There are many wonderful things about the academic career. A great amount of free time, a high social position, a respectable salary, good benefits, the opportunity to spend one's life reading, thinking, and writing, getting paid for expressing one's opinions and growing intellectually, the chance of helping young people to develop their love for learning - all these things make our job one of the best career choices possible. There is, however, one big obstacle a beginning academic needs to overcome, which consists of actually finding a tenure-track position.
There are many positions where one can end up after getting a PhD. One can become a Visiting Professor, an adjunct, a lecturer, an instructor, or get that horrible curse of scholars in the Humanities, a post-doc. It is only a tenure-line position, however, that opens the door to the wonderful things I have listed above. All other positions only lead to crazy teaching loads, no support for research, ridiculously low salaries, and no power of decision-making at one's institution.
Tenure-line positions are very hard to get nowadays. In the first year I was looking for a job, over 400 people competed for one tenure-track job in my field at a college that nobody will ever consider first-tier. The second year I looked for a job, things got worse. Many people fail to find tenure-line positions for a few years after they get their PhDs. Often, they discover that these several years that have elapsed since they graduated and that they spent as adjuncts, post-docs or instructors make them nearly unhireable for any tenure-track positions. As an example, see this story from College Misery.
It might seem very unfair that employers would reject people who have graduated a while ago in favor of "freshly minted PhDs." This policy does, however, have a very practical justification. Research is a very unforgiving endeavor. It is similar to a jealous, high-maintenance lover who cannot be abandoned even for a short time, let alone for years. A while ago, I listened to a scholarly presentation by an academic who hadn't done any research for a few years for a variety of personal reasons. As a result, he was completely clueless about some important new developments that had been done in his field. His presentation sounded like a valiant attack on windmills that weren't really there any longer.
Unfortunately, the teaching loads of adjuncts and instructors are huge, while the pay is extremely low. As a result, they have to teach part-time at a variety of places just to make ends meet. Who has time and energy to think of research under those conditions? Prospective employers understand that and are unwilling to give tenure-track positions to people who have been in such jobs for a while. After I got the PhD, I knew that I had to do everything I could - and more - to get a tenure-line job. Or I would be out of academia for good. This is an extremely stressful situation to be in, but that's how things are.
Unfortunately, the teaching loads of adjuncts and instructors are huge, while the pay is extremely low. As a result, they have to teach part-time at a variety of places just to make ends meet. Who has time and energy to think of research under those conditions? Prospective employers understand that and are unwilling to give tenure-track positions to people who have been in such jobs for a while. After I got the PhD, I knew that I had to do everything I could - and more - to get a tenure-line job. Or I would be out of academia for good. This is an extremely stressful situation to be in, but that's how things are.
13 comments:
In my field, PostDocs for a year or two position a person for a tenure track job at a better institution than might have been possible to aspire to as a fresh Ph. D. But, one does need to do a lot of research while employed as a PostDoc.
I know that it's very different in the sciences. In the Humanities, though, postdocs are a new way to effectuate the casualization of the job market.
"effectuate the casualization of the job market."
I know what 'effectuate' means, but I do not know what casualization means in this context at all, Clarissa.
I'm sorry, it's union speak. :-) The more I hear about Wisconsin, the more I slip into my union past. :-)
Casualization is when more and more academic jobs are performed by underpaid and overworked adjuncts, instructors, lecturers and postdocs. Less and less TT positions are created. Often, when a tenured professor retires, a TT position isn't opened as a result. Two or three adjuncts are hired instead. That's casualization.
Our professional organization, the MLA, recognized a few years ago that casualization is the main problem that prevents our field from flourishing.
Aha. I understand, but I still think it a strange choice of word. Is it not merely downgrading the profession.
Do PostDoc positions in the Humanities not serve to catapult young scholars into better jobs than they might have gotten otherwise? One would think that a PostDoc with a 1-1 teaching load would make it possible to publish a significant book in a couple of years, rather than a few journal articles. Of course, if a PostDoc's teaching load is much more than 1-1 it is, shall we say, a PINO: PostDoc in name only.
I agree that the word is weird. But it's the term we used in union organizing, and I got used to it.
Postdocs in my profession are a kiss of death for young scholars. I know people who got postdocs at Harvard and Cornell, were extremely happy at first, and then discovered that nobody would hire them afterwards.
Yale issued a statement in my last year there that it was going to try to turn postdocs into a common practice in the Humanities, and my union took a very firm stand against it. Since then, I kind of broke up with theunion, but I wish them the best of luck in this important endeavor.
I also never heard of postdoc in the Humanities (or anybody, for that matter) to teach 1-1.
I think that 1-1 is pretty typical of PostDoc teaching loads in mathematics at respectable universities. It may be even less when there is a supporting grant.
If I'm not mistaken, postdocs in sciences are expected to work on research in a lab or on a project of a senior scholar. In Humanities, we don't have any group projects. Senior scholars don't need postdocs' help. So they are given big teaching loads instead.
There is no well-defined system of postdocs in the Humanities. When I got my Visiting position, another person with very similar credentials got a postdoc at the same department. We had the same duties, but I had a much higher salary and benefits, which she did not. I have no idea how or why that decision was made. It made for a lot of tensions between everybody.
That is definitely not a good thing.
But, I seem to recall that one of our foremr deans was trying some years ago to implement a policy of uniformly low teaching loads for PostDocs in all College of Arts and Science departments. That might be a more wothwhile thing to work toward than the elimination of PostDocs. But, maybe I am just naive.
The problem is that nobody wants to hire them after that. The general assumption is that something must be wrong with a person if they had to accept a postdoc instead of a TT job. Even though many people don't have any other options, this assumption still plagues them.
On the other hand, there are people who might be genuinely not ready for a TT, and a year as a Visiting or postdoc could benefit them intellectually or as scholars. It's similar to not being ready for marriage until you are ready. But appearances still matter too much for that to count.
Research groups are the norm in science and engineering. They are rare in mathematics. I have a number of joint publications, but far more singly authored ones. I have never been a part of a group as such, either as a member or as a leader. And, indeed, many mathematicians, me included, believe that some of the things research groups do are unethical, such as the leader of a group being listed as author of a publication, even if he or she did not do any of the work. PostDocs are expected to work on their own research and collaborate with senior people if an opportunity for collaboration arises, but it may well not. They are expected to participate in seminars, presenting their own work or that of others that the seminar members want to study.
I had no idea that PostDocs had such great opportunities in Mathematics. Did I make a wrong career choice? :-)
In statistics there are postdocs where one isn't required to teach at all. People are given salaries comparable to mine just to participate in a research project.
From my experience, in experimental sciences the postdoc does research which s/he is told to do. Unless one comes with a prestigious scholarship from some foundation. Because if s/he does not have an independent scholarship, s/he is paid by a professor from a research grant. Of course a good professor does not micromanage a good postdoc, but the general direction of research is determined by the professor. Who in turn got a grant to explore subject X, and not subject Y. You want to be a postdoc researching subject Y - apply to the group which deals with the subject Y. It is not just about egos and control, there is one very objective issue involved: One needs fancy equipment to research subjects X and Y, and that equipment may be different...
On the issue of postdoc teaching - I see it as highly unusual in sciences. To the point that when I actually wanted to gain some teaching experience while being a postdoc, I had to volunteer. (My boss died, and we were given his grants and a year to look for new jobs, so it was not an issue of him pulling the string so that I would concentrate on research; he really did not care anymore)
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