The Philosophers' Cocoon

Did you receive adequate mentoring?

Laurence B. McCullough (Distinguished Emeritus Professor, Baylor) writes in:

As a retired professor, I follow your blog to keep up with what is happening in the world of philosophy.  I spent my career as a medical educator.  In the Baylor Center we (Baruch Brody and I, then the only two senior faculty) had a program for mentoring for all junior faculty.  We met with our colleagues regularly both formally and informally, read their work, advised them on academic matters, etc. 

We called what we did mentoring for success.  For example, Baruch and I mentored a junior colleague who followed Baruch as Director of our Center and therefore as my boss before I retired.  This is common, and a point of considerable pride, in the world of medical education. 

I am struck as I follow the postings on your blog by the absence of mention or mentorship.  I benefitted from mentoring when I was junior faculty, especially from a philosophy colleague at Texas A&M (where I was on medical and philosophy faculties and my first position).  I get the sense that many of our colleagues whose comments you post have no mentoring.  Perhaps mentoring – the absence of it, when it helps, when it does not help – would make a good topic for your blog.

This is an excellent query, and I'm thinking of running a short series on the topic. But, before I move forward with that, I'd like to ask the Cocoon's readers a few questions:

1. If you are a current or recent graduate student, what kind of mentoring are you receiving (viz. research, teaching, professionalization, the job market, etc.) have you received or are you receiving? Do you think the mentoring you've received is appropriate/adequate? Why/why not?
2. If you are or recently were a junior faculty member (e.g. a postdoc, TT faculty, non-TT faculty, etc.), what kind of mentoring have you received or are you receiving? Do you consider it appropriate/adequate? Why/why not?

Non-TT faculty & university COVID policies

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, concerned non-TT writes:

I'm wondering if we can get a conversation going about vulnerably employed (i.e., non-TT) faculty dealing with university administrators' unethical decision not to enforce COVID vaccination requirements for those on campus for the coming AY.

In countries with access to ample vaccines like the U.S., there is simply no justification for failing to require on-campus vaccinations (aside from reasonable, medically motivated exceptions, of course) other than kowtowing to conservative politicians making education-funding decisions and trying not to alienate parents and students among the wide swath of the population that has failed to understand the meanings of "freedom" and "choice." I take it that there is a strong moral imperative for faculty members to speak out against this wrong decision, but this of course is a very difficult line to walk when one's employment is dependent on the goodwill of administrators and department chairs.

There's also the difficulty of teaching in a mask (which of course I support, annoying though it may be) or on Zoom and garnering good evaluations for the sake of the teaching portfolio and future employment despite the fact that such classes are quite painful for all involved and tend not to be evaluated very highly.

I realize that this isn't really a question, but might be a good topic to discuss and vent about, with thanks for the opportunity to do so here!

These are good issues to discuss, and I'm curious what everyone thinks:

1. Do you agree that there is a strong moral imperative for faculty members to speak out on this?
2. If so, what do you think faculty should do, particularly (but not only non-TT) faculty?

Handling pregnancy in a postdoc?

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

I have a one-year postdoc with teaching responsibilities both semesters. I recently learned that I'm pregnant and will be due to give birth about a month before the spring semester ends. I'm super excited! But I don't know exactly how to approach the department/university about this. I don't have a TT and so I can't propose to take the entire semester as "research leave" or something. It's not a huge department and I would find it unfair to ask someone to cover my classes for several weeks. This is complicated by the fact that my spouse lives in a different state several hours away (where I live too when not teaching) and I would much prefer to give birth there. I'd really like to teach my class and I'm hoping I can work something out where I can go online after Spring Break and lecture virtually/have a TA lead in-person discussion sections while I'm gone. But I'm not sure if that's bureaucratically infeasible or just a bad idea. Has anyone been through a similar situation, especially as a postdoc, or been in a department that's had this come up? The university's official policy on maternity leave basically seems to be "work it out with your department," so that's not too much of a help. Thanks so much!!

A great and important question (and a big congrats on the postdoc and soon-to-be new member of your family!). Neither my spouse nor I (obviously) have been a similar position, so unfortunately I'm not the best person to ask here (though I have served as a department chair for several years). That being said, given that the university's policy seems to be "work it out with your department", I guess I'd be inclined to suggest the OP speak to her chair, letting them know just what they wrote above: that they are entirely willing to teach their courses, but that they'd like to teach remotely around and after their due date. See what the chair says. Hopefully, the chair is a good chair, and a reasonable, sympathetic, and accommodating person.

But again, I'm probably not the most well-situated person to give advice here. What do you all think? It would be great to hear from postdocs and faculty who have been in similar situations, as well as from department chairs and others who have been in these situations on the other side of things.

What can individuals do to help nonTT faculty?

