1:14 here. in all seriousness, i don't have a problem with departments looking to diversify. my comment was more a reflection of the fact that its too late in the process for me to improve my odds by starting new articles or getting more teaching experience. my apologies if i came off sounding racist - not my intent!
while i'm sure people are trying to be helpful, telling me that i might have more luck on the job market if i had more teaching, research, and service qualifications isn't particularly helpful/encouraging/new information.
Do anything of you think your extreme arrogance that is so obvious in this forum comes off in your letters/vitae/etc., and is thus off-putting to the various search committees that are obviously beneath most of you? I mean I've read so many insults of smaller or less prestigious schools on here, of the senior faculty at these schools, and so many insults about the non-top three journals, that I would think the entire discipline sucks except for the people on the market this year.
In all seriousness, I know many of you are frustrated about how bad the market is this year, but we are in the midst of a REALLY bad time in the economy, so it is just bad luck for you that this is the case. However, people on search committees do read this stuff, and I think many of you are looking childish and petulant because of some of the postings here. Go ahead and flame on me, but just my thoughts... I do wish ALL of you luck on the market, and hope you all get jobs, even if they are not all in the top three departments in the country, where ALL of you who have posted here OBVIOUSLY deserve to land.
SC Dude, I will work anywhere. I am all set up for the "R1" school, but I decided I'd rather be both a good researcher and teacher. I'm so afraid for my child and was made to feel like shit at thanksgiving for not being a good provider by my very patriarchal Italian-American family.
I don't really care about prestige like I was told to by my mentors when I started grad school. All I care about now is good sociology and there is a lot of it in the regional journals...the stuff in the "Top 3" is so damn boring and uninformative. If the stuff in the top journals was what I was first told sociology was about, there is no way I would have went to grad school for this discipline.
i have a line on my CV "places i'd be willing to work". of course the only thing written in that section is a citation to the latest department rankings. i try and include a few lines in my cover letter letting departments not on the top-ten prestige list that i'm only applying because i ran out of articles to publish at ASR. in fact, one of my current hobbies is to write a cover letter, print out a CV, makes copies of articles, collect student evaluations and syllabi, and tweak my research and teaching statements and then send all that stuff off to places i an too good to work at. it's so freakin' fun!!
i am finding it is now much simpler to start my cover letter by saying "i am better than you in every possible way, period" because then i can point out my superiority to all people everywhere instead of having to describe how i'm better than senior faculty, liberal arts faculty, other grad students, etc. this is really why i decided to take a few months out of my social life to get a phd - it's all about the super-high status and big bucks i get in this business. arrogant? hell yea, i'm arrogant. i'm a fucking sociologist, biatch!!!
and if you don't like it, stop reading the "i need to vent" thread.
or allow people going through a really stressful experience the right to occasionally blow off steam by ranting and cursing. repression = not the best mental health strategy.
sociologists of all people should know better than to make sweeping generalizations based on anonymous blog postings. oh, and my actual list of places i'd working is very, very, VERY long!
5:42, you are probably right... but the original poster has a point too. Also, I think it was a FUNDAMENTALLY social-psychological critique, as many reveal their "true" selves when protected by the cloak of anonymity. So if you are an a**, you may kiss up in front of people, and then "act a fool" on your blog... just saying...
6:04 - a valid point, i agree. there have been times i have read some posts and thought "i sure hope you don't get a job at my department!"
but its also worth reading back through and seeing how many people say they'll be happy with any job, they don't place a high value on status, they had a great experience at a non-prestigious interview.
6:15... you are right. It is a HORRIBLE time to be out on the market, so many of you have a perfect right to be REALLY frustrated and angry. It is unlikely that you were lied to by your advisors, nor deceived by your universities, but the market has changed over time, and this year it is particularly problematic for all but the VERY top few candidates. Thus it seems to you like you got bad advice, that the system is rigged, that search committees are full of washed up hacks who like fucking around with your emotions, and that ultimately everyone is out to get you. Thus you are feeling worried, enraged, scared, hurt, etc., and perhaps catharsis via anonymous group bitching helps.
However, I (4:24) was just pointing out that some of you seem to be devolving to the point of "Lord of the Flies" behavior, and quite frankly, it is scary for someone to think of you as a potential colleague. What happens if you get denied tenure? Are you going to gripe anonymously, or go bell-tower bat shit crazy on your colleagues? All of us have inner turmoil, but some of the shit on here seemed a bit beyond the pale. Plus, there are SOME people on here who CLEARLY believe that their "top-five pedigree" has EARNED them an R1 job.
Just FYI, I was lucky to get hired last year in a "lower tier" (i.e. Masters) university, and I couldn't be happier. I graduated with several pubs, loads of teaching, and GREAT letters from really respected people. And yes, I interviewed at several R1s, losing out to postdocs and advanced assistants willing to take a step back in their "status" to take a step up in the "rankings." So remember, you are not just competing with the other newly minted and not-quite-done Ph.Ds around you. At the end of the day, I am ELATED to be where I am, and I hope that all of you find places that make you as happy. GOOD LUCK!
I think it'd be cool if sociology followed the med school's system of matching people to residency's. Just google "National Resident Matching Program" for more info. All this drama is just a bunch of bullshit that does nothing but support inequality in the discipline. If the ASA had any balls (sorry for the sexist metaphor) and were *seriously* concerned about the discipline, they would be advocating a system like this.
I'd totally go for the medical student model! 6:38, if you are right then it does make me feel a little better to know that my lack of job market success is more to do with market conditions and the presence of candidates who are long past graduate school. I think I didn't really do anything wrong, as much as I didn't understand the nature of the market (and if it has changed that much, probably few of us did).
