The Philosophers' Cocoon

Mentoring program update

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a job market applicant asks:

With the 2022-2023 job market swiftly approaching, I was wondering if the Philosophers' Cocoon was planning on continuing with the Job Mentoring Program this year. This is my first real go at the market, and I would really appreciate the opportunity to have have someone who has gotten a tenure-track job take a look at my materials.

Unfortunately, for logistical reasons, Helen and I decided that we are not able to run the program this job season. Among other things, interest in the program appeared to decline substantially in the last two years post-COVID, making it progressively more difficult for the program to realize its aims (viz. securing mentors for candidates in need).

It is entirely possible that we may try to restart the program at a later date (e.g. next job season), if /when we are able to work through better logistics for running the program successfully. But, in the meantime, it is my hope that in addition to the Cocoon's various past job market series, our new job market do's and don'ts series will help candidates prepare well for the market. This new series will not only work through job market materials (such as cover letters, CVs, and beyond). It will also cover interviews and all aspects of on-campus visits (e.g. research talks, teaching demos, etc.). Finally, once this series is complete, I also hope to run a similar series on the 'alt-ac' market (for non-academic industry jobs).

I hope that job candidates find these series helpful, and of course the Cocoon is always here to help job candidates in every way that we can, including in our monthly "how can we help you?" threads.

Call for mentors

The Cocoon's job market mentoring program has begun matching mentors with mentees. However, as has been the case in the past, we have quite a few more mentee applicants than available mentors. So I'd like to put out this call for mentors.

Are you a tenure-stream (i.e. tenure-track or tenured) faculty member willing to mentor job-candidates on the market this year who face special challenges? If so, please consider signing up here, and please consider spreading the word to other tenure-stream people you know (e.g. on social media). We really want to help as many candidates in need as we can. But, to do that, we need as much help as can get!

Of course, I understand that many of us are exhausted from the past year of the ongoing pandemic. However, having been a mentor several times myself, I can say that the program is rewarding and not very time consuming. Further, because of the effects of the pandemic on last year's job market, there is sure to be an abnormally large number of job candidates on the market in need of help. So please, if you think you might have the bandwidth to help someone, please do sign up to mentor here!

Currently, we could use mentors with philosophical background in the following areas:

• Aesthetics
• Cognitive science & philosophical psychology
• Early Modern
• Environmental ethics
• Epistemology
• Ethics
• Logic
• Philosophy of economics
• Philosophy of mathematics
• Philosophy of mind
• Philosophy of physics
• Philosophy of science (including history of philosophy of science)
• Political philosophy

Job-Market Mentoring Program: signups open!

Helen De Cruz and I are happy to announce that signups are now open for this year's iteration of the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program. Job-candidates in need and potential mentors are both encouraged to sign up for the program here. The full details of the program are as follows.

Program Description:

This program, associated with The Philosophers’ Cocoon, aims to provide job-market mentoring to all those in need (regardless of background). The aim of this mentoring project is just what it sounds like: a scheme to enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges, including members of historically-marginalized groups as well as those with little access to mentoring (e.g., because their department or advisor does not offer this), to receive advice and support from more experienced (e.g. tenure-stream or tenured) members of the profession.

Save the date: job-market mentoring program

This is just a quick note that the Cocoon's job-market mentoring program will open for signups on July 1st this year. If you're a job-candidate in need or a tenure-track faculty member willing to mentor someone in need this year, keep an eye out!

Mentoring program update (call for +mentors)

I just wanted to give readers a quick update on the Cocoon's job-market mentoring program. Helen and I have received a lot of signups thus far, both in terms of mentors and mentee applicants--which is really great, as it looks like we will be able to match many of the mentees who have signed up to this point. However, we could use some additional volunteers with the following backgrounds:

• LGBTQ+
• POC
• Philosophy of mind
• Metaphysics
• Latin American philosophy
• UK academic market
• Non-western/international background
• Social-political philosophy

Helen and I plant to begin setting up the first matches later today, and plan to move forward as quickly as we can. But in the meantime, we encourage mentees and mentors (particularly mentors with the above backgrounds) to continue signing up here!

Job-Market Mentoring Program: Signups Open!

Helen De Cruz (St. Louis University) and I are happy to announce that signups are now open for this year's iteration of the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program. Job-candidates in need and potential mentors are both encouraged to sign up here. As a reminder, because of the COVID pandemic's expected effects on the academic job-market, this season our program will allow mentees to request non-academic industry mentors. Although volunteers who sign up as academic job-market mentors need to be tenure-stream faculty, we also encourage anyone in non-academic industry who is willing to mentor academic philosophers to sign up as potential mentors as well.

