophobe or misogynist. It has no real bearing on how inclusive a Professor may actually turn out to be (same goes for a teaching demonstration, usually). They are redundant documents, but we will increasingly need to write them.
I believe diversity statements are mandatory for the entire University of California System (for faculty jobs at least). I had to submit one for a part time teaching position. My impression (which admittedly is not backstopped in any way) is that this is part of a larger effort to see how well the UC system as a whole is doing with diversity in its faculty hires, rather than a part of the application itself. In fact, the diversity statement was uploaded separately during the application and seems to go to someone other than the search committee. Certainly mine was not very exciting to read, but that didn't prevent my employment.
I like the diversity statement requirement for academic jobs, if only because it forces applicants to consider their role and responsibility in at least thinking about diversity in themselves, in their research, in their teaching. A lot (not all) of the criticisms I've read have come from people who aren't very engaged in this aspect of research, teaching, and mentorship, and they resist the idea that they have any responsibility here, I suspect because they don't see HOW they can contribute on this front as a white/cis/privileged/whatever academic. A lot of people (please don't use yourself as an example for everyone) do not think about this and do not care about this and the diversity statement requirement is the first and only time that someone will ask them to think about this. I think it's important even if someone reaches the conclusion that they don't care about this, at least they've thought about it explicitly. You can be contribute to diversity initiatives even if you are privileged, and you can write a strong diversity statement even if you're privileged, it's just about putting thought into the subject instead of treating it like the quantitative section of the GREs (silly analogy to mean "a throwaway," not the point of my post, I liked the quant section of the GREs). Yes, we're all busy, yes, it's another requirement when we're all busy, but we're all used to make decisions about what to prioritize, and it's important to admit if this isn't a priority of yours, if it's not something you feel like you have anything to do with.
The diversity statement is a political statement. You can't write an honest diversity statement without grappling with the question of whether you personally "prioritize" racial or cultural or economic diversity. We might not like it, but we all know that there is a big discussion out there over what we mean when we say "diversity", and whether all forms of diversity are created equal. I have SJW friends who would say that plumping for "economic diversity" over "racial" or "cultural" diversity is equivalent to saying "white lives matter". I have leftist friends who would say that this curiously American fetishization of racial issues over class is a corporatist ploy to get us to ignore the savage economic equality that is tearing our society apart. The point is, as part of the job application process we are now being asked to submit a statement of political faith, and that should be disturbing.
@12:15 from @11:15: I can see what you mean, about it being a political statement where you position yourself vis-a-vis your carefully chosen disadvantaged group. I hadn't thought of it that way and I can see why some people would think that touting "economic diversity" is a way of WLMing diversity. I don't really agree, since I think that economic diversity interests are actually quite intersectional - I think economic diversity interests have the potential to incorporate things like race, gender, and dis/ability in productive and progressive ways, in the hands of sensitive and thoughtful people. I guess it just depends on how you approach the question and I think that if you show yourself engaged in the debates and questions, you're off to a good start with the diversity statement?
This is a good discussion, but one minor point: somewhere had a "surprise" diversity statement last year, as the issue that the commentator was wondering about seems to have been. Like, you're filling out an online form and all of a sudden you have to write an essay about how you're going to contribute to diversity at this particular college before your session expires, it was really stressful. It was somewhere in North Carolina I think. People complained, and someone from the SC came on here and explained it was just an HR thing that they didn't even see. So if the diversity statement is not on the list of required documents but turns up while filling in the form part of the application, it might not be worth overstressing about it. But it's a good idea to have one ready to go in advance, you'll need it eventually anyway.
4,546 comments:
1 – 200 of 4546 Newer› Newest»So who will cast the first stone?
Everybody must get stoned!
I don't know the theme, but I like it!
Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you?
What an excellent year to work on Latin and/or Roman History!
Roman Art and Archaeology as well.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows!
Rumor has it that Ohio State University Press is out of the Classics game... is it true?
I've heard the same rumor about OSU Press from a creditable source.
True or false: A job advertised as ancient/history late antiquity will almost always go to someone who does late antiquity.
False in the sense that it's not that predictable. It might be intended as one giant area of need and they really don't care. Either term might have been added as as sop to a (smaller) faction in the department, but not represent a real possibility (and that gets all the more complicated if other departments are in the mix, e.g. history, religious studies).
As a rule, TRUE (in my experience).
These jobs tend to be in history departments. Given that they are looking for an ancient historian, the search committee tends to be made up of the Medievalists in the department. Medievalists know that "Late Antiquity" feels an awful lot like the good ol' Middle Ages, with Christians, Bishops, Germanic kings, the same kind of things they are interested in. And so there will be a strong temptation for them to hire a brother/sister Medievalist, rather than someone who studies things that their small minds cannot understand, like polytheism or democracy.
Even if the Medievalists are open minded, some practical considerations incline History departments to hire Late Antiquarians. A good deal of Service teaching in History departments covers enormous time periods and are increasingly global in scope. Late Antiquarians tend to fall somewhat more center mass chronologically than say, someone who does Classical Greece. Also, since Late Antiquarians tend to have quite a good grasp on Christianity, this helps teaching other areas of European history, like the Reformation.
Apply anyway, but don't get your hopes up.
Words to live by.
Bit of a slow year on the Greek lit side?
Two years ago, there were 0 Latin jobs. 0. Never Forget
What a year for historians!
What a year for boring comments!
ST OLAFS WANTS US TO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH WE LOVE LUTHERANISM.
Maybe nail your application to their door?
Do they? Nothing in the call really indicated that, except for the blurb at the end...
1. Fuck Superman
2. Something with kryptonite
...
95. I'm tired and this is too many theses
3. through 94. Consubstantiation FTW!
Another winning classicist in the news: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/columbia-university-professor-sexually-harassed-student-lawsuit-article-1.3537450
The Swansea ancient history job has disappeared.
The NY report does not surprise, as a lecherous reputation has been following illustrious professor at Columbia for some time.
New year already? I am still grieving jobs from last season! It feels like when you get dumped and sort of hope if you hold out, it will seem romantic and they'll come back to you, but actually you're just in your pajamas drunk at 3 pm listening to Patsy Cline when they show up to drop off the last of your things.
In re LA vs ancient history more generally, surely someone could do the legwork and get some data, huh?
FYI, someone I know is writing a letter of rec for an inside candidate for the UMass Amherst position.
At last! Someone has finally posted in this thread, giving me a 10-second distraction from my work. Bless you, stranger, whoever you are.
This does sound plausible, since in the not too distant past I had an interview with that department, and based on whom they hired I have suspected that the search was fixed. (This is not the only time I have lost out on a job, but it is the only time I have had that sense, so this is not sour grapes on my part.)
Any chance this UMass search is connected to last year's Yale search?
7:02 What do you mean by "inside candidate"? Normally that refers to someone who's already attached to the department as an adjunct, vel sim., and they don't appear to have any such person on the roster. And it's hard to imagine anyone on that list has a spouse who'd be up for an entry level classics job.
The spouse could be in any department at the university. Despite this information, I'll be applying for the UMass Amherst job anyway, since one really never knows what's going on behind the scenes. No doubt I am setting myself up for disappointment, but I do that every time I apply for anything.
Another one of those "we want someone who is both a philologist AND an archaeologist!!" jobs.
Don't forget ..."with the ability to teach an upper level course on Euripides."
You always have to apply. But it sometimes helps to suspect things are an inside hire, just so you don't feel as pissed off afterwards. I find it hurts less to fail when you known the game is rigged (although then one can be pissed about how rigged the system is!).
Seconded. Always apply, then think of the job as if it's dead. Then if you do get an interview, it's a delightful surprise!
Followed weeks later by more crushing disappointment!
I appreciate that by this analogy the interview itself is a reanimated corpse. Somehow that seems fitting, given my experience with such things (interviews, that is, not necromancy).
@1:27 AM: this site needs a "like" feature. Very funny!
Yes the one downside of applying for an "inside" position is that you might find yourself wasting your time with a Skype interview so that the Department can prove to HR that it ran a "real" search.
In hindsight, an overwhelming majority of my interviews turned out to be a waste of time. Arguably the entire job search is a waste of time. If only we could know ahead of time what jobs we were going to get, so that we wouldn't have to waste our time applying for the ones we won't.
