The Philosophers' Cocoon

Query on diversity statements

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

How long should a diversity statement be for R1 jobs and postdocs? Many of these job ads ask for one, but none of them specify length.

Good question. I understand that some universities have detailed rubrics for diversity statements, in which case I'm guessing the answer is: the statement should be as concise as possible while aiming to satisfy as many things in the rubric as possible (given the applicant's background). Do all universities that require diversity statements have similar rubrics? If so, it might be good to hear about how similar or different they are to the one outlined above. It might also be good to hear from search committee members on how long effective diversity statements tend to be, and as a general rule what is too short or too long. Finally, it could be good to hear from search committee members on some "do's" but also some "don'ts" (i.e. things that candidates sometimes write in diversity statements that don't come off very well). Anyone with experience and insight willing and able to weigh in?

The 'any questions for us?' question

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm curious if folks who have been on hiring committees can shed some light on the oft-used concluding question at interviews: "Do you have any questions for us?"

My understanding is that this is, in one sense, a genuine ask: does the candidate have any questions we haven't addressed? But, clearly, it is also a signaling opportunity: what sorts of things does the candidate care about, and what can we glean about them as a colleague, teacher, and philosopher from these questions?

There are obviously terrible answers: "How much is the pay?" "Can I wear jorts to work?" "Are the students there really as bad as I've heard?"

But it's much less clear to me what constitutes a *good* question to ask here. I've heard of folks asking about developing courses, research funding, and extra-curriculars, but these seem overdone now (since we've all been taught from the same playbook, so to speak).

Maybe those who have served on committees could offer some more specific advice/commentary on this. Are there any answers to this question that have really struck you as *good*? What sorts of things make you cringe? What are you tired of hearing? What sorts of things make a candidate stand out here?

Great questions! Any search committee members willing to weigh in? I'll just share three brief thoughts: (1) In my experience, good questions show that you have done your homework on the institution and actually thought in some depth about ways that you might contribute; (2) As a general rule, I think questions about the philosophy club tend to be cringeworthy (as it can seem to betray a kind of laziness in terms of learning anything more substantial about the institution before the interview). Beyond this, I'm not sure though. I think it would be great to hear from other search committee members!

Teaching statements & COVID?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm curious whether and how everyone on the market is changing their teaching statements to fit the new realities of teaching. Teaching right now has required significant changes in techniques for most, if not all of us. For example, I'm teaching hybrid, socially distanced classes and my usual activities can't be used. I've tried adapted versions, but honestly, they did not go as well for practical reasons. Should I downplay the in-class activities in my teaching statement? Should we all have paragraphs devoted to hybrid and online teaching generally? What are people doing?

Great questions! I think it would be great to hear from both job-candidates and search committee members. Anyone have any insight?

Don’t Write “Public Philosophy”, Write Public Philosophy (guest post by Tamler Sommers)

This is the third installment of our series on publishing popular philosophy books, written by Tamler Sommers, University of Houston. 

Helen De Cruz invited me to write a post on writing for non-academic audiences in connection to my 2018 book Why Honor Matters – to give advice to early career philosophers about the process of writing and promoting a trade book.

Unfortunately, that experience isn’t the best model for this purpose. First of all, the “how it got made” story behind Why Honor Matters is too idiosyncratic. My podcast Very Bad Wizards (which debuted in 2012) attracted the interest of Russell Weinberg, an agent at a top agency for popular science books. Russell reached out to me sometime in 2014 and asked if I was interested in writing a trade book. I pitched him some topics – and the only one that excited the agency was honor. Next, I had to come up with a proposal. Trade book proposals are excruciating to write – for me at least. I tried and failed for more than two years to come up with a viable way to do a book-length exploration of honor. The topic was too broad, too amorphous, to bring into focus. I struggled with the tone too - I didn’t want to write an alarmist screed, I wanted the book to be upbeat, informative, to make readers rethink core convictions they take for granted…but also fun to read. I can’t stress enough how often I wanted to give up on this project, but Russell kept pressing me to get it done. Without that external pressure, along with a bunch helpful of ideas for revision, I would have quit years earlier. This was not a project I could’ve brought to fruition on my own.