In any case, for those of you new to the program, here are the details:

Program Description:

This program, associated with The Philosophers’ Cocoon, aims to provide job-market mentoring to all those in need (regardless of background). The aim of this mentoring project is just what it sounds like: a scheme to enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges, including members of historically-marginalized groups as well as those with little access to mentoring (e.g., because their department or advisor does not offer this), to receive advice and support from more experienced members of the profession.

Job Market Mentoring Program (2020-21 season)

This is just a quick note that signups for this year's Job-Market Mentoring Program will open a week from today, on Wednesday July 1st. For those unfamiliar with the program, here is a brief description:

This program aims to provide job-market mentoring to all those in need (regardless of background). The aim of this mentoring project is just what it sounds like: a scheme to enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges, including members of historically-marginalized groups as well as those with little access to mentoring (e.g., because their department or advisor does not offer this), to receive advice and support from more experienced members of the profession.

Additionally, because the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to severely impact the academic job-market, this year applicants will be able to request an academic or non-academic mentor (viz. mentoring for transitioning into non-academic industry). Because the COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on us all, increasing our personal and professional workloads, we do not know how many mentors of each type we will get--and it may well be that willing mentors are in unusually short supply. However, we will do our best to get the word out and encourage potential mentors to sign up, and we will make as many mentoring matches as we can.

Finally, because Helen and I both expect our personal and professional workloads to be abnormally high beginning in mid-August (I serve as department chair and have other new family responsibilities in the fall), we also plan to have an abbreviated signup period this year, provisionally scheduled to run from July 1-August 1st. We will make as many matches as we can for the signups we receive during that period, so if you are in need of job-market mentoring, please do consider signing up. Our aim, as always, is to help as many job-candidates in need as we can.

Mentoring program merger (2019-20 job season)

This is just a quick announcement that as of today, the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program has merged for this job-season with the Job-Market Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy. Women candidates (and mentors!) are thus encouraged to sign up for the Cocoon's mentoring program via this link. Helen De Cruz and I plan to pair as many applicants of all backgrounds with mentors as possible in the days to come. Hopefully, our recent call for mentors will help us find suitable matches for applicants we have not been able to match thus far! Many thanks to Corinne A. Gartner (Wellesley College), who will serve as an additional contact this season, and the rest of the Mentoring Program for Women's board for making this merger happen.

Call for mentors

I am happy to report that the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program has successfully matched most (though not all) of the mentees in need who signed up for the in the week or two after we opened signups. However, since that time we have had a large number of additional signups, resulting (as in past years) with more mentees in need than available mentors.

Consequently, I'd like to put out this call for mentors. Are you a tenure-stream (i.e. tenure-track or tenured) faculty member willing to mentor job-candidates on the market this year who face special challenges? If so, please consider signing up here, and please consider spreading the word to other tenure-stream people you know (e.g. on social media). We really want to help as many candidates in need as we can. But, to do that, we need as much help as can get!

We are particularly looking for mentors with the following backgrounds:

• Aesthetics
• Africana philosophy
• Epistemology
• Ethics (meta-ethics, applied ethics)
• Feminism
• History of philosophy
• Language
• Logic and math
• LGBTQIA+ 
• Mind
• Philosophy of Emotion
• Philosophy of Religion
• Mentors with experience in Continental European job-market
• Mentors with experience in Singapore
• Mentors with experience in the UK job-market
• Mentors originally from regions outside of North America with experience in North American market either as immigrants or foreign nationals (including PhDs from programs abroad)
• Women philosophers (esp. those specializing in social-political and/or feminism)

Again, if you are tenure-stream (or tenured) and you think there's any chance you might be willing to lend a helping hand to a candidate in need, please consider signing up! As someone who has mentored several candidates in the program, I can attest to what other mentors have said: it's not a ton of work, and mentees in the program are people in need who can really benefit from the help!

Cocoon mentoring program: signups open!

Helen De Cruz and I are happy to announce that signups are now open for this year's iteration of the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program. Job-candidates in need and tenure-stream faculty willing to mentor candidates can sign up here. As we normally have more mentees in need than willing mentors, we especially encourage potential mentors to sign up. Readers interested in learning more about the program (and time-commitment involved) may read the feedback we received from last year's mentors and mentees. Our aim is to help as many candidates in need as we can!