If I did not have children and a partner to consider, I would be fine with spending the next few years as a post-doc or a VAP while building my vitae. However, I can't ethically justify asking my partner to postpone his career for several more years. I take full responsibility for my false expectations, but I assumed that I'd get a job offer from at least one of the 40+ schools where I applied. It is really scary to realize I don't know what to do now...
Don't give up hope yet... it may seem like you are out of luck this year given how screwed up the economy is right now, and how many job searches have been cancelled/postponed/whatever the word du jour is. However, you are not, as there traditionally are more jobs announced after the holidays. And don't give up on the VAP/Postdoc route. It may be difficult to match up with spousal considerations, but it can be done.
It must be that there are (a) more now PhDs on the market, (b)current assistants on the market or (c) more canceled searches than are listed because last year there are more canceled searched on the wiki than this year and last year was considered a decent year to be on the market.
yeah dude, with children, very scary, health insurance, jesus, i don't know what to do either, and the more stress on the fact that the VAP positions will not be extremely competitive
I think that there were a lot of searches that were never advertised. I know at my school the cuts came down over the summer--along with a hiring freeze. We never advertised for the positions we previously thought we'd get.
Phone interviews vary a lot from school to school. There is a lot of information about them on the Chronicle of Higher Ed forums. You might want to check there for info/advice.
once you leave academia (say for just a year), boy you get rusty, no library access, journal subscriptions, colleagues to talk to...hey it's like an ethnography
10:41--You might ask the dept. for more information. My invitation for a phone interview was followed up with an email detailing who I'd be speaking with and what they'd likely ask.
It was a half an hour. Fifteen minutes were devoted to questions from them (what's your dissertation about; what are your next research plans; what's your philosophy about teaching; what would you want to/be able to teach at our school; why do you want to come to our school; what would you contribute to our dept.) and I was allowed 15 minutes to ask questions of them. Given that ratio, I'm guessing that I was evaluated in no small part on the questions I asked them, so you might want to prepare some good ones. I'm not going to make suggestions, as I didn't land a campus interview out of this!
I found the experience sort of difficult because I couldn't see their reactions and they couldn't see mine--I couldn't judge whether I had made my point or if I should keep on talking, for example. Obviously I couldn't nod in response to a comment, and saying "Mmm-hmmm" a lot felt awkward, but I thought I should indicate that I was listening intently...so having a strategy to compensate for the lack of nonverbals may help you.
So our advisors have sold us up the river with outdated job market information. These schools are under pressure from deans, parents, etc. to hire quality teachers and not just R1 paper pushers.
While I may not have job, I rejected the paper of someone who does from one of the top3, ha hha ha ha ha!
would the one school that interviewed me PLEASE let me know whether or not I got the job already, so that I can get on with my life! At this point I don't care if I get the job or not, I just want to know!!
brushed up against like in a sexual manner? holy crap...I don't know what kind of legal action she should take, but I would definitely write a letter to the chair of the department and/or (if it was the chair) the dean of the school, informing them of what happened. Also I personally would post his name here and publicly out him, although that could lead to slander/libel problems...
i think consulting with a lawyer before anything other action is the best in this case...but at the same time, couldn't a lawsuit have future repercussions for her career in the discipline?
I don't think she should (or can) make a case out of it, but I think she can (and should) pull out of the search and let the chair know why. I can't imagine she would want to work there now with a scumbag like that in the department.
Message to SC chairs: Are departments placing less emphasis on publications and more emphasis on teaching and service than in previous years?
Is this something that Deans are encouraging?
Are the factors used to pick candidates for short list, interview, etc. changing?
It seems as if the faculty in my dept. have been saying since 2003 to just publish lots of research and that we would be superstar candidates. I did this, and am not getting any interviews.
In my department we have not had a single conversation about teaching.
On publishing: there is no direct correspondence between where and how much one might publish and where one is employed. My R1 dept. has never hired anyone without any publications, but most people who submit applications have publications. Some have many.
Different departments have different needs and interests. There is no way for candidates to anticipate those in advance (though it can be helpful to have a good sense of the marketability of different subfields). IMO publications merely mean that you aren't immediately thrown out of the pile.
Beyond having a good CV it is departmental proclivities that rule the day (many of which are entirely reasonable). As a result, not getting an interview is also not much of a reflection on an individual candidate.
I'm sure gonna miss this blog. Its the only thing I have left, unless some more opportunities to apply to things open up. I read posts while at work because my motivation to do my job is sinking pretty fast. What is the point anymore, I mean really.
I have taught quite a bit and have had quite good evaluations. I consider myself a pretty great teacher (sorry if that sounds arrogant). However, I have not had any sniffs (besides one phone interview- which are really tough for me as someone who tries to just read off people when I ramble). So it is not the teaching thing. It is clear to me that I either need publications and/or a more attractive area of research.
I think more places want teaching and research, not b/c they value teaching that much, but b/c they don't want new hires to drown in teaching responsibilities instead of publishing. If you've already taught your own classes, you'll be able to hit the ground running and won't "waste time" having to prep. I've been out for a few years and in visiting positions, and I've had a couple of interviews this year, and that's definitely the impression I got. My current institution is hiring (we're very teaching-intensive), and we won't consider anyone who hasn't a) taught extensively and b) taught what we're looking for.
fucking piece of shit swine, fucking pig, oh you bastards! if the sociology pigs were gathering in san francisco, i think the insurgent sociologists should be represented as well, i'd like to burn the S.O.B. who didn't hire me
So, I'm wondering how many of us and for how long will try for academic jobs before deciding to do something else with our Ph.D.s? I mean, given that next year's market is likely to be bad due to schools cutting jobs, and given the apparently large numbers of qualified applicants who didn't get jobs this year, when does one give up trying to get an academic job? I, for one, would rather start a non-academic career in market or survey research or something similar(if I can even get such a job at this point!) than put my entire life on hold to spend several years in a VAP in the middle of nowwhere making grad student wages and hoping for some job that may never materialize or not materialize for two, three, or more years.
