- Ph.D. in English or American Studies or closely related area awarded between 2010 and time of appointment.
- A promising record of scholarship/research in pre-1900 American literature and culture.
- Ability to teach a range of subjects in American literature and culture between 1600 and 1900.
For years our “betters” have told those of up who earned our degrees between 2005 and 2010 that we needed to do whatever we could to survive—adjunct or lecture or accept positions at community colleges—and that when the market turned around we wouldn’t be punished for having done so. Seems we were lied to.
If institutions require candidates who earned their doctorate after 2010, it indicates that they’ve embraced the idea that there’s a Lost Generation of scholars out there. A Generation so embittered by the paucity of prospects and the years spent toiling in academic recesses that its members can’t ever be reintegrated into a functioning department. We—I earned my doctorate in 2008—have been tainted by market forces beyond our control, but instead of bucking the inherently flawed system as they do in words and print, these aggressively benevolent “betters” are conceding that they’re powerless to do anything for this Generation in deeds.
More.
This is age discrimination, pure and simple. Why don't you sue?
ReplyDeleteOr they want to ensure that they're getting assistant-prof-level apps? This is a strange requirement.
ReplyDeleteAgeism, pure and simply, and also simply illegal.
ReplyDeleteIt's not, though. It's experience-related. They aren't saying "PhDs over 40 need not apply" they are saying "people who were victims of the 2008 economic disaster need not apply."
DeleteAnd the latter are not protected by law.
It's ageism, but no suit would fly. They'll claim that only people graduated in the last three years are up-to-date. Which might even be true in engineering or medicine.
ReplyDeleteBut one could be 65 and have earned his or her doctorate after 2010, right? Would that still be ageism?
DeleteAs depressing and offensive as this advertisement is, I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that it is illegal age discrimination.
ReplyDeleteThe requirement is that you received your PhD sometime in the last three years. The advertisement makes no mention of how old the candidate should be. I've known someone who completed their PhD at age 26, someone who completed it at age 45, and someone who completed it at age 62.
According to some of the discussion on Parezco y Digo, the main reason behind the requirement is probably economic. A truly junior scholar, one who has only just completed a PhD and has not had time to work on his or her publications, will take the full 6 years (or whatever CSU's limit is) to apply for promotion.
A scholar who has been out for five or six years might actually have had an opportunity to get some publications ready, and might be ready to go up for tenure and promotion in two or three years. If that happens, the university has to pay them more money.
I don't find this a very convincing defense of the wording of the advertisement, but it does seem a reasonable guess as to why they might be seeking a truly junior scholar. As one commenter over there notes, it's austerity all the way, baby, and the Department is probably caught in the budget pressures like everyone else.
So incredibly gross given that the market bottomed out in 2008, leaving at least 1 years' worth of Ph.Ds with almost nothing. Sure, yes, Defunct's reasoning makes sense, but that doesn't make it right. And I agree that it wouldn't fly as age discrimination given that there is no set age for getting a Ph.D.
ReplyDeleteI agree that none of the possible rationalizations actually make it right, or excuse the ad. I'm considering writing the head of the English Department at CSU to express my disappointment with how they've gone about this search.
ReplyDeleteIn quasi-related news, the "100 Reasons" blog updated on September 10th.
ReplyDeletehttp://100rsns.blogspot.com/2012/09/86-it-is-state-of-being.html
They are now at eighty-six reasons.
Yep, those of us who graduated in 2008 are officially screwed. I'm actually kindof glad to see it in writing. Now I can say "See! I'm NOT just paranoid!" I've got a long, long, bitter rant about it, but for now, I'll just say fuck it.
ReplyDeleteVery bizarre, but it shows an economic trend. I'm surprised the ad didn't simply indicate it would only accept part time employment at 1/10th the pay.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of Post-doc-style positions with a must-have-completed-since requirement. It's not new. Austerity aside, in the current market, ways you can craft an advert to reduce the number of applicants lighten the workload for the hiring committee.
ReplyDeleteSelfishness, far more common than conspiracy.
It's not a revelation that many pub-heavy colleges want the "latest thing". People with disses that are five years old have just been too long on the vine for some. If you look at a fresh grad from a top school and a grad from five or so years ago, the grad who has just finished a dissertation can be more be assumed to be on the leading edge of current scholarship. The grad from five years ago has to prove that via scholarship since the diss, which is often retreads of the diss and not entirely new.
ReplyDeleteObviously economic factors might come in as well. But as far as "fresh" new asst. profs go, this has seemed to be the case for a long time with research universities. They'd rather bet on someone very new and very promising.
I agree the ad was dumb. If this was what they wanted, they could have equally asked for all comers and then the committee could have just tossed the apps with graduates from 2009 and before. Would that have been better, however, for those applying and thinking they had a chance? It's not "discrimination" by any means, or any means protected by law.