A couple of months ago, I began a series on the rights of non-tenure-track faculty. In my first three posts, I asked the blog's non-TT readers to chime in on what they take to be important professional issues they face, ran a poll, and then reported the results. Then, in my last post, I asked readers to weigh in on what the APA can and should do to better address those issues. I hope people continue to weigh in over in the comments section there, as I think it is important to reflect more on the kinds of things members of the profession might lobby the APA to do. In the meantime, however, I'd like to ask readers what individual members of the profession can and should do to help address the issues non-TT faculty face. By individuals, I have in mind people in a variety of different positions:

• Part-time non-TT faculty (i.e. adjuncts)
• Full-time non-TT faculty (VAPs, lecturers, etc.)
• Department chairs
• Tenured faculty
• Untenured tenure-track faculty
• Etc.

Use your imagination! The question I'd like to pose to you all is this: do you have any thoughts about concrete actions that individuals in general and/or particular classes of individuals (e.g. adjuncts, Department Chairs, etc.) can and should do to help address the nonTT issues identified in this series--which, for a reminder are:

• Absolute deprivation (e.g. poor pay and/or benefits)
• Relative deprivation (less pay, benefits, and/or job security than similarly qualified individuals)
• Lack of job-security (e.g. year-to-year or semester-by-semester contracts)
• Lack of opportunities for promotion
• Lack of union representation
• Never feeling like you belong (always feeling like a 'visitor' in your own department/institution)
• Being treated as a second-class citizen at work
• Lack of respect in the discipline of academic philosophy (e.g. only people with tenure-track jobs matter)
• Unjust inequity (unequal pay for equal work)
• Lack of academic freedom

Over in the comments section of my last post, Ian Blaustein mentioned a recent CHE piece entitled, "What Tenured Faculty Could Do, if They Cared About Adjuncts"--but sadly, it is paywalled, so I am not currently in a position to know or comment on the contents of the piece. If anyone is able and willing to provide a precis of the piece in the comment sections below, I would be very appreciative and think it might help the discussion. Many thanks in advance to everyone who chimes in!

What should the APA do for non-TT faculty?

A couple of months ago, I began a new series on the rights of non-tenure-track faculty. In the first post in the series, I asked the blog's non-TT readers to chime in on what they take to be important professional issues they face. Then, using the feedback on that post, I ran a poll asking non-TT readers to report how important each issue is to them, as well on which of the issues they think the American Philosophical Association (APA) should do more to address. Then, in my last post in the series, I reported the results of the poll. One interesting result was that respondents thought the APA should be doing more on all of the issues, the results being as follows

The American Philosophical Association (APA) should do more to address this issue (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree):

1. 1. Lack of job security: 4.54
   2. Relative deprivation (less pay & benefits than similarly qualified people): 4.29
   3. Lack of respect in the discipline of academic philosophy: 4.20
   4. Absolute deprivation: 4.15
   5. Unjust inequity (unequal pay for equal work): 3.98 
   6. Lack of opportunities for promotion: 3.95
   7. Lack of union representation: 3.88
   8. Lack of academic freedom: 3.73
   9. Being treated as a second-class citizen at work (with their university/department): 3.68
   10. Never feeling like I belong (a visitor in my own department): 3.56

The question I'd now like to pose to readers is this: what can and should the APA realistically do to better address these issues? I'd like to ask interested readers to simply brainstorm and discuss ideas in the comments section below. My hope is that by thinking together, we may be able to come up with some promising possibilities! One obvious possibility is that the APA could issue statements on these issues--but they have already made one back in 1994, and my sense is that statements, while nice, probably don't accomplish that much practically speaking (as evidenced, in this case, by the ever-increasing reliance on adjuncts in the academy since 1994). So, what else could and should the APA do?

What do you all think? It would be great to hear from both TT and non-TT faculty on this (as well as, potentially, APA officers), as I think people in different types of professional positions may be sensitive to different relevant practical issues. 

Survey results: non-TT faculty issues

A couple of months ago, I began a new series on the rights of non-tenure-track faculty. In the first post in the series, I asked the blog's non-TT readers to chime in on what they take to be important professional issues they face. The issues identified were:

• Absolute deprivation (e.g. poor pay and/or benefits)
• Relative deprivation (less pay, benefits, and/or job security than similarly qualified individuals)
• Lack of job-security (e.g. year-to-year or semester-by-semester contracts)
• Lack of opportunities for promotion
• Lack of union representation
• Never feeling like you belong (always feeling like a 'visitor' in your own department/institution)
• Being treated as a second-class citizen at work
• Lack of respect in the discipline of academic philosophy (e.g. only people with tenure-track jobs matter)
• Unjust inequity (unequal pay for equal work)
• Lack of academic freedom

Then, in the next post in the series, I ran an informal survey asking the following questions about the issues identified:

• Q1 - This is a serious problem I face as a non-tenure-track member of academic philosophy.
• Q2 - The American Philosophical Association (APA) should do more to address this issue.
• Q3 - Please rank the following in terms of importance to you as a non-tenure-track member of the profession.
• Q4 - My answers to the above questions are based on my experiences working as:

Although this was only an informal survey (with all of the attendant methodological issues thereunto), here are the results (N = 44 respondents):

Q1 - This is a serious problem I face as a non-tenure-track member of academic philosophy.