The bottom line is that we were lied to and sold a bill of goods about the viability of an academic job in sociology. Clearly, many of us come from top departments, have numerous solo authored publications in good journals, teaching experience, etc., yet nothing. I don't think it's just a bad job market this year -- the funding for this year's jobs was largely in place before the economic crisis. Next year, we'll really see the effect. So, we were lied to. I seriously and honestly wish I had gone to law school or B-school -- where being a white male might actually do me some good instead of ruin any chance I have at getting a job. So much for fighting the good fight. Fuck 'em all -- time to use my gender and race for my benefit for once, time to get paid.
i don't have any wise advice, but my gut feeling would be that if you are inclined towards a non-academic job, it would be better to start now. i worked at a non-profit research company a little bit during grad school and my Plan B has been to go back there. they extended me an open offer to come back this summer if i needed to.
just got a call today from them telling me that their funding agencies have been cutting back significantly and they don't have the funding to bring me back after all. so i'd say that we should assume that funding for non-academic research will also feel the economic crisis. when washington starts talking about finding ways to cut the fat from the federal budget, my guess is that spending $4 million to collect data on something is high on the list of things they define as "fat".
I'm telling you. I'm on an SC, and the process is filled with so much bullshit that you wouldn't believe. You aren't just competing with the other candidates, you are competing with the egos of folks who have accrued departmental power (whether they deserve it or not). It sucks. It sucks as a job candidate. And it sucks when you are on the other side, too.
Obviously, since you are the ones looking for a job, it sucks more for you.
actually, thanks for sharing that last comment. it does suck for us more, but that comment reminds me that a lot of what really gets me down about being a sociologist is that our business is as politicized and capricious as any other.
i think we tend to expect things to operate differently because we're sociologist and we should know better. the reality is that the frustrations we're experiencing with the job market are exactly the same frustrations that most other folks experience in their fields.
having said that, i'm still on the verge of a nervous breakdown because i don't have a single job prospect and no source of income past May, 2009.
To the numerous posters on this blog who think that being “white” has held them back from a sociology job this year:
Get a life. I am a Woman of Color sociologist from a kick-ass school with *numerous* nationally recognized paper awards (think ASA, SSSP, and two others) and several prestigious fellowships (think Ford and Mellon). Don’t let me forget my publications: various single-authored articles in great sociology journals. And teaching?-Three courses that I designed and introduced to the curriculum of a well-regarded SLAC. Like many of you, I filed my dissertation in June. Like many of you, I have no job offers to date. Like many of you, I watch as the wiki lists the schools that I applied to schedule interviews, or worse, make offers.
To joke about getting a “very heavy spray-on tan” or to insinuate that “being a white male” ruins your chances at a job in the academy is just down right lame. What do you think? –That all of us “diversity” applicants are taking the positions that were intended for YOU?
Puh-leeze…Amazing, how when the going gets tough, race becomes the bogey of choice…
I hope that business school and/or law school works out for you.
i am as white as they come, and i have to agree with the last post. trust me, white folks, we're not getting passed over for jobs because there is rampant "racism" against white folks in this country.
8:01 -- Must be nice to qualify for and win all of those prestigious fellowships -- some of us can't apply for them at all because of our race or gender. I guess racism only works in one direction, huh?
8:01 -- I don't think anyone insinuated that jobs were being taken from ME. I was just always under the impression that equality meant that every candidate had an equal opportunity based on merit, not skin color or gender. I was on the admissions committee for my department a few years ago. This is a very prestigious, top 10 program. All applicants of color were placed in a separate pile and evaluated differently from all other candidates. Full ride "diversity" fellowships were offered to students with B-averages, while white candidates with incredible CVs were rejected. This practic3e was probably illegal, but, hey, this is sociology, right? Bottom line, if you're a "diversity" candidate you have a massive leg up over non "diverse" candidates -- that's a fact. Moreover, it's well established that most of those "diversity" fellowships go to middle-class students from middle and upper class backgrounds. It's not like top schools are taking kids off the streets and setting them up with fellowships. I'm a white male who grew up in government subsidized housing, my family was on welfare for years, etc. Believe me, I know a LOT more about poverty and hard living than most of the "diversity" candidates who are enjoying full rides in my department right now. Sorry to burst your bubble, 8:01, but racism does exists outside of the typical black-white paradigm. Of course, I'm sure *you* came from a really tough background, right?
wow this thread just took a disturbing turn...maybe in your school, white dude, crazy advantages are giving to people of color, but in my school the department is so white it's sickening, and the only people of color are coming from foreign countries. So in the end it all balances out, no?
Either way, it'll probably do you better to focus on improving your own CV then to blame minority students for your problems getting a job or a fellowship...maybe you just suck, cause I've gotten plenty of funding and had an interview, and I'm as white as they come.
Disturbing is right. The aggrieved white male has a flexible relationship with logic. You (9:18PM) were “under the impression that equality meant that every candidate had an equal opportunity based on merit, not skin color or gender.” Because you see otherwise, then you deem the conditions to be unjust. But, for those conditions to be unjust, the playing field would have had to have been level at the outset, including the time prior to the submission of an application. If one believes that to be true, then one could argue that certain candidates getting a “leg up” is indeed unjust, and maybe one could be bitter at the fact that the institutions around them are systemically discriminating against one group of people over another. Now, take a little time to think about this.
