The Philosophers' Cocoon

Zachary Ernst's "Goodbye, Academia!"

A propos Trevor's recent post about leaving academic, 'It's Not "Giving UP"', I came across Zachary Ernst's, "Goodbye, Academia!" today, a forum devoted to "thoughts, discussion, and guidance on leaving academia" (thanks to Helen De Cruz and several others who drew my attention to it on social media). Ernst, who walked away from a tenured Associate Professor position in philosophy, says it is, "the best decision I've ever made", and has a series of posts explaining not only why he walked away, but also providing tips and guidance to others who are considering the possibility themselves. Many of Ernst's posts are highly critical of the discipline, academia more broadly, and those he personally worked with--but some of his tips about leaving academia for the private sector seem to me to be helpful.

Introductions

By Jerry Green

Hi everyone. I wanted to do quick post to make introductions before jumping into anything substantive. As Marcus mentioned, I’m ABD at UT Austin, in the Joint Program in Ancient Philosophy. I also have an MA in Classics from UT, and that’s given me an interesting view of philosophy as a practice and as a discipline. So I hope to write occasionally about interdisciplinary work, about how philosophy looks from the vantage of another field, and about citations (I warn you now: I have a bee in my bonnet about citation practices in philosophy!)

I did an MA in Philosophy at Texas Tech before coming to UT, so I hope to say something about the MA-PhD pathway as well. I’m a big proponent of the terminal MA: its increasingly necessary to level the playing field in PhD applications. If you haven’t yet, you should read the recent ‘What’s it like to be a ____’ entry on doing a terminal MA. I know the application season is in full swing, so good luck out there.

Finally, I think a lot about teaching, and that’s what I hope to write about the most here. I’ve taught courses at UT and Texas Tech, and I adjunct at St Edwards University in Austin, where I work with non-traditional students like military vets and moms who had to skip college. In particular, I give a lot of thought to course design questions, like how much reading to assign and what kinds of assignments to use. My plan is to (i) share the strategies I’ve tried, and more importantly (ii) talk about the principles that motivate them. And most importantly of all, (iii) I want to see how other folks do things, so we can all learn from each other. I’ll also do an occasional review of works of pedagogy I like, collect links on various topics, things like that.

So that’s what you’re in for from me here at the Cocoon. I’m very excited to start, and I look forward to chatting with you all in the comments.

One last thing: If you have any suggestions for posts, especially on teaching, let me know! I want to write about things that people will find useful, and the less I have to guess about that, the better.

New contributor: Jerry Green

I am happy to welcome aboard the Cocoon's newest contributor, Jerry Green. Jerry is a sixth-year doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on ancient philosophy and contemporary ethics, and his dissertation examines some of the differences between the Nichomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics on "nous, divinity, and human happiness." His publications include, "The Underlying Argument of Aristotle's Metaphysics Z3" (Phronesis, 2014), and, "Melody and Rhythm at Plato’s Symposium 187d2" (Classical Philology, 2015). Welcome aboard!

Working at Philosophy - Introduction

By Stacey Goguen

In this series, I want to talk about what goes into the work we do as philosophers, what sorts of difficulties arise when we’re trying to work, and what we can do about them. 

Hello! I am an ABD graduate student, and I’ve spent a lot of my nascent philosophy career so far struggling to figure out what I should be doing when I “do philosophy.” When starting graduate school, I found talking about philosophy easy enough, as well as thinking about it on my own. But when it came time to sit down and write for any substantial amount of time, I often felt lost. And it didn’t help that there seemed to be a voice in the back of my head asking if maybe I didn’t belong in philosophy, if I was having this much trouble with what is supposed to be our basic activity. Furthermore, I was puzzled by the observation that people in philosophy rarely talked about how they worked. It was like some secret, mystical process by which we all retreated to our private quarters and returned some time later with the philosophy we had birthed in the interim. (Maybe I didn’t have the right philosophical reproductive organs that everyone else had?)

Now, years later, after asking a bunch of professors and graduate students how they work, taking a cold, hard look at my own work habits (and lack thereof), and tripping over some life lessons as they came barreling at me, I think I have something of a grasp on how to be a working philosopher. By this I mean, I sometimes feel like I actually know what I am doing, and most days, philosophy does not feel like it is slowly eating my soul. In fact, some days I down right enjoy working.

So I want to talk about what I’ve found out—about myself, about doing work, and about some of the psychological processes that may be in play when we try to do philosophy. I want to do four things with this series of posts.

It's Not "Giving Up"

By Trevor Hedberg

Not long ago, there were some lively discussions on the Cocoon about the extent to which we should encourage philosophers to stay on the job market and the extent to which graduate programs can best prepare job candidates for the many years of applying for academic jobs that likely awaits them. I’m not going to rehash the central positions in these disputes or endorse one view over the others. Instead, I want to point out a worrying assumption in these discussions, one which I believe is also found in the profession at large.

The assumption might be put as follows: if you get a PhD in philosophy and do not get a tenured academic appointment, then you have failed. The profession often appears to operate as if the be-all, end-all of a philosophy PhD is securing tenure at an academic institution. Think about how many folks apply for academic jobs year after year without ever applying for a single non-academic position. Think about how few resources are provided to graduate students to facilitate their pursuit of non-academic jobs. Think about the general perception of those who choose not to pursue academic jobs: are these individuals typically regarded by their peers and departments as success stories? (My impression is that the answer is usually no, though I'd be happy to be wrong about this.)

New contributor: Stacey Goguen

I am delighted to introduce the Cocoon's newest contributor, Stacey Goguen, to the community. Stacey is ABD at Boston University, and does work at the intersection of philosophy of science, feminist philosophy, and the social construction of knowledge. Her dissertation defends a new account of stereotype threat according to which stereotype does not merely threaten performance, but also more centrally puts pressure on a person's self-identity. Her paper, "Stereotype Threat, Epistemic Injustice, and Rationality", is forthcoming in Michael Brownstein & Jennifer Saul (eds.), Implicit Bias and Philosophy (OUP). Welcome!

What it is like to be at a terminal MA program

By Anonymous

What is it like to be at a terminal MA program in philosophy?

In this piece I will briefly discuss what life has been like for me as student at a terminal MA. I will try to describe the experience as fairly as possible. I will try to describe my daily life, what I enjoy about it, and the things I don't appreciate. I'll simply be honest about what it's been like for me. I will also include some general commentary on where I see myself fitting into the profession as an MA student.