And that was a big part of the problem. I’m convinced my struggles with the proposal were because I decided to write a piece of public philosophy without having anything specific in mind at the outset. I was doing this backwards, I knew the genre before I had the argument or even an idea of what I wanted to write about. I won’t do that again and I don’t recommend this approach to writing for the public. Before Why Honor Matters I started with a project I wanted to pursue, and the “for the public” side of it was almost incidental. My podcast (which led to the book) is a prime example. I wanted to do a moral psychology podcast not for public engagement purposes but because I loved podcasts, and I thought we could do it well. We do reach a wide audience - Very Bad Wizards gets well over 100,000 downloads per episode, and over 25 million in total. But we’re doing the show the way we want to do it and have from the beginning. My other public philosophy work, my interviews for The Believer magazine (which eventually led to two books of interviews), came about the same way. I wanted the chance to talk to researchers doing exciting work in science and ethics. My friend had just started a new magazine and she offered me the opportunity. I’m happy the interviews got some public attention but that wasn’t my goal at the outset.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been interested in reaching audiences beyond the small professional world we inhabit. I just think that the project itself should be your primary motivation, not its value or appeal as public philosophy. This is why until now I’ve mostly stayed out of the discourse on public philosophy on blogs and websites. “Should we write public philosophy” or “what is the value of public philosophy” are not good questions to discuss in general terms. The real question comes when you have an idea for a project, one that might count as “public philosophy” - should you devote your efforts to making that particular thing happen? And if you’re excited about the project, and you think you can pull it off, then who cares what people think about value of public philosophy in general?

I think debates like this are part of a more general tendency among younger academics to overstrategize or overthink their careers. In my view, success in this profession is too unpredictable to try to game the system. So do work you’re happy with and hope for the best. Back when I was publishing interviews and small popular pieces, some professors warned me the field wouldn’t take me seriously as a scholar if I did too many of them. As it turns out, my non-academic work was a boon for my academic career. The first person I interviewed for The Believer, Galen Strawson, ended up as the external member of my dissertation committee. My first academic book Relative Justice came about because Rob Tempio at Princeton UP reached out to me after reading 2005 Believer interview with Jonathan Haidt. The advance contract he was willing to give me helped me land the job I still have and love today. Why Honor Matters was the centerpiece of my file for full professor. Many of these connections were flukes, lucky breaks. It would’ve been crazy to undertake those projects as part of some sort of career plan.
Having said all of that, let me at least briefly perform the task that was requested of me: give some concrete advice to early career philosophers about writing for the public, and writing and promoting a trade book in particular.

Tips on transferring grad programs?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm currently a PhD student in my second year at a department that I enjoy. However, I'm seriously considering transferring because of geographical reasons (I want to get married). How to approach this? I heard that it is very difficult to successfully transfer PhD programs (additionally, all universities in the area I want to move to are higher ranked than my current department), and I also want to avoid awkwardness in my current program. I'm very nervous even about asking for letters of recommendation. Any advice?

Good question! I transferred grad programs many years ago, and didn't find it difficult or awkward--and I ended up transferring into a more highly ranked program. However, my situation was unique: four of my grad program's faculty (all of whom I planned to work with) were hired away by other universities during my second year. Because of this, I didn't hesitate to ask for letters of recommendation, and everyone I asked seemed to understand why I wanted to transfer and were supportive.

Anyway, given how unique my case was, I'm not sure that I have much good advice to offer. I will say that I think transferring out of a grad program you enjoy can be a real risk, as there's no guarantee that you'll enjoy or flourish in the new program like the one you're currently in. But this is only one part of the equation if geography and personal matters such as marriage are at issue, and of course one can do always do one's homework on the programs one is considering. In terms of how to ask for letters, I guess I would just try to ask in a way that conveys that you enjoy the program and it's a hard decision, but that personal reasons (in this case marriage) are one's reasons for moving. Hopefully, grad faculty of good character will understand reasons like these. But these are just off-the-cuff thoughts.

Anyone have tips or relevant experiences they are willing to share? It might be good to hear both from grad students who have tried transferring, as well as from faculty in grad programs on how they think students should go about it.

Interviewing tips for religious university jobs

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Could you address some potential strategies for interviewing at religiously affiliated--specifically Catholic--liberal arts colleges? My general sense is that the school is less interested in the applicant's particular beliefs or religious affiliations and more in hearing how the candidate is able to incorporate the university's religious values into teaching, research, and service. This may be right but I can's escape the nagging feeling that there will be some left field question about religion or theology that will throw me off?

Is this a well founded worry?

Another reader submitted the following response:

My experience with Catholic schools was not great. I was long-listed for a number of jobs at such schools, because of my profile. Inevitably they ask a question or questions that are the litmus test. They ask what you know about Catholic philosophy ... I was educated at a place where I knew who Jacques Maritain was ... and other greats in 20th C Catholic philosophy. I think I was too honest. I am not saying these places only hire Catholics, but they generally are looking for one of their own.

