A reader emailed me this weekend:
What do you make of this:
http://theprofessorisin.com/2014/07/25/adjuncts-assistant-professors-and-a-broken-faculty-life-cycle/ - one idea I thought was interesting: Kelsky says the current market is damaging to new faculty members (and I would further and say it's damaging to others too), even the lucky ones who make it: "My point was, tenure track hires today are often harmed by the destructive conditions of the job market, even when they have been successful in it. They are harmed by the years of anxiety, the pervasive sense of panic and uncertainty, the indignities of years of adjuncting at poverty wages, by 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars of debt, and by a kind of ‘survivor’s guilt’ vis-a-vis all their friends and comrades still laboring in the adjunct trenches."
This strikes me as true - I remember though you saying that you felt that the years in NTT positions do make you (and others) better people: more dedicated etc. So I'm wondering if both could be true - if junior academics could both be a better person *and* incur significant harm by the current model.
This is a really tough one, and I can really only speculate. That being said, let me speculate a bit. ;)
I am inclined agree with Kelsky that current hiring model in philosophy harms everyone--(1) people who are lucky to get tenure-track jobs out of grad school, (2) people who are not so lucky, (3) departments who hire, and (4) the climate of the profession as a whole--at least in comparison to the model that is more common in the sciences: grad school to (non-tenure-track) post-doc to tenure-track job. Although this may sound counterintuitive, allow me to make a case for it.
There's a simple reason why the standard progression in many of the hard sciences is from grad school to post-doc to tenure-track. It is commonly recognized in these fields that grad school does not fully prepare one to be a successful and mature professional, and that time in a post-doc is vital for developing the research, teaching, and other professional qualities that make later success in a tenure-track position likely.
Although there are obviously far fewer post-docs in philosophy than in other fields, there are plenty of non-tenure-track jobs in philosophy, and I think there are reasons why it would be better for everyone involved to more closely appoximate the progression in the sciences (grad school-->non-tenure-track job-->tenure-track job).
(1) Hiring people into tenure-track jobs straight out of grad school is arguably sub-optimal for those who are lucky to land those jobs.
This might sound absurd, and I could well be wrong--but let me give some reasons to think that it may true.
It is natural to think that getting a tenure-track job straight out of grad school is the best result for a job candidate. Yet I have known a number of people who received such jobs for whom this just doesn't seem true--people who got plum jobs straight from grad school but who then published nothing or next to nothing for years, dealt with incredible levels of anxiety and self-doubt as a result, and either failed to get tenure or got it but failed to come anywhere close to their own views about their potential. Indeed, I know some people in these jobs now--people who have been in them for several years, published nothing or next to nothing, and are totally panicking about their future.
I also believe I was plainly better off not getting a tenure-track job right out of the gate. Like many people I've known, I really struggled as a researcher and teacher my first few years out. I wasn't published much, and although my teaching reviews had been great in graduate school, I found the transition to full-time teaching overwhelming. It took me a few years to find my feet as a researcher, teacher, and professional--and I'm truly glad I had the opportunity to do so without a tenure-clock over my head.
In any case, if personal development, self-assurance, and tenure are the best results for a candidate (and who doesn't want to obtain tenure while feeling confident in their own abilities along the way?), it seems to me that the grad school-->non-tenure-track-->tenure-track model is more optimal for many job candidates. One is better prepared for success in a tenure-track job by learning how to publish, teach, etc., in a non-tenure-track job first.
(Note: some might suggest that this is what grad school is for. To which I reply: graduate school is a very poor proxy for actual professional life. Publishing an article or two while TA-ing a single course in grad school is one thing. Publishing several articles a year while teaching 2-4 full-time courses is very, very different).
(2) Hiring people directly out of grad school is obviously sub-optimal for those who do not obtain tenure-track jobs right out of the gate.
This should go without saying. The model of hiring candidates into tenure-track jobs right out of grad school effectively strands many deserving candidates--people who have published and taught effectively--in adjuncting positions, etc. As many people have noted in many places, this is unconscionable. Deserving people shouldn't get stuck in poorly paying positions without benefits. A hiring model than gave more people the opportunity to move from these positions to tenure-track ones would improve the situation. And the hiring model of grad school-->non-tenure-track-->tenure track would do precisely this. It open up more tenure-track jobs to people in non-tenure-track jobs.
(3) Hiring people into tenure-track jobs straight out of grad school is arguably sub-optimal for hiring departments.
By and large--with some exceptions--I've long been puzzled by the practice of departments hiring people into tenure-track positions straight from grad school. In one sense, I get it: many departments want to "win the lottery" by hiring the next superstar from a top-5 program. And, for these candidates, I think departments are behaving rationally. If you want a superstar, you can get one straight from grad school, and you can expect to keep them, by all means, you should hire them. That being said, there are problems.
A first problem is: there are plainly many people who hired into tenure-track jobs from graduate school who don't have "superstar" written all over them. A second, related problem is: there is a non-trivial proportion of direct-from-grad-school hires who do not learn how to publish or teach effectively, and do not get tenure (I've seen it happen). A third problem is: a non-trivial proportion of people hired direct-from-grad-school look at their positions as "stepping stones" to better ones.