In any case, for those of you new to the program, here are the details:

Project Description:

This project, associated with The Philosophers’ Cocoon, aims to complement The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy by providing academic job-market mentoring to all those in need (regardless of background) who cannot utilize the Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy. The aim of this mentoring project is just what it sounds like: a scheme to enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges, including members of historically-marginalized groups as well as those with little access to mentoring (e.g., because their department or advisor does not offer this), to receive advice and support from more experienced members of the profession.

Project Details:

1. Since this is a job-market mentoring project, mentees need to be ABDs or PhDs in philosophy. The scheme will be open to all job candidates in philosophy, from every background, regardless of geographic location, gender, age, social identity, political orientation, etc. Mentors should be tenure-stream faculty (either tenured or tenure-track) or, in the case of 'Alt-Ac' mentors, individuals who have successfully transitioned from academia to industry. 
2. Although we will do our best to accommodate all candidates in need, the program will prioritize candidates with special job-market challenges, for example, bi, gay, and trans* candidates, candidates with disabilities, non-white (non-female) candidates, as well as candidates of any background or social identity who have inadequate access to job-market mentoring (e.g., candidates out of graduate school lacking access to their grad program’s placement director/mentoring, etc.).
3. Although the program is open to job-candidates of any gender, we encourage women candidates to approach The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy first, as our program is intended to complement rather than compete with that program.
4. Provided we can find a suitable match, we will match mentees with mentors in tenure-stream academic positions or who have transitioned into 'Alt Ac' careers (depending on what the mentee is looking for). Participants this year will also be able to sign up to be matched with another willing mentee, should no mentor be available.
5. The details of the mentoring relationship are expected to be worked out between the mentors/mentees.
6. However, in order not to overburden mentors and to follow best practices, people who enroll in this program would commit to the following:
   • Mentees are encouraged to clearly discuss with their mentor at the beginning of the mentoring relationship a clear picture (and perhaps rough time-table) of the kind(s) of mentoring they are looking for. On the same note, mentees should also not be afraid to clarify precisely what kind of mentoring help they are looking for!
   • Mentees who are matched with mentors are expected to use their mentor. Mentors should let us know if their mentee is not participating so we can pair the mentor with another mentee.
   • Standardly, the mentor commits to the mentoring for one job season only (i.e., until next summer) (this can be extended by mutual agreement, but the mentor should not feel pressure to do so).
   • Everything that mentors and mentees discuss is strictly confidential, will not be discussed with anybody outside the mentoring agreemen
   • If there is any potential conflict of interest (see Mentor-Mentee Guidelines), it is in the best interest of mentor and mentee to let the organizers (Helen & Marcus) know at the earliest possible date, to discuss an appropriate resolution.

Mentor-Mentee Guidelines

In order to ensure that participants have a positive, productive experience, the program organizers ask mentors and mentees to respect the following guidelines:

• Mentees are expected to actively utilize their mentor: Because our program routinely has more job-candidates in need than mentors available, mentees who are matched with a mentor are expected to use them. If a mentee matched does not effectively seek help from their mentor, we ask the mentor to let us know ASAP so that we can address the issue, up to and including matching the mentor with a different mentee.
• Prompt disclosure and resolution of potential conflicts of interest: If mentors become aware of any potential conflict of interest (viz. they are appointed to a search committee, or have candidates in their own home department that may be competing for the same jobs as their mentee), they should let their mentee and program organizers know immediately. Not all potential conflicts of interest may require ending a mentorship. For instance, a mentor and mentee pair may both be comfortable working with each other despite there being candidates in the mentor’s home department who may compete with the mentee. However, other potential conflicts of interest (e.g. a candidate the mentor advises in their home department competing directly with the mentor’s mentee at the first-round interview or on-campus interview stages) arguably raise much more serious challenges. We, the organizers, ask that mentors and mentees report all potential conflicts of interests to each other, and to us (the program organizers), at the earliest opportunity.
• Open, professional lines of communication: Mentors and mentees are asked to mutually commit to professional standards of communication, such as reasonably prompt responses to emails and clear expression of expectations moving forward. For instance, if a mentee receives dossier feedback from a mentor, the mentee should confirm receipt of the feedback and give some indication of whether they may be looking for further help moving forward (e.g. at the interview stage). Additionally, if a mentee no longer desires mentoring (as a result of accepting a job-offer, etc.), the mentor should let their mentor know, so that the mentor has some idea of the mentee’s situation. This is simply to ensure open, professional communication both ways. Finally, if there are significant problems in communication (which in some cases are due to email spam filters), the organizers ask to be informed as soon as possible, so as to resolve the issue positively.
• Mentors and mentees should let the Program organizers know ASAP of any other issues that, in their judgment, are important to address and cannot be adequately addressed between the mentor and mentee. Our aim, again, is to ensure a good experience for everyone!