I am in my second and final year at a funded MA program in philosophy, a program that is well regarded in the profession, and where a few students every year go on to well regarded PhD programs. In the first year we do coursework, and in the second year we teach, churn out an MA thesis, and conclude our coursework. By the time I’ve completed my degree, I will have taught for three semesters as the sole instructor of my own course (making my own syllabus and exams, my own grading, my own lectures, etc.). I will have defended an original piece of philosophical argumentation (my thesis), and presented this same work at conferences. I will also have written several seminar papers on many of the central areas of philosophy (political, ethics, language, ancient, etc.) and I will also have a background in sentential and predicate logic. Some individuals in my MA program have published, though not, to my knowledge, in the most highly regarded journals in the discipline.

The profession has not yet adjusted to the existence of strong terminal MA programs, and as such, many of our graduates have to basically restart their academic careers when they arrive at the PhD, faced with the same requirements as the bright eyed first years straight out of their undergraduate years. I majored in philosophy in undergrad and did very well, but no doubt in part because my school is most well known for its football team, I was shut out of PhDs and came to an MA, a credential which will not be recognized by many of the PhD programs in the country when it comes to setting up my degree requirements. It seems to me very unfortunate that my two years here will not count toward the completion of my PhD, not as distribution requirements nor toward the total hour amount.

More reasons why interviews are worse than useless, etc.

I've written a bunch of times on why empirical research suggests hiring practices in academic philosophy need a dramatic overhaul, and why first-round interviews specifically appear to be "worse than useless." Allen Wood's new post on interviews at the APA Blog very nicely illustrates the many problems with interviews and subjective evaluations of dossier materials. Wood writes that:

1. When it comes to judging dossier materials, "Bigotry and philosophical sectarianism become major factors."
2. "A search committee member who imagines that he or she has been smart enough to spot a philosophical error in an otherwise exemplary paper may become obsessed with this self-conceited crotchet, ignoring the paper’s excellence and voting in such a way that the best candidate gets the shaft."
3. "Horse-trading between search committee members may also influence the process: two excellent candidates may each be unacceptable to one member of the committee, and a third inferior candidate may be selected as a compromise."
4. "interviews are the most artificial kind of human encounter imaginable."
5. "My grisly similes may give you the impression that most interviews do not go well for the candidate. In fact, most are utter calamities...The catastrophe is often the fault of the interviewers (or just of the artificiality of the situation). Interviewers are fallible human beings who may have good intentions but fall prey to their own intellectual limitations or unconscious prejudices."
6. "Envy and fear of being shown up may make them not want to hire you precisely because of the same high qualifications that forced them to interview you. They are usually nervous about interviewing you because they probably haven’t read your dossier and would not be competent to judge your work even if they had."
7. "A few manage to succeed, by not showing they realize what a gruesome disaster the whole thing is, and then somehow infecting the interviewers with this total misperception of what has just happened. How do they do it? I wish I could tell you."
8. "Careful preparation, practice, and innate talent for interviewing are perhaps necessary conditions for an interview that impresses people, but it always seems to me to be mostly a matter of dumb luck."

Prof. Wood, in my view, has done a very good service in drawing more attention to all of these problems. As I recently argued in detail, these problems--and decades of empirical research--show that we should take candidate selection more out of the hands of subjective human judgers, and instead prioritize more objective, algorithmic narrowing processes. Fortune 500 companies and the US government are increasingly overhauling their selection and hiring methods in precisely this way. The science tells us, and Wood's post nicely illustrates, why we should follow suit. The "human element" does not improve the selection process. It turns it into an ungodly crapshoot.

Advising students on grad school statements of purpose

I recently raised the general question of how we should discuss the possibility of graduate school in philosophy with interested students. Like many other people I have spoken to, I feel obligated to warn students of the substantial risks involve, and to inform them of relevant facts--particularly, facts about the state of the academic job-market, and the performance of graduate programs. However, like many people, I still have students who wish to pursue graduate work in philosophy--and here I encounter a new series of questions: questions regarding how to best advise them in the grad school application process itself.

Having gone to graduate school myself (though it has been a while now), I feel decently well-acquainted with the application process from the student's side. I know one typically has to take the GRE's, submit a writing sample and statement of purpose, etc. But, what I am less well-acquainted with is the best way to advise them on these issues from the faculty/admissions side. What, in particular, does a good statement of purpose look like? I suspect, next to the writing sample, that this is one of the more critical parts of a student's application, but I'm not entirely sure what to advise. Offhand, I would suspect that a good statement of purpose would show show, clearly and concisely, that the student has relatively clear, well-defined philosophical interests (interests in specific philosophical problems, showing some familiarity with authors and arguments on the topic). On the other hand, might a statement of purpose run the risk of being too narrow? Also, should a statement of purpose address specific faculty that the student might be interested in working with in the program?

I'd be very appreciative for any helpful tips!

An open invitation for readers to share their perspectives

In the comments section of my post, "On being a shy introvert in academic philosophy", a commenter, Paula, wrote:

I'm assuming the OP presupposes the shy/introverted person he is advising is white? I think for those of us who are non-white, but especially black, this might be a lost cause. For those of us who are black and in predominantly white environments, it can feel almost impossible to approach a professor or peer even if we tend not think of ourselves as introverted! (I currently have this problem. The assumption is, "P is so shy!" when really there is racial intimidation and discomfort at play.) Now add shyness/introversion to this and boy have we got an issue!

It would be interesting to see a perspective on this from a black philosopher who has found a way to thrive in philosophy departments despite being introverted. 

Although it was not my intent to presuppose anything about readers, I think Paula raises very good points: namely, that (A) my experiences may not be (and presumably are not) representative of different points-of-view, and (B) it might be worthwhile indeed to hear more about different perspectives on these and other similar issues.

Now, I actually tried to start a new series to this effect a couple of years ago, inviting people to share, "What it is like to be [fill in the blank] in philosophy." However, aside from my own post, "What it is like to be a VAP", the series never really got off the ground (I never received any submissions!). Perhaps now, however, would be a good time to try again. As such, I would like to invite Paula and any other interested academic philosophers who would like to share their experiences in the discipline to submit posts to me at marvan@ut.edu.

