The Philosophers' Cocoon

Deciding which recommendation letters to use

Over on Twitter yesterday, Jonny (a philosophy of science postgrad) asked, "Suppose I have 10 letters of recommendation for PhDs, how do I determine whose to use?" Someone suggested we hold a thread on this here, so here goes!

First of all, congrats to Jonny on securing 10 letters. That might be an all-time record! In response, Craig Agule wrote: "Although this advice is not wholly uncontroversial, you should have some trusted advisor read all 10 letters, both to catch accidentally bad letters and to help you choose." Although I've never tried it, this is what I've been told before--and I've heard if you have your letters uploaded to Interfolio, you can have them sent to a trusted advisor (though I wonder if there are some ethical issues here, given that letters are intended to be confidential). 

In any case, I guess my own answer is a bit more complex. I think if it's possible to get a trusted person to vet your letters, that's a good way to go. But I also think some strategy is probably in order for selecting the best letters. First, when it comes to jobs at R1's and prestigious SLACs, I suspect name recognition may matter a lot. If you have some letters from really eminent people in the profession, my sense is that (all things being equal) those are probably ones to prioritize. Conversely, if you are applying to jobs at a "teaching" school, it is not at all clear to me that the same strategy is wise. In my experience, prestigious letter-writers tend to write research-heavy letters--ones that may make a candidate look like a bad fit for a teaching school (conveying in effect, "this person really belongs at an R1"). When applying to teaching schools, one should always include at least one "teaching letter", and I think one should try to figure out which of one's letters make one look balanced (i.e. both a good researcher and a good teacher). Finally, I think that whenever possible, it is good to include at least one "outside" letter by a person not from one's grad department, as everyone recognizes that faculty from your grad program have a vested interest in your success (and hence reasons to "oversell" you relative to someone who has no such vested interest.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. I have to confess that this is a problem I never really solved as a job-marketeer. I had seven letters, never had anyone vet them, and just decided on a case to case basis which ones seemed to best fit the jobs I was applying to (most of the time, my experience is that jobs have a three-letter cutoff). This probably wasn't the best solution, but it worked okay! I suspect this may be in part because (or so I've heard) search committee members these days often take recommendation letters with a real grain of salt, focusing more on judging your materials for themselves. As a four-time search-committee member myself, I can attest to this. When a candidate's letters don't match your own estimation of their materials at all (viz. "overselling" the candidate), I suspect the tendency is to go with one's own judgment. But again, this is just my guess, and I could be totally wrong!

What do you all think? It might be particularly good to hear from candidates who have grappled with this problem effectively, as well as from search committee members!

Journals being unable to find referees

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, JR writes:

What to do when top journals reject papers without sending them for review not because the paper is bad but because they simply cannot find referees? My manuscript has been rejected from two top journals. One of the journals rejected the paper and the editor basically said that we do not have time to find competent referees for every paper and for that reason we have to reject some promising papers. Another journal rejected my paper after it has been "under review" for 6 weeks or so. They first contacted me and told that they have not yet found a referee for it because people keep rejecting referee invitations but that they will continue to find the referees. Just a day later I received another email saying that they have rejected my paper without any comments from the referees.

Is this practice common? Is it morally permissible? What an author can do to avoid this? Should I only submit papers to specialized journals that know more referees? (The problem is that if one does not publish in top philosophy journals, some philosophers think his/her work is not "real philosophy"). Should an author always recommend possible referees in a cover letter when submitting a paper? (at least some journals ask the author to recommend possible referees).

This is interesting, as similar phenomena happened to me for the first time recently as both an author and reviewer. In one case, an editor wrote to me apologizing for a long review time due to inability to find referees for a paper I submitted. Then, in another case, an editor for a different journal wrote to me asking me to review a paper because reviewers kept turning their requests down. In all my years, these are the first times I've encountered this phenomenon, and both instances happened in the past few months. I wonder what's going on, and whether this some kind of trend due to the professional conditions that David Velleman recently termed 'the publication emergency'.

Anyone else have any experience with this? On the one hand, it seems to me that members of the profession have a presumptive duty to take on review requests (viz. contributing their fair share to a system that plays a central role in our profession), so if people are turning down review requests left and right, then that's concerning. On the other hand, reviewing is 'unpaid labor' of sorts, so I know there's not much incentive for people to accept requests. But in any case, rejecting papers due to inability to find suitable referees seems super unfair to authors. So, I'm really not sure what to say on this. What do you all think? It might be good to hear from editors, reviewers, and authors on their experiences here!