"The spouse could be in any department at the university." Maybe, but at that point I'm not sure "inside candidate" means what it usually means on this site, i.e. a pre-determined hire. If the Classics department were colluding with the leading spouse's department, why write such a poorly targeted ad?
@8:09 (et al). Obviously the rules work differently in different places, but in my university a spousal search would not be advertised. The spousal department would conduct a process (interview, etc.) to determine whether the spouse is appointable, but if the spouse is not appointed, there is no appointment.
I don't know anything about this job, but a few years ago a prestigious private college hired the spouse of a faculty member with an ad that was extremely poorly targeted, such that it drew ire here after the fact for the department's willingness to waste everyone's time. This was a job that was identified here early on in the year as fixed, correctly as it turns out.
So many searches are identified here as fixed, it's bound to be true once in a while. :)
Anonymous 8:18 has posted the truest comment ever made in these here parts.
There are degrees of fixed-ness and fakeness. Sometimes the current VAP is the likely hire, but the right application might sway the committee's collective judgement. It is probably better to just say "there is an inside candidate" and explain who that is - recent Ph.D., current VAP/lecturer/adjunct, spouse of someone junior/someone senior. That helps to give people a sense of just how fake/fixed the search is, and whether it's worth applying.
I agree that Inside Hires and fake searches come in degrees. That is why it is always worth applying. But knowing it is a fake search can prevent you from wasting you time constantly checking the Wiki, or obsessively re-writing a cover letter to meet the search's oddly specific requirements.
Recently there was a search in my field where I knew the Search Committee Chair. I thought I might have an advantage, until I looked on the website and realized that the Search was fake, and that the highly specific add had been tailored to ensure that a longtime VAP was promoted to tenure track.
I did not even get an first round interview, but one advantage of knowing it was a fake search--almost transparently so--was that my next interaction with the Search Chair were affable and free from resentment, because I knew he was simply following through on a VAP promotion, rather than deliberately ignoring my application.
OP re: inside hire for Amherst job: I'm definitely still applying, you never know if something will sway them, what departmental politics are, and so on, I think everyone should still apply (who's eligible, of course).
Agreed. I know of one spousal hire search that went sideways, and resulted in the department hiring someone else altogether. In the end it worked out better for the candidate and the department, and even for the spouses, who eventually moved somewhere else.
Does anyone know if their recommenders have received a prompt from St Olaf yet? It sounds like recommendations will be solicited only after an initial cut.
So I have heard one school of thought that ALL cover letters should ALWAYS be 2 pages or less and another that 2.5 or so is okay.. Any thoughts?
I heard from many sources that you should never exceed the two-pages limit. 2.5 is a surprise! On a personal note I think it's always better to make an impression that you could write more about your stellar research, if not the silly restrictions, than to run out of things to say and exceed the limit.
@10:16 and 11:02. Mid-career prof at 'Middling State', here. I've been closely involved in eight or ten searches in my career, and I don't think that two versus two-and-a-half will irk anyone, provided that extra paragraph or so of text is actually doing something. Don't forget, however, that once we meet you in person at the SCS/AIA, the cover letter will be mostly forgotten, so its primary purpose from your perspective is that it gets you an interview there.
Don't forget, however, that once we meet you in person at the SCS/AIA, the cover letter will be mostly forgotten, so its primary purpose from your perspective is that it gets you an interview there.
Ooh, that's bad news. I bring my cover letter and copies of it to every conference interview, and whenever I am asked a question I respond with "Let me refer all of you to my statement in the second paragraph, fourth sentence" (vel sim.) before reading it aloud.
Okay, I admit that I am lying about all that: I don't get conference interviews.
I would say keep the cover letter to two pages. If you are very new in the field, you simply cannot exceed two pages without filling it with all sorts of fluff. And once you've done real stuff (teaching, publications, etc.) these should speak for themselves, without having to elaborate in great detail. Besides, SCs are overwhelmed with thousands of pages of applications. Do they really want another half page to read?
All jobs seem to be inside jobs.
All letters are too long.
All is lost.
I have it on good authority that the inside candidate for the UMass Amherst position is no longer in the running. I'm sorry, I wish I could say more, but I can't.
All the speculation and (dis?)information posted about UMass Amherst so far sounds like nonsense. Apply if you're qualified and hope for the best.
There is no point in trying to discern the "rules" for a job app, because every SC will enforce different ones. Does spilling over onto that extra page allow you to tailor the letter to a specific institution? For some SCs, that might just get you in the door -- or rather, failing to tailor will get you tossed. For other SCs, it is the extra space you take up with tailoring will get you tossed. They all make up their own rules which are essentially random, so don't bother worrying about it.
UMass, here (my application) comes!
that FSU 4/4/2 job...
So does all this about Amherst mean that as more of a Romanist I'd have a shot? I disregarded it at first, because Greek, but would actually like to go there (wishful thinking...)
Are we not going to talk about William Harris?
https://sanfordheisler.com/press-release/columbia-university-history-professor-withdraws/#.WfmxVnr8m5w.facebook
What's the word on the street about William and Mary?
Yup, that's the scene in NYC. People don't harass your grad students or your colleagues.
Yet another Weinstein like academic super-star falls from grace. Too late in many respects, but comeuppance is comeuppance.
The W&M short-term hire from last year will likely be the long-term hire this year; word on the street is they just hadn't gotten official approval to offer a tt job last go-round.
Re WVH, the first group of people who deserve maximum sympathy are the victims, in this case those who had to endure his dirty old man groping routine. Some, including the accuser, have persevered to remain in the field, although one wonders how many submitted as the high price of staying in.
Secondly, one feels sympathy for his graduate students, especially those who have not yet landed TT jobs. Those who wrote dissertations under his supervision no doubt had high hopes that they would become part of his impressive placement record, but now he is a poison pill, or at best, something that must be hastily excused under the excuse "I had no idea."
The problem is, of course, that unlike Cruel Daddy, who surprised his colleagues and students (and it seems his wife) with his arrest for child pornography, WVH falls into the Weisensteinian category of "everybody knew." Hell, I knew and I have nothing to do with Columbia. To be fair, a decent person (male) could say "he has a reputation as a lech, and I've privately warned female colleagues about him, but he is an expert on the subject I wanted to write on, and he places people left and right." Fair enough. But it is still a taint on those individuals, unfairly or not, even if his behavior to more the product of the rot and inequality in academia that mirrors much of the rot and inequality we see in society more broadly.
LOL FSU with the spread-out 5-5 teaching load for a sweet 48K
More egregious than the teaching load -- it's clearly marked as a teaching position, so you're not expected to do research, and the odds are good that for some classes one would teach 2+ sections -- is this rather amazing requirement: "sample syllabi for three courses, one of which should be for a course in Comparative Mythology (to meet the Diversity Requirement); one for a course that fulfills the University’s Oral Communication Competency Requirement; and the third for an undergraduate course of the applicant’s choosing that would appeal to non-majors." A number of us have taught mythology and already have syllabi, but COMPARATIVE mythology? Probably not as many. And how in the world does that satisfy a diversity requirement, unless the mythologies are, say, African or Mayan, which few if any of us are qualified to teach, rather than the more pertinent Sumerian? And I don't know about you, but I've never taught a course that would meet some "oral communication competency requirement." So if one doesn't have such fantastical syllabi one either can't apply or has to spend countless hours creating them. What a messed up place FSU must be.
3:07: Yes. Spot on.
@ 7:30 PM
Comparative Mythology is actually fairly common, and there are some well-known (and undergraduate-appropriate) texts that work well with Classics. Prominent mythologies to include: Scandinavian/Norse Mythology, Indic mythology, Native American mythology. Those aren't normally things a Classicist might study formally, but they are things that a lot of us read voraciously as kids and less voraciously as adults. To make a Comp. Myth. syllabus is the work of some Googling and a couple hours' worth of thought. Yes, some people will have their own peculiar advantages, but that's how he job market is. It's not an egregious requirement. The 5-5 load for $48K is more egregious, although local CoL means $48K isn't really out of line either: it's comparable to a 50-55K+ pittance many other places, and easily to 95K in New York.
I forgot Egyptian mythology.
Comparative Mythology (aka "Ancient Mythology: East and West") has been taught as a diversity fulfillment, primarily by graduate students and in classes of 50+ students, for at least the last decade or more at FSU. The syllabus is simple and can probably be easily found/got, given the number of people who have taught this class in the past. It is a popular course at FSU.
