The Philosophers' Cocoon

Elements of a good professional website?

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

I wanted to ask for any advice on how to design a personal academic website. I will soon have my first publication out and thought it would be a good idea to have a web page for people to find out who I am. However, I am not sure what makes for a 'good' academic webpage. For example, should one have one's photograph featured prominently on the front page, as some philosophers do? Is the 'Papers' page simply a list of all publications, or is it helpful to e.g. include abstracts and context, to group papers together in subjects, etc.? Is it good to include personal details about e.g. hobbies, or does this detract from the main goal? I am not aware of any discussions on this topic, and would appreciate any advice people have, or indeed examples of 'good' academic webpages.

Really good questions! What does everyone think? I think it would good to hear what people think in response to the reader's various questions, as well as for readers to link in the comment section below to webpages they think think are particularly good! Here are a few brief thoughts of my own.

New series on tenure

Yesterday, I came across an interesting discussion on social media on what tenure requirements are at different schools. Because it is clear from that discussion and others discussions I have encountered that tenure requirements differ greatly at different institutions, I thought it might be good to run a short series on the tenure process and tenure requirements. It occurred to me that such a series might be of interest to a variety of the blog's readers, including job-marketeers (who might benefit from better awareness of differences in the tenure process and standards across institutions), tenure-track faculty who have not gone up for tenure yet, and members of the profession more generally.

Anyway, I tentatively plan this series to cover the following topics:

• What tenure processes themselves are like at different institutions
• How clearly and consistently tenure standards are stated and conveyed to job-candidates
• What tenure standards are like at different kinds of institutions
  • R1 (research) institutions
  • Elite liberal arts universities
  • Non-elite liberal arts universities
  • Regional public state schools (non-R1's)
  • Community colleges
• What tenure-denial is like and involves (including potential for appeals)

Are there any other topics the series should cover? If so, please let me know in the comments section below this post. Because the quality of information this series provides will depend on reader comments, I'd like to encourage readers to share posts in the series, so that readers who may have experience and insight in these matters can chime in! For now, I'd just like to solicit suggestions on any additional topics to cover in the series. The first substantive post in the series will come in the next day or two!

Mentioning age in recommendation letters

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, prof writes:

I am a professor at an European University, and I would have a question concerning letters of recommendation.
Is it appropriate to write something like "This is an impressive list of accomplishments for someone who has not reached their 30s yet"? I want to emphasize that these accomplishments are exceptional for a 28-year-old. Or should I never mention or refer to the student's age?

Interesting question. I guess I'm inclined to think one shouldn't discuss age (so as to avoid unwittingly playing into ageism). I think there's nothing wrong with saying in a letter that someone has an impressive list of accomplishments for their career stage--but again, I'm inclined to think it is best to leave chronological age out of it. What do you all think?

Tips for recruiting majors & promoting diversity

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, ABD Philosophy Student writes:

In the recent 'What do first-round academic philosophy job interviews look like?' it's suggested that there are two common questions one might get: (1) How would you recruit majors? and (2) How would you promote diversity in the classroom and/or on campus?

I'm wondering: (1) How does one recruit majors? and (2) How does one promote diversity?

Not just, what can I say? But, what are genuinely effective tactics for these projects?

Good questions, and I am curious how readers would answer. I will share just a few things I did, my department has done, and which I have seen work well.

In terms of recruiting majors, when I was in a non-TT position I took it upon myself to put together a detailed informational packet on philosophy and the major, which I then took to my department. The packet included information on the major itself, including how easy it is to double major, as well as information on graduate school test scores, employment and salary statistics, examples of successful, real life people in all different kinds of fields who majored in philosophy (focusing on diversity too), and so on. In the years after distributing that flyer, our major numbers more than doubled, and 60% of our majors are consistently women and historically-marginalized minorities. I also coached an Ethics Bowl team each year, which seemed to recruit some diverse majors, and one of my junior tenure-stream colleagues has been very active and creative in relaunching our Philosophy Club, organizing club meetings around philosophical issues related to hot topics in pop culture and the news. We also began a series of 'lightning talks', featuring philosophers from nearby universities who give 10-15 minute philosophy talks on their research to the club, followed by discussion--which I think attracts and interests students in philosophy far more than, say, a traditional 30-60 minute colloquium talk. Finally, this year we began the fall by putting together a "meet UT's philosophers" event (with food!) where new students, majors, and potential majors could meet each other and the faculty--and we even started a department Instagram page (thanks to the suggestion of several students).

In terms of diversity, when I was still in a non-TT position, I also took it upon myself to create and c0-organize an annual human rights conference with a sociologist, which not of featured diverse academics but also representatives of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Enterprising Latinas, the League of Women Voters, the CARIBE Program for refugees, and many other organizations. These conferences were advertised all around the university, and attended by a diverse body of students.

Anyway, these are just some things we/I have done at my university, and I don't think there's any one way to do (1) and (2). But my advice is simple: be proactive and get creative. Talk to other people inside and outside of your department, brainstorming about things you could do. Chances are, you'll come up with something, and as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained! Do any of you have any tips of your own, including things graduate students might do (since the OP mentions they are ABD)?

Poll results: service and the market

A couple of discussions the past few weeks got me thinking about the role that service (to one's department, university, the profession, etc.) plays on the job market. First, a little over two weeks ago, Daily Nous hosted a discussion on whether graduate students should receive compensation for service work. Second, around the same time, a colleague in the discipline at a research university mentioned on social media that they actively discourage their grad students from engaging in service, the rationale being, if I recall, that it's just not worth grad students' time and energy. I weighed in on this discussion, saying that my experience working and hiring on four search committees at a liberal arts university is very different: namely, that service may substantially benefit candidates on the market for jobs at universities like mine. 

Anyway, both of these discussions got met thinking: do search committee members, and search committees as a whole, care about service? Do candidates' service records affect how they are evaluated by search committee members? If so, how?

Because these seem to me to be important issues, I decided to run an informal poll asking search committee members to weigh in on a few questions. To be clear, it is just an informal poll with a relatively small sample size (N = 29), not a formal study--so the results should be presumably taken with a serious grain of salt. However, here are the results:

• Number of respondents: 29
• # self-reporting as from R1 research universities: 18
• # self-reporting as from regional state universities: 4
• # self-reporting as from non-elite liberal arts universities: 3
• # self-reporting as from elite liberal arts universities: 1
• # self-reporting as from community colleges: 1
• # self-reporting as from 'other': 2

Q1 - A job-candidate's service record (viz. service to their department, university, community, etc.) can play a real role in how I personally evaluate their candidacy as a search-committee member:

Q2 - The search committee(s) I have been on have taken candidates' service records (viz. service to their department, university, community, etc.) into account in their collective deliberations on who to interview or hire:

Q3 - Depending on your answers to Q1 & Q2, what kind(s) of service may play a role in how candidates are evaluated?:

All responses, complete and unedited:

• "Diversity related service, public philosophy, service that brings in media attention, service that attracts grads to the department, undergrads to classes or the major."
• "All forms, but especially technology, diversity, and proactive, positive contributions to the profession."
• "Course development, curriculum reform, labour organizing, establishing MAP chapters, etc."
• "Student outreach, diversity initiatives, reading and discussion groups, syllabus reform."
• "Service with students."
• "Anything that indicates that they would be a responsible member of my department--graduate representative, serving on committees, organizing events, etc."
• "In a UK context, it really is a must. You need to be able to show some "admin" experience, e.g., being part of committees, taking on admin roles in your department."
• "Has the candidate been involved in any diversity initiatives on campus, or leadership/shared governance roles. At my institution we need people to do a lot of service because we are badly understaffed, and we also need people who can help with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts."
• "Undergraduate mentoring; teacher training related initiatives; diversity related initiatives (e.g. MAP chapter)."
• "It's not so much that kinds of service matter, but when debating candidates with differing research outputs, variations in teaching and administrative loads become relevant to predicting future performance."
• "Anything that indicates that the candidate is a team player."
• "Stuff that shows experience working with grad students, stuff that shows they would be a leader in enriching our intellectual community."
• "I don't care about journal refereeing. I take an absence of departmental service, or only insubstantial-looking service lines on the CV, as something of a red flag; it suggests to me that the candidate won't pull their weight in the department. Larger professional service roles suggest the candidate is becoming connected, which is a weak positive sign of reputation-building (which can matter for tenure)."
• "Work that showed a serious commitment to various kinds of diversity (running a MAP chapter, teaching philosophy in urban schools, etc)."
• "I was not allowed to officially consider any service, only the vague 'capacity' to take on roles within the department. This is a serious issue, and I wish that I could take into account junior colleagues that have undertaken senior roles (perhaps to the detriment of their research outputs). If able to, evidence of taking on important departmental roles would be great to ensure that we are hiring someone that can cope in those roles (i.e. future chairs of departments!)."
• "Primarily we have looked at administrative experience--has this person served as a chair, been in charge of adjuncts, performed class scheduling, served as an advisor."
• "Founding/running undergraduate clubs, recruitment efforts (with data to show their personal involvement), conference volunteer work, tutoring/mentoring students in an official capacity."
• "Philosophy club, public philosophy, pedagogical committees."
• "None."

Q4- I answered the above questions on the basis of my experience serving on search committee(s) at:

Again, this is just an informal survey--but I for one find the results intriguing, especially the qualitative answers to Q3 (indicating the kinds of service respondents care about, and their reasons for doing so). Anyway, I hope you all find this information helpful, and would be curious indeed to see what a more formal study might find!

Answering the 'any questions for us?' question

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, anon writes:

The "Any questions for us?" question. I'd be curious to hear general thoughts on how to handle this question, but even more, I'd appreciate concrete examples of good questions that search committee members have heard.

This is a good query. I vaguely recall serving on a search committee and being very impressed by some questions candidates asked, in ways that made a real difference in how I evaluated their interview (as in, "Wow, that question was really a breath of fresh air!" - though, to be clear, I am generally skeptical of the value of interviews on scientific grounds). Although I'm having a hard time recalling specific examples, one general thing that stood out to me was the overall thoughtfulness and originality of the questions asked. One definite thing not to do is to say you don't have any questions. My sense is that this comes across very poorly, making the candidate look unprepared or uninterested in the department and institution. But what are good questions to ask?

Book contracts and the market

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

To search committee members: how does receiving a book contract from a mid-tier press look to potential search committee members?

How should one go about listing this on their CV?

'Press' then responded:

Book contracts are not that impressive - in part, because they are not binding on the press, and they are often based on work not yet done. You say mid-tier ... that is hard to image which press. Can you be more specific: Springer, Chicago, Cornell, MIT? If you are dipping lower still, it really cannot count for much.

For what it is worth, Press's comment does not cohere at all well my experience on the market or my experience hiring at a liberal arts university. Here are my thoughts.

Grad school grades & the market

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, smoose writes:

...I have question concerning job prospects. I'm relatively early ish in my Grad program, but I've had some conversations recently with others in my program and they made me curious about what others thought (not just in my department).

1. 1. How important are your grades when applying for a job? Do they even look at them? Straight A's vs. a couple of B's.
   2. Should one just focus more on publication than grades?
   3. How many publications should one aim for? For instance, avg number for most graduates, a good number, a great number, and an outstanding number of publications?
   4. Mainly, is it better to focus on conferences, publication rather than getting top grades when it comes to getting a job?

I know that my advisor has a big role to play in me landing a good job, but I'm wanting to figure out where I should be putting most of my energy.

I could always be wrong (I am more often than I expect!), but my guess is that grad school grades almost never matter in any direct way on the job-market. When it comes to getting hired for R1/research university jobs, what matter most seem to be: (A) grad program prestige, (B) the overall perceived quality of your work (viz. your writing sample and letters of recommendation), and (C) the quality of your publication record (viz. publishing in top journals). Conversely when it comes to jobs at teaching institutions (e.g. SLACs), grad program prestige seems to matter less, as does publishing in top-journals. My own sense, having hired at a SLAC four times, and having been very competitive on the SLAC market when I was a job-marketeer, is that publication quantity matters more for SLAC jobs, as does the perceived quality and innovation of one's teaching and perhaps even one's service record. Here again, I suspect hardly anyone is likely to pay attention to grades--though I guess if you did have a very spotty grade record, it might raise a yellow flag, leading people to wonder about your work ethic, perhaps (I don't know). [Side note: as we've discussed many times on this blog, the above differences between what different types of schools look for suggests that different people should probably have different job-market strategies, depending on what kinds of jobs they are likely to be most competitive for!]

Does this mean you shouldn't care about grades in grad school? No! The way I see it, the point of grad school grades isn't to impress potential employers. The point is what they reflect: your philosophical development, and the extent to which your work has impressed faculty in your program. These are things worth caring about, but only as means to ends: namely, producing good work, publishing effectively, and so on. So sure, try to get good grades, but don't be mistaken: they're not what people on the hiring end of things care about. You're not going to get tenured on the basis of your grad school grades, but on the basis of your publications, outside letters in support of your candidacy, teaching, and so on. Your real focus, in other words, should be on becoming the best researcher, teacher, and member of the profession you can!

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

What do first-round academic philosophy job interviews look like?

The job market timeline is a bit more spread out than it was in the past, but it's still pretty much the case that for most tenure track jobs, interview requests will go out this month, perhaps also next month. 

Job interviews have moved to Skype. It's been a while that Marcus or I have interviewed for a tenure track position. If you were recently on the market, what does a job interview for a TT job in philosophy look like? What questions were you asked? Feel free to chime in with any recent experiences and observations! 

What's it like to work as a philosopher in Mexico?

This is the eleventh installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that give a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This guest contribution is a fully collaborative, co-authored piece by two scholars in Mexico: 

Paloma Atencia is Research Associate at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas (Institute of Philosophical Research) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She works at the intersection between philosophy of art and the philosophy of mind and perception. 

 

Miguel Ángel Sebastian works as Investigador Titular (equivalent to tenured assistant professor) at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas at UNAM. His research focuses on the philosophy of mind, cognitive sciences and consciousness studies. He has also interests in aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of physics and metaphysics.

When you think about Mexico, probably the first thing that comes to your mind are wonderful beaches, great food, friendly people, and Mayan ruins. Also, given the vast cultural and artistic opportunities that Mexico City has to offer, it’s not surprising that it was selected as a top destination to visit in 2019 according to the New York Times. However, it’s not likely that many people think about Mexico when it comes to academic life in general, and Philosophy in particular. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to encounter the more or less implicit assumption that very little interesting philosophical work is done beyond the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and a few other parts of Europe. We think that this is strongly misguided—that’s why we work here! Such an implicit assumption is partially explained by the lack of information, of which we have some responsibility. We would like to take this opportunity to share with you some thoughts on what it is like to do (analytic) Philosophy in Mexico.