The faulty logic shows up in the suggestion that all (or, the majority of) non-white students admitted to his department are academically inferior AND middle-class. Even if that were somehow true, does it make sense to generalize that non-white candidates who are academically weak and from the middle-class are getting a “massive leg up” in other departments or even universities across the entire country? If one is going to make an argument about a subject loaded with “race”, then one should at least make it with the clarity and logic befitting a Ph.D. in sociology. I sincerely hope you don’t study race, class, and inequality.
People of color have the added stress of knowing that a fellow sociologist (WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER) is deep down, a big fat racist who becomes a raving white supremacist when his (presumably) white racial privilege does not get him a job. Like Rev. Wright's caricature of Hillary, "...But I'm white, I'm white!!!"
Here'a few readings by Joe Feagin and colleagues that might help you: White Racism: The Basics; Racist America; or Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's (2003) Racism without Racists. Your white privilege gets you health insurance, property (housing), highly funded 'white' schools, freedom from daily police harassment, get out of jail free cards, epistemological authority, and the list can go on and on.
But it is true too, that poor whites may suffer from the blowback of white supremacy. E.g., welfare policy is designed using controlling images of black women such that when whites get into the system, they suffer from the horrors of a system designed to punish poor black women
the people responsible for racism are the RICH WHITE MEN who rule america and they will still rule america even with a mixed president. Rich white men and to a lesser extent women own and inherit the wealth from the toil of dark-skinned people the world over and they have been for four centuries and they will never concede anything unless they are held accountable.
The sick thing is that there are sociologists who study "race and ethnicity" may be making some of these comments.
You know, this is the same crap that started popping up on the blog last year around the same time as now. I was on the market last year, and as a privileged white male, I argued that it was racist. Still feel the same way... amazing how many sociologists can perpetuate stereotypes and buy into outright racist rhetoric that is steeped in myth and (at best) half-truths.
Are there some "lesser qualified" candidates receiving jobs? YES. Are some of these "lesser qualified" candidates members of socially disadvantaged groups? YES. On an individual level, is this unfair? PROBABLY (though some of the advantages the "more qualified" candidates have accrued probably have something to do with social forces). Does this mean that the societal playing field has been leveled, or that the "disadvantaged" groups are now "advantaged?" NO! NO! NO!
I'm a white male. I grew up working-class. My father worked on an assembly line in a factory. Several of my family members are high school dropouts. I'm the "black sheep" in my family.
I'll be the first to admit that the color of my skin has given me priveledges in life and in academia, regardless of my social class. Wanting increased racial diversity in academia is an important issue worth working towards.
However, I've also always felt that no one seems to care the I'm working-class. Academia's (and really society's) definition of "diversity" solely in terms of race (and gender) is way too narrow. The worst part of it is that elite whites in academia believe that I'm one of them based on the color of my skin. In reality, I'm not one of them and I never will be one of them. Instead, I just pretend that I am while I plot the class war.
Moreover, some in academia seem to have devolved into a state of "political correctness" where working-class white people and their culture are the butt of jokes by the white elites who run the establishment. Do you drive a pick up truck instead of a Pryus hybrid? Do you shop at Wal-Mart instead of Target? What about Whole Foods? Do you watch Fox News instead of John Stewart or the Colbert Report? Well, you must just be ignorrant white trash! The real ignorrance, ironically, is espoused by the white, elite Ph.D. holders who have never been on both sides of the tracks to understand anything about people who are different from them that they can't read in a book.
All of this is to say, and I know this will sound strange coming from a sociologist, that I wish we could be a little less hung up on putting people into socially constructed groups. Is there some black or Hispanic grad student out there who's had a much harder time than me trying to make it in life? You better believe it, and I wouldn't claim to know what it's like for one second not to be white. At the same time, is there some white grad student from the upper crust of society who's had it a lot easier then me. You also better beleive that. The point is, people are diverse, and everyone has had different experiences. Some of them are related to their race or gender, some are related to their class, maybe some are related to difficult family situations, mental illnesses, etc. I don't know. The point is that no one person's struggles should be considered more or less important than anybody else's. Sometimes I just wish we could treat people as individuals. Then maybe we wouldn't lower ourselves to these types of group-against-group arguments. But I know that's not possible, because these group inequities really do exist.
Those who are complaining about the unfairness of the job market assume that there is some unitary standard of worth that is being ignored by the market or reverse racists or whatever. I can't imagine where they got this idea, I seriously doubt that any of their advisers told them there was such a thing, even if they did tell them to publish. There is basically nothing in the entire corpus of sociological literature that would suggest that such a thing actually exists.
The certainty of these people that not only does such a thing exist, but that they are more worthy than others based on their place in this figment of their imagination is simply delusional.
i would suggest that anyone who feels this way probably reflects their complete lack of sociological understanding in their work and that, perhaps, search committees can see this in their work.
I know! How can anyone even consider that non-whites can be racist! What are you delusional? Only white males can be racists. Racism ONLY occurs at the white, male level. Those who are not white males do not have racial or gender biases of any sort. As sociologists, you should this. What's wrong with you people! Sheesh.
in a non-race related rant, my adviser just sat me down and basically said that if the one school that interviewed me offers me a job, I shouldn't take it cause I can get a job at a "better school" if I stay in grad school an extra year and apply again next year. Wtf am I supposed to do with that?
i had a meeting today with a professor in my department and we were talking about the job market. he told me that when he's been on search committees, they don't even look at the cover letter, recommendations, writing samples. they go right to the "publications" section of the CV and see if a candidate meets the minimum standard. if so, they skim the other stuff.
the "minimum standard" varies by year but is generally MINIMUM 2-3 publications in some combination of top-10 journals. at least one should be sole authored. and the journal you publish in does matter. anything lower than the top-25 in terms of impact score is not going to count for anything.
i don't know if that is how it works everywhere, but that was what i was told about how it works here.