The salary is decent for the area; the teaching load is not. Nor is the lack of tenure potential and tenure protection. And I suspect research funds and support for summer projects.
If there is a simple syllabus, then why ask people to provide one? Just provide them with the syllabus when you hire them, and say they are welcome to use this, modify it, or write a new one. Give me a break.
So here is how things look to me:
1) FSU's comparative mythology course is a simple one that can even be taught be grads.
2) Whether taught by faculty or grads, they are almost certain not to be actual experts at COMPARATIVE mythology, but rather will be competent in Greco-Roman mythology, and have done little if any work with the other mythologies.
3) The course apparently is quite popular, and since it seems to be taught by a rotating group of people rather than one popular professor its popularity is almost certainly due to its being an easy course about fun stories. Courses tend to be popular because of subject matter, quality of professor, or ease of grading (and often two or three of those), and since here it can't be quality of professor it has to be the first or third, or both.
I would therefore suggest that this is not a properly rigorous university-level course, but a dumbed down one taught by those who are not fully qualified to teach it, and its existence is mainly a way of boosting enrollments to please a dean while enabling the department to meet a diversity requirement. Otherwise, they would be offering a basic classical mythology course.
Ok, but if they wanted to communicate "we need you to be willing to teach our long-established, butts-in-seats pseudo-diversity course," there are ways to do that. The way they chose to handle it, asking applicants to custom-design a syllabus, adds another hurdle to an already onerous job app for a crappy job.
Yup. I don't think they should call for a tailored syllabus for a course that's been taught by dozens of MA and PhD students over the years, unless they are looking for a tailored class. @11:39 PM is absolutely on track with all three points, especially the last one.
You can see from a quick search on FSU's webpage that there are 8 sections of this course being taught during Fall 2017 alone. Four are taught by grad students, one by a post-doc, two by a non-tenure teaching prof, and one by a long-time tenured faculty member who often teaches it for some unknown reason. The sections range in enrollments from at least 50 to probably 150-200 or more. TAs would be provided for the large classes, but not the "smaller" (50) ones.
Also, @11:39, "its existence is mainly a way of boosting enrollments to please a dean while enabling the department to meet a diversity requirement" - are you talking about the comparative myth course, or the position itself? I know the answer, but it could apply with ease to the position. Why else create a position with no hope of tenure, crappy pay, and an absurd teaching load, if not to boost enrollments? On the plus side, they're not exploiting more graduate students. They're just exploiting those with the PhD.
By the way, I still haven't seen the full job ad (where is it?), so it's possible I could be totally off the mark...but this sure looks like CLT3378, especially if it meets the Diversity Requirement.
Did everyone see this?
https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/2018/149/career-networking-event-boston-2018
Yes, SHAME, FSU, SHAME.
The excessive application for an shitty 1 year 5-5 adjunct position shows that the comfortably tenured in that department are more than happy to exploit the adjunct pool, to begin with by wasting the time of many applicants by having them write a syllabus of a course that the department routinely lets graduate students teach. Since only one (dumb and desperate) person will get the job, this is a waste of everyone else's time.
It is customary not to name names on this blog, but given that John Marincola was the President of the SCS (and therefore a public figure as well as a senior scholar), and given that he fashioned himself as an advocate of adjunct issues, it is in fact somewhat startling that his department could put out such a frankly predatory job ad.
SHAME!
Right on, @12:34. And yet you know that tens of dozens (if not hundreds - there's no specialty required, is there?) will apply.
Mid-career faculty member at another institution with a different read on the FSU job. It is a shitty position, but it's not an adjunct position. I have no inside information, but from what I have seen at my own institution, you could just as easily read this as the department's attempt to turn what would normally be courses taught by adjuncts into a sorta real job. Rather than paying three different people a pittance (maybe $2000-$4000 a course) to teach a couple of courses they've cobbled it all together and given it a low but at least real salary (and they are honest enough to publish it), benefits, and it sounds like a real contract with the possibility of renewal. Is it a sweet deal? Obviously not. Is it the most egregiously predatory job offering ever? Sadly, probably not by a long shot.
It's rather a sad day when one considers a job that offers benefits and the possibility that it will last more than 12 months to be a step up.
Since FSU has never really done adjunct positions as it is, I'll still consider it a step down.
I would second the reading given at 1:28. What the members of the department want and are able to obtain from the administration (i.e. holders of the purse strings and final decisions) is often not ideal, but it seems to me that FSU's department has been able to make something less than horrible out of a bad situation. Again, is it perfect? Obviously not. Will it keep the holder of said position off of food stamps, minimize the number of preps (albeit with a lot of grading), and give them access to a library while they hit the ground for another season of applications? Yep.
All fair enough, given the current situation, but I don't think that people are complaining about the job itself. It's a crap job, but we know that is the reality these days. What people are complaining about is that they're being asked to reinvent the wheel simply to be considered for the crap job. And don't say "the syllabus is out there, just copy it," because nobody is simply going to copy and send them their own syllabus, they're going to spend hours painstakingly crafting a unique one -- at least if they want real consideration. That's the part of the process people find over the top. Added, of course, to the other unique demands of this particular job ad.
Dr. Shame here,
A few comfortably tenured folks have noted that at a certain level this looks like a decent job. As someone stuck in the VAP trap, I would say the FSU job has decent pay (considering lower COL), although the teaching load is hideous.
On the balance a decent, if suboptimal short term position, in a world where short term positions are become less remunerative, more onerous and ever harder to get.
As 3:55 notes so well, what is insulting is the requirement to write a unique syllabus for a unique course that is seldom taught in our field. This may be worth it for the winning candidate, but it will waste hours of the other 50+ candidates who will likely apply. Instead of making a syllabus they will probably never teach elsewhere, they could be working on their own research, finishing a dissertation, or preparing for the actual courses they are teaching this year that will benefit actual students.
One thing that SCs like those at FSU don't seem to realize is that when they create extra, idiosyncratic requirements, they waste the time of the entire profession. Let us say it takes 2 hours to put together a decent syllabus, and 50 people apply. Barring the successful candidate, thats 98 hours of Classicist time wasted, not spent on books, articles, teaching, etc.. That represents an opportunity cost in time not only to the candidates (and those applying for this position are by definition the most vulnerable members of the profession), but also to the field at large.
Don't forget the required sample syllabus for a course that "fulfills the University’s Oral Communication Competency Requirement." So in effect, you're writing TWO tailored syllabi, and spending time researching what those things mean (oral communication competency? Like...student presentations?).
Also don't forget the service component of this job: "assisting with training and supervising the graduate instructors of record teaching those courses." You might get some teaching relief for this, but you might not. Who really knows.
Also if you can write a sample syllabus from scratch for a course you've never taught before in a subject you are not familiar with, I applaud you.
Ooh, didn't see that FSU want TWO syllabi specific to the department.
So the department is happy wasting 196 hours of people's time (assuming fifty candidates and two hours per FSU specific syllabus to fill a position normally taught by a graduate student.
SHAME FSU, SHAME.
PS: FSU, here is how you write a job announcement that isn't the unprofessional and exploitative one you posted:
"We are looking for expertise in teaching Classical myth, and a willingness to develop a course on comparative mythologies and another that will meet the University's Oral Communication Competency requirement.
Please submit a Cover letter, a CV, a writing sample and a syllabus of a course of your own choosing that would appeal to non-majors."
Was that so hard?
I'm the one who had the three-point posting up above. One of you asked me:
Also, @11:39, "its existence is mainly a way of boosting enrollments to please a dean while enabling the department to meet a diversity requirement" - are you talking about the comparative myth course, or the position itself? I know the answer, but it could apply with ease to the position. Why else create a position with no hope of tenure, crappy pay, and an absurd teaching load, if not to boost enrollments? On the plus side, they're not exploiting more graduate students. They're just exploiting those with the PhD.
In response, I'll clarify that a course of this nature seems a way for a department boost its overall enrollment numbers, thus demonstrating relevance to the administration. The cost, quite likely, is that the course is not a rigorous one, and thus its being offered represents part of the dumbing down that happens at so many institutions of FSU's level.