Final call for mentors

This is a just a quick update on the Cocoon's job-market mentoring program, and a final call for mentors. The good news is that Helen and I have been able to match over twenty mentees with mentors so far this summer. Many thanks to all of the mentors who signed up! The bad news is that we are having some difficulty finding mentors for our remaining applicants. With this in mind, we'd like put our a 'targeted' call for mentors in the following areas:

• Philosophy of Science
• German philosophy
• Islamic philosophy
• Early Modern
• Continental Philosophy
• Experimental philosophy
• Metaphilosophy
• Cognitive science
• Bioethics
• Philosophy of language (European market)
• American Philosophy (e.g. pragmatism)
• Middle-eastern personal background
• Asian/international personal background

If you are tenure-track or tenured and any of the above apply to you, please do consider signing up as a mentor!

Mentoring program: signups open!

Helen De Cruz (Oxford Brookes) and I are happy to announce that signups are open for this year's iteration of our Job-Market Mentoring Program. We plan to run signups through August, and hope to match as many job-candidates in need with mentors. Also, thanks to the feedback we received on this year's program, we are going to experiment with something new. In cases where we are unable to find a suitable mentor (as we always have more candidates in need than mentors available), our signup process will give mentees the option to sign up to be matched with another mentee for peer-support.  

Anyway, for those of you new to the program, here are the details:

Project Description

This project aims to complement The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy by providing academic job-market mentoring to all those in need regardless of background who cannot utilize the Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy. The aim of this mentoring project is just what it sounds like: a scheme to enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges, including those with little access to mentoring (e.g., because their department or advisor does not offer this), to receive advice and support from more experienced members of the profession.

Project Details:

1. Prospective mentors and mentees are invited to sign up on our survey.
2. Since this is a job market mentoring project, mentees need to be ABDs or PhDs in philosophy. The scheme will be open to all job candidates in philosophy, from every background, regardless of geographic location, gender, age, social identity, political orientation, etc.
3. Although the program is open to candidates of any gender, we encourage women candidates to approach The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy first, as our program is intended to complement rather than compete with that program.
4. Although we will do our best to accommodate all candidates in need, the program will prioritize candidates with special job-market challenges--for example, bi, gay, and trans* candidates, candidates with disabilities, non-white (non-female) candidates, as well as candidates of any background or social identity who have inadequate access to job-market mentoring (e.g., candidates lacking access to their grad program’s placement director or otherwise lacking adequate mentoring).
5. Provided we can find a suitable match, we will match mentees with mentors who are either tenure-track or tenured professors. Participants this year will also be able to sign up to be matched with another willing mentee, should no mentor be available.
6. The details of the mentoring relationship are expected to be worked out between the mentors/mentees.
7. However, in order not to overburden mentors and to follow best practices, people who enroll in this program would commit to the following:

• Mentees are encouraged to clearly discuss with their mentor at the beginning of the mentoring relationship a clear picture (and perhaps rough time-table) of the kind(s) of mentoring they are looking for. On the same note, mentees should also not be afraid to clarify precisely what kind of mentoring help they are looking for!
• Mentees who are matched with mentors are expected to use their mentor. Mentors should let us know if their mentee is not participating, so that we can pair the mentor with a mentee who will.
• Standardly, the mentor commits to the mentoring for one job season only (i.e., until next summer) (this can be extended by mutual agreement, but the mentor should not feel pressure to do so).
• Everything that mentors and mentees discuss is strictly confidential, will not be discussed with anybody outside the mentoring agreemen
• If there is any potential conflict of interest (see Mentor-Mentee Guidelines on the program website), it is in the best interest of mentor and mentee to let the organizers (Helen & Marcus) know at the earliest possible date, to discuss an appropriate resolution.