It is true that the analytic tradition in Philosophy is still very much underrepresented in Latin America. However, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) and, more specifically, the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas (IIFs) stands out as one of the very few centers in the region that cultivate and foster work in this tradition. More importantly, contrary to what many people might think, UNAM ranks in Philosophy above many well-known American and European institutions (just go and check your favorite World Universities Ranking). But these are just statistics.

Informal survey on service & the market

Several weeks ago, Daily Nous hosted a discussion on the distribution of graduate student service work and whether such work should receive compensation. This led to some further online discussion about whether and to what extent service plays a role in how job-candidates for academic jobs are evaluated. Does a candidate's service experience and overall service record (to their department, university, community, or the profession) play a role in hiring? Do individual search committee members take service into account when evaluating job-candidates (viz. who to interview or extend an offer to)? Do search committees take service into account in their collective deliberations?

Because I think job-candidates might benefit from getting clearer answers to this question, I decided to put together this informal five question survey for people who have served on search-committees to fill out. To be clear, this isn't a formal study, but rather just an informal poll to hopefully gather some helpful information. I am well aware of methodological issues with open polls like these, but am optimistic that some information here might be better than the status quo. Please fill out the poll only if you have served on at least one search committee--and please do not fill out the poll more than once. Although I may report results of the survey here, all individual responses will be kept confidential. The poll also ends with an optional item requesting respondents' email addresses (in order to give me at least some indication that the poll is being filled out by people in the discipline who have plausibly served on the search committees), but this item is entirely optional. Hopefully, I'll have some data to report back on next week!

Pregnancy and the market

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, ABD mama writes:

I am a pregnant first-time job seeker on the North American market and my baby is due during the height of flyout season. I see no reason to mention this situation to search committees unless and until they invite me to visit, but I would like to prepare myself for such a conversation ahead of time. Can anyone illuminate the constraints on campus visit scheduling? How much flexibility do hiring departments have? Does this vary from institution to institution? Who makes these decisions? Also, does anyone have experience (either as a job candidate or hiring department) with a flyout involving a baby? I am 99% certain that I would rather cope with the challenges of bringing a nursing newborn than with the challenges of being separated from said newborn overnight. I am fortunate to have a family member who can travel with me to provide childcare. I imagine that I should plan for her to travel on my own dime, though please correct me if I am wrong. I should also add that this is not my first kid, so I have at least some idea of the exhaustion and other things I will be feeling.

These are really good and important questions. My experience serving on several search committees is that hiring committees can have a significant amount of flexibility, but that scheduling is also constrained by the schedules of administrators (e.g. Deans), the fly-out schedules of other candidates, and the overall timeline for the search (some hiring committees may be pushed to wrap up the search by a certain date). Consequently, I suspect (but don't know for sure) that things can vary quite a bit from institution to institution. Do other search committee members have any thoughts on these issues? And more generally: do readers have any relevant experiences and/or advice to share?

The importance of a good grad adviser

Each year, applicants accepted to PhD programs have to decide where to enroll. When I was in that situation, I made my decision on what in retrospect seem to me to be really naive, simplistic grounds. I basically looked at how highly ranked a program was, and whether it had good faculty in my area(s) of focus. Having talked to some recent grad school applicants, my sense is that this is still how a considerable number of them seem to decide where to enroll. However, I now think that this is exactly how not to make this kind of far-reaching decision. First, program rankings do not appear to be very good proxies of something that I cared about, and suspect most applicants care about: academic job placement rates. According to the ADPA report, some highly ranked PhD programs place their graduates well, others fare poorly. Conversely, some low-ranked and unranked programs have even better overall placement rates than top-ranked programs. Secondly, there are grounds for thinking that one's choice of PhD adviser/supervisor is one of the most important parts of one's graduate experience, in ways that in turn can have profound effects on one's professional prospects. Let me explain.

One of the more striking things I've noticed in my time in the profession is just how much the success rates of grad students depend upon who their adviser is. Some advisers basically never graduate any students, the vast majority of whom drop out. Other advisers do graduate students, but their students' average time to graduation is like 7-10 years, and their students rarely get full-time academic jobs. Then there are advisers who crank out new PhDs left and right, and whose students routinely end up hired quickly into tenure-track jobs. Then of course there are qualitative differences. Some advisers are encouraging, supportive, quick to provide feedback, provide good job-market guidance, professional connections, and so on. Other advisers are abusive, neglectful, take months to provide feedback, provide no job-market guidance, etc. All of these kinds of advisers can and often do exist within the very same program, including at top programs. So, it can be vital to end up with the right one!

I'll tell my story in a minute. But before I do, here's why I'm writing this post: I came across this Inside Higher Ed piece today where I learned about a 2018 study in Nature that found that "factors strongly correlating with overall satisfaction [of PhD students in grad programs] include number of publications, work-life balance and, especially, the adviser-advisee relationship." So, don't take it from me: take it from science. If you're applying to PhD programs, don't focus all of your attention on rankings, average placement record for jobs, or the overall quality of a program's faculty. No, try to figure out before accepting an offer whether there is a faculty member there who would be a good adviser for you, and whether they would be willing to supervise you should you get in there.

What should search committees remember about the market?

Last month, Trevor wrote a really illuminating post on his job-market experience last year. One of the many things that stood out to me was a conclusion he drew about interviews:

Job interviews are bullshit. This is not a new observation, but it was reinforced throughout the year. I was always the same job candidate, and I always engaged in roughly the same interview preparation – same attire, same amount of time researching each school and department, the same interviewing location (with a few exceptions). Yet my interview performance varied dramatically and usually due to factors that had nothing to do with how well I could do the job in question. For this reason, you shouldn’t be discouraged if an interview goes badly, but it’s difficult to have that outlook when they can have such a huge impact on your career and life more generally.

My experience on the job-market was similar. Of every ten interviews I had, I'd say about 3 went really well, 3 went badly, and four went so-so. It was an incredibly frustrating experience, as just like Trevor I felt that they just weren't reliably reflective of who I was (and am) as a professional philosopher. No matter how well I prepared, my interview performances felt like a crapshoot. They seemed to vary depending on everything ranging from how well I slept the previous night to how well I could hear the committee's questions on Skype, to whether I drank too much coffee, to how sharp I felt on that particular day. Readers may also recall that I've also shared some of the science on hiring, including just how sensitive to job-irrelevant factors (attractiveness, height, weight, race, gender, etc.) interviews are known to be.

Why, then, do committees stake so much on interviewing? Having served on four search committees now, the answer is fairly clear to me: on the hiring side of things, interviews seem to have probative value. When a candidate answers questions very poorly, it can seem hard to imagine hiring the person. Or, when a candidate 'kills it' in an interview, it can be very hard not to come away impressed. The problem, though, is that the science doesn't support any of this--and a little commonsense reflection can help us remember why. Consider Tom Brady, by most estimations the best quarterback ever to play NFL football. Tom Brady impressed roughly no one in his combine try-out for the NFL, which is why he was drafted in the very last round of the NFL draft. Tom Brady has also had some miserable games during his long career in the league--just like every sporting great has ranging from LeBron James to Venus and Serena Williams. Conversely, here are some players who impressed just about everyone in their NFL tryouts: JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington, Tim Couch, Kyle Boller...all players who were drafted in the very first round of the NFL draft who nevertheless went on to have miserable careers. What all of these cases show (including Trevor's experience) is something that should be obvious to anyone: namely, individual, one-off performances can vary tremendously in ways that make them horribly unreliable measures of future promise. Indeed, on that note, it's worth noting that I've seen some very famous and otherwise brilliant philosophers give bizarrely bad talks! Given that even Tom Brady can have miserable games, we should always remember just how fallible judgments based on single performances can be.