I am happy to post what I receive either publicly (under the author's name), but also anonymously (if the submitter does not wish to disclose their identity). The only requirement is that posts respect the Cocoon's safe-and-supportive mission statement. My hope is that we can, indeed, present a diverse array of perspectives here at the Cocoon--so again, if you have a perspective you would like to share with the Cocoon, by all means, please do let me know! :)

How to drag students with you

The last post of Marcus made me think about the fact that some readers might have little or no experience with different teaching environments and might be eager to learn about them (by the way, I am also eager to learn about different schemes, so please tell me about them in the comments). Thus, here are some experiences from Europe (I have worked for 5+ years in Italy and Austria-Germany, and for shorter periods in France or UK).

I currently work in Austria, where (as in Germany) we distinguish different types of classes, each of which is in turn subdivided according to BA and MA+PhD. Thus, you can teach an MA Vorlesung or a BA one and the level of students will necessarily impact on your teaching habits.

On being a shy introvert in academic philosophy

In the comments section of my recent post, "On discussing grad school with interested students", an individual commenting under the pseudonym 'postdoc' wrote:

On[e] [sic] thing no one ever told me which I wish they did is that philosophical ability is only part of it. There are of course exceptions but for the most part if you want to be successful in philosophy you need to be a good networker. So, if you're shy, introverted, and don't enjoy conferences, then don't bother. 

In response, I wrote,

Hi postdoc: Shyness and introversion are not destiny. I score incredibly high on shyness and introversion measures, but I have worked very hard to overcome these tendencies. Socializing may not come naturally to a shy or introverted person (it doesn't come naturally to me!), but one can always choose to put oneself out there and interact with others. At the very least, I would contest the idea that shy, introverted people "shouldn't bother" attempting to enter academic philosophy for the reasons you mention.

Since I suspect there are other early-career shy, introverted philosophers out there like 'postdoc' and myself, I thought it might be helpful if I opened up a discussion on these issues. If one is shy and/or introverted, are these impediments to professional success? Are they things one should aim to "overcome"? If so, how? I don't pretend to have "the answers" to these questions--but what I can do is offer up my own experience, and encourage readers to offer thoughts of their own.

Making the first day a great day

A couple of times past few years (see "Making the First Day Not the Worst Day" and "Making the First Day Not the Worst Day 2.0"), I've written--and asked for advice--about how to best approach the first day of class. Breaking the ice with students, getting off on the right foot ("setting the right tone"), and knowing what and how much to teach on the first day, etc., had always been things I felt like I struggled to get right. Indeed, I always sort of dreaded the first day, always worrying about whether it would go well--and it sometimes not going so well. Fortunately, a lot of the suggestions the Cocoon community provided were incredibly helpful, and yesterday, for the first time, well, ever, I felt like I had a great first day. So, before I say any more, I'd just like to say thanks, to all of you who chimed in with advice the past few times I posted on this. Your suggestions and advice was incredibly helpful! :)

Anyway, since I struggled with this for so long, I figured I'd share how I approached things this time, and once again invite you all to share your first-day strategies. I don't pretend, by the way, that the strategies I used yesterday will for everyone--and indeed, maybe they won't always work for me. However, here, in rough outline, is what I did:

On academic hiring practices and the science of selection

A reader writes in regarding Allen Wood's new post at the APA blog, "Advice for Applying for Academic Jobs in Philosophy: Indiana University (Part 3)":

Allen Wood says...

"I myself do not care where an article is published. Someone I know at a major research university pays no attention to whether publications have been “peer reviewed” because, as he puts it, “I think I can judge papers better than most of the referees they get for these journals.” That may sound arrogant, but I confess I feel exactly the same way. I even think that caring about whether papers have been peer reviewed is an admission that you are incompetent to judge writing samples yourself, hence incompetent to be conducting the search at all."

I’d love some discussion of this claim on the cocoon...[Wood] thinks he is specially qualified to judge the quality of every published paper. Throw out the peer review system and replace it with Allen Wood.

Indeed, I think Wood's claims do warrant discussion, not primarily because they are his views on the matter, but rather because of the manner in which his claims are tacitly embodied in prevailing selection and hiring methods within academia, and within academic philosophy specifically. Allow me to explain.

CFP: 4th Annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference

I am pleased to announce a call-for-papers for the 4th Annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference (PCPC), which is provisionally scheduled to be held at University of Tampa from Saturday October 8th to Sunday October 9th, 2016. If you're curious about what the conference has been like in past years, see here!

As in the past, this year's conference will be unique in several respects:

1. Although conference attendance will be open to all members of the profession, paper presenters must be early-career philosophers (i.e. anyone who doesn't have tenure--grad students, post-docs, Assistant Profs, independent scholars, etc.)
2. Due to travel-funding challenges that early-career philosophers often face, several sessions will be reserved for Skype presentations in which the author will be projected, and field audience questions, in real time over the internet (note: this has worked very well in past years!).
3. Although commentators and audience members are encouraged to present objections to papers, the conference theme will be "constructive engagement", i.e. helping authors to improve their work (e.g. by not only raising objections, but offering and discussing possible solutions).
4. Because successfully navigating the publishing world is one of the most difficult capacities for early-career philosophers to develop, the conference welcomes submissions of a typical full-length journal article (20-30 pages double-spaced) -- the aim being to help early-career philosophers develop full-length papers into publishable quality. As a rule of thumb, the longer the paper, the higher the standards for acceptance to the conference. Extremely long papers are discouraged.
5. In order to defray costs of attendance (once again out of concern for the needs of early-career scholars), there will only be a small suggested (but non-mandatory) $5 registration "donation" (to help pay for snacks), and consequently no official banquet, etc. (though there will be snack!). Tampa is awesome, and there are many affordable places to meet, eat, and congregate around the university.
6. Finally, please note that submission to the conference involves an agreement to serve as a commentator on another paper during the conference should your paper be accepted and you accept your invitation to attend.

To submit a paper to present at the PCPC, please email the following to me at marvan@ut.edu by May 1st, 2016:

1. An anonymized paper,
2. A separate title page with the author's name, contract information, and brief paper abstract.
3. A statement in your email and attached cover page concerning whether you intend to attend the conference in person or only via Skype.