It was pretty much the same in my department too. I was on a campus interview recently and was amazed at how little the faculty knew about me. Aside from the fact that I'd published a few articles. I don't even think the SC really read my application thoroughly.
For a totally different perspective--I just got back from a campus interview at a teaching school and they could really have cared less about my research. A few mentioned my dissertation but that was about it. They wanted to know what kind of teacher I was, what classes I could teach, and if I would be a good person to work with.
If I have gained 20 lbs, not been able to get laid in who knows how fucking long because I'm too fucking tired, exhausted, miserable to even go out trolling for it because of this goddamn brilliant choice I made to get my fucking Ph.D., I am gonna lose my fucking shit come spring should I end up unemployed.
In Race and the Invisible Hand, when working class whites are not picked for jobs, they blame affirmative action. This is also the same charming technique that Jesse Helms used in his political ads (the "White Hands" ad). There are LOTS of factors that make a school decide on a good fit. My school hired a woman of color a few years back because the dean insisted on it. He wanted to add "diversity" (though she's not from an under-represented minority), but the main reason he wanted her was that she would enter at the assistant level and therefore be cheaper. I'm sure the "better qualified" candidates could have had the position if they'd take an assistant's salary. Also, there are few fellowships that you cannot apply for if you are white. Both the Ford and the Mellon, the only two mentioned above, are open to everyone (though the Ford does give preference to under-represented groups).
this discussion does prompt me to ask...what is the motivation behind seeking a "diversity hire"? i think that's a valid question to ask, but i wonder if departments ask it. there are a few possible answers (and when i say "diversity hire", i'm pretty much just talking about the desire to hire someone of color, because that is the most common and visible type of "diversity").
1) make up for structural disadvantage: non-white people are at a disadvantage in this country generally so it is just to afford them an advantage whenever possible. this is what i call the "balance sheet" motivation
2) add a diverse perspective: non-white people see society differently than white people so having a non-white faculty member adds a new view on things. this assumes, of course, that race determines theoretical orientation.
3) enlighten students: this is based on the contact hypothesis; being exposed to a non-white professor can reduce or eliminate racial bias in white students because they interact with and respect a skilled professor of a different color
4) i don't have a fourth explanation. do you?
without getting in to the debate over whether considering race in hiring is a good or bad thing, i do think it is important to think about what motivates such decisions and also whether such motivations are consistent. for example, to an outside observer i am "structurally advantaged" by virtue of being white and heterosexual. the reality is that i spent most of my life in abject Appalachian poverty stealing food from the trash at school to eat and trading food stamps for gas money to get me to work.
i do not question for a minute that any person in this country who is not white is at a disadvantage when it comes to employment and wealth accumulation. i just wonder why the "race vs. class" argument is even still happening.
it is interesting to me to think about how much we depend on visible signs of disadvantage to classify "diversity", and what the actual goals are behind efforts to increase "diversity" within academia.
I think for schools with diverse student bodies it is especially important to have a range of races/ethnicities represented on the faculty; IMO, having an all-white department in terms of faculty when large proportions of the students are nonwhite is problematic.
Diversity can only be attained through skin color. Diversity has nothing to do with life experience, background, habitus, or anything else. It's skin color and that's it. Skin color = diversity. Period. For those whites out there who think they are somehow out of the ordinary, sorry, you're just like every other white person on earth. Your experiences are exactly the same as all other white people on the planet. You all look, talk, think, and act exactly alike. And, as sociologists, we all know that white does not equal diverse under any circumstances. To view it any other way would be racist. And and sociologists, we all know that racism can NEVER be directed towards whites and that non whites are never racist or racially biased. Anyone who questions this is a racist. All white people are racists, too. Any questions?
I see most people are venting about the SC, but what about our own schools?
It is amazing to me the lack of reflexivity many professors at my school have.
How about the head of the graduate department, who works on network ties and labor markets, and yet refuses to talk to anyone about the students on the market this year? If you are lucky enough to be fully funded to go to the ASA, good luck finding ANY professor who will take the time to introduce you to anyone, let alone put in a good word for you if you are in the market. They might nod at you if you walk past them in the hallways, but that is it.
Not to mention the new draconian methods to enforce time to completion. After 5 years you wont even get a free printjob. This from someone who herself took 10 years to graduate.
And how about when you collect the data, get the books, do part of the analysis in stata and end up as a "thank you" in an article, as opposed to a co-author?
At least one of my professors here is open about the iniquities of it all: that an additional letter of recommendation from your advisor to that old friend of his who is on the search committee matters more than any publication, that school tend to do a tit for tat and hire people from schools who are likely to hire their students, and that networks trump everything.
All this and in the end I still have to listen to some jackasses who love "public sociology" and talking about labor relations and working conditions, even as they treat their students as absolute crap, a sweatshop of researchers who get none of the credits. How about a little private sociology as well?
don't forget the professors who claim third authorship on every paper written using their data, even if they don't even read the paper before it gets published.
or the ones who won't work a single network connection on your behalf but then tell you not to take a job because it is not prestigious enough and they want to be able to tell people that their student got a job at X.
did i leave out the professors who can't bother to reply to an email question after a week but get upset when you are a day late with a paper draft?
what about the adviser who asks you when you're scheduling your qualifying exams three months after you passed them, or the dissertation committee member who wants to know when you plan to defend your proposal six weeks after you defended it - and he was there for the defense!
heh, at least yours showed up for the defense. I had to defend mine twice because one of the professors forgot about it and never showed up, but wanted to see the presentation and give comments before aproving me.