The problem, it seems to me, may be that search committee members simply forget this--that is, that they are so far removed from actually being job-candidates that they forget just how many so-so or bad interviews they gave as candidates, and how frustrating it is to prepare hard for an interview only to see it not go well when another interview you prepared just as hard for goes splendidly. Anyway, this got me thinking about what else search committees might forget about what it's like for candidates on the market. Here's another one that occurred to me: what an awful waste of time it is for candidates to have to create application materials (beyond the cover letter) specifically tailored to the job--such as a research vision indicating how you would specifically contribute to X, Y, and Y. These kinds of things can take forever for candidates to put together...and for what? 95% of the time, it will all go for naught--a committee may not be impressed enough by a candidate's CV to even spend the time to look carefully at the tailored materials the candidate spent so much time on!  

As someone who spent a ton of time on the market as a job-candidate and then served on several search committees, it occurred to me how important it may be for people like me to not lose touch with these facts about the market. Which brings me to my question for current and recent job-candidates out there: what do you think search-committees should remember about being a candidate on the market? What sorts of things seem just "obvious" to you as candidates that search committee members may have forgotten or otherwise be inadequately aware of or sensitive to?

What are cover letters for?

A reader writes in:

What information can a cover letter provide that isn’t already provided by the other materials, the CV in particular? The latter lists AOSs, AOCs, publications, and past courses actually taught. If schools also require a research statement and/or a teaching statement (depending on how important research is), what’s left for the cover letter to do?

The most common answer I’ve seen is that it allows search committees to assess “fit,” and/or to assess how likely the candidate is to stay, if hired. But these both seem like dubious reasons for requiring cover letters. “Fit” is nebulous, and requires a lot of time and effort on the part of applicants. I also increasingly worry that, in practice, it’s used as excuse to toss a bunch of applications that committee members find irritating, as part of an (understandable but still probably objectionable) time-saving strategy. It also seems impossible to assess how likely a candidate is to stay--not to mention that the only reason anyone ever cites as one you can give that shows your willingness to stay is that you have family in the area, which is a help only rarely (unless your family lives in the northeast or in California, I suppose) and is also frustrating if you don’t particularly care whether you live close to family.

The other thing I can imagine a cover letter doing is explaining certain otherwise puzzling features of your application. If it isn’t plain from your CV that you fit the desired AOS or AOC, maybe you can explain your fit in your cover. But does that ever work? There’s also a question whether explanations of puzzling features of your application might tend to be too personal, or make you look bad (I haven’t published much because I’ve had a high teaching load in temporary positions, just had a baby, have been depressed, had a parent who was sick, etc.).

So, most generally: what really is the point of a cover letter?

Here's are my quick answers.

[When] should you stretch your AOS?

A reader writes in:

When I was first on the market, I was told by my program’s placement director that I should never apply for a job if I didn’t fit the AOS, which I take to mean: if the AOS doesn’t appear as an AOS on my CV. More recently, though, it was suggested to me (by two different job marketers from two different highly ranked programs) that, while this may be true of research jobs, it isn’t true of teaching jobs; in particular, they suggested that I should apply for jobs at teaching universities with an AOS in [area I’ve taught during six semesters in the last three years, and the only thing I taught for almost two years], and simply highlight my teaching experience in that area in my cover letter. Which, if either, of these claims is correct?

I am very curious to hear what people think. My own experience on the hiring side of things at a liberal arts university has been that we are expected to hire squarely in the AOS advertised. If this were my only experience, I would be strongly inclined to advise candidates not to stretch their AOS (or AOC for that matter). However, my experience hiring isn't the only relevant experience I've had. I have also heard stories to the contrary second- and third-hand, of people saying they've heard of, known, or even been someone who was hired who didn't fit a job ad well at all. Further, I've heard stories of this happening at R1's and teaching-focused universities. What I don't know is how common these cases are, or how to evaluate the veracity of the stories I have heard. 

Anyone have any helpful insight?

Cover letters: how forthright to be?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, ANON writes:

When your applying for a job opening in your own department, is it assumed your going to say things in your cover letter that play on your knowledge of the department? Would it be stupid not to?

Or, instead, would it be stupid to over-emphasize these aspects because it shows that you somehow presume it will give you an advantage?

Prof L responded:

[W]hy not just say what you love about your department and how it makes you want to stay forever? This will be convincing since you are there already. Eg “I have had a fulfilling professional life at U. I have benefitted from the rich intellectual culture, the inquisitive students, and [&c.]. As a professor on the tenure track I could see myself contributing in such -and-such a way.. I have settled in the area and have a strong desire to stay...”. You can make this very specific, which does give you an edge. It would be odd to say “you should hire me because I know so much...” The mere fact that you know so much does not give you an advantage. That’s not a good reason to hire someone.

I am curious whether other search committee members agree. More generally, I am also curious how forthright search committee members think job-candidates should be in cover letters. For example, is it a good or bad idea for a candidate to mention in a cover letter that they hope to move to the university's area for family reasons? On the one hand, I could imagine this potentially assuaging concerns about whether a new hire really wants to live where the university is located. On the other hand, I could imagine some thinking it is 'too personal' or 'too much information' for a cover letter. What do search committee members think? What kinds of things are good to be forthright about in cover letters, and what kinds of things are not?

What it's like to be a philosopher in Flanders (Belgium)

This is our ninth contribution for The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that give a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Today: Belgium. This is a guest contribution by Sylvia Wenmackers, BOF research professor at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven.

What academia in Flanders is like

Belgium is a small country in the West of Europe. Flanders is the North part, where Dutch is the official language. In the South part, Wallonia, French is the official language. (There's also a small German part in the East, but since there is no university, it will not figure here.)

There was a time when the elite in Belgian spoke French and all university education was in French as well. As a result of the Flemish emancipation, the universities still have language regulations: a substantial percentage of courses must be in Dutch (more at Bachelor than at Master level) and professors are required to learn Dutch, typically in five years. This requirement does not apply to doctoral or postdoctoral researchers. Still, I will teach you two Dutch words right away! They are synonyms for philosophy: filosofie and wijsbegeerte. (The last one is a literal translation of the Greek.)

In Belgium, all students who have finished their secondary education, typically at 18 years of age, are allowed to start higher education at the university or university college (hogeschool) of their choice. There are no entrance exams (except for medicine and dentistry). Lately, many universities have started organizing orientation tests, but the results of these are non-binding. For international students, language requirements are common.

All Bachelor programs take three years. The regular Master program in Philosophy takes one year, while the Research Master is two years. After that, selected students can start a doctoral program, which typically takes at least four years.

There are five Flemish universities, four of which have a philosophy faculty. From large to small:

• Leuven University. This is the only Flemish university were philosophy is an autonomous faculty, called the Institute of Philosophy. It's organized in six research centres, of which the Husserl archives are probably the best well-known. Leuven offers both a Bachelor and Master program fully in English (parallel to the programs in Dutch), so there is certainly an international student community and some opportunity to get teaching experience in English.

Tips for a leadership & administration statement?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, DS asks:

I realize this is an 'early career' site, but has anyone ever had to write a statement of 'leadership and administration philosophy' when applying for a chair position? I am interested in applying to such a position at another college and am looking for some pointers. There seem to be some obvious things, like how you would mentor faculty, but any advice would be welcome.