This coheres with my own experience applying for jobs at Catholic schools. I recall, even at the application stage, a number of Catholic universities that I applied to requiring materials (e.g. statements speaking to the Catholic mission of the university) that suggested they were probably looking for someone in the faith. However, I also remember applying to a number of other religiously-affiliated universities (particularly non-Catholic schools) that seemed entirely open to candidates irrespective of these kinds of things. What are other people's experiences here? It would be great to hear from job candidates about their experiences, as well as people at religious institutions who can comment on their hiring priorities and practices.

How to list talks on a CV

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

How should talks appear on a CV? I'm late-junior stage (about to be tenured) so I've given more than a few. Do I just list the most recent? Going back how far? Do I list the most prestigious and somehow indicate that it's a selected list? Do I not list any? For context, the 'talks' section of my CV is currently taking up a little over a page, about the same as my publications. How do other people navigate this?

Another reader submitted the following reply:

A common practice is to have a list of invited talks, and then a list of refereed conference talks. Each list is labelled - clearly! I assume, if you have some publications (a page worth), that that is what will really determine whether you get tenure or not. Talks are much more important for early career people with few pubs. I am far along, and generally just list recent talks.

I'm curious what other people think. What do you all do, and why?

 

APA webinar: supporting non-academic careers

This is just a quick note that the APA’s Committee on Non-Academic Careers has organized a webinar for APA members, Supporting Non-Academic Careers: What Can Faculty Do?, for next Monday (October 26th) at 4pm EST. I think this is a great endeavor, and hope it receives strong participation, in part to incentivize more endeavors and events like this in the future. Here's a quick description of the event and scheduled speakers:

The webinar will include recommendations about steps departments and faculty can take to support and facilitate careers outside of academia, as well as experiences from faculty working to promote career diversity. The webinar may be especially useful for faculty in leadership positions in graduate programs, such as chairs, directors of graduate studies, and placement/career services officers.

The panelists for the webinar are the following:

• • Mark Barber, PhD, associate chair of the APA Committee on Non-Academic Careers
  • Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, University of California, Merced
  • Shane Wilkins, PhD, member of the APA Committee on Non-Academic Careers
  • Kevin J.S. Zollman, Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University

To participate, register on the APA website. Registration will be available until 10 a.m. Eastern time / 7 a.m. Pacific time on the day of the webinar, and access information will be provided to registrants at least one hour prior to the start of the webinar. Registration is limited to current APA members.

Interested readers can register for the event here. However, if you can't make it, a live recording of the event will be made available to APA members afterward. 

Grappling with burnout (or worse)?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I haven't been able to get much work done in the last nine months on my research because of a problem that is new for me, and I wonder how typical it is for others in academics - emotional pain.

I'm an upper year PhD student who has their dissertation mostly complete. If I needed to, I (and my advisor) feel like I can wrap things up in a month. That has been the case for almost a year now. Also, I've been on the job 'market' since last year.

Every word I type about the thoughts I have on my area of research feels like a scab ripped from my mind. I feel relatively fine writing about anything else. Besides what I imagine are the typical anxiety about rejection and imposter syndrome, I'm feeling a lot of grief and sense of loss among other complicated stuff I cant put really well to words. I'm already not great at taking the time to dwell on writing material to polish things up. Now it's more than just an executive functioning/attention problem. Working on my research and material related to it in my job applications has become a sort of feeling management problem. It makes me wonder if I have a toxic relationship with academia, that this is something that will keep getting worse for me and I'm better off cutting ties with the profession, or whether its because of the context I'm in (covid and job searching despair), that I'm failing to see things objectively.

I've dealt with depression before and this feels different. It feels like grief and loss, less of an autonomous mood and more of a reaction to my world. Does this resonate with anyone here? Is this a sign I should take, that I'm 'burnt out' on philosophy? How does one successfully manage the emotional (instead of motivation) side of getting work done?

This post actually resonates with me a great deal, and I hope we can have a helpful and supportive discussion about the important issues it raises. Allow me to say a few brief things, and then invite readers to share their own experiences and any tips or advice they have for someone grappling with these kinds of issues.

Publishing dissertation work before defending?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

1. Is it advisable to publish dissertation chapters before the final defence?
2. Can one incorporate published articles in one's thesis (say, if you published an article early on in your PhD but it is directly relevant to your thesis)?

The answer to question (1) seems to me to be 'obviously yes', though it may make sense to check with your committee first. After all, suppose they're not entirely happy with the work yet, and think it should be improved prior to publishing it anywhere. In that case, I suppose that publishing something they're not terribly happy with could rub them the wrong way. I'm a bit less sure about (2), but I guess here too my suggestion is: ask your committee! What do readers think?