Well, I'm feeling some relief that my advisor is not a jerk and my professors are not senile. There's something to be grateful for as I look toward next year's too-terrible-to contemplate job market.
10:34, drop a hint, i'd love to out the hypocrites of sociology. THERE ARE VERY MANY IN MY DEPT. They preach and preach about inequality while drawing six-figure salaries and exploiting (sometimes humping) their graduate students.
Glad I am not the only one who is fed up with the bs that is "public sociology."
The sociology labor market is precisely the type of labor market that "public sociologists" would be rallying against if they werent so invested in it.
Let's see: a guild-like structure where those who are at the top are virtually untouchable and those at the bottom are extremely vulnerable, subject to abuse, and have to grovel at the feet of those at the top for any sort of breadcrumbs, because, as we can see from the fear of outing the a-holes here, our careers are pretty much finished if we dont go along.
Now, Ive had a great advisor and a good graduate school experience, have a couple of interviews at good teaching places (not my ideal situation, but meh). But I know, and I think everyone here knows, students who were mishandled, abused, ignored or generally just treated link a teenager and could do nothing about it.
In my situation, though, what is worst is knowing the guild-like rigid structure of academia, and how much my decision of where to take a job will influence the rest of my life. One bad decision, one wrong moved and you are screwed for life. Very few career paths are like this. Stayed a year too long at an adjunct position? Too bad, no one will hire you because "there must be something wrong with him if he hasnt gotten a TT job so far." Got a non academic job market for over a year? Too bad, you must not be serious about teaching. Took a job at a teaching school? Can't work at a r1 anymore, since youll probably be teaching a 4-4 load and will be lucky if you publish anything at "teaching sociology." Took a job at a r1 school? Can't go to a teaching school anymore, since it is obvious you dont care about teaching.
And in academia its not like you can start over (unless you go to grad school again in another area, but even then, good luck).
On the other hand, once you've made it, that is it, you can come to flip flops to school, only teach niche classes to a handful of students, and even plagiarize other people's work that the university will have to offer you a significant amount of money to get rid of you (this actually happened at a humanities dept. in my school: it was proven that the prof. plagiarized parts of his book, and to get rid of him the university had to buy him out by offering 3 years salary).
And the sad part: we all put up with it, and when we get tenure, most of us will become the same sort of jackasses, free loaders who pad their cvs with their students' work
Jeez, you had me until the cynical finish. I guess I'm an optimist. If you have gone through the process of being degraded by assholes, why would you, in turn, turn into one of the assholes?
I never sair I would. I said most of us would. After all, most of today's careerists, slave masters and people with god-complexes started out as perfectly reasonable grad students.
From an SC perspective this year, in response to various comments above:
You should have teaching experience (instructing your own class, (not just TA), provide course materials, have a statement about teaching, show some innovation in methods and content, and get strong student ratings, and if possible a teaching award. Also remind your letter-writers to mention your teaching; some go on endlessly about obscure details of your dissertation, but fail to mention (or too quickly summarize) your teaching experience.
Research publications are essential, and best if sole-authored, although later-authored is good if in a major journal. Show a research program, not just scattered topics-by-opportunity. Hide any weak publications or just never submit them; applicants can lose out if an SC reader discovers a flawed work. Don't present political rants as sociology.
Any SC has members with different goals and standards, so the finalist applicants are likely to be those who attract everyone to some degree and offend no one. Departments don't want to create new frictions or bring in a new faculty member who will already be disliked or pitied by other faculty. You the applicant can't control this political choice variable, although you can learn about each SC member and the department and college so that you don't make some fatal error.
The quality of applicants is very high and it's unlikely that most hiring departments will have made the absolutely best choice, if reviewed again in 5-10 years.
Perfect that job presentation! Rehearse, test your laptop, anticipate questions, draw connections to work of faculty in your audience, and be ready to discuss your next few research projects if stemming from the presentation project.
Does "diversity" make a difference? Yes, usually, because departments are pressured to fill race/gender categories. Universities report records kept on such background "diversity" to the feds and other inquiring sources. Other forms of diversity -- sexual orientation, religion, political viewpoint, social class -- might bring novel experiences into the classroom but are not subject to administrative pressures and are not reportable. Beware of stereotyping in diversity by assuming that someone who fits into a race/ethnicity/gender category necessarily suffered disadvantage that was overcome or has a divergent intellectual perspective that is valuable and novel for students.
The market IS really bad this year, but this has happened before in sociology. For ideas about how to adapt, look at other disciplines (humanities in particular), where scarcity of jobs has been their way of life for many decades.
what i find frustrating is that not all grad students have an equal opportunity to do those things that will help us get jobs. i think we all know that a strong record of teaching and research is important. but some advisers won't write papers with their students, and some departments don't let everyone who wants to teach do so.
if we all had the same chance to do those thing, i wouldn't mind so much being judged based on whether or not i did them.
I agree with 2:57. What- part of whether we would be a good colleague is if we kissed ass enough to the right people in the department who would get us publications?? I would think SCs would look a bit more at how much a candidate is able to just work on their own, even if it doesn't mean the same publication record. If they're worried that a candidate like that doesn't play well with others then they'll find out when they bring him/her in for an interview.
on the flip side, i do a lot of collaborative research (i like to think i'm not "kissing ass") and such research funded me through grad school and i never even had the chance to teach.
i wouldn't waste time applying for a teaching-focused position unless i was very serious about wanting to teach! please don't hold it against me that i haven't done it yet. if you invite me out and let me do a teaching demonstration, i promise i'll prove that i have thought a lot about how to be a good teacher, read "teaching sociology" regularly, and will do a good job. really!