Decision emails indicating whether your paper has been accepted should be sent out around July 1st (yes, papers will undergo peer-review!).  Finally, please bear the following in mind: In order to ensure that the conference is well-attended, there will be relatively few Skype sessions -- so the probability that your paper will be accepted is higher should you state in your submission email that you can attend in person.

I look forward to receiving some great submissions, and to another great conference! (This CFP is also listed here at Philevents).

Making other things matter beside the job market

Recently, I was talking to a postdoc, a philosopher who had been looking for a permanent position for a while. He is well recognized in his field, has several papers and a well-received book, and as is the custom in Europe, has also received several prestigious grants. Yet, the job market being what it is, he hasn't been able to get a permanent or tenure track position. He said that after several years of searching for the elusive permanent job, he was re-evaluating his priorities, as he felt that job market had taken over his life. "Not that I spend so much time working per day. I don't think I put in more hours than people who have a regular job. But I want to find a way so that my job is not the only thing that matters to me".

This reminded me of the following wonderful blogpost by Marcus Arvan, where he writes

I was watching the film Zero Dark Thirty on TV this weekend, and was struck by a particular scene where the main character is asked by the CIA Director what else she had been working on the past decade besides attempting to track down Osama bin Laden. Her response, delivered flatly and without hesitation is: "Nothing. I've done nothing else." It struck me that something similar--though a bit less extreme for sure--has been true in my case.

As my postdoc friend pointed out, if you have children or a partner, or both, you are in a sense forced to have other priorities--you have to spend some time with them. He worried, being single and childless, there was no external force that sorted priorities for him. This may be true, but as a parent (and being in a relationship), it can also be the case that one feels terribly torn: one feels both a bad parent (and looks with dismay and envy at parents who seem to be so good at it, who organize wonderful playdates where your child carves pumpkins, or bakes a cake, and you think, why don't we do that?) One feels at the same time that parental duties get in the way of work in a frustrating way (toddlers are sweet and adorable, and there are so many lovely moments, but still, taking care of a young child and churning out papers, grant proposals, doing service, and doing a decent job at teaching is all incredibly stressful). So while I think that my friend is right that being a parent sorts your priorities, being an academic parent comes with its own challenges.

So how do we make sure that we can make things besides our jobs matter?

On discussing grad school with interested students

Over the past couple of years, I've been increasingly approached by current or previous undergraduate students interested in pursuing graduate degrees in philosophy. I give them the usual warnings, pointing them to data on the philosophy job-market as well as to the APA Guide to Graduate Programs in Philosophy, enjoining them to look very carefully at the placement and attrition rates of programs they are thinking of applying to (a quick aside here: in perusing the Guide myself, I came across some PhD programs that report placing none of their recent graduates into full-time academic jobs and/or incredibly high attrition rates, their students leaving without finishing the program in droves! I could not help but wonder: how do these programs survive?). 

Still, although I give my students the usual warnings, direct them to data relevant to making an informed decisions, encourage them to look at that data very carefully, and discuss with their options with them, there are still several things I am increasingly uncertain about:

1. What are our duties to students here? Do we have more than a duty to warn, provide information, etc.? If so, what?
2. What should we say to students who are interested in pursuing graduate work in areas of philosophy (SPEP programs, Marxism, hermeneutics, etc.) that are outside of our own area of expertise/understanding and "mainstream rankings"?
3. What should we advise students vis-a-vis MA programs, including again, MA programs in ? 
4. Etc.

I realize these are very broad questions, but I am really just hoping to start a good, open discussion here. Although, as I have said before, I have long found something a bit off and off-putting about professors (people who have been successful in the field) telling students, "Don't go, don't follow your dreams--it's too big of a risk!", the longer I am in this game, the more I understand this perspective. Attempting a career in academic philosophy is an incredible risk, one the consequences of which are hard (if not impossible) to truly appreciate in advance (I know I was more than a bit naive heading into graduate school). And yet, at the same time, what would this world be if we simply encouraged people to give up risky dreams? Again, I find myself at a bit of a loss.

In any case, I would be very appreciate to hear any and all thoughts people have here. I suspect we would all--and, by extension, our students--benefit from a good discussion!

Long Journeys into Print, Part 1: Carl B. Sachs

Learning how to publish is one of the more difficult parts of becoming a successful academic philosopher. It can take years, and many rejections, to publish a peer-reviewed article. However, the realities of publishing are rarely discussed. We sometimes hear, obliquely, of how long someone struggled to publish a paper--and yet, for most part, others' experiences of the publishing game are typically unknown to us. We know our own struggles, but it is often unclear how representative our struggles are. Do other people--such as "famous" figures in the field--have an easier time publishing in Mind, or Phil Review? There are (admittedly) anecdotal reasons to think perhaps not. As Jason Stanley (Yale) was quoted a while back at NewAPPS:

My book *Knowledge and Practical Interests* is the fifth most cited work of philosophy since 2000 in Phil Review, Mind, Nous, and the Journal of Philosophy (book or article). Yet the book itself is the result of three revise and resubmits, and finally a rejection from Phil Review. One of those drafts was also rejected from Mind, and also from Nous. All of those journals have accepted papers discussing, in many cases very centrally, a work those very journals have deemed unpublishable.

I also seem to recall hearing stories about how David Chalmers' and Andy Clark's article, "The Extended Mind" (which has since been cited 2,741 times according to Google Scholar) was rejected, and in some cases even desk-rejected, by a number of high-ranking journals before eventually landing at Analysis (if I am misremembering here, please do correct me!).

Anyway, because publishing is such a strange gauntlet, we have decided to begin a new series entitled, "Long Publishing Journeys." This series will feature academic philosophers sharing their publishing experiences, so that we can begin to see more clearly what publishing is like for others--documenting, in each story, the path of an article from its initial genesis to eventual publication. We hope you enjoy the series, which we will now begin with a submission by Carl B. Sachs:

Reader query on avoiding false social-political impressions on the job-market

A reader wrote in with the following query:

I am in my final semester as ABD and seeking a (preferably) TT job.  My undergraduate degree is from a place whose name strongly suggests that I am a very conservative religious person.  I am concerned about having my other qualifications overlooked due to that presumably negative impression.  In my case, the impression is highly misleading, for a number of reasons.  Is there anything I can do about the way the school’s name appears on my cv that could easily be explained were I to make it to interview, and which would not be regarded as deliberate misrepresentation? 