On reading & engaging with others' work

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm a grad student who is wishing that there was not so much pressure to publish in order to get jobs. I naively thought that grad school might be a time to just read things because they are interesting, and even (gasp!) take time off from writing altogether to focus on deepening one's understanding.

I acknowledge that sometimes reading widely and deeply does benefit one's own writing. At the same time, in my experience, many philosophers do quite well without being particularly well-read. Slightly more cynically, it seems that many philosophers can thrive as long as they read just enough to not look completely ignorant of what's come before.

My question is this: to some extent, is engaging with others' work best thought of as a duty to the profession? Even if there are not particular professional rewards, it seems like we might just owe it to each other and those who've come before to dedicate time to others' work.

I am very sympathetic with this reader's concerns. Back when I was in graduate school (2001-2008), publishing while in a graduate program seemed to be relatively rare. I only knew a few graduate students who published things, and I even recall it being something of a norm (at least in highly ranked programs) to encourage grad students not to publish. The general thought here was that it would be a mistake to 'publish before you're ready', and the point of graduate school--and the dissertation in particular--was to make you ready to publish. In other words, back then graduate school was fairly close to what this readers describes they 'naively thought' graduate school would be like. When did things change, and why?

The ethics of Supreme Court nomination and confirmation

It is almost certainly a foregone conclusion that Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed to sit on the US Supreme Court. However, how should we think about the ethics of her nomination and the confirmation process? Was it ethical for President Trump to nominate her to the Court? Is it ethical for the Senate to confirm her? Should Barrett take herself to be under an ethical duty to step down or issue a public statement calling for a halt to her nomination process, as called for in an open letter by many of her faculty colleagues at Notre Dame?

I published an article, 'The Rationality of Voting and Duties of Elected Officials', addressing these kinds of questions several years ago, and figured I'd briefly share some of the main line of argument here. It won't make a difference, of course, and the argument itself is almost certainly open to question, as virtually all philosophical arguments are. But, be that as it may, it's worth reflecting in times like this on what ethics requires. How, then, do I think we should think about this case?

In a 2010 article in Philosophy & Public Affairs, 'The Paradox of Voting and the Ethics of Political Representation', Alex Guerrero argues that it is rational vote in order to contribute (if only in a small way) to the manifest normative mandate (MNM).  for elected officials. In rough outline, an elected official's normative mandate is the extent to the official (and by extension their political platform and policy decisions) is supported by their constituents. In democratic theory, there are grounds for taking such levels of support (or lack thereof) to have normative ethical implications: namely, that elected officials have a standing ethical duty to represent the will of the constituents they govern. Guerrero then argues that election results represent this mandate, as vote totals indicate how many constituents support a given official (and their political platform). That is, election results are the manifest normative mandate indicating how much support an official has if elected to office. The more votes they win by, the stronger claim they have to represent the will of the govern. Conversely, if they win only by a little bit (or lose the popular vote), then they have a weaker claim to represent the will of the governed. Finally, Guerrero argues that this has important normative ethical implications. The greater an elected official's MNM, the more moral justification they have for functioning as a trustee of the people entitled to make their own decisions while in office (in pursuit of their political platform). Conversely, the smaller an official's MNM, the more they have a moral duty to function as a delegate, acting in deference to what their constituents prefer while they are in office.

Grappling with (academic) acedia?

A few weeks ago, I came across this article on social media, 'Acedia: the lost name for the emotion we’re all feeling right now'. Given that the article seemed to be 'making the rounds', I assume some of you probably came across it too, and I'm wondering whether it spoke to others the way it did to me. During the first several months of the pandemic, I would describe myself as more stressed than normal (worrying about my health, the health of loved ones, etc.), but on the whole, I didn't have too much trouble adapting to social distancing. Because I'm an introvert, it actually initially came fairly naturally. However, now that the pandemic is stretching on, I'm finding it progressively more difficult. For example, although I'm doing my best, I'm finding teaching to be a struggle--in part because it's hard to get to know my students, but also because it's difficult to get good in-class conversations going when half of my students are in the classroom and other half are at home. And so on.  Similarly, while I've had some time to get some research done, I've found it more difficult than usual to motivate and find anything like my normal levels of enthusiasm and focus. And, while I've tried to focus on hobbies (particularly music) and Zoom meetups to keep my spirits up, I've found that only goes so far. I miss seeing people in person, and most days seem akin to copies of the last (fewer unexpected things happen when you stay at home everyday!). Anyway, everything just seems difficult. 