"Does "diversity" make a difference? Yes, usually, because departments are pressured to fill race/gender categories."
Interesting how all of those "concerned" about racism and sexism are strangely quiet when the racism/sexism is aimed in a different direction. It's called being a hypocrite, in case you're not familiar with the concept. Once again, show of hands to all the white males with jobs this year. (crickets chirping)
i can't speak for other departments, but at my R1 we have 6 people on the market. of the 3 white males, one has received an offer. the two who have not went on the market ABD without publications. of the 3 women on the market, all have had interviews and 1 white female has an offer. all of them went on the market with multiple publications.
so if you want to run with those statistics, you could argue that males don't publish as much as females and that explains their lower interview rate. they do have the same rate of receiving offers as the women.
point being: don't draw conclusions on anecdotal evidence!
in order to know if there really is racial bias in hiring decisions, you'd need to know who was on the market, what their qualifications were, and where they applied. it would be fun to have such data, but i doubt we could get it.
that being said, several of those EEO cards i have received have been mailed from university affirmative action departments. i'm not sure if the mission of those departments is to try and increase minority hiring or to act as a watchdog against discrimination against minorities in hiring.
The evidence that an advantage is gained by being "diverse" is that departments are told to seek such applicants, that universities compete for such applicants, that universities offer higher salaries and other inducements to such applicants, that special positions (extra hires of opportunity) are created when such applicants become available, and that accreditation and federal agencies collect data and issue warnings based on the data in the background categories. These are simple facts. Whether it is wrong or racist is a matter of judgment.
perhaps we've found the reason for your lack of success:
the insistence in passing anecdotal evidence as "Fact" shows that you must surely suck as a sociologist.
If you were good at sociology, you'd still be trying to explain why females make up 64% (and growing) of PhD recipients in the discipline according the latest available data, but only 58% of all assistant professors in 2006. Or Why since 1993 females make up at least 50% of PhD recipients, but still only 46% of all faculty.
"you'd still be trying to explain why females make up 64% (and growing) of PhD recipients in the discipline"
This is super easy to explain. In fact, it underscores my point that males can't even get into sociology PhD programs as easily as "diverse" candidates, including females. If this stat were reversed, you'd be screaming about discrimination. Of course, discrimination only occurs when it is aimed towards non-whites and/or females, right? Remember your sociology: white males are evil and cannot face discrimination of any sort. Non-whites and females are oppressed and never act in ways that discriminate against others.
PS -- If you can't stand the rant, stay the hell out of the "rant" section. Or go cry to your adviser about the mean white guy whose hurting your feelings. I'm sure they'll give you a job or a sweet teaching gig to make up for the horrors and oppression that you have encountered by reading the opinion of someone with whom you do not agree (a white male oppressor, naturally).
You sexist pig. Perhaps THAT explains your lack of success. Being a bigoted sexist who scapegoats minorities and females because of your lack of success in the worst job market of the last decades.
By the way, rejections for PhD programs are also way down, so the idea that there is a large section of males kept out of grad school is simply false. Besides, if you are here it is probably because you got in a program alright, right?
Oh, but I am sure you would just prefer if everything was done in the "neutral" ways of legacy and alumni admissions and so on, right?
Fact is, if you are in your daily life anything that resembles your anonymous online persona, you must be repugnant enough that any SC would want to stay away from you.
I mean, if as a sociologist you cant even bother to look up ASA data before making a handful of bigoted statements, I can't even imagine how your research must be like.
But hey, if you are so certain of what your are saying, gather the data, write it up and publish it.
"I am sure you would just prefer if everything was done in the "neutral" ways of legacy and alumni admissions and so on, right?"
Nope, the answer to discrimination and bigotry is not more discrimination and bigotry. That's what got us where we are today. I'm sure a lot of people who spoke up for the civil and social rights of women and minorities were called all sorts of terrible things. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Voice an unpopular (ie, non PC) opinion and get crushed by the angry mob.
The answer is actually really simple: blind admissions. No names, no schools, no race or gender info. Just the quality of your work. Period. That's the way it works for publications, should be easy to do for admissions. But the reality is that blind admissions would not allow for the sort of diversity (aka special treatment -- as already documented in these posts) that is afforded to minorities and females. (How are females "diverse" when they outnumber male PhD candidates and comprise approx 50% of the population?) If the research of females and minorities was on par with me (as I believe it is) then why the special treatment? The special treatment is racist/sexist. Basically, the idea is that women and minorities are not good enough to compete on the open market and deserve special treatment and consideration because of it. The sexist (and racist) pigs are those who don't think women and minorities have what it takes to compete solely on the value of their work.
Finally, it's amazing how close minded you sociologists become when someone states an opinion with which you do not agree. I hope you don't do this to your students in the classroom.
"Finally, it's amazing how close minded you sociologists become when someone states an opinion with which you do not agree. I hope you don't do this to your students in the classroom."
Whether or not men are being kept from jobs they are the best candidates for because or gender or race is not a matter of opinion. If you can't distinguish between falsifiable statements and opinion, that right there is another indication of why you are doing so poor in the market.
Every single piece of data that I am aware of points to females and minorities being underrepresented when we compare degrees earned vs employment.
It is that simple: if men are being held back by diversity-crazed search committees, prove it. Provide evidence for it. There is ASA data out there, and even if not, this is a data set that is easy enough to assemble.
If you can't back it up with data, then there is only one name for this: bigotry.
You are making the job search a less pleasant experience for the rest of us (I didn't know it was possible to do that).
Yes, this is the venting board. But get over yourself. Clearly you are the only one that feels beaten down by the idea that a "diversity" candidate has stolen your job.