Others have already made points I might have made, especially concerning the remarkable thoughtlessness of having people put together TWO syllabi on spec. To me, if you're a good teacher you can put together a good syllabus on any subject, given enough time, so why not have asked candidates to provide syllabi that they already have -- as is pretty standard -- but then tell the 10-12 who make the short list that they need to show specifically how they would teach these other two courses. Completely reasonable, and wastes no one's time. (To further drive home the point, I've been at this for a while, and do not remember ever seeing ANY posting requiring new syllabi to be made. Admittedly, I don't read every posting all the way through, so maybe I've missed an instance or two, but this is FAR from the norm, and FSU should learn a lesson and never do this again.)
I think having even 10-12 people write syllabi on spec is irresponsible. I think this should be a professional standard: no one should be required to produce work (outside of standard application materials) unless they have been hired and are being paid to teach the course.
Asking for a sample syllabus from a past course is perfectly reasonable, but demanding it address a specific course, especially one unique to the department, is absolutely wrong at any stage of the hire. This should be a professional standard. Again, it is odd that Marincola's department has so egregiously breached this standard, after his calls at SCS to be considerate to those of us off the TT.
The shaming of FSU is absolutely necessary. One insidious aspect of the jobs crisis has been materials creep. Rather than just asking for Cover letter, CV and writing sample, SCs ask for excessively tailored application materials. With many applicants on the market for 3,4,5 years thus is an enormous commitment to applications for jobs that never result in employment, or at best year to year short-term employment, like the mediocre job at FSU.
FSU's add takes this to another level. So SHAME, FSU.
Carping about the job application, unnecessarily onerous though it may be, seems to miss the point here. The fact that this job is being advertised at all is hugely problematic for our field and our profession. I don't think the fault entirely is with the department in this case, though, because they were likely put in a position of needing additional teaching capacity and feeling like they couldn't say no to a permanent-ish solution to their problem. My own R1 department is in a similar position: we have high Classics enrollments but insufficient teaching capacity, and when we go to the administration with a hiring request, the answer is not a TT line (with a 2-2 load) but either a 4-4 lecturer or a 3-3 teaching position analogous to the FSU job, both of which are significantly cheaper but nonetheless perpetuate the adjunctification of our profession. And every time a department is driven by necessity to accept one of these non-TT positions to address their teaching shortage, a TT line bites the dust. (This is why we have thus far refused such overtures from the administration.)
Keep this in mind: for $48,000 and no chance of tenure, FSU is getting the same amount of teaching (10 courses) they would get from 2.5 TT positions (assuming a 2-2 load), but at less than 1/3 the cost. If enough departments are willing to accept this -- no matter how desperate they are -- it becomes much more difficult in these times of budgetary crises (especially at state schools) for other departments to make the case for additional (or even replacement) TT lines. This is a bad precedent to set. I am sympathetic that FSU probably needs the teaching capacity, but this job ad is unethical and is bad for the field. And at least 50 hyper-qualified people will apply for it.
If you think teaching 10 classes a year is something you're up for, then teach high school. You'll make more money, and you'll still get the summers off.
I think I may not want to work on Maggie's farm no more.
I hear you. I might be going postal, and by that I mean going to work for the post office.
Possible rationale for FSU 5-5. At my R1 State school, a TT appointment consists of 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% service. The teaching load is a 2-2, which would make a 100% teaching appointment a 5-5. (Note: course supervisory responsibilities, which I assume includes things like TA supervision and training is, for the most part, construed under “teaching.”) Doesn’t change the fact that the pay is low (about 75% of a normal starting TT salary). And the 3 syllabi AND writing sample is overkill and dumb (how many of those on the SC will actually read the writing sample?!?) and just plain abusive of applicants. And the (ahem) lack of clarity regarding the possibility of renewal or multi-year contracts should be, to say the least, disturbing to any potential applicant (MU position is *moderately* better in this respect). But In terms of the 5-5 part, I just don’t think it’s that unreasonable.
Two other things to keep in mind. First, FSU is a state school, so it could very well be the case that the dept (or even university) is bound by state law or the legislature or whatever when it comes to compensation. Second, $48k for what is probably 15-20 hours in the classroom per week is a better deal than what one will find at many public and private schools across the country. Again, not saying these observations justify the terms of this position—only that it doesn’t seem that unreasonable from a market perspective.
As for the logic that structures that market, well, that’s a much more depressing story....
Edit: at many public and private *highschools*
somewhat less than 75% of a TT salary, given that most TT jobs are 9-month, and this one requires teaching during at least one summer session, for no additional renumeration.
What we're seeing here:
The FSU job is sh*tty, but it's giving the lie to much sh*ttier jobs that don't admit to their sh*ttiness and are not as obviously sh8tty as the FSU job is.
Conclusion: Classics is a sh*tty field if you're not one of the super-elite / super-lucky / born-to-it-upper-class or one of the token not-born-to-it persons advanced to justify the rest.
If you're not wealthy, you're part of the problem.
If you are wealthy, you're part of the problem.
@10:40 PM makes some good points, particularly about how TT FTE allotment (i.e., 40% teaching) does justify the logic of a 5-5 100% teaching position. I suppose we've seen variations on jobs like this in the past (though, to my knowledge, never with this heavy of a teaching load), but it always seems like those have been one-year gigs. What seems most concerning about this job and the others like it is that they portend a more seismic shift in the Classics job market. Whereas there is always the off chance that a one- or two- or three-year visiting position will be converted to a TT line—as we see every year—these "Teaching Faculty" lines will never get converted.
Perhaps not everybody sees this as a bad thing for the field: for some people, renewable longer-term contracts are surely preferable to the uncertainty of one-year positions. But, to my mind, this trend seems like one worth fighting, and I'd like to see the SCS put its money where its mouth is. Maybe there's nothing to be done, but just because the field and the job market look to be trending in this direction doesn't mean we have to sit by and let it happen.
What do you all think? Is there anything that can be done? Is there anything that should be done? Would any members of the departments that are being discussed on this blog care to weigh in anonymously on the internal discussions that led to these positions (and the department's feelings about them)?
I'm curious if anyone knows just what is happening at Vanderbilt. Their job posting stands out from most in our field because it almost seems anti-classics. The main part reads: "We seek an outstanding researcher and teacher of the ancient Greek world broadly defined. We welcome applications from scholars in related fields (history, material culture, language and literature, philosophy, religion) whose work interrogates or challenges traditional disciplinary boundaries.... The successful candidate will enhance the growing, energetic community of a new program dedicated to studying and teaching the ancient world in comparative perspective across cultures, regions, and periods." I this seems like more than being interdisciplinary. So what is this "new program," and is it something truly radical, or is this just boilerplate language?
My advisor told me that the department is deeply dysfunctional. I didn't know what to make of it and he wasn't particularly forthcoming with specifics, but he's a pretty cheery guy in general so I somewhat surprised.
The dysfunction might be old news by now: not only are there few associate or full professors left, but if you look at the department's faculty listing you will find something I've not seen before, a link to a "steering committee," some of whose members are outsiders to the field, which suggests some form of external oversight of a department that went through bad times. (Link: https://as.vanderbilt.edu/classics/people/index.php?group=steering-committee) It also suggests that junior faculty have no voice in the department's governance, since I see at least one person there who clearly should be involved in "steering" the department. Perhaps I'm reading too much into that, but SOMETHING rather strange has been happening over there.
I think 8:07 has it basically right, and this is the administration stepping in to fix what was long-term dysfunction. To my mind the more significant omission is a very senior person (who is still at the University, but apparently entirely out of Classics), rather than the junior one who (if we're talking about the same one) would probably be simpatico with this group and is in any case empowered in another department.
HOWEVER, it looks to me like the buried lede here is that "Classics and Mediterranean Studies" is no longer a "department" but a "program." I don't really know much about how Vanderbilt operates, but that would be a major demotion in importance at most universities.
I've heard it might be worse. The administration didn't support the MA, which is not accepting applications at the moment. As well their seem to have been tenure disputes, etc.
Too bad because I really like the position and am hyper-qualified (along with a hundred of my brethren).
Does anyone have any opinions or insights on the ISAW position?
Here's the ad:
http://www.isaw.nyu.edu/jobs/faculty/asst-prof-mediterranean-world
My view on the ISAW position, which is based on personal observations rather than any special knowledge, is that they're looking to hire to a fairly conventional classical archaeologist or ancient historian, since they don't have one of those yet. ISAW pays lip service to interdisciplinarity, but most of the faculty fit fairly conventionally into their native academic fields, and I don't get the impression that they're hunting for something specific. On the whole the institution doesn't seem to have a very clear sense of its own identity, and its hiring decisions hitherto have been opaque. So your guess is as good as mine. I'm going to apply (actually, I just did), but I'm not terribly optimistic about my chances (though I suppose the same goes for all my applications).