How to start with a big project that causes stress

This is a guest post by Rebecca Kukla, Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University

I have severe anxiety disorder that often incapacitates me. Often, my anxiety builds up around particular writing projects and professional tasks, for whatever reason. At the same time, while I often finish things much later than I planned or than I am supposed to, I have a pretty excellent track record of getting things done and being professionally productive. I want to share with you my actual magic trick for dealing with big projects that cause stress. I mean this trick to be taken very seriously and literally. There is nothing facetious about this post. I know many of us struggle with anxiety around unapproachable projects, and I am just sharing, as someone with intense anxiety who is pretty good at getting stuff done in the end.

My trick is to schedule a day - seriously, a whole work day - just for opening the file for the project. You are not even allowed to work on the file or look at it in detail that day. You just open it, maybe skim it at most. You are allowed to combine files if your stuff for this project has gotten fragmented, so it’s all in one file, but you aren't allowed to think hard about it or work on it in any way. If it's an incredibly stressful project, schedule two days for this. That’s one day to fail at it because of anxiety, and a second day to open it, or one day to open it, and then a special reward of a day off, because you met your goal and it's time to treat yo self. Once you do this, guess what? You already started successfully working on the thing! The next day that you work on it will be so much less stressful.

'Negative' remarks in research statements

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, SM writes:

When it comes to writing research statements, is it OK if one tries to eschew remarks about what others have not done, but what you have done in favor of simply explaining your projects. I know The Professor is In says to avoid going negative, but I wonder whether in avoiding negative remarks it might not be clear to those who do not work in your AOS what your contribution actually is. Presumably, some may want to know why your particular interpretive angle on X is worth pursuing, and you often cannot motivate that without saying what others have said.

I think The Professor Is In is correct about this. One of the tricks to a good research statement is learning how to convey the novelty of your research without 'going negative'. If you look at my research statement (a much earlier version of which was vetted by the Professor Is In, and which I just revised this morning), you will see that there is very little (if anything) that could be construed as negative. Instead, there are brief explicit and implicit contrasts with dominant views, as well as brief indications of how my work resolves some critiques. Here are a few examples:

"I challenge the dominant view that answers to moral and political questions can be discovered by theory or rational argumentation, arguing that sound answers to moral and political questions should be seen instead as created by fair, organic, real-world negotiation."

"Chapter 1 of my book argues that be truth-apt, moral philosophy should be based upon a new methodology: seven principles of theory-selection adapted from the sciences."

"In two subsequent articles...I argue that Rightness as Fairness has important implications for reducing social polarization and for solving the 'alignment problem' in ethical A.I. programming...Finally, in a second book manuscript, Neurofunctional Prudence and Morality: A Philosophical Theory (under contract, Routledge), I outline a unified theory of prudence, morality, and justice which reduces all moral and political norms to norms of prudence, arguing in turn that a wide variety of recent findings in behavioral neuroscience support the account. The revised version of Rightness as Fairness the book defends also resolves a variety of critical concerns raised to my first book."

"In addition to these two main projects, in two articles I have argued that several longstanding issues regarding human rights—regarding their number, justification, and action-guidance—can be resolved by distinguishing between (A) domestic human rights, which apply within states, and (B) international human rights, which justify international intervention."

Although I don't pretend my research statement gets everything right (if I learned one thing from the Professor Is In, it is that it is very hard to craft job-market materials that 'hit all of the right notes'), my sense is that this is probably the way to try to go about things. I have read research statements that spend so much time explaining how the author's view 'defeats' other people's views that it just comes across as 'getting too much in the weeds'. Leave that for your writing sample! That's where I want to see you argue against other people. What I want to see in a research statement is a crisp, concise picture of what you're doing. If what you're doing is interesting and original, my sense is that it should probably pop out to the reader without going into a bunch of detail about "why my view is better than X, Y, and Z".

But, of course, I am just one person, and I could be wrong about this! Does anyone who has been on the hiring side of things have any insight to share?

Interdisciplinarity: good or bad?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, PhC writes:

I am currently a graduate student and have been trying to develop a teaching portfolio at the intersection between philosophy, politics, and economics - i.e., teaching courses not only on political philosophy, philosophy of economics, philosophy of law, and so on, but e.g. on human rights policy and political economy as well. I am afraid, however, that search committees may think my profile is too interdisciplinary. Any thoughts in this regard?

This is great query. I'm not entirely sure about jobs at R1's or prestigious SLACs, where I've heard (albeit only anecdotally) that it can be important to look specialized rather than too broad or unfocused. At the same time, I can't help but wonder whether the specific kind of interdisciplinarity PhC mentions (PPE) might be an advantage at research schools. After all, they might be able to apply (and be competitive) not just for philosophy jobs, but also political science jobs in political theory or in business schools (I know a few philosophers in business schools at some pretty rarified places).