Given recent events involving Wheaton College, this seems to me a very salient issue. However, I'm not at all sure how to best answer it. Does anyone, particularly people who have served on search committees, have any potentially helpful insights here?

How much does improving one's dossier improve one's job-market performance?

Recent discussions of prestige-bias in hiring (see e.g. here, as well as the comments section here), of when one should give up on securing an academic job, and some private discussions got me thinking today about an important empirical question: does improving one's dossier, over time, substantially improve one's performance (i.e. number of interviews, job offers) on the job-market? I think it would be awesome if someone carried out a longitudinal study addressing this question, as it might provide people with a better idea whether it might make sense to stick it out on the market for a few years (to improve their dossier) or give up. However, in lieu of that (such a study is, presumably, unlikely to be forthcoming any time soon), I was thinking it might be helpful to gauge people's personal experiences--as collecting anecdotes can be one initial (although admittedly crude) way to spot potential trends.

What, then, have people's experiences been (people, that is, who have been on the academic market for multiple years)? I'll begin with a set of very general questions:

1. In your experience, did improving your dossier, on the whole, result in more interviews (and, eventually, a job offer) over time (that is, over multiple job seasons)? Or, did you see no change? Over what period of time?

Next, what about specific parts of your dossier? In your experience:

1. Was getting more publications followed, over time, by more interviews (and, eventually, job-offers)?
2. Was getting one or more "top-ranked" publications followed by more interviews (and, eventually, job-offers)?
3. Was improving your teaching dossier (e.g. courses taught, student evaluation scores) followed by more interviews (and, eventually, job-offers)?
4. Was getting more, or better, letters of recommendation followed by more interviews (and, eventually, job offers)?
5. Was improving your dossier in some other way (not listed) followed by more interviews (etc.)?

I realize these are tough questions to reliably answer (as it is very hard to measure/know which additions to one's dossier make a difference), but still, I suspect people who have been on the market a while will be able to provide some evidence in favor of their impressions. My own personal experience is that improving one's dossier can indeed improve one's performance on the academic market over time, and indeed, do so markedly. My experience was also that total publications seem to matter a lot (as the number of interviews I received, over time, seemed to increase in direct proportion to publication numbers). But this is just my experience. What's yours? 

Schwitzgebel's new analysis of diversity in philosophy PhDs

Eric Schwitzgebel has posted an interesting new analysis of changing demographics of those obtaining PhDs in philosophy. Here are quotations of his major conclusions:

1. Since the 1990s, the percentage of women receiving Ph.D.'s in philosophy in the United States has been virtually unchanged at about 27-28%.
2. Although a large majority of respondents are still non-Hispanic White, the percentage has been decreasing since the 1970s, and (in contrast to the gender data) there is no apparent flattening of the trend.
3. Also notable is the increase from 1-2% Hispanic or Latino in the 1970s-1980s to 6.3% in the 2010s.
4. The percentage of non-Hispanic Black or African American U.S. PhD recipients does not appear to have increased much if at all since the 1970s, hovering around 1.4% to 2.2%, compared to 13% of the U.S. population.

And here are a couple of charts Schwitzgebel posted:

State of the Cocoon Address (2016)

My Fellow Cocooners,

Each year I have (half-seriously) utilized the occasion of the US President's State of the Union Address to say a few things about the Philosophers' Cocoon--about where we have been, and where I, at least, wish the Cocoon will go in the coming year. I say I do this only half-seriously because, although I own and moderate the Cocoon, the Cocoon is fundamentally a group blog. I don't fancy myself its "president", or anything like that--and indeed, for reasons I will explain below, it tends to bum me out when people (sometimes) refer to it as "my blog." My biggest wish for the Cocoon, each and every year, is that it will increasingly realize its group mission to be, "a safe and supportive "grass roots" forum for early-career professional philosophers -- graduate students, post-docs, and entry-level faculty members -- to discuss their work, ideas, and personal-professional issues." Fortunately, by my lights, the Cocoon is improving in this regard: we have more and more contributors every year. Still, my single biggest wish for the Cocoon, this year as in the past, is that it will increasingly become a place where early-career philosophers (as a group, in the plural) contribute posts, discuss their work, etc.

Anyway, before I say some words that aim to encourage people in this regard--words, that is, to encourage people to become contributors, and for existing contributors to contribute more regularly--I suppose I will momentarily reflect on how things went on the Cocoon in 2015. In brief, I think it was a great year for the blog. Our readership has continued to rise (we now average 1,200-1,300 visits per day, sometimes going at high as 3,000+ visits), we have an increasing number of active contributors (Helen, Elisa, Moti, Trevor, Wesley, etc.), we had another great annual conference, and we've also had a number of series, and initiatives, that aim to help early-career philosophers navigate the job-market, publishing world, etc. In short, I think we've continued to do our best to be a safe and supportive forum for early-career philosophers to discuss their work, ideas, and personal-professional issues--and I thank all of our contributors, and readers, for making the Cocoon such a great place to be.

Now onto some (humble) wishes. Actually, I just have one wish--the same one as in past years: that a larger, more diverse body of early-career philosophers will choose to become regular contributors to the Cocoon, sharing their work, thoughts about personal and professional issues, to better realize the Cocoon's "grass roots" mission. 

Does philosophy need to be less purified, or more?

Many of my friends on social media have been posting and discussing, "When Philosophy Lost Its Way", an article by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle over at the New York Times The Stone opinionator column (thanks to Robert Frodeman as well for drawing my attention to it). The post is also currently being discussed at Daily Nous, where a few commenters so far seem sympathetic with the main points of the, but many others report being unpersuaded.

Very roughly (and I'm paraphrasing a lot here), Frodeman and Briggle argue that:

1. Philosophy was once widely practiced, focusing on issues relevant to society and everyday life (e.g. wisdom, virtue, etc.).
2. It then increasingly migrated into the modern research university, where
3. It became increasingly specialized, modeling itself on the hard sciences, thereby
4. Coming to focusing less on issues relevant to society and everyday life (wisdom, virtue, etc.), and more on peer-reviewed publication and "its own arcane language" (e.g. conceptual analysis, etc.)
5. However, philosophy's attempt to model itself after the sciences not only divorced it from ordinary life and the humanities. It also lacks the virtues of the sciences--namely, reliable methods that lead to actual progress.
6. Thus, philosophy "lost its way": it abandoned its roots (messy, humanistic inquiry) in pursuit of a fool's errand (scientific precision), in a manner that both (A) marginalized philosophy as an academic discipline (alienating it from the humanities, but also from science, since scientist have their own, more productive methods!), and (B) alienated philosophy from everyday life and society.

