By Phillip Sullivan
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| "And since the article was published the offers are still coming in!" |
Having strategized with my adviser and learned from the previous year's follies (a couple interviews, but no offers), I was well prepared for my first phone interview in September of that year. It went well, but I wasn't holding my breath. Making the shortlist for a tenure-track gig only means the rest of the process is a crapshoot—you never really know what the hiring committee wants.
But the phone interview must have gone really well because a few weeks later I was flying over the Appalachian Mountains on my way to a campus interview at Small New England University. Certainly the desert where I was coming from was vibrant and charming in the spring, but to see miles and miles of honey-hued and rust-colored leaves was nearly overwhelming. I was enchanted.
During an intense three-day interview, I connected strongly with everyone I met, they seemed to like my ideas, and I nailed my teaching demonstrations. Moreover, I was enamored with the place. In the evenings I walked along the town streets and admired the charming shops. I reveled in the early-morning mist left over from a late-night drizzle. I chose an academic career because I love teaching, and that chance to teach at a small institution in a quaint New England town was certainly appealing.
When the university called with an offer, I was not too surprised, and I was ready to negotiate. After some deliberation, the provost and I agreed on terms (though not everything I had hoped for), and he said I would be receiving a letter soon. "I've done it," I thought, "I secured a tenure-track gig at a place where people dream of retiring!" Now I could polish my dissertation without worry.
FULL ARTICLE.
Oh, I'm sorry search committee, did someone turn around and treat you poorly? How did that make you feel? Anxious? Desperate? Like drinking half a bottle of Jameson? Boo-fucking-hoo.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, in this market there are probably a dozen replacement 'Phils' waiting to jump aboard. Even if you sent them a rejection letter.
Full time NCG hiring stretches out for 9 months. So no surprise I accepted a decent offer last semester only to accept a better offer this semester. No biggie...in this economy there's dozens of people waiting to take my scraps.
ReplyDeleteYour scraps? You're too precious.
DeleteAnd I've been reading your other comments on here. I don't get the feeling that you're a college prof here to complain about the profession.
Am I missing something? How are you a part of this community? Forgive me if I've missed an earlier comment or post.
It's either a troll or a business professor. Stand back Reg, I know how to talk to these things.
DeleteDO YOU WORK AT A COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY? YOU KNOW, WITH "STUDENTS"? DO YOU TEACH BUSINESS ETHICS? IF SO, WELL DONE SIR OR MADAM. CONTINUE YOUR IMPORTANT WORK.
He's just an engineering student. I deal with lots of them. Each is precious.
DeleteAh, I was thrown off by it's constant allusions to money and a blog handle which I believed alluded to the stock market.
DeleteHey StockStalker, stop trolling and engineer something to take away my existential pain. Or maybe a time machine or cryogenic freezer that I can use to escape this job market and emerge in a future where universities are flush with cash, TT lines, and bright eager students.
The candidate did what he had to do. The Provost WAS unprofessional. I mean, of course it sucks and the provost was rightly upset, but he still has to act professionally. Do what is best for yourself. The SNEU didn't give a shit what was best for the candidate, regardless of what the chair and provost might have spun up on the phone when they were mad.
ReplyDeleteThe only really douchey thing about the candidate is... the economy fucking sucks and he randomly decides now to reminisce about the cornucopia of jobs he had a few years ago? Go fuck yourself Western Research U Professor. No one needs to hear that right now. You're like the junior with no friends loitering around the study hall while the sophomores are cramming for the Orgo midterm. No one gives a shit that you got an A... last year. Go get drunk and play Poptropica if you have nothing else to do. Leave the sad people alone while they figure out how to pay the bills.
Go, wombat, go!
DeleteI love you, please let me be your spousal hire.
DeleteThis happened to my department. I may have even blogged about it here. We went through a search and the final candidate was all set to move, and then at the last minute, decided not to move. The department was stuck having to scurry around finding adjuncts or a replacement at that point (too late in the hiring process to run another search) in a very specialized area (not an English PhD position).