Here is the breakdown by mean (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree):

1. Lack of job security: 4.65
2. Lack of opportunities for promotion: 4.23
3. Relative deprivation (less pay, etc., than similarly qualified individuals): 3.95
4. Unjust inequity (unequal pay for equal work): 3.86
5. Lack of respect in the discipline of academic philosophy: 3.79
6. Never feeling like I belong (a visitor in my own department): 3.62
7. Being treated like a second-class citizen at work: 3.42
8. Lack of union representation: 2.98
9. Lack of academic freedom: 2.93
10. Absolute deprivation: 2.88

Some interesting results here are that respondents agreed most strongly with lack of job security, opportunities, and relative deprivation as serious issues, whereas the mean responses to (8)-(10) (union representation, academic freedom, and absolute deprivation) align with "neither agree nor disagree."

However, when eyeballing the data, the latter results appear to be confounded by the respondent's type of job. Respondents who self-reported as adjunct instructors appear more likely to agree that union representation, academic freedom, and absolute deprivation are important issues they face (though there was some considerable variance on all three issues even among the adjunct respondents).

New survey: non-TT faculty issues

Last month, I began a new series on the rights of non-tenure-track philosophers. My aim in this series is to learn more about the issues that non-TT members of the profession face, the relative importance of those issues to them, what might be done to address those issues, who ought to address those issues and how (such as the APA), and finally, which issues ought to be considered rights of non-TT faculty.

In the first entry in the series, I held an open discussion on the question, "non-TT faculty, what do you take to be important professional issues you face that you would like to see addressed in some way?". I personally learned a lot from the discussion, and put together the following list of issues that commenters identified as important issues to them:

• Absolute deprivation (e.g. poor pay and/or benefits)
• Relative deprivation (less pay, benefits, and/or job security than similarly qualified individuals)
• Lack of job-security (e.g. year-to-year or semester-by-semester contracts)
• Lack of opportunities for promotion
• Lack of union representation
• Never feeling like you belong (always feeling like a 'visitor' in your own department/institution)
• Being treated as a second-class citizen at work
• Lack of respect in the discipline of academic philosophy (e.g. only people with tenure-track jobs matter)
• Unjust inequity (unequal pay for equal work)
• Lack of academic freedom

I have now put together this informal survey to elicit how important these different issues are to non-tenure track , as well as to solicit non-tenure track people's opinions on which issues the American Philosophical Association (APA) should do more to address. If you are a non-tenure-track member of the profession (e.g. working as an adjunct, postdoc, lecturer, VAP, etc.), please consider filling out the survey. Although it is only an informal survey, not a formal study, my hope is that the answers respondents give to it will be illuminating for further discussion in this series. Please only fill out the survey if you have worked or are working in the above non-tenure-stream capacities. Please do not fill out the survey if you have only worked as a graduate teaching assistant or graduate student instructor in your MA or PhD program while in graduate school. While I think the professional issues that graduate students face are important (and indeed, I hope to do a series on the rights of graduate students in the near future!), I would like for this series to focus squarely on non-tenure-stream members of the profession beyond their work in their own graduate program. Many thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to fill out the survey!

Advancing the rights of non-TT faculty

I'm scheduled to serve on a panel on the rights of non-tenure-track faculty (i.e. adjuncts, non-TT lecturers, postdocs, visiting faculty, etc.), including how their rights can be better defended. More generally, now that I have tenure, I am interested in thinking more carefully about these issues and learning more about what I, professional organizations, and others can do to help defend the rights and advance the overall cause of non-TT faculty.

With this in mind, the present post aims to inaugurate a new series. In this series, I hope to crowdsource ideas from the Cocoon's readers on issues including but not limited to:

1. What non-TT faculty take to be important issues they face that warrant addressing.
2. The relative priority that non-TT faculty attach to different issues in terms of importance.
3. Diversity of non-TT faculty interests relating to different types of non-TT positions.
4. Which things should be considered rights of non-TT faculty.
5. What different classes of individuals can and should be expected to do to advance the rights and interests of non-TT faculty.
   1. Tenured faculty
   2. Tenure-track but untenured faculty
   3. Non-tenure-track faculty
   4. Individuals outside of the profession
6. What professional organizations (such as, but not limited to, the APA) can and should be expected to do.

As the series goes along, I tentatively plan to take some informal polls, as well as discuss some of my own thoughts and experiences, as I worked both as a non-TT faculty member for a number of years before becoming tenure-track (and now tenured).

My hope is that we can all learn from these discussions, and that readers will find the series helpful. I would also like to encourage other Cocoon contributors to contribute to the series, and invite readers to propose or submit any posts to me (marvan@ut.edu) that they might wish to contribute as well (bearing in mind the Cocoon's mission). 

Anyway, I would like to try to begin now with the first topic: non-TT faculty, what do you take to be important professional issues you face that you would like to see addressed in some way? Feel free to be as general or as specific as you like. This is a chance for your voice to be heard and stimulate future discussion in this series!