Roman historians, did it ever come to light who got the Roman history job at Michigan last year? I asked a medievalist grad student friend in the history department there, but she didn't have any info. You don't necessarily have to out the person, but please tell me that search didn't fail!
UF sees the FU 5-5 job and raises with a .75 time adjunct who is supposed to supervise PhD theses. What the hell is going on in Florida?
I'm 99% certain that Michigan hired someone, and even remember some specific details about her, but the History Department's website is so incompetently done that I can't find the person even after five minutes of searching. (The key detail I don't have is a name.)
Maybe she is getting a year off before showing up, in which case the website wasn't "incompetently done," though it is still poorly designed.
Word on the street is the Michigan hire deferred for a year.
Yes, that's true.
What's up with this year's job seekers' count? Is it still too early? Because 38 people on the market seems to be really low in comparison to previous years (ca. 70-80 people).
That is a part of the counter that doesn't work very well. People just don't add themselves, although some more will in the course of the year. But don't worry, you're not alone: there are roughly 600 people competing for the same jobs!!
I'm more freaked out that the flow of new jobs has dried out in early November. Shouldn't new searches still be appearing?
A few more may appear.
But at this point jobs need to be announced if they have any shot of interviewing at the SCS. Another bummer year in a dying field.
HA! I actually thought there were rather a lot of postings... (3rd year on the market)
In 2006, if I recall, there were 135 jobs posted.
By the end of the season, that list will look a lot longer. But most of the "normal" jobs -- i.e. the ones you might actually get -- are already there. Jobs that post from November on are often weird in some way. Maybe they're in England: you won't get that, unless you're English or have an English degree. Some attempts to hire people's spouses will probably appear, and lots more one-years, probably some more weird garbage like the "assistant professor" position at Missouri that are actually desperate attempts to meet teaching needs through exploitation. But there are only going to be a very few more legit tt postings from now on.
Well then, as a Greek literature person I can forget about finding a good job this season. But it does seem to come and go in waves? Last year was terrible for Roman historians and Latin literature people, so maybe next year I'll stand a chance...
A Prof I spoke to suggested that one reason why there has been an increase in art and archaeology jobs is that more and more universities are creating study abroad programs in Italy/Greece and need people who can teach these. But it may just be one of those waves... lots of archaeology and ancient history this year (with a few very good Latin lit. positions) and then not much for years...
'Some attempts to hire people's spouses will probably appear, and lots more one-years, probably some more weird garbage like the "assistant professor" position at Missouri that are actually desperate attempts to meet teaching needs through exploitation.'
And now Florida. The ads keep getting more and more bizarre.
U of Florida really needs to be censured. I pity the poor faculty member who had to actually write out the job description. All the way from teaching grad seminars to maintaining the Canvas website. I think it also says something about preparing meals for grad students during the summer.
At least they made the FSU job look good!
There may be a good number of “ancient history” jobs, but it’s largely a bust for two key reasons. First, people with degrees in Classics will flood the applicant pool even though they aren’t properly trained historians. This isn’t necessarily remedied by search committees, as many will be seduced by philologists with degrees from Harvard, Chicago, etc.. most History Department search committees looking for an ancient historian will most definitely be composed of a mix of modern historians that don’t understand that a philologists cannot teach history. ...the second problem is when a history position opens up in a Classics Dept. This is a problem since they don’t *really* want a historian, but a phlilologist that doesn’t mind teaching a “classical civ” course or two. Classics Depts need to realize that philologists should teach only language, archaeologists only archaeology, and historians only history. The 19th century viewpoint that all faculty in a Classics Dept ought to teach “Latin and Greek at all levels” is just one of the many reasons why Classics is a dying field: the failure to adapt to a modern & more diversified world.
Anonymous 12:48, I'm an ancient historian, and with some pretty decent credentials on my C.V. I do see your point about teaching "Latin and Greek at all levels," since that's not what we should be teaching (other than Livy, Herodotus, etc.), but at the same time, if an ancient historian is not able to teach those languages at all levels then he or she cannot be much of a scholar, and should not be hired. So I don't get all worked up over that requirement.
I also question whether historians can only be "properly trained" in a history program. I know I sure wasn't, and yet I have those aforementioned decent credentials.
@ 12:48
I beg to differ. A well trained Classicist should be able to teach both languages and history. Especially if they were ancient historians.
Anonymous 12:59,
I agree that an ancient historian ought to be strong in the languages. Surely any scholar worth their weight should be able to easily read Latin and Greek—if not how could they possibly conduct solid research. ...but, what I think isn’t being considered on your part (and forgive me for assuming this ofnim incorrect) is that just because someone has the language skills does not mean that they are trained to actaully *teach* those language skills as well as a philologist. Imagine that you’re a historian of early modern France, or 20th century Germany, or of Renaissance Italy at a school such as Princeton, Stanford, or Yale. Well, in absolutely no case at all would any of the Language Depts at those institutions ever consider having a historian teach French, German, or Italian. Ever. Why? Well, not because they don’t have a deep understanding of the language in question (they all surely are fluent) but simply because *their* PhD, training, and teaching experience is in examining historical questions not in focusing on why a particular phrase uses a particular grammatical construction, et al. ...All of us here have complete command of the English language, yet, are any of here really qualified to teach a college English course examining literature? Likely not, otherwise English PhDs wouldn’t exist—they’d just pluck people off the street. ...I’m not frustrated with you, so please, don’t take my ranting and bowing off steam personal. :)
I think what’s not being differentiated here is that 12:48 is saying that he/she has a PhD in History and never had the opportunity as a grad student to teach Latin or Greek 101/2 like those of us from Classics. Without a doubt, if you have a PhD in History (not Classics) most Classics Depts will be weary, even if you may have a BA and/or MA in Classics prior to PhD. ...being said, I’m not sure how much of those statements in job ads are just cut-and-pasted and not really meant to be implemented; I mean, have any of us ever had a Greek Archaeology prof teach a Greek class ?
I am right now teaching in a program that last year had a Greek archaeologist teach intro-level Greek, and it did not go well. Though that happened under atypical circumstances. The point being, it does happen sometimes.
Anyone get an interview at Haverford?
@12:48 (et al.). A job that requires a candidate who can teach both ancient history and classical languages will inevitably rule out people who can't do one or the other. From the Departmental perspective, however, they only need enough good candidates to fill out a short list, and one to be appointed. And in the present environment, they'll surely be embarrassed by choices.
Longtime lurker here. We’ll ik a bit heartbroken that I wasn’t contacted for an interview at UAlbany; of all that I applied to thus far, that’s the one I wanted more than any other. I felt that I was a good candidate (PhD from top-5; 3 published articles; 3 published reviews; 18-20 competitive grants; 7 conference presentations; numerous teaching awards; 6 years teaching experience during PhD and 2 years out as VAP at a top-10; etc..). I know it’s bad to ever take a lack of an interview request too bad, but this one really stung. ...just curious if the person who posted that they were contacted for a campus visit at UAlbany could share their basic stats ?? ...thanks in advance.
UAlbany was a weird posting. I’m 99% sure that whoever wrote it is confused on basic terminology. They said they wanted an historian of the ancient world who focused on “Hellenistic” history... surely they meant to say “Hellenic.” Odd, too, that they jumped right to campus visits... not sure if that means they received very very few applications or whole lot of dreadful ones.
@5:55. Or is hoping to lock someone in before other depts?
or a ready made hire?
Is anyone else surprised that a very prominent feminist in Roman history and Classics hasn't said anything about her old and now (publicly) disgraced friend, the current Weinstein of our world?
What I'm surprised about is that apparently everyone knew that he sexually harassed women, but gave him a silent permission to continue this. So sure, I guess that's included too.
Let’s not turn this blog into a TMZ like page, folks.
"I mean, have any of us ever had a Greek Archaeology prof teach a Greek class ?"
What rock have you been under? Or perhaps you've only hung around larger departments. Just about every smaller department I know that is fortunate enough to have a bona fide archaeologist expects him/her to chip in with languages. And, yes, it's a major reason why classics is dying - the 19th century paradigm where literature is the almost exclusive means for studying antiquity.