ReplyDeleteI'd say timing is what it comes down to. If enough time is given to allow for additional searches or a contingency plan, fewer hard feelings abound. If it's last minute, then those hard feelings are likely to escalate. I'd say it's unprofessional if he could have negotiated a compromise.
As someone who has been obsessively pouring over the Crampicle job threads: In the (very) rare cases a candidate is essentially 'begged' to apply and gets another offer after signing a contract, there appear to be two types of individuals: Candidate A says "I signed a contract and I honor my word, no matter how good the new deal is." Candidate B says "Schools back out of contracts all the time and they'll find someone just as good. I need to look out for me first" I agree with both sentiments, and there are pros and cons to handling it either way, as Candidate A's may soon regret not getting the better deal, and look to leave; while Candidate B's went back on their word, screwed over another department, and perhaps angered some professional colleagues.
DeleteIn this instance, 'Phil' sounds like a bit of a selfish douche nozzle, which probably exacerbated things when he went to break his first contract.
On the other side, how many employees know that they're going to be laid off with advance notice and time to come up with "contingency plans"?
DeleteTit-for-tat is highly effective in game theory. So if your employer can drop you at any time, you can drop them at any time. In fact, the offer letter I had to sign practically said just that.
The repercussions for the author are probably not very serious. He screwed over a small teaching school in favor of a research school. The faculty in both those places probably don't run the same circles. If he had moved from one school to something similar, then he would have a problem down the line when the tenure committee sought outside references.
ReplyDeleteThis happens fairly frequently at Across the Seas U, almost exclusively with foreign recruits. But my impression in these cases is that it's less about getting a brighter, shinier offer from another school than it is about a sudden case of cold feet over the expat life.
ReplyDeleteA related phenomenon are the so-called "night runners" - those who just decide they've HAD ENOUGH and light out mid-year, without warning, after collecting their pay at the end of a given month. Full-fledged proffies aren't as susceptible, but the entry-level Hamster teachers get a night runner or twelve every year, inspired no doubt by bass-ackwards management that looks like something straight out of Orwell (and their system is different from the rest of AtSU).
I love it. Reminds me of a previous institution I worked at where a tenured proffy had it with the university and the department. Dr. Suck-It left for the new and shinier position the day before classes started. I thought it was well played, but of course some of the higher-up muckity mucks took umbrage. Too bad there was nothing to be done about it.
DeleteI'm surprised more American adjuncts, especially, don't do this, and wonder if they will as the economy improves.
DeleteAll in all, our tendency to leave decorously at the ends of semesters or years (or, failing that, on a stretcher or in a straitjacket) suggests that proffies are, in fact, a pretty conscientious lot, loyal, if not to the institutions that often treat us so badly, then at least to our students (no matter how much we may complain about them).
CC - I'm planning to bolt. I won't ditch them overnight. But I am going to leave when it suits _me_.
DeleteIt seems to me that the author handled the situation about as well as it can be handled. I understand why the first department is upset (and realize there may be repercussions for them in terms of keeping and filling that line), but really, especially as a small department where one person's course assignments can be that crucial, do they really want someone who realized he isn't the best fit? Would the provost have preferred he stick to the letter of his contract and teach at least a year, perhaps while having negotiated a contract beginning the *next* year at the other institution?
ReplyDeleteI also wonder whether the first department made a mistake by timing their search too early in the year, thus increasing the chances of this problem, and/or by not screening well enough for truly teaching-oriented people (though admittedly this can be hard to determine, and it sounds like the author was genuinely working through this question himself, which is understandable at this point in his career; in a less-fraught market, there would be more room for this discernment process, and even for some movement back and forth between kinds of institutions during the first few years on the TT).
There was at time when I probably would have seen more ethical dilemmas here, but really, after years of wrestling with the current academic job market in various ways myself, I'm inclined to say that any story that ends with a new Ph.D. in a TT job that is a good fit counts as a happy one. As for the SLAC, as long as there's still a TT job opening there next year (and perhaps a decently paid VAP position in the interim -- a solution the Provost has it in his power to implement) I'd say there's a potentially happy ending there, too, with one or two jobs still open to be filled by people who will do them well and happily.