I've never had to write a statement like this, so I'm not sure what to advise. But I'm inclined to think one should probably approach it like any other similar kind of statement (e.g. teaching statements, diversity statements, etc.): namely, that you should just explain what you do as an administrator and why you do it.

Network for European Early Career Philosophers

A reader brings my attention to this relatively new organization, which looks to me on its face to be a great resource for early-career philosophers in Europe!

What’s it like to be a philosopher in Germany

This is our seventh installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series of posts on what's it like to be a philosopher in different countries outside of the Anglophone west. This is a guest post by Gen Eickers, postdoc at the University of Education Ludwigsburg (Germany).

I am not sure I know what it’s like to be a philosopher in Germany – I am quite young and just finished my Ph.D., I am trans, I do not have an academic family background – all of this makes me somewhat unrepresentative of philosophers here, but, at the same time, this very fact tells us something about the system and tells us something about what it is like to be a philosopher in Germany. A lot of people think of Germany as some kind of philosophers’ nation. At least, this is a comment I have frequently encountered at philosophy conferences and also from non-philosophers at private gatherings. Being a philosopher in Germany is thought of as stepping into big shoes, it seems. However, thinking of Germany as a kind of philosopher’s nation is true only if we think of philosophy as the discipline of white cis men, since the figures that have earned that reputation fall under that label. Philosophy in Germany is still dominated by white cis men and their advantages in accessing the field remain immense. Referring to Germany as a philosophers’ nation plays into this narrative of philosophy as the discipline of white cis men. This is a narrative I resist. For what I know, like all things in Germany, being a philosopher here requires patience, access to know-how that’s not explicitly formulated anywhere, and a lot of paperwork. The access to the know-how is, I think, what makes being an academic philosopher in Germany so difficult for some of us.

Let me try to explain the procedure first. The first step in order to become a professor is the doctoral thesis. Most people here take on jobs in academia before starting to work on their dissertation. A lot work on their dissertation while having a job contract at a university as academic staff. That is why a lot of philosophers here need 5-7 years to finish their doctoral studies. For philosophers, a German-wide rule is that the doctoral dissertation needs to be published. Typically, you need to publish within two years, and as long as the dissertation is not published, you are not eligible to call yourself a “Dr” - publishing one’s dissertation is key to being able to carry the title. Among the hierarchical structure this rule carries and permeates, this practice has also led publishing houses to charge people for publishing their dissertation. Typically, the amount one has to pay is between 800-2000€. The classist and elitist underpinnings of this practice aside, being charged to publish one’s own work downplays the value and amount of work one has put into a dissertation.

With the doctoral degree, you can apply for lectureships or postdocs at universities. The salary is not overwhelming, but you can certainly survive well if your position is full-time and if you do not have to commute. It’s pretty normal for philosophers in Germany to not get a full position and to commute, however. There are very few tenured jobs in academic philosophy in Germany – this is due to the system that requires a “Professor” title in addition to the “Dr” title in order to be tenured. For people who want to become a professor in Germany, publishing papers, teaching, and researching is not enough. Being a professor in Germany means being legally permitted to carry the title “Prof.”. In order to achieve that, philosophers here have to write a habilitation. While some universities have opened up to the option of a cumulative habilitation (i.e., publishing several papers about a specific topic), it is still common practice to have to write another dissertation, one that is supposed to be more impactful and substantive than the first. The habilitation gets evaluated by a committee and typically one has to go through a kind of defense as well.

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In my last major post, I gave the details on how a major depressive episode radically disrupted my academic year and ongoing job search, but I never specified how that search ended. The job search itself wasn’t the core topic of the post, and it wasn’t over when I first drafted the post. But I did survive the gauntlet, and enough time has passed that I think I can finally catalog everything that transpired.

In this post, I’m going to chronicle some of the noteworthy events  that took place during my 8-month academic job search in 2018-2019 while I was completing the final year of my postdoc at the University of South Florida. As will become obvious, there are some aspects of this story that are extremely idiosyncratic and unlikely to be a part of anyone else’s job search. Still, I think there are some meaningful takeaways from the tale, and since it does actually end in success, it’s a reminder that perseverance does sometimes pay off – a message that is all too often overshadowed by the grim realities of the current job market.

Once the lengthy recap of the job search is complete, I’ll highlight some general lessons that can be gleaned from the journey.

Pub-Impeding VAP vs. Pub-Conducive Adjuncting?

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

I received my PhD this spring. No pubs yet. Extracting papers from my dissertation has taken a long time. I'm well-positioned for 3 decent, but far-from-elite pubs over the next year. As for this year’s job market: at best, 1 pub *very* late into the job-market season.

I gather there’s a good chance I’ll face the following choice:

(A) Pub-Impeding VAP: Take a VAP with a 4/4 load that includes major preps, not to mention moving. Being realistic, this will lead to little pub-work getting done.

(B) Pub-Conducive Adjuncting: Local adjuncting with classes requiring very little prep. This would be highly conducive to getting pubs over the next year.

I would pick (B) in a heartbeat but have heard that doing so would have significant costs when going on the market in 2020-2021, especially since it took me forever to finish the PhD.

Would it?

I think this is a great question, and am very curious to hear what everyone thinks. My own sense is that (A) is probably the better bet, and for a couple of reasons.

Writing diversity & inclusion statements

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

Nearly every single job ad I read says something like the following: "Please explain how your research, teaching, or service would/do contribute to a climate of diversity and inclusivity."

Are there effective ways to do this without sounding too on the nose, so to speak?

I would love for committee members to speak to how they think this can be done effectively because it is so pervasive in job ads now.

What are you looking for?

My general worry is that things I say come across as forced/disingenuous, i.e. "I make sure I include non-canonical texts in my courses."

Good questions. I have heard a lot of job candidates raise similar questions, saying they have no idea what to write in these things. My guess is that the thing to do is to simply report any clear ways you have been involved in diversity and inclusion efforts (at a department or university level), as well as any things you actually do in the classroom like the kinds of things anon mentions. But beyond that, I have no idea. It would be great to hear from some search committee members on this!

Student evaluations: what to include in a dossier

In the comments section of the teaching portfolio entry in our Job-Market Boot Camp, Grad Student Z writes:

Thanks for this (and all the other) helpful posts. Do you think there is a reason to include unedited student comments as opposed to a selection of student comments along with a website link to the original evaluations (including student comments)?

I'm also wondering how to approach the quantitative data in the following cases:

(i) You are slightly below university and department averages (e.g., less than a 1 point difference with 5 being the maximum) for a particular semester (e.g., your first time teaching), but above those averages for subsequent semesters. Is it worth including all of the data with the the hope that committees will interpret this as exhibiting improvement over time?

(ii) You are above university averages, but slightly below department averages (e.g., less than a 1 point difference with 5 being the maximum). Would you recommend only including a comparison to the university averages (and excluding the department averages)? Or could that come across as if you have something to hide?

(iii) On some metrics, you are above university averages, but below department averages; on others, you are above department averages, but below university averages. Should you include everything? Nothing?

Good questions! I don't think there are any hard and fast rules for any of these things, but want to suggest it is probably best for candidates to try to (A) frame themselves in the best light, while (B) not looking like they are trying to hide anything. Let me explain.