Not sure why people are surprised about the Mediterranean and comparative job descriptions proliferating. Scares me more that folks are surprised about it. An admin recently buoyed our spirits by admitting the study of the ancient world is certainly a worthy endeavor. He followed up by saying something like, "But your privileging of literature, which illuminates a relatively narrow segment of the ancient world, is akin to ancient white lives matter." Now thanks to his support we're doing one of the Mediterranean hires that apparently flummoxes some of you.
Two excellent posts about this topic recently:
https://eidolon.pub/the-slaves-were-happy-high-school-latin-and-the-horrors-of-classical-studies-4e1123649916
https://wcc-uk.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/10/27/against-classics/
@10:23 (and others). Truth be told, all historical disciplines are suffering right now, at least in my university and those in my neighborhood. Our Department of HIstory has seen its majors fall in half in the last decade. So has English, with the odd nuance that contemporary courses suffer. In Philosophy, history of philosophy is challenged; other parts, less so.
That Eidolon article seems a lot more relevant for high school teaching. I am hard pressed to think of any colleagues who try to whitewash slavery, rape, ephebophilia etc for their undergraduate students. It seems to me that teaching the *literature* with an emphasis on those issues is the very opposite of "ancient white lives matter" -- the goal is to expose the cracks in the facade, to expose the ugly underbelly of facile ideas about "the foundations of Western culture" precisely so we can critique and question it.
Our Greek Archaeologist teaches most of our Greek language courses, and the Classics department handles the Greek and Roman History classes because our History department doesn't have anyone who specializes in anything pre-Medieval. I think this is fairly common (my undergrad institution was similar). It's nice to have the chance to wear lots of different hats. I think I would get bored in a big department where I'm only ever allowed to teach within one specialty.
Not every Classicist should teach History (or vice versa), but some of us do a stellar job at both. Other Classicists do perfectly well teaching courses that are cross-listed with English or Philosophy. I think it's healthy for students and departments for some of the faculty to be able to cross disciplinary boundaries.
I agree with 2:16, but I have to say that unless the Classicist/Historian in question was trained in either a History Dept or one of the few cross-discipline PhD programs in ancient history (IPGRH @Michigan; UPenn’s Ancient History PhD program, etc..) there really is a great deal of disconnect from actual “history” training. Yes, one who holds a PhD in Classics will have a footing in the historical context (to varying degrees), but they more often than not (no fault of theirs, but due to how their PhD program is structured) they simply will NOT have the background in the scholarship that one coming from a History PhD has. For example, in most top History PhD programs in ancient history, the comp exams will require in-depth reading of historical approaches to varying topics of both Roman and Greek history. My program has a reading list of ca. 200-300 books/articles ( 12 topics for Roman & 12 topics for Greek history; each topic having a separate reading list of ca. 15-20 books/articles ). As such, an immensely deep understanding of the most significant aspects of both Greek/Roman history is cultivated. This isn’t tonsay that *all* history PhD programs are equal to this, but I have a very very hard time imagining that a standard Classics PhD would encompass anything even marginally similar—it would be quite unfair, as a Classics PhD student is buried with having to swim through Latin/Greek reading lists and schoalrship (perhaps on historical subjects) dealing with philological aspects. Again, that’s ok, nobody can be expected to be an expert in everything. But it’s my opinion that we ought to leave History to the historians and arguing about why something is in the dative and not the ablative for the philologists.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, my Classics PhD program neither required nor offered a single Greek or Roman history course during the time I was there. Yet it required PhD examinations in both Greek and Roman history.
Same thing at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill... top PhD programs in Classics yet no history courses offered by Classics Depts and no requirement. Though, a friend of mine at UNC said that many PhD candidates there are told to take an undergrad 100-level survey of either Greek or Roman History (from Hist. Dept) if their advisor thinks they are totally clueless about history (about 1/2 of all incoming Latin & Greek PhD students are deemed historically clueless). ...it seems that too many BA programs in Classics out there really don’t do a good job preparing students for graduate work, and add to that the fact that many (good ones, too!) PhD programs in Classics do little if anything to remedy this. :/
Anyone have any thoughts on the CAMWS letter re: counting tuition remission as taxable income? I hate to say this, but maybe it would be a good thing if graduate school was more restricted financially—we all know there’s a huge glut of Ph.D.’s who will never get a real job in their chosen field. Better to be driven to another, hopefully more lucrative, job now than 5-8 years of increasing debt / lost income later. I’m very sensitive to the social problem of making higher education even more financially out of reach, but if there were fewer graduate students there might be more money proportionally, and an actual possibility of a living wage while in grad school. With fewer grad students to teach introductory classes, there also might also be more incentive to hire TT or at least longer-term faculty. Basically, we’re facing an increasing supply of and decreasing demand for our services—would it be such a bad thing if the supply dried up a little?
"Truth be told, all historical disciplines are suffering right now, at least in my university and those in my neighborhood. Our Department of HIstory has seen its majors fall in half in the last decade. So has English, with the odd nuance that contemporary courses suffer. In Philosophy, history of philosophy is challenged; other parts, less so."
The problem for us is that our faculty and students are 95% white. Even the most ardent supporters of classics are having a difficult time defending this statistic when some of our institutions aren't even majority white at this point.
@9:42, this would set back our field so much. I grew up decidedly upper-middle-class and even with the tax break, I was one of the poorest in my graduate department and often felt less well off than many others in my field. How does this help us recruit people from diverse backgrounds into our field (which has historically been a place for academically-minded younger sons of elite families)? How does this help us make classics more relevant to economically disadvantaged students and students of color when only elites (and particularly white elites) teach courses? I agree that Ph.D. programs are creating too many students and not considering the consequences, but this tax burden isn't the solution.
One might, on the other hand, think that someone trained in 3:00's history program would be somewhat adrift in the real world once they had to leave behind what actually looks like a fairly narrow canon of topics, since (1) such emphasis on mastering secondary literature is kind of an archaic model of graduate training, regardless of discipline, (2) they won't have learned enough language skills to deal with a lot of the primary evidence, and (3) much of the methodology they will have picked up in their non-ancient studies will be irrelevant, since the "real" work of most history departments involves knowing how to handle too much evidence not (as in the ancient world) too little. Plus (4) the majority of the elite American ancient historians work in Classics departments, so the best training is going to be there (for instance, most of the classical winners of even the AHA's Breasted prize have their main appointment in Classics departments).
OK, I don't exactly believe all that. But I do really think that (at least in North America) the difference between ancient history learned in a Classics department and ancient history learned in a History department is not a matter of better/worse but of style and emphasis. Now, it is certainly true that a PhD in Classics doesn't automatically qualify someone to do ancient history, but the people who do history in a Classics department are just as good as those who do it in History. (Actually, if I were hiring and I had nothing by the degree to go on, I would pick "neither of the above" and go with someone from one of the interdisciplinary programs like Berkeley, Princeton, or Penn.)
People at Princeton don't know their languages.
3:00 here...
Well, we do have deep language training here alongside our approach to secondary scholarship. For instance, we all have to take at lest one doctoral-level (900) seminar in both Latin and Greek. These courses are in the Classics Dept and we are completely expected to be able to succeed alongside philology PhD candidates. I’m not going to lie, they are a challenge, but all of us pursuing a PhD in ancient history from the History Dept must pass this requirement (as well as pass two modern language exams). On top of this, 90% of al accepted PhD students in ancient history here already have a MA in Classics before arrival. The profs here are well aware that a historian can not do research without a deep knowledge of Latin & Greek. ....if biggest difference between us and a Classics PhD that may focus on History is that here we view tha ancient texts as a mean to our end...not the end in themself. Plus, many History PhD folks chose to not do a Classics PhD since they have zero interest in ever teaching undergrads how to scan Latin poetry.
^^^sorry for the typos. Using my IPhone and the autocorrect made some odd choices^^
If counting tuition reimbursement as taxable income were the thing making Classics inaccessible to people who aren't independently wealthy, I would be against it. Since it is already inaccessible to those people and this would just make that more obvious earlier, I'm kind of in favor.