Crucially, in order for the program to work--and to help as many candidates in need as we can--we need mentors with tenure stream (i.e. tenure-track or tenured) jobs to sign up. Accordingly, Helen and I would like to encourage readers to reach out to any tenure-stream faculty you know and share the details of our program, as well as the feedback we received from this year's mentors and mentees. We want to help as many candidates in need as we can!

Cocoon mentoring program: call for additional mentors

Helen and I are happy to report that the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program has matched about 20 mentors/mentee pairs so far this season. However, we currently face a shortage of suitable mentors for the mentees still have to match. As a result, I'd like to put out another call for mentors. We could particularly use mentors with the following backgrounds:

• AOS: 19th/20th Century Continental (Phenomenology) (x2)
• AOS: Social and Political (Critical Theory) (x2)
• AOS: philosophy of language
• AOS: metaphysics (x4)
• AOS: philosophy of mind (2)
• AOS: aesthetics (x2)
• AOS: philosophy of biology
• AOS: cognitive science
• AOS: Buddhism/Chinese Philosophy
• Experience working and applying for jobs in Europe
• Experience working and applying for jobs in the UK

If you're a tenure-stream faculty member in any of these areas, all you need to do is sign up here to be a mentor. Many thanks in advance to anyone who's willing to help out. We're very appreciative!

Cocoon mentoring program - brief update

Our Cocoon mentoring program is in full swing! We have matched up a good number of mentors and mentees, but we have some unmatched mentees (as well as mentors who don't fit well with our current pool of mentees). 

If you are a tenure-track/tenured professor or equivalent position and you would like to mentor someone, we are still looking for mentors with the following specializations: Art/aesthetics, philosophy of mind/cognitive science, meta-ethics, metaphysics. 

If you are someone with special mentoring needs (e.g., lack of access to mentoring), we have mentors with the following specializations: Ethics (including applied and biomedical ethics), epistemology, mathematics.

Of course, you can sign up as mentor or mentee if you are not in any of these categories. 

Mentoring program update

I am happy to report that the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program has made about 10 mentor-mentee matches--with several more currently pending--since we opened signups a few weeks ago. To those who signed up but haven't been matched yet, please know we are doing our best and moving as quickly as we can! We get more signups by potential mentees and mentors each day, and so keep our eye out on a continual basis for good matches for those who already signed up (so, if you signed up a few weeks ago, we haven't forgotten you!).

On that note, as in past years, we currently have a surplus of mentees-in-need relative to the number of available mentors. In other words, we need more mentors! So, if you are a tenure-stream faculty member, please do consider signing up. Past mentors have reported that they found mentoring to be rewarding and not overly time-consuming (and, as a mentor myself, I agree!). Anyway, there are a lot of candidates in need out there--so please do consider taking part in our program!

The Cocoon Job-Market Mentoring Program: Mentor Feedback

A few days ago, I posted (and have since updated) feedback Helen De Cruz and I received from mentees who participated in our Job-Market Mentoring Program this past year. Our plan is to use that feedback, as well as feedback we received from this year's mentors, to improve the program this year. Indeed, we hope announce the changes we make to the program along with a signup start-date for this year's program soon (so stay tuned!).

However, before we move forward with this year's program we would like to present the feedback we received from this year's mentors. We would like to share this feedback in large part because we would like to do what we can to encourage more mentors to sign up this coming year. One of the main problems we ran into this past year was that we had significantly more mentees in need sign up for the program than mentors--so we unfortunately had to leave some people in need unmatched. Our hope is to do better this year, but in order to do so, we need mentors to sign up! Consequently, I'd like to humbly ask you all to please share this post as widely as you can, particularly to people in tenure-track jobs who could potentially volunteer a mentor. Thanks in advance to all of you who do!

What follows, at any rate, is feedback we received from this year's mentors so far. Although we have only received from a handful, we will update the feedback continuously if/when we receive more responses (thanks again to all of this year's mentors, whose participation we are deeply grateful for!):

The Cocoon Job-Market Mentoring Program: Mentee Feedback

[UPDATED: new mentee feedback added on 5/11/2017, job-statistic on 7/11/2017]

As readers of the Cocoon may know, Helen De Cruz and I have been running a Job-Market Mentoring Program the last two years. The program's mission is to, "enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges, including those with little access to mentoring...to receive advice and support from more experienced members of the profession." Helen and I would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of this year's participants, particularly the mentors who volunteered to help job-candidates in need. 