Against letters of recommendation

Helen has an important post up at the APA blog about why job-apps should no longer involve letters of recommendation. While I am personally very thankful to those who have written me letters, I wholeheartedly agree with Helen's take that letters in general are more problematic than they are worth. I'd just add that I think the "ghostwriting" issue is a very serious one. Helen writes:

I’ve also seen and heard (especially in Europe, but  I’m not sure how widespread this is elsewhere) that letter writers request the candidate to write their own letter. This demand puts candidates in a terrible bind—it is very difficult to sing one’s own praises with conviction. There are even blogs detailing how to ghostwrite your own letter. The evidential value of a ghostwritten letter is zero.

At a recent event, I met several people who told me they did this as a job-candidate: that their letter-writer(s) had them write their own recommendation letter. I have to confess to being totally flummoxed as to how common this apparently is, and how anyone could think it is ethical!

The job-market across time

In response to my previous post asking how the job market looks, Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) posted the following graph on Twitter on how the academic job-market in philosophy has looked up to this point in time (8/1-10/10) over the past seven years:

As you can see, the job-market has been basically flat. Last year's market was a bit better than this year's at this point, but this year's market is roughly on par or a bit better than several years prior. Many thanks to Carolyn for sharing this!

How does the market look?

A few weeks ago in our job-market discussion thread, some people remarked that the job-market looked pretty bad so far, with fewer jobs this year than last year at the same time. I've been following job listing at PhilJobs and Higher Ed Jobs, and it seems to me that there's been a deluge of jobs posted recently. So, how does the market look on the whole now? Also, which areas seem to be hiring this year? Which areas aren't? I'm curious to hear people's impressions.

Submitting extra/optional application materials?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, 'job applicant' writes:

Should applicants submit materials that are "optional"? Will it hurt our chances if we don't? This is a general question, but the ad I'm thinking of gives very specific instructions about the documents the applicant must submit and does not mention any optional documents. It's only while working on the application through the university's website that one sees one may upload additional optional documents (research statement, cover letter, etc.). If submitting optional materials increases one's chances, I'll do it, but if it doesn't, I'd rather not spend the additional precious time it takes to do it. And if it will or even just may make a difference, I wonder why these documents aren't just listed as required.

This is a great question. Someone recently asked me, for example, whether they should upload a diversity statement if they have the chance, in cases where a job ad mentions diversity but doesn't explicitly ask for a diversity statement. I guess I'm inclined to think that candidates should upload exactly what is asked for (and no more), as uploading additional documents might rub search committee members the wrong way (viz. the applicant trying to give themselves an unfair advantage). However, I'm not sure about this. 

What do readers think (not just about the example I gave, but about job applicant's query in general)?

CV's: norms for listing work

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, 'ostdoc' writes:

I was recently invited to write a book review. I am a young scholar, and having the book review on my CV would be useful for job applications. The question is, when can I list the book review on my CV? Since it isn't refereed, it (barring doing a terrible job) won't be rejected. Can I list it as forthcoming already? Can I list it as expected? What the the norms on this?

'An editor...' replied:

I certainly would not list it before you submit it to the journal. It does not exist yet, and it may not. Once submitted it is a different matter.

And I added:

editor is right. Never list something as forthcoming unless it has been officially accepted. You may list it at this point as “commissioned.”

I think this is an important issue. A recent study went around my social media last week indicating that academics routinely misrepresent things on their CVs. My own sense, having seen some CVs with misleading stuff, is that at least sometimes, people aren't even aware that they are misrepresenting things (though I am sure in other cases people are well aware of what they are doing). By my lights, the right thing to do in every case is to be forthright about exactly where a given piece of work is in the process. If it's a paper that's not finished or under review, list it as 'in preparation.' If it is book review or book chapter that you have been commissioned to do, then until it is accepted, list it as 'commissioned.' If you have a book under contract but the final manuscript isn't accepted yet, list it as 'under contract.' Only list something as forthcoming after the final manuscript has been officially accepted. Does anyone disagree? Are there are any norms I'm missing?

One final thought: the initial commenter here, 'ostdoc', writes that "having the book review on my CV would be useful for job applications." I think it is worth discussing whether this is true. Back when I was in grad school, I vaguely recall some other grad students thinking that book reviews might help them on the market. I thought then, and still think now, that this is almost certainly not true. Perhaps having a book review on your CV will look 'better than nothing' (if you have no other publications). However, I very much doubt that book reviews play any significant role in how search committees evaluate candidates. When it comes to research, my sense is that people on the hiring side of things are interested primarily (and perhaps entirely) in candidates' capacities for publishing original work. But perhaps I am wrong about this. 

What do readers 'in the know' think?

A writing sample dilemma

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, VAP writes:

I claim two AOS, A and B. I plan on applying to jobs in AOS A, but all of my current work on A is co-authored. (Just one other co-author, and it's fully jointly authored.) My ordinary writing sample is in in AOS B, but it's single-authored.

For those jobs that are looking for AOS A, should I (1) send my regular writing sample from AOS B, which is single-authored but on a different AOS; (2) send my co-authored paper on AOS A; (3) do some combination, or (4) something else entirely?

Good question. I've heard over and over again that it is a really bad idea to submit co-authored pieces as writing samples. This may be entirely unfair (co-authorship is standard in many academic fields, and increasing in philosophy), but the general thought is that search committees want to know your philosophical 'chops' and co-authored pieces make it unclear what exactly you have done and what is the work of your co-authors. So, I am inclined to think option (1) is probably the way to go, at least for jobs that only permit one writing sample. The ideal case, I think, is to submit both pieces, but in my experience very few jobs request multiple writing samples or even permit them in the file-upload process.

What do you all think?

The Cocoon goes global: Being a philosopher in Indonesia (guest post by Tiddy Smith)

Updated: comments now open!

We are excited to start a new series on the Cocoon entitled The Cocoon Goes Global, where we will host guest posts by philosophers who work in countries that are outside of the anglophone western world. We will feature philosophers who work in places such as Germany, China, Singapore, South Korea, Colombia, Chile, Belgium, Turkey, and much more. These posts will give you a sense of what's it like to work in these countries, and also sketch the job market. We will focus on people who work in academic posts (but they don't need to be tenure track positions). If you fit these criteria and would like to be featured, please let us know! Here is our first installment. 

Being an academic philosopher in Indonesia, by Tiddy Smith, University of Indonesia. 

In 2017, I completed my PhD at the University of Otago. That’s probably when everything started to unravel. Having lived a blissful life of steady study and a paycheck, I was plunged into the abyss, the nightmare, the academic purgatory known as the Real World. I applied for well over a hundred academic positions, and received three interviews, only one of which went particularly well. After this particular rejection, I asked the interviewer how I could have performed better, he simply responded: “You couldn’t have. Someone else just was better.” I had published in premier journals and had a book in press. Yet everyone else seemed to have published in better venues, with a couple of books under their belt, and were probably booked for the next series of John Locke lectures. I decided, at this point, to change tack.

Rewind the clock a decade. I lived in Jakarta. I taught English as a foreign language to rich kids at a private school. During my time there, I became semi-conversational in Bahasa Indonesia, and familiar with all the local hazards (floods, fires, and terrible beasties called “tomcats”. Trust me, google it). Since that time, I have always had a soft spot for Indonesia. I love the food. I love the people. I love the language. It contains some of the most paradisiacal islands of our solar system, and probably the next one over too. After my hundred and somethingth rejection, I began to investigate whether Indonesian universities would be interested in my application. After a year of negotiations, some aspects of which are still in progress, I am now employed as an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Indonesia (roughly speaking, this is equal to an adjunct assistant professor position, in US terms). 