In any case, what I do feel pretty confident about is that interdisciplinarity in general is almost certainly a real advantage at teaching-focused schools similar to mine. My experience is not only that administrators at these kinds of schools tend to look very favorably on collaborative work across disciplinary boundaries. It is that philosophy departments value the ability of new hires to teach (and create) a wide variety of courses that might be of interest to students and attract majors--including political science majors, econ majors, law students, and so on.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours, particularly those of you who have been on the hiring side of things?

Organizing good conferences (guest post by Alex Grzankowski)

The following is a guest post by Alex Grzankowski (Senior Lecturer - University of London, Birkbeck College):

I organize quite a few events each year and I go to more talks and conferences in a year than I'm comfortable admitting. Presently I'm the organizer of the London Mind Group but I also typically put together a couple of workshops/conferences every year and I help out on the edges with the London Aesthetics Forum. As a result, when I go to other events these days, I really notice the little things that bug me (like not having coffee in the morning or an overpriced conference meal that isn't very good) and sometimes big things that bug me such as having so many talks jammed into a day that the last thing I want to do by the end is think more and talk shop. I'm sure that I build into the events I organize various preferences of my own that aren't widely shared and that there are preferences I miss by not having them myself. And I suspect this is true for other event organizers. I'd be very interested to hear from readers what sorts of things have made for especially good conference/workshop experiences and what have made for bad experiences. I don't have in mind here huge events such as an APA meeting or a summer school that lasts for many days - those raise many of their own issues. I have in mind what seems to me a pretty typical event - a one or two day affair with a handful of speakers. As far as what makes for not so good experiences, I don't have in mind things that ruin events such as a participant who is a jerk or worse. Of course that's very important and knowing who you are inviting matters a lot, but I think it might be helpful to focus on the nuts and bolts of the event as such with an eye towards general conference/workshop input. I'm sure any feedback at all will be helpful for me (and I hope for others!), but below are some of the questions I've been thinking about.

-what time do you think an event should start and end?

-how many talks do you want to attend in a day?

-how many days should a workshop or conference last?

-how long should a talk last?

-how long should Q&A last?

-do you like it when there is a respondent?

-should a conference reception/dinner be on offer?

-how long should a lunch break be?

-how crucial is coffee/tea at the opening of the event?

-is a conference fee acceptable?

-have you been to an event with an unusual format? How was it?

Disclosing one's views when teaching?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, New to Teaching writes:

I’d love to start a discussion on whether we ought to tell our students our views on the material we’re teaching. Do you aim for your students to end the course not knowing what you think, perhaps because it shows that you’ve taught in a relatively unbiased way? Or, on the other hand, do you find that putting forward your own view provokes discussion and perhaps models a thoughtful approach to the issues? How likely are students to write essays they think the tutor will agree with in hopes of getting a better grade?

My inclination would be to not say much about my own views unless asked directly, but if asked, to answer honestly and openly. Is that a good strategy?

Any thoughts about the pros and cons of being more or less forthcoming about one’s philosophical views as a teacher would be appreciated.

I think this is a great query. My experience is that different people have very different views about this, and so I think it might be great to discuss it!

Extended deadline: Ethics & Technology conference

The Kutak Center for the Teaching and Study of Applied Ethics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is pleased to announce that we are extending the deadline for submitting abstracts for our conference on ethics and technology.

Featured Speakers:

Alexis Elder (University of Minnesota - Duluth)

Ryan Jenkins (California Polytechnic State University)

Erica L. Neely (Northern Ohio State University)

Ariela Tubert  (University of Puget Sound) 

 

Papers will be considered for two things:

A:  One of four open conference-style presentation spots; and

B:   40 open poster presentation spots.

Supporting non-academic careers (guest post by Kevin J.S. Zollman)

Kevin J.S. Zollman is an associate professor and director of graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University. His research is on the application of mathematical models to social behavior, and he is author of the popular book The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting. 

When I was a kid growing up in Kansas, someone asked me “what church do you go to?” While (perhaps) not intended, the phrasing of this question communicated volumes to me. The presumption of the question is that I go to a church, not a synagogue, mosque, or temple. What’s more, it presumes that I visit houses of worship regularly. Being raised atheist, it stayed with me: I was so unusual for my time and place that one should assume me away. Many of you reading this post have had similar experiences, especially those of you who are members of groups historically excluded from western philosophy.