11:18 and 9:42 do realize that the proposed change would be for all PhD programs, not just Classics, right? The result would probably be that the elite universities commit to better funding for their graduate students-- by cutting little and un-remunerative programs like Classics entirely to give more support to a smaller number of PhDs in glitzier departments.
@3:00 and 8:21. Nothing is stopping those with long Greek & Latin reading lists from reading those 200+ articles/books, or those who read articles/books from reading 2000+ pages of Latin and Greek. Both systems are one step in a PhD, which is one step in one's lifelong education.
@11:39. True enough, but as we all know, the burdens of PhD programs leaves little (if any) extra time for extra reading that falls outside of that which is required.
...at the end of they day, many ancient historians with History PhDs will struggle to get T-T in a Classics Dept and Classics PhDs will equally be viewed with skepticism from History Dept search committees.
...ancient history falls into a very funny catergory and it’s tough to say which degree, ultimately, offers the greater opportunity for employment. One the one hand, a Classics PhD is good for Classics Depts and *may* be adequate for some History Dept jobs, yet a History PhD is rarely adequate for a Classics Dept (unless they state specifically no language teaching is required). So Classics maybiffer more versatility... on the other hand, there are VERY few “ancient history” gigs in a Classics Dept (most are *really* philology appointments by capable of teaching Classical Civ stuff), while there are quite a good number of Ancient History jobs in History Depts. Add to this that many smaller schools will have job listings for, simply, a “premodernist” historian, to which an ancient history PhD would apply.
So... Classics offers slightly more versatility while History offers more job opportunities. Plus, Classics Depts are very very often on the chopping block at many institutions and are among the first Depts to be downgraded to “programs” before (ultimately) being killed. History Depts, on the reverse, aren’t ever getting shut down. Ever. There’s something to be said for that. :/
@ 11:39
I agree completely and I didn't want to put my two cents in, but we really need to understand the PhD as a license to learn.
As a younger academic I remember the stress I felt when I discovered that there were super smart people from the wrong kinds of programs whose languages were better than mine and whose subject knowledge clearly superior, not only in their own specialties but mine. The solution, I discovered, is to find some aspect of academia in which I could outdo all comers. After many years of trial and error, disappointment and self-doubt, I found myself an angle that I now share with you: sycophancy.
@11:25am that's also good...there are way, way too many spots in way too many Classics grad programs.
People at Princeton don't know their languages.
Well, just so long as their grasp of English is good enough to appreciate my application's merits.
@5:09 what makes me laugh is that people seem to think that this would somehow even out the job market, rather than lead to the total conversation of TT to 5/5 adjunct positions at most places.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that fewer PhD slots means that our field will more or less be a reflection of privilege rather than merit. that said, it seems to me that it is already the case: it is just that the bottleneck comes later in people's lives. A middle class kid with a state school UG degree can get into classics graduate school, yes. But they're unlikely to get into an ivy school, because the ivies are accepting people with ivy UG degrees. Which, as we know, is most of the time not really an indicator of merit but that someone came from the very top economic bracket (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html). So your middle class kid can get a PhD from a non-ivy graduate school, but will they get a job? Unlikely. Wouldn't it be better to shut these people out sooner?
Less is never really better. And "to shut out people" who are pursuing their dreams and goals isn't really a great idea. Rather it is one that stinks of privilege and probably is indicative of the dying of our field. And the reality is that many an Ivy league grad is not really capable of teaching students from diverse (economic and otherwise) backgraounds, or of teaching at all . . .
In other words don't forget the Novi Homines
We are dead - frogs in a slowly heated pot not realizing that the world has moved on from our privileged paradigm. There could be some radical and bold changes made but I've rarely seen anyone in positions of power have the stomach to do so or the willingness to jeopardize their own short-term security for the discipline's long term future.
"The problem for us is that our faculty and students are 95% white. Even the most ardent supporters of classics are having a difficult time defending this statistic when some of our institutions aren't even majority white at this point."
What does white even mean? It's a useless metric meant to divide. Other measures of "diversity" are exceedingly more important. Sorry, but it's a red herring.
It's about the experiences and perspectives we bring to our teaching and research. It's all good and fine to "expose the cracks in the facade" as previously mentioned, but there's something to be said for a critical mass of instructors in our field who have personally experienced these issues. For instance, I would be quite disappointed if my uni's gender and sexuality courses were all taught by men. Not sure why it seems okay that classics is basically taught by white people who have lived relatively (or extremely) privileged lives.
For the previous poster who asked what white means, if you shot up a concert and were deemed a "lone wolf" or "mentally troubled" with little chance of being tagged as a terrorist, you're white.
Plenty of “non-ivies” produce PhDs that get jobs. UNC-Chapel Hill; Berkeley; Chicago; Stanford; Duke; and Michigan, for instance. In fact, I’d bet that you’ll find more tenured faculty from any of these schools than from some of the “sub-par” ivies (Brown and Cornell).
@3:00 PM What are the other metrics that you think are more important for thinking about diversity? Not disagreeing, just curious to hear your thoughts.
Does anyone know if most schools will still view/consider your application if a letter of recommendation or two is missing? I noticed that 2/3 of my writers failed to upload for the UOregon job (they just yesterday emailed for interviews) and the online site says my application status is “halted-incomplete (2/3 letters missing).” ...Is it possible that a lazy/forgetful letter writer can prevent an applicant from even being viewed by a committee ?? (As if this horrible year with no positions isn’t bad enough as is)
Use Interfolio, don't trust your writers. Some people might write you to ask what happened to the missing letters (my dept. would), but others may never even see the incomplete application, if HR decides not to pass it on.
Some of the applications don't allow you to use Interfolio--you put in contact info and they email a request for a letter to each of your references. I hope that a letter missing or late doesn't get you kicked out of the pile (or never put in the pile in the first place)...one of my letter writers is always on top of things, but the other two are spotty and often submit their letters late no matter how much notice I give them.
Interfolio will allow you to use a "magic email address" rather than the real person's email address. If you use the magic interfolio address, the letter will go out to the university more or less instantaneously. I wouldn't count on late applications being considered.
As a departmental chair with a tt search this year, I'm sorry to say that the observation of 10:34 is probably sometimes correct: HR might control the system and may not pass along incomplete ones. (In the words of the poet, "If I had a rocket launcher, someone would pay".)
Thanks for that tip, 11:48 AM. I had no idea Interfolio would do that. My department chair and department secretary told me years ago that late letters didn't matter and that search committees expect a lot of them to trickle in after the due date. Sadly for me, it seems the TT window is mostly closed for this year and I now know that at least 1/4 of my applications might not even be considered.
I'm sorry to hear that. It is a painful lesson to learn: people giving advice, even people in positions of authority, sometimes have no idea what they're talking about because they don't realize how limited their own perspective is. Many of us have been down this road before you. Almost certainly some of your late apps will be considered.
PS This is part of why FV exists, as antidote to the bad advice that many of us receive.
11/10, 11:56: Yes, administrators are not going to shut down the biggies -- History, Chemistry, English, etc. -- but when they are looking to reduce budgets and close lines, the big departments are big targets. Decades ago U Wisconsin had a purge: History was asked as I recall to dump 10% of its faculty, something like six or seven people; Classics had so few people it got a complete pass. Life is not necessarily beer and skittles in the big departments. If you have a faculty of 80 people, it's hard to defend each and every one of them as being mission-critical.
I have also been told that late letters don't matter (and was even admonished for being concerned about it). It's remarkable to me that people feel justified in making these authoritative pronouncements about issues that have real consequences for people's lives/futures without any evidence whatsoever.
"I'm sorry to hear that. It is a painful lesson to learn: people giving advice, even people in positions of authority, sometimes have no idea what they're talking about because they don't realize how limited their own perspective is. Many of us have been down this road before you."
This x infinity. Always seek advice outside of your department/college/university, too, in as broad a forum as possible (such as the Chronicle of Higher Ed fora). It's not that folks are lazy or aren't well-meaning, is that, as in so many areas of life, we don't always know what we don't know. This doesn't even make the advice you have received bad; it is just particular and is likely to run smack into another opinion that is equally particular.
In my experiences, late letters are usually okay. The one exception was a school in which HR ran significant portions of the search (and we didn't have a choice; it was university policy).