Because we hope to continue, improve, and expand the program, Helen and I would also like to share some feedback we have received. In today's post, I will share feedback we received from mentees. Then, in subsequent posts, we will share feedback from our mentors and discuss the program for the coming year (we hope to open up signups fairly soon!).

This year, we were able to match 25 mentor/mentee pairs, and so far (updated: 7/11/17) 10 of our 25 mentees obtained full-time academic employment (3 postdocs, 6 TT positions). Because we hear a few mentees are still in the running for jobs, these numbers are still preliminary--and we hope to report any further news we receive. Here, though, is complete and unedited feedback we have received from this year's mentees so far:

Mentoring program extension

Helen De Cruz and I are happy to announce that, in conjunction with the Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy (which we are told will begin accepting signups soon!), we have decided to extend the signup deadline for the Cocoon's Job-market Mentoring Program to September 30th. So, if you are a candidate who lacks adequate access to mentorship or otherwise faces special challenges on the market, or are a tenure-stream faculty member who is willing and able to help out a candidate in need, please do sign up. Our aim is to help as many people as we reasonably can!

On that note, I would like to conclude with a brief update and request. So far this year things appear to be going well in our program. We have already matched some twenty-odd mentees and mentors, and are happy to report that one of our mentees this season has already received a tenure-track job! That being said, we always have more mentees in need than available mentors to match them with. Accordingly, I would like to ask you all to spread this call for new mentors as widely as you can, and to suggest our program to anyone you know who might be willing to serve as a mentor. As someone who has mentored several job-candidates myself, my experience has been that it does not require a ton of time or work, and that there are candidates out there very much in need who are incredibly thankful for whatever help you can provide. So, if you are a tenure-stream philosopher, please do consider signing up as a mentor in our program--and if you know anyone else who is tenure-stream, please consider drawing their attention to our program!

Mentoring program update, announcement & clarification

This is just a quick update on the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program, as well as an announcement and request [see below]. I am happy to report that since the program's relaunch a little over a week ago, Helen and I have matched seven mentor-mentee pairs. We are currently attempting to make one or two matches per day, so if you have signed up and have not been matched yet, know that we have not forgotten about you and are doing our best to find you a suitable match!

So much for the update. Now for the request. ;) As was the case last year, we currently have significantly more mentees in need signed up for the program than we do potential mentors. Accordingly, we would like to ask again for potential mentors to please sign up here for the program. We can really use all the help we can get, and there are mentee candidates signed up who are very much in need. More specifically, we could really use mentors who have some personal and/or professional background in the following areas [respectively]:

• Continental philosophy
• Ancient philosophy
• Low socioeconomic [SES] personal background
• Epistemology and philosophy of science
• LGBT*Q 
• Philosophy of time [x2 candidates in need]
• Logic and philosophy of math
• Ethics
• Political philosophy

Finally, as we do not currently have any women philosophers signed up as potential mentees, Helen and I would like to clarify that women candidates are encouraged to apply to our program. Although our mentoring program webpage states that the program is for, "all those in need who cannot utilize the Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy", the webpage also states that our program is, "open to job-candidates of any gender", and that we simply, "encourage women candidates to approach The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy first, as our program is intended to complement rather than compete with that program." So, if you are a woman in need of job-market mentorship, please do sign up for our program. All we ask is that you check with the Mentoring Program for Women first to see if they have any open slots. Thanks again to all of the mentors who have signed up so far. Helen and I are very grateful for your help, as I suspect are the candidates you are helping!

2016 Job-Market Mentoring Program: Call for Signups!

Helen De Cruz and I are happy to announce this call for signups for our 2016 Job-Market Mentoring Project. Full details are available on the project webpage, and prospective mentors and mentees can now fill out the signup survey here. For those of you not be familiar with the project, its primary aim is to enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges—including those with little access to mentoring (e.g., because their department or advisor does not offer this)—to receive advice and support from more experienced members of the profession.

We will be running the project from today through August 15^th (which will be the last day for signups, though mentors and mentees are of course welcome to correspond after that date). All signup information is confidential, and we will begin matching mentees and mentors as soon as we begin receiving sign-ups!

Call for additional mentors

I'm happy to report that the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Project appears to be off to a good start. We have already matched a number of mentors and mentees, and with one exception (due to an email ending up in my spam folder), things appear to be working out well so far.

However, we currently have a number of mentees but not enough mentors--so, if you or anyone else you know might be willing and qualified to mentor a job candidate, please sign up via our survey. Thanks in advance to everyone who signs up!