We are sensitized to these micro-aggressions against marginalized demographic groups.  But we may miss how we do similar things to those who ultimately leave the academy. Just think for a moment about all the ways philosophical culture talks about getting a PhD. “Placement” means “academic placement”, “a job” is synonymous with “an academic job.” Even that phrase I just used, “leave the academy” implies something like abandonment or at least departure from expectation. Happy, important, and gainful employment outside the academy is treated as abandoning one’s path and is the equivalent to unemployment.

It doesn’t take much effort to realize how cruel this is. In a field where more than half of our students won’t get academic jobs, we are actively creating a culture where most of our students will view themselves as failures. Even those that manage to escape the self-hating trap may still worry that others view them that way.

While I still often make mistakes, I have tried to change the way I talk with students in our graduate program. I always preface relevant sentences with “For those interested in academic employment, …”  I ask students, when I first talk with them about employment, if they want a job in academia. I repeatedly reinforce the question (“are you still planning for a job in academia?”) giving students the opportunity to change their minds.

Job-market discussion board (2019-20 season)

Given that the academic job-market is beginning to ramp up, I thought now might be a good time to start another job-market discussion thread. As readers may recall, each of the past two years, we have hosted two job-market threads:

1. A discussion thread where job-marketeers can discuss and commisserate about the market, discussing particular job ads, the market in general, questions about materials, interviewing, and so on.
2. A reporting thread where job-marketeers can share news about the market (i.e. first-round interviews being scheduled, on-campus visits, new hires made, searches that are canceled, etc.).

Although, like some other people I know, I think fixating too much on job-market boards can be counterproductive--both emotionally and in terms of time spent--I still think that discussion and reporting threads can play important purposes. They can provide candidates an outlet to share relevant information that might help them on the market, as well as a place to connect with and support each other, particularly (I think) when these discussions occur in a forum governed by a safe and supportive mission like our own.

So, then, without further ado I'd like to open this thread for job-market discussion for the remainder of the 2019-20 academic job-market season. Readers should feel free to discuss job-market matters as they see fit, provided the discussion conforms to the blog's mission. As a rough rule of thumb, readers are expected to refrain from posting aggressive comments that can be reasonably interpreted as undermining a safe and supportive environment. As moderator, I will intervene if need be to let people know why I have elected not to approve their comments, so as to keep the discussion positive.

A few final notes:

1. Please reserve job-market news (i.e. interviews, on-campus visits, hires, etc.) for the job-market reporting thread, which I will open in a few weeks.
2. A 'permalink' to this thread will be on the blog's right sidebar. -->
3. Because of Typepad's functionality limitations (which only permits 100 comments before starting a new comment page), readers may elect to bookmark each new page of comments (or update their previous bookmark) as each new page emerges. I recognize that is can be frustrating to scroll through page after page to get to new comments, and I think this is the best solution (Typepad does have an option for incorporating 'Disqus' commenting, but I intensely dislike that format!).

Anyway, feel free to job-market-discuss away!

Experiences with joint appointments?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Charles writes:

Could someone share the experience of having a double appointment (Philosophy/Law, Philosophy/Economics, Philosophy/Women Studies, and so on)? Does it represent [an] extrajob? Any specific advantage?

I think this is a great query, but unfortunately it's one I have no experience with. Anyone with experience willing to share?

Conference presentations and the market

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Anon writes:

All things considered, how much does it matter when looking at a prospective candidate's CV that they have never been to nor presented at an APA meeting?

Mike Titelbaum replied:

At least for the R1 job searches in which I've been involved, what's helpful is that you have some experience at conferences, preferably not just grad student conferences. But APA conferences in particular bear no special significance to me on that front.

For what it's worth, I've heard people at R1's say similar things: that it's advantageous for candidates to have at least some professional (rather than grad) conference experience. I also expect that especially impressive presentation lists (viz. multiple invited colloquium talks at prestigious departments) are probably advantageous for candidates applying to research jobs. I'm curious, though, whether this is true of jobs in general. My own sense, having served on several search-committees at a more teaching-focused school, is that conference presentations and activity may play very little (if any) role in hiring committee deliberations. In brief, my sense is that this may be because committees at these types of institutions care most about two things: (1) a good enough publication record to get tenure, and (2) teaching/service. Because it's possible to present at a lot of conference but not publish much, my sense is that people at schools like mine may not attribute much weight to presentations. But, of course, this is just my sense, and it may be incorrect.

Any other search committee members willing to weigh in?

