A career in academia in the 21st century, or: job, schmob

Last updated on: January 8, 2010 at 4:04 am by Justin Whitaker

A career in academia in the 21st century, or: job, schmob 2010-01-08T04:04:00-07:00 Justin Whitaker

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Last March I read with optimism the latest AAR (American Academy of Religion) report on careers, based on facts gleaned from job seekers and employers at its 2008 meeting in Chicago.

And in 2009 I applied for a handful myself, predicting that I would finish my studies sometime in mid-2010 and thus be ripe for teaching in the fall. The results? Less than stellar. Brian, a friend I met in my China travels this summer, did great though: landing five interviews at the 2009 AAR meeting. The downside is that, despite the great showing then, as far as I know, he’s had no callbacks for on-campus interviews (and at this point that generally means, to my knowledge, that they’ve selected other people for the next level of the interview process).

Another friend and fellow Blogger, Amod, wished me luck. Graduating from Harvard in 2007, he knows his way around the dark underworld of the academic job market. He provides a very thoughtful discussion of wealth in a post where he also notes that, after two years as a professor on the east coast, he has been demoted to a reduced-teaching fellowship position. Having wise friends like Amod has countless benefits: something/one to look up to, realistic perspectives on life, and access to little nuggets of wisdom like the statement that, “even relatively poor people in our society have the kind of luxuries (imported spices, warm baths) that once were the province of kings.”

Headline: Poverty-stricken adjunct professor enjoys warm bath: laughs at Tantamani.

Another friend and newly anointed Doctor, Margaret, has renounced academia in favor of creativity. A wise move, I think.

And then recently I stumbled across this in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article is rich, and a must read for any and all who are considering graduate school in the humanities. The subtitle, “Just Don’t Go” says it all. While I disagree with the overall tone of the article, many statements, like:

“I have found that most prospective graduate students have given little thought to what will happen to them after they complete their doctorates. They assume that everyone finds a decent position somewhere, even if it’s “only” at a community college (expressed with a shudder).”

made me smile in agreement. Many of his points seemed to come right out of actual conversations I’ve had with fellow grad students… “don’t worry, when the recession ends, everyone will be hiring!”… “stay in school now, wait for the economy to come back”… “those baby-boomers are going to be retiring in droves soon, just wait”…

What I don’t think the author appreciates is the degree to which grad students have considered alternative plans. Everyone I know has back-ups; and sub-back-ups, and sub-sub-back-ups. Compared to a tenure-track line in a well endowed university, the back-ups often become incredibly unattractive (somewhere down the line I have “manual labor and my parents’ basement” as a possible path), but we do really think about the alternatives (as academics, we honestly can’t help it).

I still hope for a teaching gig (yes even if in a … community college), but the idea of chaplaincy -particularly in the military, continuing a long line of Whitaker family military service which may otherwise end with my father- is still appealing, as is work in NGOs serving South/SE Asia, educational non-profits, PeaceCorps, Americorps, government work, and so on. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in realizing that teaching gigs, while the goal of most humanities Ph.D.s, are not the only possible outcome of our near-decade of postsecondary education.

But then I found, thanks to Patia, this article featuring Harvard economists (as opposed to those wimpy Harvard religion and philosophy students) saying that postsecondary teachers will be one of the great booming careers of the next decade (bls raw data). Take that, Mr. nay-saying Chronicle of Higher Education guy.

According to BLS predictions, an estimated 250,000 new postsecondary teaching positions, requiring doctoral degrees, will bubble up out of the thin economic air over the next eight years. And look, just behind that is manual labor, requiring little more than on-the-job training. Joy. Of course, a closer look shows that those new jobs are all in medical and biology teaching positions, and that the only teaching I can look forward to would be as a “self-enrichment education teacher,” whatever th at is. Table 9 (ignore #7!) brings us back to good news and the promise of nearly 3/4 of a million jobs in the next decade for people with Ph.D.s – taking in mind all of those retiring whose positions will need to be filled.

So I’m basically back where I started. Only with a little new “caveat emptor” advice from professor X and some encouragement from bureaucrat Y.

My own advice: follow your dreams, but be realistic. Know Thyself. Perhaps an encyclopedic knowledge of Jane Austin or Pāli declensions won’t get you anywhere in life. If you’re like me, that isn’t the point. If you’re like me it is the deep wisdom of the subject matter itself that is important, and the wish to understand it and share it with others.

Understanding our heritage has little utilitarian value these days. My own University (UM) proposed cutting all courses with under X number of students as a way to cut costs. Luckily the wisdom of many humanities professors prevailed: what about ancient Greek and Latin courses and others that are so fundamental yet so undervalued today? Special exceptions will be made, and these courses will remain, for now…

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