Have I gotten their account right? In any case, Frodeman and Briggle suggest that the key is for philosophy to return to its messy, humanistic roots. They write:

Our claim, then, can be put simply: Philosophy should never have been purified. Rather than being seen as a problem, “dirty hands” should have been understood as the native condition of philosophic thought — present everywhere, often interstitial, essentially interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary in nature. Philosophy is a mangle. The philosopher’s hands were never clean and were never meant to be.

What should we make of their critique, as well as their proposed solution? A number of Daily Nous commenters find the critique inadequately supported:

Unhelpful Reviewer Comments

By Trevor Hedberg

If you stay in the profession long enough, eventually you submit your work to journals and receive comments on your work from reviewers. Unfortunately, reviewer comments are not only often negative but also unhelpful. In my own experience, when I get rejections with comments, I am usually only able to use about half of those remarks to improve the paper. In a few of these cases, I haven’t been able to use any of the reviewer comments for that purpose.

In a previous post on the topic of peer review, Jason Stanley mentioned some advice offered by Robert Nozick: simply send the paper along to the next journal, and don’t worry about the comments. There are circumstances where that strategy is appealing, but in the cases where a reviewer genuinely identifies a problem with the paper, I usually try to solve the problem before sending it somewhere else. (I understand the motivation to send as much material to as many journals as possible in quick succession, highlighted well in this post, but if I genuinely believe that the revision will improve the paper and think the revision can be done without needing to write a new paper altogether, I can't bring myself to ignore the criticism without feeling intellectually irresponsible.) In part, this is why unhelpful reviewer comments can be so frustrating.

By “unhelpful” reviewer comments, I am not referring to inflammatory or offensive comments. While those definitely aren’t helpful, I think of them as a separate category altogether. Here are a few examples of comments that I’ve encountered in the last few years (most more than once) that I considered unhelpful:

Graduate student query on confidence

UPDATED

A PhD student who would like to remain anonymous writes in,

I was wondering if you might bring the following pair of questions before the Cocoon: What is it to be philosophically confident? And how can one begin to foster confidence in their work/thoughts/abilities in graduate school, when, for all intents and purposes, the deck seems to be stacked against them, and when the normal avenues for instilling such feelings (i.e. a paper being accepted into a journal, etc.) is hard to come by? 

I think these are great questions to ask, as in my experience many graduate students struggle with confidence. I struggled immensely with a loss of confidence myself in grad school, and it took a lot of work and soul-searching to regain it. What, then, is philosophical confidence, and how can one gain it, especially in graduate school? Before I open up a thread for discussion, I suppose I will present some of my thoughts on the matter.

 

Notes from search committee members, part 2: Dr. Research University on luck and best practices

A past search committee member who would prefer to remain anonymous writes in (thanks to Helen De Cruz for obtaining the submission!):

I’ve served on tenure-track search committees at two universities, both large, public, land-grant schools, and both classified by Carnegie as RU/VH (“very high research activity”) institutions. At the first school, our department had a (not very highly ranked) PhD program; at the school I’m at now, we have an MA program, but no PhD program.  I’ve served on more than a dozen search committees for tenure-stream hires within my discipline, a few search committees for tenure-stream hires in other disciplines, and a few search committees for administrative positions at the dean-level or above. As the latter are very different in many key ways from faculty searches, my experiences with those searches is probably irrelevant, and I won’t discuss those below. I participated in a few searches for tenure-stream faculty in a rather different role when I was a Department Chair, and in that role I was also a big part of the process of hiring fixed term (“adjunct”) faculty.   But again, for the below, I’ll focus on my experiences as a member of search committees for tenure-stream hires.

There are (what are considered by some people to be) ‘best practices’ for academic hiring that are, alas, followed by at best relatively few committees (to the best of my knowledge).  These include at least: developing operationalizable screening criteria clearly related to the job that the candidate is expected to perform before beginning the search; developing a search strategy likely to successfully encourage those people with the relevant skills, especially including people from traditionally under-represented groups, to apply; the implementation of an initial screening system designed to identify those candidates who meet the previously developed screening criteria, in a way that minimizes the effects of implicit biases, while following all relevant state and federal laws; and a way of fairly selecting a reasonable sub-group of those applicants identified by the initial screening as highly qualified for further evaluation. (Readers interested in contemporary best practice guidelines for minimizing implicit bias in hiring should consult the extensive literature on the subject.)

Early-career publishing strategies revisited

Daily Nous currently has an "Ought-Experiment" post under discussion entitled, "Are Journal Rejections a Hazing Ritual?". Although I will say a bit below about what I think the answer to this question is (my own short answer to it is: "It depends on your publishing strategy!"), I want to begin by focusing on a quandary that people on the job-market typically face, and which I struggled with myself. The quandary in question--very roughly, that job marketeers do not have enough time to successfully navigate the vicissitudes of peer-review--is nicely (albeit depressingly) summarized in the following comment by 'Disgusted' in the Daily Nous thread:

With this market, many of us need tenure-like packages before even getting interviews. Therefore, having to shop a paper around to seven journals–or even fewer, like three–is too time-consuming. If one strikes out on the market this year, with three, four, or five publications (as I am currently experiencing), then they will need to have four or five papers out for review in the spring in order to have a shot at getting one of them (probably more than one of them) accepted in preparation for next year’s market. If each of these has to make multiple rounds before being accepted, they will not be listed on next year’s CV before the new job season begins. Every year, job market candidates who have tried unsuccessfully in previous years feel the tenure-like pressures, but within the range of a matter of months, not years. Personally, I would sleep a lot better at night if I worried “merely” about the ticking of the tenure clock.

Given that it takes publications to compete well on the job-market, but many journals (A) have very high rejection-rates, while typically (B) taking many months, and in some cases upwards of a year (or even two!) to arrive at a decision, what should one do? Allow me to explain what I think one should not do--something which I attempted to do my first few years on the market, with spectacularly unsuccessful results. I will then return to what I think one should do, and why.