Is applying before job deadlines advantageous?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, NK writes:

Here's a question I don't think I've seen discussed anywhere: as a job applicant, how much of a disadvantage are you putting yourself at if you don't submit your application until very close to the deadline? Do those submitting quickly after the job ad is posted get a de facto advantage?

Mike Titelbaum replied:

While I can imagine situations in which prompt submission might make a difference (suppose an emergency has come up and a department is looking to fill a job quickly), for your standard job search it makes no difference what order the applications come in. I have often been on search committees that don't even begin to read files until after the deadline has passed.

I am not so sure about this. Although Mike has been on committees that don't read files until after the deadline is passed, I know of cases where candidate files are read before the deadlines--and in these cases it seems to me it may be advantageous to get one's application in sooner. To see why, put yourself in the shoes of a search-committee member in this position. You know you will have hundreds of applications to read, so you want to get started evaluating them sooner rather than later. Suppose that several weeks before the application due date, you have seventeen candidates in the pool. Since you've begun looking at files early, you're not pressed for time: you have plenty of time to read those seventeen files. After reading the files, you may already have a few "favorites": candidates you feel like you want to interview even before anyone else has applied. Then suppose the deadline comes, and you get a few hundred applications basically all at once. Will you have the same amount of time and energy to read them thoroughly? Probably not. And will your earlier judgments (about the first seventeen applications you reviewed before the deadline) play an outsized role on who you choose to interview? Maybe. Given the existence and pervasiveness of primacy bias (people tend to favor the first sources of information they receive), as well as the anchoring effect (bias in favor of using early judgments to influence later judgments), it seems not at all implausible to me that applying early could be an advantage.

In short, while there may be cases (like Mike's) where applying early confers no advantage, I think there are plausibly cases where it does confer a real advantage. Since there is no real way for a candidate to know which of the two situations they are in, I'm inclined to think the rational thing to do is to apply as early as possible, on the off chance that it might pay off. But these are just my thoughts. What are yours, particularly those of you who have served on search committees?

TA-ing vs. solo-teaching experience

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Cleinias writes:

How important are TAs positions for one's CV and teaching portfolio? I'm currently a PhD student and have the choice between a prestigious TA position with a renowned professor and teaching a course as sole instructor. What would be best?

Mike Titelbaum responded:

Cleinias, I'd suggest you think in terms of what your total TA experience is going to look like when you're done with grad school. It's useful at some point to have been sole instructor of your own class. (At least once, if not more than once.) Personally, when I look at a job application it's not so important that someone TAed for a renowned professor versus a no-name professor. It's more important what kind of teaching experience they have and what I can expect them to be able to accomplish in the classroom.

I agree with Mike that it probably doesn't matter whether the professor one TA's for is renowned. My experience is that when it comes to evaluating candidates as teachers, search committees care about the teaching statement, rest of the teaching portfolio, and quality of the candidate's teaching recommendation letter (specifically, what the letter says about the candidate's teaching). 

However, I think Mike's point about TA-ing versus solo teaching understates things a bit. In terms of being competitive for jobs at 'teaching schools', my sense is that it is very important to have solo teaching experience. This isn't to say it is a necessary condition for getting hired at such a school, nor that candidates who have only TA'd never get hired into these kinds of positions. However, my sense is that search committee members can be pretty skeptical of the probative value of TA experience. TA-ing is wildly different--both far less involved and less challenging--than teaching one's own course. To teach one's own course, you have to put an entire syllabus together, design your own assignments, manage the classroom on a daily basis as the instructor of record, and so on.

The only time I think it might make sense to TA rather than teach solo is if (1) you already have solo-teaching experience, and (2) the course you're TA-ing for gives you experience in some other area (i.e. AOC) that you wouldn't otherwise be able to get (because, let's say, there are no opportunities for grad students to solo-teach in that area). But these are just my thoughts. What are yours, particularly those of you who have served on search-committees?

Postdoc after professorship?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Professor writes:

Is it usually possible to get post-doc fellowships after holding a professorship? I'm currently unhappy with my tenure-track position (I started last year) and have been considering to apply for post-docs this fall.

Amanda responded:

If you are within the allotted time period post-graduation (anywhere from 2-6 years, usually) then there is no reason why you couldn't get a post-doc. I suspect your application wouldn't be treated much differently than others, but I could be wrong.

I'm not entirely sure. I've heard it said that search committees can be biased against candidates applying for more junior positions. I wonder whether it might make sense for someone like Professor to email the search-committee chairs of potential postdocs to scope things out, and perhaps explain why they are applying so that the committee understands why they are applying from a more senior position. What do you all think, particularly those of you who have hired postdocs?