A story: a couple of years ago, I was at a conference, and a colleague told me about the person they'd recently hired for a teaching-centered job. He had "said and done all of the right things." He aced the on-campus, etc. Then he showed up for the job, and he was like another person altogether. He hardly socialized, was arrogant, focused all of his energy on research, and plainly was looking to "move up" to a better position at a research university. For anyone who knows how universities treat tenure-track lines, this is a disaster for this person's department. When the person they hired leaves, there is no guarantee that the department will get to hire someone for that position again. They may lose that line.
Let's think, then, about what is optimal for most departments hiring for tenure-track lines. A few departments will benefit from hiring "stars" straight from grad school--namely, those departments who can actually expect to retain these people. But this isn't true of many of departments. The optimal result for tenure-track hiring departments is to hire someone who will (1) publish and/or teach effectively, (2) be a good colleague, (3) get tenure, and (4) stay.
I believe that on all four counts, the grad school-->non-tenure-track-->tenure-track hiring model is likely to be more optimal for hiring departments. Non-tenure track jobs are a place where people can develop and prove their abilities as researchers, teachers, and colleagues before getting a tenure-track jobs. If someone cannot publish, or teach, or is a total jerk, these things are likely to show themselves in a non-tenure-track job in ways that do not "show up" in grad school (people aren't expected to publish tons in grad school, they don't teach multiple courses at a time, and reference letters by grad faculty can hide whether a person is a jerk. Grad faculty do, after all, have a vested interest in their students finding positions, even the jerks!). Furthermore, it seems to me that departments have a better likelihood of actually keeping the person they hire if they hire from the non-tenure-track ranks. A person who is hired into a tenure-track job right out of grad school has plenty of reasons to want to "move up" to a better position. If they get a tenure-track R2 or teaching job right out of the gate, they might try to spend a couple of years publishing their butt off to move up to an R1. A person who has been in a non-tenure-track job for several years, however, is intuitively more likely to want to "settle down." At the least, I can this for myself! When I got my first job, I wasn't married. Moving from job to job wouldn't have been a big deal, and so I might have looked to "move up" as much as I could. Now that I'm married, and have had had a non-TT job for several years, I just want to be settled, get a home, and stay.
Thus, in terms of expected outcomes, it seems to me that the grad school-->non-tenure-track-->tenure track model is arguably optimal for hiring-departments, too. While a few departments may benefit from hiring "stars" straight from grad school, many will not. When you hire someone from a tenure-track job, you have a better idea of "what you're getting", and the person will be less likely to "job hop" away from your program.
(4) Hiring people into tenure-track positions directly out of grad school might be indirectly subobtimal for our profession's overall climate.
Many people have
remarked recently on how comparatively aggressive our discipline seems in comparison to some other academic disciplines.
First, public scandals seem to disproportionally occur in philosophy compared to other disciplines. As an anonymous faculty member in English reports
here, "I've been a member of the MLA for twenty-five years and this is the first I've heard of its code of conduct. Then again, the sort of scandal that has beset philosophy would be unheard of in English, so perhaps it works."
Second, as Jon Cogburn reports
here, common behaviors and norms in philosophy seem systematically more unfriendly and unsupportive than in many other fields:
I've been to linguistics, theology, narratology, and theatre conferences and the norms of basic politeness in those fields are radically different from philosophy. If your question isn't charitable and helpful, the whole room will frown at you and the moderator will just call on someone else. You can't just do the philosopher thing of just trying to score dialectical points against the speaker.
Indeed, I've had many similar experiences myself. When I've discussed philosophy with my wife and people in her (STEM) field, they express surprise and dismay at several prominent features of professional philosophy: mean-spirited book reviews, aggressive Q&A sessions, insults, etc. For example, when I showed an infamous (but popular) negative book review in philosophy to a famous senior figure in my wife's field, his response was: "That seems really unprofessional to me. No editor would dream of publishing anything like that in our field."
These things beg the question: why is philosophy this way?
No doubt, the true answer to this question is complex--so I'm not even going to try to answer it. Without trying to diagnose our discipline's problems, let me say a few positive (albeit speculative) things instead.
Suppose you're unhappy with the climate of our profession--with, say, the levels of arrogance, aggression, and apologetics-for-bad-behavior you perceive to exist. Suppose, next, that you wish that people in our discipline were more kind, more humble, etc. This begs the obvious question: how could our discipline develop more kind, humble people?
Here is what I will say: as the reader who submitted the above email indicates, I think time in non-tenure-track jobs can help people become better people. I think we all know in life that all too often, quick success can "go to people's heads", leading to arrogance, etc. In contrast, it's also a truism from life struggles tend to humble people (not always, of course, but often).
I will say, at any rate, that I think being in a non-tenure-track position has been really good for me. Although, like all people, I have my character defects, I truly think my time in non-tenure track positions has humbled me, and helped me to become a more kind, helpful person. Of course I could be wrong, but I think (or at least hope!) that most people who've known me for a number of years would give a similar assessment.
Thus, I will suggest--but only suggest--that a greater shift toward the grad school-->non-tenure-track-->tenure-track hiring model might also be a way to improve our discipline's climate. Such a model could reasonably be expected to produce more humble, more kind, more helpful professionals.
In closing, I'd like to stress that these are all speculations. Although I think careful empirical studies of all of the hypotheses I've floated might be fruitful and interesting, I'll be the first to admit: the cases I have made for them are speculative. They are not meant to be definitive. They are merely meant to provoke conversation! :)
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