Indonesia is home to 265 million people, of which 150 million live on the island of Java. The country claims around 4,000 higher education institutions, though most of these are of undeniably poor quality in terms of teaching and research (the government’s own assessment states that 77% of these institutions are substandard). Around 120 of these institutions are state universities, and there are many more private universities. Of these, three universities stand out as both prestigious and productive in research and teaching. These three are the University of Indonesia (Universitas Indonesia, Depok), Gadjah Mada University (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta), and the Bandung Institute of Technology (Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung). The University of Indonesia excels in Law and Medicine. Gadjah Mada excels in humanities and social science, and the Bandung Institute of Technology excels in Engineering and Business. All three universities feature in the latest QS World University rankings, and are ranked 296, 320, and 331 respectively.

Until 2018, foreign lecturers could not be directly employed by these universities as permanent members of academic staff. However, law changes by president Joko Widodo (affectionately known as “Jokowi”) have opened the doors for foreign lecturers to enter the academic job market for the first time. Unfortunately, this law change has not been much exploited by the universities in question. Few, if any, have so much as advertised academic vacancies online or in international venues. Part of the reason for this is that the question of just how these institutions should go about employing foreign staff remains a bureaucratic mystery. The visa process is not only complex, but ever-changing, and still more changes are anticipated in the wake of Jokowi’s law change. There is talk of the introduction of a new kind of academic visa, but this seems only to underline the uncertainty and difficulty of the existing process. The problem is also exacerbated by an existing practice within the universities to employ “by appointment”, in a way which can be prone to institutional nepotism. Without any reform to the employment process, the chances are slim that a great influx of foreign lecturers will soon come to the country. In any case, intrepid candidates who are interested in the possibility of employment at an Indonesian university would be most sensible to make themselves known to their department of interest directly. That is what I did.

Average time to TT job analysis

One issue that philosophers on the job-market face is how long to stay on the market in pursuit of a tenure-track job. Although each case is different (it took me seven years, and I've known a few people it took over 10 years), Lee Elkin posted this interesting analysis of how long it takes on average for those who do get TT jobs. Evidently the mean time is 1.86 years post-PhD. Here's a graph of the distribution:

Job apps: how confidential are they?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, 'worried' writes:

I have a TT position and a department near my own is hiring. I am a good fit for the position and plan on applying. But I'm a bit worried that my current department will find out if I apply. Are SCs generally good about keeping things confidential in these cases? Or do you know of exceptions? What should I include in my cover letter, other than a request for confidentiality? I won't say anything negative about anyone or anything, but I'd wondering if I need to actually say something that I wouldn't say if I were applying from across the country.

I would sure hope that job applications are treated confidentially! Still, the world often isn't how we hope it to be. What's the reality here? Does anyone have any experience relevant to worried's concerns?

Job-market reporting thread (2019-20 season)

Each year, readers ask for threads for discussing and reporting news on the job-market. I recently posted this season's discussion thread here. Please visit that thread if you are interested in discussing/commiserating about this year's market. The current thread (below) is for reporting news on the market (i.e. reporting interviews, flyouts, offers, hires, and so on). Although it should go without saying, commenters are asked to please remember the Cocoon's supportive mission while reporting. A link to this thread will remain on the blog's right sidebar for the remainder of the job season.

What It's Like to Apply for a Job In Academic Philosophy

Back in the spring when I was getting close to the end of my job market run, I screen-recorded some footage of filling out a few applications with the intention of editing it together as a sort-of sneak peek for graduate students who wondered what the application process actually looks like. After a long hiatus from thinking about anything related to the job market, I finally returned to that material and finished the video. It's nothing too grand, but I figure it might be a useful tool for placement directors or curious graduate students. Over 12 minutes, I run through the essential elements of completing an application, including short sections on editing PDFs and using Interfolio to upload letters of recommendation. Audio narration could have been a bit louder, but such are the growing pains of working with a new microphone.

In most of the footage, my on-screen actions are portrayed at 1.5x or 2x speed, so don't expect that you'll be blitzing through these applications as quickly as I did in this video. Also, for reasons that will become obvious, anime fans are likely to enjoy this video a little more than other people.

Research standards for tenure

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, curious asks: "How many articles are usually required for getting tenure (at R1s, SLACs, etc.)? Does the journal's impact factor matter?" I'm glad someone asked this, as my sense is that a lot of people may be unaware of just how much variation there can be in tenure and promotions standards and processes.

In response to curious's query, anonymous writes:

curious: there is too much variation in the answer to your question for there to be a meaningful answer; and also, at almost nowhere is a certain magical number of publications either necessary or sufficient for tenure.

I think this is exactly right. Job-marketeers need to be aware that tenure and promotion standards can vary wildly by institution. For example, I know someone who received tenure at a very teaching-oriented SLAC with a single publication. Why? Presumably, because their institution primarily focuses on undergraduate teaching. Obviously, that wouldn't fly at an R1, nor I think would it fly at many other SLACs. At my liberal arts university, for example, the expectations generally seem to be substantially higher than that. The people I've seen tenured here generally "publish consistently" in peer-reviewed journals. Also, although citations are mentioned in our criteria for tenure and promotion, nowhere in our handbook's criteria for tenure or promotion are journal-rankings or journal impact-factors mentioned. 

My sense is that tenure standards can vary just as much at R1's. I've heard that at some R1's, tenure standards are fairly clear: that the expectation is something like one publication in a highly-ranked journal per year (so, something like 6 highly-ranked publications when coming up for tenure). However, I've heard that other R1's basically make tenure decisions on the basis of whether someone has become a Big Name in their field--such that if a candidate has published in top journals but no one recognizes or engages their work, they could still be denied tenure.

Finally, it is vital to recognize that tenure and promotion processes can vary a great deal by institution. In response to curious's initial query, Anon prof wrote:

curious:
Your tenure file will be evaluated by people in your subfield, typically, who will write letters for you. The letters will (likely) take into account the publication venue as well as the importance of your work for the subfield and its quality. If you are genuinely unsure, talk to people who might be called upon to write letters for you and ask them how they would rate your work relative to the position that you hold. Or, look at the publication records of people who recently got tenure at various institutions.

My sense is that this is how a lot of people think tenure and promotion works everywhere. However, as I noted in follow-up comment, it isn't. At some universities (including my own), your tenure file is not evaluated by outside people in your subfield. Instead, the process is carried out "in house." Here again, candidates should be aware of these differences, and ideally find out what the T&P process and standards are like at institutions before they accept an offer!

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What are yours? It might be good to hear from people at various institutions: what are your university's tenure and promotion process and (research) standards like?

Advice on foreign job-markets?

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

I have a TT job and I would like to move to continental Europe for a number of reasons (spouse). Ideal location: France.
It would be great if you had a few posts (from guests contributors?) on the European job market. (I mean: places like: Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal etc.)

I think some guest posts on this is a great idea, and I'll plan to look into it! For the time being, though, anyone care to chime in here with tips for 'someone'? What does it take (e.g. for a tenure-stream person) in the States to be competitive for jobs in Europe? 

Query about foreign job titles & ranks

A reader writes in:

I have a question for you concerning the philosophy job market between the US and the UK. If someone is an Assistant Professor in the U.S., and they want to apply for a position in Europe, are they only eligible for 'Lecturer' or do they have a shot at 'Senior Lecturer'? More generally, what is the difference between Lecturer/Senior Lecturer and Assistant Professor/Associate Professor?