Speaking of HR running searches, I recently applied to Cincinnati and had to deal with their unparalleled requirement that everyone applying for a job there write about how he or she would further diversity and inclusion. To my surprise, the statement was not supposed to be uploaded as one of the files forming part of the application, but instead had to be copied into a field in the HR-related part of the online application (along with answering questions about whether one is disabled, a veteran, etc.). Does anyone know if this means that HR will be looking over what we write before clearing applications for the search committee?
Since the Cincinnati online application is rather poorly done -- they actually ask one to provide COUNTY as part of one's address, since obviously the same application is used for any type of job opening on campus -- this might be done in all innocence, but it sure is strange.
Also, remember that few faculty have experience as candidates on this ruthless job market. Many senior faculty got their jobs in the easy job market of the 1990s. I've had more than one senior faculty member tell me how "I gave a terrible job talk," but still got the job. In short, the rules have changed, but many senior faculty do not sufficiently appreciate how they have.
Talk to junior people, and people who have been on the market multiple years. They have the best insights for today's kamikaze market.
The diversity statement is hardly unparalleled. Furman and Hamilton require something similar too.
12:43 a.m.:
Uhm... No. You are mistaken. I just checked Hamilton's online listing of all jobs on campus for non-teaching positions, and the postings do not mention any such requirement. Same for Furman. Cincinnati, however, has gone off the deep end, since EVERY position of any sort can only be obtained by those writing a statement about how they plan to contribute to diversity and inclusion, even if the position has nothing to do with that. For example, I found postings for a veterinarian's assistant, a data analyst, a post-doc fellow in biomedical ultrasound, a web developer for the administration, etc., all expected to promote diversity and inclusion once they're hired. Even an hourly grad student worker at a research institute cannot be hired without the same statement (!!!): https://jobs.uc.edu/job/Cincinnati-Student-Worker-IPR-Hourly-OH-45201/425612600
So, back to my question, does anyone know who exactly at Cincinnati is the judge of these statements -- faculty or HR technocrats?
(In other words, when I wrote "...everyone applying for a job there write about how he or she would further diversity and inclusion" I meant EVERYONE applying for a job there. That's unparalleled.)
No... I can confirm that Hamilton DOES require it (just applied via Interfolio)
Sometimes being in a position of authority convinces people that they ARE authorities. Thus you get people making blithe pronouncements about things like late letters not mattering, don't publish before you have the PhD, etc. And unfortunately, their graduate students may also accept them as all-knowing godlike figures. They don't mean to mislead, they've just lost perspective. Getting a job with an incomplete application in 1993 -- maybe you could. MAYBE it even happens today. But I wouldn't do anything that has any chance of jeopardizing a single application in this market.
To anyone on committees, how do you go through 100+ applications? How do you differentiate between them?
That answer (how do you go through 100+ applications) probably varies a lot from person to person, so I hope you get multiple responses, but for me (at a fairly research-oriented institution)...
1) Heavy reliance on letters (both the cover and the recommendations). If the candidate's project description isn't interesting, I likely won't look at the writing sample in hopes that it is better than advertised. For the recommendations, the standards are pretty high, and seeing ones that seem genuinely individualized is key.
2) Fit becomes very important. This is not, despite the way the word is often used in complaints about the hiring process, a matter of general affinity, but a very narrow comparison of what the candidate works on and what areas we imagine we want covered. [That's not to say that discriminatory affinity-testing doesn't exist, just that it doesn't have anything to do with the word "fit."]
3) For entry-level jobs, I don't rely much on number of publications. On the one hand, pretty much anybody who can get a PhD in Classics is capable of something published somewhere, and the reasons they might not have done so yet are numerous. On the other, eventually we'd be reading their work carefully, a more detailed investigation than counting CV lines
8:48 again
4) At this screening stage *almost* any level of teaching experience is ok. A European degree might be suspicious or and if someone is from from a very fancy Ivy/Stanford/Chicago institution we'd look at their individual record of teaching, but generally just holding a normal American PhD is fine.
"For the recommendations, the standards are pretty high, and seeing ones that seem genuinely individualized is key."
Do you mean individualized for the candidate, or for the hiring institution? The issue of letters came up last year and some people insisted that they needed to be customized for every application. So...do I ask my letter writers to customize their letters, knowing that at least one will probably be submitted late, or do I circumvent them and use Interfolio to submit the same letter to every job? What a bind for those us who depend on people who are of the opinion that late letters don't matter.
12:43 here (@2:46/2:48 AM)--I misunderstood; thought you meant that a diversity statement was unusual for faculty jobs. It does seem unusual to require it for ALL jobs, including regular staffing positions. I wonder if anyone reads these things, or if it is just the university covering its ass...but it does seem a bit like requiring a declaration of allegiance to a certain set of beliefs, which--however much I myself agree with those beliefs--is worrisome in an academic context.
I realise the impetus behind Diversity Statements, in that they do make candidates think (even to a small extent) about diversity and inclusion in their pedagogy, but the problem is that that anyone can write this "statement", even a white supremacist, homophobe or misogynist. It has no real bearing on how inclusive a Professor may actually turn out to be (same goes for a teaching demonstration, usually). They are redundant documents, but we will increasingly need to write them.
I believe diversity statements are mandatory for the entire University of California System (for faculty jobs at least). I had to submit one for a part time teaching position. My impression (which admittedly is not backstopped in any way) is that this is part of a larger effort to see how well the UC system as a whole is doing with diversity in its faculty hires, rather than a part of the application itself. In fact, the diversity statement was uploaded separately during the application and seems to go to someone other than the search committee. Certainly mine was not very exciting to read, but that didn't prevent my employment.
I like the diversity statement requirement for academic jobs, if only because it forces applicants to consider their role and responsibility in at least thinking about diversity in themselves, in their research, in their teaching. A lot (not all) of the criticisms I've read have come from people who aren't very engaged in this aspect of research, teaching, and mentorship, and they resist the idea that they have any responsibility here, I suspect because they don't see HOW they can contribute on this front as a white/cis/privileged/whatever academic. A lot of people (please don't use yourself as an example for everyone) do not think about this and do not care about this and the diversity statement requirement is the first and only time that someone will ask them to think about this. I think it's important even if someone reaches the conclusion that they don't care about this, at least they've thought about it explicitly. You can be contribute to diversity initiatives even if you are privileged, and you can write a strong diversity statement even if you're privileged, it's just about putting thought into the subject instead of treating it like the quantitative section of the GREs (silly analogy to mean "a throwaway," not the point of my post, I liked the quant section of the GREs). Yes, we're all busy, yes, it's another requirement when we're all busy, but we're all used to make decisions about what to prioritize, and it's important to admit if this isn't a priority of yours, if it's not something you feel like you have anything to do with.
The diversity statement is a political statement. You can't write an honest diversity statement without grappling with the question of whether you personally "prioritize" racial or cultural or economic diversity. We might not like it, but we all know that there is a big discussion out there over what we mean when we say "diversity", and whether all forms of diversity are created equal. I have SJW friends who would say that plumping for "economic diversity" over "racial" or "cultural" diversity is equivalent to saying "white lives matter". I have leftist friends who would say that this curiously American fetishization of racial issues over class is a corporatist ploy to get us to ignore the savage economic equality that is tearing our society apart. The point is, as part of the job application process we are now being asked to submit a statement of political faith, and that should be disturbing.
*economic inequality
@12:15 from @11:15: I can see what you mean, about it being a political statement where you position yourself vis-a-vis your carefully chosen disadvantaged group. I hadn't thought of it that way and I can see why some people would think that touting "economic diversity" is a way of WLMing diversity. I don't really agree, since I think that economic diversity interests are actually quite intersectional - I think economic diversity interests have the potential to incorporate things like race, gender, and dis/ability in productive and progressive ways, in the hands of sensitive and thoughtful people. I guess it just depends on how you approach the question and I think that if you show yourself engaged in the debates and questions, you're off to a good start with the diversity statement?
This is a good discussion, but one minor point: somewhere had a "surprise" diversity statement last year, as the issue that the commentator was wondering about seems to have been. Like, you're filling out an online form and all of a sudden you have to write an essay about how you're going to contribute to diversity at this particular college before your session expires, it was really stressful. It was somewhere in North Carolina I think. People complained, and someone from the SC came on here and explained it was just an HR thing that they didn't even see. So if the diversity statement is not on the list of required documents but turns up while filling in the form part of the application, it might not be worth overstressing about it. But it's a good idea to have one ready to go in advance, you'll need it eventually anyway.
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