I agree with several of the above. It's all about money. Newly-graduated Phds. don't know as much about the 'real world' and will take anything.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I was told long ago that it takes at least 5 years to get over one's degree, especially in Fine Hamsters.
Gotta say, I don't much relish the idea of actually getting this job (all the while fully acknowledging that a TT-job beats hte hell out of the postdoc/adjunct treadmill). The lucky candidate is going to be subject to a lot of second guessing and kibbitzing from all of those who are (justifiably) angry over the nature of the search. Perhaps another line in the ad should be
ReplyDeleteThe successful candidate will be expected to graciously ignore extensive muttering, editorializing, and hyperscrutiny.
Mind you, FoCo is a pretty nice town, and probably feel that everyone wants to live there, so they can demand what they like.
Apparently they changed the ad (though no doubt people with "old" Ph.D.s will still not be considered) -- and we English folks are hoping that a censure from the MLA is on its way.
ReplyDeleteTheir stupid loss anyway. I know a lot of really successful people who held a 1-r visiting and then a 2-yr postdoc or vice versa. Not to mention a bunch who adjuncted for several years.
English isn't my field so I am asking because I have no clue...
DeleteHow likely is censure? Or is MLA just going to hang ring now that they've changed the ad?
I've already ranted about this one at length in the comments on various other blogs, but, (more or less) briefly -- yes, gross, and lazy, and apparently oblivious to the current state of the job market, and generally counterproductive and just plain dumb. On the other hand, I wasn't surprised, since a friend in another field told me nearly a decade ago that her department routinely throws out applications from people with Ph.D.s more than 3-5 years old. I'm not sure what all their reasons are, but her department does seem to have a strong sense of hierarchy (which means, in practice, that they like their new hires to be junior, and their junior hires to be relatively young/inexperienced). I was more than a little disappointed that knowing me, and a number of other members of our grad cohort who have not moved quickly from grad school to the tenure track, didn't lead her to question and/or challenge this practice, but apparently it seemed perfectly natural to her, and her department. I suppose it preserves the illusion of an orderly, meritocratic system.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem that money (including the desire not only not to pay someone more than the minimum to start, but also not to have the person come up for tenure, and a related salary bump, too soon) may have played a role. Historiann, who works at CSU (but in history) has a post with useful background info up, and has suggested in comments on Sisyphus' blog something that extends R and/or G's scenario: that the candidate had better get used to "austerity now, austerity forever."
If I were a candidate who *did* meet the criteria (new or supposedly-revised; I'm glad the MLA weighed in), I'd be thinking hard about whether the position would work well as a 5-6-year post-doc (i.e. whether it would provide me with sufficient time and financial support to be a strong candidate for hire-to-associate, if such a thing still existed, after 3 or 4 years, at a comparable or better university). A university that is already showing reluctance to hire people who are or will soon become tenured may well become a university that is reluctant to tenure people at all.
I'm guessing this will be a failed search.
Which is too bad, since there are plenty of people of various backgrounds who need the job, and could do it well.
DeleteIt is, Cassandra, a catch-22. The rationale is "if she hasn't gotten a tenure-track job in the last five years, there's surely something wrong with her." Which might have marginally made sense in the years of plenty. Institutional inertia makes that they do not revise this view when there's a glut of candidates -- and necessarily some gold nuggets.
DeleteI got in in 2005, just before hell broke loose. I didn't know at the time how incredibly lucky I was.
Regardless of the school's job listing, surely this sort of ageism goes on in academic hiring anyway, right? Would anyone dispute that?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is it's common, which is one reason why I don't know whether it makes sense for me to work in the only direction that *might* make sense for me now: publish enough to be at least theoretically eligible for an advanced assistant/associate line. But I'm pushing 50, and there are an awful lot of younger, less-experienced Ph.D.s out there who would be cheaper to hire. I figure my interests and experience would have to coincide very closely with a particular department's very particular needs, and that's even more of a crapshoot than the regular job market, which is pretty much a crapshoot now (though one that does have, as others have pointed out elsewhere, a fairly high and expensive, in both money and effort, bar to enter: the Ph.D. plus some publications).
DeleteOn the other hand, I've certainly seen people hired in middle age, and mid-career. However, they've either (a) held recent Ph.D.s or (b) held tenure elsewhere. I've never seen someone who wasn't married to a TT professor move from the contingent to the tenure track in mid-career (and, at least at my university, spousal hires are most often accomplished by getting joint offers elsewhere -- not an easy trick, though I suppose that means that those people did, in fact, get TT job offers from contingent jobs).
I'm inclined to see this as much as as story about how departments view those who have held contingent jobs for more than a year or two as about age discrimination, but both are, I suspect, involved, though probably not in an actionable way.