IHE Interview: "Manifesto for the Humanities", and Against Scaling Back Humanities PhD programs

A reader, Henry Lara (Edinburgh), has drawn my attention to a new interview up at Inside Higher Ed entitled, "Manifesto for the Humanities." The subject of the interview, Sidonie A. Smith (Mary Fair Croushore Professor of the Humanities at the University of Michigan), has some interesting things to say against a proposal that has recently been pushed on a number of philosophy blogs--namely, reducing the number of PhD programs and PhD candidates, in response to consistently horrible academic job-markets:

I refuse arguments calling for fewer doctoral programs for several reasons. The strength of doctoral education in the humanities in the United States is the diversity of schools offering doctoral training: public, private, religious, secular, urban, regional, gigantic, small. The strength is in the diversity of emphases, constellations of faculty and cross-disciplinary filiations. The more the diversity, from my point of view, the more energy and impetus for innovation, for risk taking, for experimentation, for recognizing and achieving excellence. And here’s a second reason, about another kind of diversity. It comes via Dolan Hubbard, who argues that “the quiet consensus to limit access to graduate programs is an ethnically and socially irresponsible position when viewed from the perspective of the underproduction of African-American Ph.D.s.” Humanities departments also underproduce doctorates coming from Hispanic communities, from indigenous communities, [from those] who are the first in their families to go to university.

My reasons are personal as well. I am the product of a second-tier, less-elite doctoral program at Case Western Reserve University. I was the beneficiary of the program’s modest size, its small doctoral cohort and its openness to women graduate students back in the late 1960s. I was the beneficiary of faculty who maintained high expectations of their female students at a time when larger flagship state universities and the elite privates tolerated a woman or two but failed to mentor them adequately or with grace and generosity. I knew I would never have the bona fides of my many colleagues with Ph.D.s from the Ivies. But I have always taken pride in my pedigree from Case. This is exactly the kind of doctoral program that could be seen as expendable when those trained at the elite privates and publics make the case for downsizing doctoral education in the United States.

Thoughts? 

Evaluating conventional wisdom in the profession

One of the things we philosophers are trained to do is critically evaluate conventional wisdom. As we all know, sometimes things that "seem obvious" turn out to be false. We should not simply accept conventional wisdom, but instead investigate which pieces of conventional wisdom are justified and which are not. And here is what I am curious about: which pieces of conventional wisdom in academic philosophy are justified, and which are not? This is not an easy question to answer, for at least two reasons: (1) it is not always entirely clear which things are conventional wisdom in the profession, and (2) it is often far from clear what might be good evidence to confirm or disconfirm that wisdom. As these are difficult issues to settle, what I would like to do is ask readers the following two, very broad questions:

1. In your view, which pieces of "conventional wisdom" in the discipline cohere with your own personal experience?
2. In your view, which pieces of "conventional wisdom" in the discipline conflict with your personal experience?

Although these are admittedly very broad questions, and answers to them must (by necessity) take the form of mere anecdotes, it may well be that some surprising anecdotal trends might emerge. In any case, I think discussing these questions openly might be interesting and fun!

I suppose I will start things out. Because this is a blog post, I will focus on some of my experiences that seem to conflict with, or defy, "conventional wisdom" in the discipline as I see it.

Institutional motivators and the academic job-market

In recent weeks, the Cocoon and new APA blog have published posts by search committee members from different types of institutions on what they look for in job-candidates. The Cocoon published a post by a search committee member at a Midsized Liberal Arts College (MLAC). More recently, the APA blog published a post by Allen Wood, who has served on search committees at high-ranking research institutions, as well as a post by Robert Muhlnickel about what search committees look for at community colleges. These series' of posts are beginning to provide, I think, a much clearer picture of just how different the hiring priorities can be at different types of institutions. However, I would like to draw into clearer focus something that in my experience (talking to fellow job-candidates, surveying various blogs, etc.) appears to be underappreciated: the subtle role that institutional motivators plausibly play in influencing who is interviewed, and especially, who is ultimately hired. Allow me to explain.

One important phenomenon that happens all too often in life is that "what people say, and what they do" can be quite at odds with one another. For example, in the dating world it is not uncommon for someone to say they are "attracted" to a certain type of person ("I like kind, funny people"), but then actually date a very different type of person who is not at all in line with their own ideals (viz. "Okay, but why do you always date jerks?"). Similarly, consider a case from philosophy. As I mentioned the other day, a recent Leiter poll indicated that professional philosophers who voted in the poll think that "Hyper-specialization and/or increasing irrelevance of philosophy to public/culture at large" is the 3rd most important important issue in the profession. In response to this finding, one of my facebook friends asked the following rhetorical question, "Why, then, do people keep publishing hyperspecialized stuff that seems to play into philosophy's irrelevance to the world at large?" My answer was that the answer is probably this: that whatever people may value themselves ("I don't like hyperspecialized work"), there are structural motivators in place that incentivize hyperspecialized work: people want to publish in "top journals" to advance their careers, and "top journals" tend to publish hyperspecialized work -- thus, whatever people might say they value, they have incentives to keep churning out hyperspecialized work!

Here is why I think this is important when it comes to the academic job-market: whatever people might say they look for in candidates to interview ("I look for the best researcher", "I look for the best teacher", etc.), search committees are committees. And, as we all know, committees often don't just (or even primarily) represent the preferences of the the individuals on them: they are political animals -- that is, groups of human beings that may, for political reasons, say or advance values at the group level that they might not even prefer as an individual (all on their lonesome). How might this occur? Well, let us reflect on the kinds of institutional motivators that search committees plausibly find themselves facing at different kinds of universities.

Some questions about starting a new journal

UPDATED

I've been toying with the idea of starting a new Open-Access philosophy journal for a while now, and have a couple of ideas--regarding journal format and content--that I think would be unique, filling a few substantial gaps in the current journal environment that might attract contributors and readers (promoting certain kinds of philosophical discussion in new ways). However, I know starting a new journal would be a very large undertaking, and I'm not sure how to go about pursuing it.

Does anyone know the steps I would have to go through in order to get a viable journal off the ground? Also, is anyone interested in potentially collaborating on such a project? If anyone is interested, I would be happy to discuss ideas, in confidence, over email (just shoot me an email at marvan@ut.edu). Thanks in advance to anyone/everyone who chimes in!