Good questions. I've often wondered about this myself. I was under the impression that Lecturer is basically equivalent to Assistant Professor in the US and Senior Lecturer equivalent to Associate. But then sometimes I see advertisements abroad for Assistant and Associate Professor positions. Anyone able to clear these things up?

Job market survey/study

The following post was submitted to the Cocoon by Charles Lassiter (philosophy, Gonzaga University) and two collaborators, Shane Wilkins (philosophy, USDA) and Sarah Arpin (psychology, Gonzaga):

Dear philosophy job seekers,

If you are planning to apply for academic jobs this year, we hope you'll consider participating in our study "The Philosophy Job Market: Applicant Profiles and CV Review." Our aim in this first phase is to get a picture of job market applicants: what journals are they publishing in (if at all)? for how many classes are they the instructor of record (if at all)? There has been, as far as we know, no systematic attempt to collect information about people going into the job market. In the second phase of this study, we will the collected information to randomly generate CVs and investigate the behavior of potential search committee members in reviewing them.

In consultation with the Gonzaga University IRB, it was determined that IRB approval was not needed for this phase project. IRB approval will be obtained for the second phase. Nonetheless, all responses will be kept private and information secured on the hard drives of the investigators. Results will be made available at leiterreports.typepad.com, dailynous.com, philosopherscocoon.typepad.com, and philarchive.org

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. Participants will be entered into a drawing for two $25 Amazon gift cards. If you are willing to participate, you can find the survey here. Please email Charles Lassiter at lassiter@gonzaga.edu if you have any questions.

Getting rec-letters many years post-PhD

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

An earlier post discussed explaining why one is going on the market from a tenure-track (or tenured) position, but I'm wondering specifically about application materials and letters: if one has been out of grad school for 5-10 years, and hasn't kept in particularly close contact with advisors, who should one ask for letters of recommendation? In general, how does one go about putting together application materials when applying from a more advanced career stage? (I'm realizing everything I know about going on the job market, I learned as a grad student or post-doc!)

Bm then replied:

When are on the market looking for a new tenured job at another place, you should get letters from senior researchers who know your work. Ideally, at that stage, there are such people who you have been in contact with because they like what you have done. If there are none, your chances of moving are close to nil, unless you are pitching yourself as someone with administrative skills - for example, willing to chair a department who cannot find a chair among themselves. But then you must have chairing experience.

Fair enough. Notice, though, that Bm doesn't mention how Al might end in contact with senior people who like their work. Do senior people just email you out of the blue saying, "I love your work"? Presumably not, for the most part. I take it that in order for someone like Al to end up in contact with senior people who look favorably on their work, there are probably things Al needs to do: be active at conferences and the like, trade work with other people for mutual feedback, and so on. But is there more that Al could or should be doing? I guess I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask for advice here, as I don't fancy myself much of a "networker". Does anyone have any helpful practical advice for Al?

What kind of teaching experience is best?

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

I’m currently a grad student and I'm relatively free to choose the topics about which I want to (solo-)teach. Would it be better to start developing my teaching portfolio around introductory courses (Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Philosophy of Science, Ethics, and so on)? Or rather with more specialized ones (Philosophy of Economics, Philosophy of Mathematics, etc.)? Should I focus on fields and topics related to my dissertation?

Craig replied:

My impression is that the broader courses would be a better choice. People will assume you can teach your research (or, at least, in my experience, they make that assumption). Accordingly, your courses are a chance for you to show breadth, valuable especially for smaller, teaching-focused departments.

I think Craig is absolutely right...

Applying from the tenure-track

In our recent post, "How forthright should cover letters be?", Frogger writes:

Could we revisit this issue since the job cycle/academic year is starting up again? I like my tenure-track job, but there are some tempting tenure-track postings out there already, and I am considering sending out some applications just to see what pans out. How should I market myself?

Great question! Although I've known quite a few people in tenure-track jobs who have gone out again on the market, I don't know how many of them have been successful, or quite what the best way to do so is. I'm tempted to think that in most cases, there isn't anything special to be done: just apply like you would to any job. In some cases, though--if, for example, one is seeking to move from an R1 to a more teaching-focused university, or vice versa--I wonder whether saying something in the cover letter about one's reasons for applying might make sense. Not sure though. What do you all think? It might be great to hear from some search-committee members!

Applying for political science jobs

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Political Philosopher asks:

I am a political philosopher with a PhD in philosophy considering applying to some political theory jobs (in polisci departments). Does anyone have any experience with this? Are both sorts of departments looking for different things, or can I basically use the same materials for both political philosophy and political theory jobs?

Great questions. I applied to some political science jobs during my time on the market, without any luck. I wonder if there are any readers out there who have had any luck with them, and who are now working in political science departments. What differences should candidates be aware of?

Letters of recommendation from temporary positions

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Ano(n)ther VAP writes:

What are the boundaries of decorum on asking for letters of recommendation from a temporary position?

I'm a 1-year VAP this coming year, doing a sabbatical replacement for a well-known senior philosopher in area X (I also work in area X). If possible, obviously it'd be an asset to have this senior person's support as I go on the market again. But they aren't going to be around town or campus much, so there's not much of an opportunity to naturally build rapport.

Would it be strange to ask something like: "Given that I'm going on the market again this year, would you be willing to read some of my work and consider writing me a job market letter? Would you also be willing to come into campus to observe my teaching a few times?"

Interesting questions. I do think it would be presumptuous to ask someone to come in during their sabbatical to observe one's teaching. I'm less sure about whether it might be worth asking the person if they are willing to read some of your work, and if they like it, to write you a letter. In general, my approach to letters has always been roughly: it doesn't hurt to ask. This approach worked for me surprisingly well on the market, as the people I did ask were almost all happy to do so. However, in just about every case, I had some previous interactions with the people I asked--so I wasn't approaching them totally out of the blue. In contrast, in this case, it's not clear that the senior person knows the candidate at all. So I'm really not sure what to advise. I guess my own inclination is to think, "The worst they can do is say no." But what do you all think?

Editing volumes and the market

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, anon writes:

I am currently in an NTT position with a fairly modest publication record. I have ambitions for a TT teaching position.

I have an idea for an edited volume that I believe strongly in but also worry I am just at the wrong stage professionally to do this kind of work and that it doesn't make any sense given the labor and time spent involved and relatively little pay off I might see from it in terms of landing a longer term position.

Does my thinking on this seem about right?

The short answer is: yes, my sense is that anon is thinking about this exactly right. The longer answer is this...

Short dissertation abstracts on CVs?

In the comment thread of our Job-Market Boot Camp post on common CV mistakes, Al writes:

What’s the going view on including a very short dissertation abstract on the Cv? And what about a longer one at the very end? I’m worried this looks too junior/grad student-ish but it seems to be the norm in my department and I can see the point of including it.

I was advised to do this coming out of grad school, but to take it off once I was a few years post-PhD (the rationale that you don't want to convey 'grad student' after a few years). However, having served on four search committees, I guess I'm a bit skeptical about the value of including a short or long dissertation abstract on the CV. What I'm looking for on a CV are qualifications, accomplishments, and fit for the job. Do have the right AOS/AOC? Have you published? Do you have experience teaching the courses we could use to be taught by the new hire? If your CV looks good in these regards, then chances are I'll want to check out your other materials (research statement, writing sample, teaching statement). So I'm really not sure how much there is to be gained by including a dissertation blurb on a CV.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours, particularly those of you who have served on hiring committees?

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!

'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?