Anyway, I'm curious whether readers are having similar struggles, and if so, what kinds of things you've found to be helpful. I realize there's only so much that we can do under pandemic conditions (particularly as a second wave seems to be emerging), but still, I thought it might be good to discuss and crowdsource tips, as it were. Anyone able and willing to share?

Good non-anonymized journals?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Are there any refereed, non-invite-only journals, where it is possible to submit article-length, non-anonymous pieces written in the first-person, that are respectable ("high-ranking", or whatever)? In other words, are there any open-submission equivalents to Philosophical Perspectives or Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume? I'd like to expand on some previously published work but not expand so much as to write a book. And I don't want to dance around the fact I'm the author of the previously published work.

I'm not aware of any journals like this, and I'm curious as to whether there are any. Does anyone know of any journals like this? In any case, I'm also curious what this reader's interest is here in not dancing around the fact that they are the author of the previous work that they're looking to develop. As someone who also writes articles further developing previous things I've published, I don't find it terribly difficult to write articles in the third person, so as to conform to anonymized review. While I expect that sometimes (perhaps even more often than not) reviewers may suspect I'm the author, this doesn't seem to me much worse than the situation I'd be in if there were a non-anonymized journal to submit to--and I take it one can always change the language to the first-person prior to publication, right? So again, what's the author's interest here? It might be good to hear from them about it if they're willing to share!

Networking and 'Leaving Academia'

I just came across this really interesting interview of Christopher Caterine, author of the new book, Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide (Princeton University Press). Here are a few choice bits of the interview focusing on networking:

Q: Networking is a subject in your book. How is networking different for nonacademic careers than for academic careers?

A: I was such a firm believer in meritocracy that it never crossed my mind to network while I was in academe! At best, I saw it as an imposition on other people's time; at worst, I viewed it as a type of cheating -- trying to convince someone to hire you because of a relationship instead of for the quality of your scholarship. I think part of that block was that I assumed networking was solely about helping yourself get a job. That's one of the reasons why you do it, of course, but if it's your only goal, you won't get very far. To be good at networking, you need to make it about learning from others and positioning yourself to help them. Enter every meeting aiming to learn as much as you can about your contact’s professional history, goals and current challenges. That knowledge allows you to connect them to people who can help them solve their problems faster than they could in a vacuum. At that point, you’re returning value to them on the time they invested in your meeting. The benefit to you is information about their line of work, the skills required to do it and an improved perception of what it would be like to do that job on a daily basis.

To my mind, scholars could be much more effective and efficient in their work if they applied these skills inside the academy. But the culture of grad school seems to condition most people not to behave this way. When I first started networking, I was terrified that I would annoy people by asking for their time. Most -- maybe 80 percent -- quickly volunteered an hour to tell me about their career path when I emailed my request. That's probably what's most different about networking between academia and the rest of the professional world: nonacademics prioritize networking and relationship building even though their calendars are far more constrained and far less flexible...

Q: Can you describe your job outside academe and how you came to get it?

A: I'm a communications strategist and proposal writer for a global consulting company. On a fun day, I work with senior members of the firm to craft a compelling sales message or collaborate with the rest of our creative team to convey that message as memorably as possible. On a boring day, you might find me applying a style guide to a massive technical document or checking to make sure that everyone's name and title are correct in an organizational chart. Essentially, I apply a wide array of skills I learned earning my doctorate: synthesizing information, weighing ambiguous evidence, writing clearly and framing what is usually quite boring information in an exciting way that can hold an audience’s attention. I used to travel almost weekly to work with teams on site -- and will be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine if it means I can do so again!

I found the job through networking. Someone I had cold contacted for an informational interview put me in touch with someone he knew at the company, and a good chat with that individual led to a call with a superior of his who had also been an academic. The focus of that call -- and this is important general advice -- was that people with advanced degrees look overqualified when applying for entry-level jobs: to his mind it was far better for people like me to seek midcareer positions. At the end of our discussion, he hesitated slightly before asking me for a writing sample. He was apparently happy with what he saw: shortly after receiving it, he referred me for a position that was about to become available. I didn't even know I was being considered for a job until I was asked to schedule the first interview! At the time that seemed crazy, but I now know that most midcareer positions are filled by referral rather than application. That fact makes it essential for academics to step outside their comfort zone and learn how to network. It really is how you create your own luck -- especially in a job market as competitive as today's.

I hope some of the Cocoon's readers find this helpful. Feel free to share tips and anecdotes of your own in the comments section below!