*Update: I've already received a few emails from people advising against attempting to start a journal at my career-stage. I very much thank them for the advice, and found the rationale(s) provided to be sound/persuasive. That being said, I think it still might be worthwhile discussing/finding out precisely what it does take to start a journal, if only to better understand what an immense undertaking it is!

Job-Market Advice at the APA Blog

The new APA blog has a couple of helpful posts up on the academic job market:

• Advice for Applying for Academic Jobs in Philosophy: Monroe Community College, by Robert Muhlnickel.
• Advice for Applying for Academic Jobs in Philosophy: Indiana University Bloomington, by Allen Wood.

Check 'em out!

Career Advice from an Oldish Not-Quite Geezer, and from an Early-to-Mid Career Philosopher

UPDATED (see below)

Robert J. Sternberg's article at the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Career Advice from an Oldish Not-Quite Geezer", has been going around social media the past day or so. It's a great read, and offers some very heartfelt (and experienced!) career advice for academics. Here, in bullet-point form, is his advice:

1. Put your family first.
2. Make your health a close second.
3. Save as much money as you can.
4. If you’re in the wrong place, get out.
5. Stay away from jerks.
6. If you’re not having fun, something’s wrong.
7. Be true to yourself.
8. Don’t tie up too much of your self-esteem in someone else’s evaluation of your work.
9. Take stock periodically.
10. Have a hobby. See the world. Or both.
11. Help others.
12. Take some risks.

Several of these items really resonated with me, as they have seemed critical to my own well-being, my family's well-being, and my career (even in its relatively early stages). Accordingly, I thought it might be worthwhile both reflecting upon and discussing Sternberg's advice, and then discussing whatever advice of our own that we might have with each other! I suppose I'll begin. ;)

21st Century Philosophy: In Crisis, a New Beginning, Both, or Neither?

Dan Hutto (University of Wollongong) has posted a nice, short little piece at academia.edu entitled, "21st Century Philosophy: In Crisis or New Beginning?" As my blog post from a while back, "Analytic Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy" suggests, I very much agree with Hutto.

The general message of both pieces is roughly this: if we want to both (A) improve philosophy's methods, getting away from untethered intuitions (including empirically unsupported claims about folk psychology), and (B) help our discipline get taken more seriously and regarded as more relevant in the modern world (both of which, I think, we should want!), philosophy in the 20th Century is going to have to increasingly return to more naturalistic/anti-rationalistic modes of inquiry, increasingly drawing upon and interweaving with the sciences, rather than setting itself apart from the sciences as an a priori discipline (as analytic philosophy largely did during the 20th Century). This isn't to say that all forms of rationalism are bad, or that there is no room for a priori philosophizing. It is only to say that, in swinging so far in the direction of a priori/rationalistic methods in the 20th Century, analytic philosophy painted itself into something of a corner, both philosophically/epistemically (leaving little more than intuitions to motivate philosophical argument, with no clear tests of which intuitions reliably track truth), as well as socially, academically, and politically (distancing and isolating ourselves from the public at large, from other disciplines, and from current affairs). I, at any rate, have great hope that the 21st Century will be a "new beginning" of sorts for philosophy--a century of philosophy crossing disciplinary boundaries, drawing on the sciences, and drawing a more diverse body of philosophers, and different social and philosophical perspectives, into the fold. And indeed, there seem to me already clear signs of this occurring, with an increasing number of philosophers engaging more with the sciences, engaging more with issues of public interest, publishing in more public venues, etc.

How should we foster this new beginning? In addition to the above ways, I think we can do so in a number of related ways: by (1) continuing to question and move further away from methods (such as "the method of cases") that dominated 20th Century philosophy, but are increasingly seen as problematic, (2) increasingly insisting that areas of philosophy with empirical connections (e.g. moral philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of free will and agency) engage with, and be based on, a sound, thorough understanding of the relevant empirical areas, and (3) increasingly identifying a sound graduate education in philosophy with one that does not cordon off philosophy from empirical science, but instead draws upon, and merges, philosophical reflection and argument with scientific understanding (e.g cognitive neuroscience, empirical moral psychology, etc.). Or so I think. What do you think? Is philosophy in the 21st Century in crisis? Is it at the start of (potentially?, hopefully?) a new beginning? Both? Neither? 

How bad is the philosophy job market? One (depressing) comparison

The MLA's Job Information list reports, "In 2014–15, of the 884 ads in the English JIL [Jobs Information List], 595 (67.3%) were tagged as advertising tenure-track positions." For comparison, a couple of quick searches at philjobs reveals that of the (only) 572 philosophy jobs advertised in 2015, only 219 (or 38.3%) of jobs advertised are on the tenure-track. Yikes.

UPDATE/note: The MLA report also states, rather confusingly, that there were "1,015 jobs in the English edition for 2014–15." Although this figure has been reported at InsideHigherEd as "1,015 jobs in English", as far as I can tell (though I may be wrong) this is incorrect reporting: the 1,015 figure appears to me to be the number of jobs listed in English language version of the Jobs Information List (which also includes jobs in foreign languages). The total number of jobs in the academic discipline of English in the JIL for 2014-15 appears, from the report, to be the 884 figure listed above.

Recent Work by Cocooners (December 2015)

The following works were either published or posted to philpapers by Cocoon contributors during the month of December:

Marcus Arvan (forthcoming). Transformative Experience, by L.A. Paul. [REVIEW] Australasian Journal of Philosophy:1-4.

Moti Mizrahi (forthcoming). Why Be an Intellectually Humble Philosopher? Axiomathes:1-14.

Mark Zelcer (forthcoming). A Glimpse of Some Topics in Contemporary Philosophy of Mathematics. Metascience:1-4.

Anyone I missed?

UPDATES:

Ben Bramble & Bob Fischer (eds.) (2015). The Moral Complexities of Eating Meat. Oxford University Press Usa.

Bob Fischer (forthcoming). Bugging the Strict Vegan. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics:1-9.

Robert William Fischer (forthcoming). Disgust as Heuristic. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice:1-15.

Robert William Fischer (forthcoming). Hale on the Architecture of Modal Knowledge. Analytic Philosophy.

Axel Gelfert (2016). How to Do Science with Models: A Philosophical Primer. Springer.

 

Happy New Year!

I just wanted to wish all of you and your loved ones a happy new year, as well as happiness and good fortune in 2016! Thanks as well to readers and contributors for making the Cocoon such a great place to talk philosophy and the profession in 2015. :)