Stop posting so much and do something useful instead. You might actually get a job eventually and the rest of us wouldn't have to read so much of your S***.
the masquerade of sexist and racist beliefs as serious sociological analysis is scary, but little surprises me in this discipline anymore
the same racist and sexist beliefs that go on in the "outside world" are internalized and embraced by the oh-so "progressive" sociologists who argue that they are "fighting the good fight" by studying sociology
if you want to "fight the good fight" i suggest a civil rights organization, they do A HELL OF A LOT MORE to fight against racist, classist, and patriarchal arrangements and actually may achieve tangible results from time to time
in the white male owned and operated universities run by the Larry Summers of the world or even the 'white' women or men or women of color they appoint as figureheads who act/make decisions in the interests of white capitalist patriarchy, we find that the entire university is a white capitalist male club where they celebrate the dead white men of sociology while ignoring the work of others
(if you get a chance, the philadelphia negro study by WEB Dubois blows Durkheim's Suicide out of the water or simple stuff like James Coleman's Foundations of Social Theory)
the real bastards here are Nixon, Reagan and Bush. They have actively tried to destroy the public infrastructure here and it has culminated in the current economic crisis of capitalism.
Their modus operandi was incessant tax cuts and this undermined the university job system. The damn finally broke in 2008.
You can be sure ACTA is happy..a little "shock therapy" for liberal academia and if it goes their, a return to cab drivers with PhDs in english and sociology.
Take it easy on 8:08. I agree with him. It's not that females and people of color have an advantage over white males of superior ability. I don't think that is necessarily the case (although I do think females and people of color have more advantages once they enter in graduate school in terms of having a professor take her/him under her/his wing). What I think does happen is that if there are two candidates with equal ability and one is female or a person of color then that person will be hired over the white male. That's not me being a bigot, it's just the way it is. But you just can't say that does not happen in sociology hires. I know white males have a lot of other advantages that lead to a lot of marginalizing and discriminatory outcomes, but don't prance around saying there is no race/gender bias in hiring at all in TT sociology academic jobs.
run a regression, get something worthy of asterisks and you're a scientist
unlike those "soft" people who merely socialize and interview people in the field (hey, that's not real science!)
James Coleman...now there's a conservative guy who, when kerner commission grant money was blowing in his direction) suddenly was interested in the injustices of segregation. A scientist merely responding to the events his functionalist forefathers? Not really, as all of the (yes) RACIST white men were too busy supporting segregation with their simplistic white supremacist models of "race relations."
these people still exist in sociology, they just change their wardrobes and come up with new "sociological" ideas to support white supremacy
This is a good debate about whether there is racial and gender discrimination in hiring. Such frank exchanges can only happen in a forum where posters are encouraged to vent.
As an SC member, I can say that there's little if any gender preference in hiring. Women are now the majority in undergrads and graduate students, and every trend shows a feminization of sociology. WE could discuss what feminization has meant for other disciplines and occupations, but that would be a digression.
There is bias in favor of applicants from certain few ethnic backgrounds, although this preference varies by college, by discipline and by year. One factor that hasn't been discussed here is that there are large gender and ethnic differences by sociological subfield. Macro and quantitative subfields tend to be male-dominated, but men are relatively few in micro and qualitative fields. In your own departments, look who are the number crunchers and historical economists? And who are the sociologists of culture, the ethnographers.?(These are examples, not exhaustive). When demand in the discipline is for one type of work, then there will be disparity in which groups comprise the bulk of applicants and the top applicants.
the disparity will also reflect the fact that some subfields are overcrowded. with many members of certain categories essentially competing against one another, while other subfields are almost a ticket to a TT position.
The next logical question, then, would be whether hiring demands and needs are aimed at creating ethnic and racial disparities, or instead does the flow of ideas in the discipline determine which subfields become hot or cold? Student interest in certain topics and types of analysis is also a force here, when instructional need decides what subfields are sought by departments.
"but don't prance around saying there is no race/gender bias in hiring at all in TT sociology academic jobs."
this, and the direction of this bias, are all empirically verifiable questions.
It is quite probable that among equally qualified applicants they would choose the minority/female.
But even if that is true, there are numerous competing biases that might affect things differently.
Last paper I remember was a paper by Joya Misra et al, which argued that there was still a significant but declining bias against minorities and women in sociology academia, and that minorities and women would get hired more often for newly created positions (i.e., women studies, area studies, etc) while white males still made up the majority of the hiring in the core positions.
In any case, 8:08 is still a bigot. He has presented no evidence that there is such a bias, and, more importantly, he has no idea who was hired for the positions he applied to. I am willing to bet that in a significant number of those he lost out to other white males.
That he assumes that 1) less competent people were hired because of 2)race and gender is nothing other than the delusional comments of a closet racist.
But this should be something that is easy enough to prove, so that anyone that feels strongly about it should do so. The data is available. And if not, he can always wait until the results are officially announced and then go over the people hired one by one to see if they were less qualified than him.
that's why when jobs are advertised for specific sub-fields, they are sometimes designed to attract particular candidates
If ad says "Race and Ethnicity", then they are looking, on average, for African American (men or women)
If ad says, Stratification and Quant Methods, they assume it will attract white men and some women (will also accept exceptional Asians)
If ad says, Latin American Studies, then they are interested in getting Latino/a candidates
If ad says, Asian or Asian-American studies, they are interested in hiring Asian origin candidates
If ad says, Gender Studies, they are usually looking for white women
These are not hard-and-fast rules, but I think this estimation is correct. Some ads I have seen that target strat/mobility do not specify an anti-discrimination clause at the end while the Race/Ethnicity and Gender positions usually do. The ubiquity of "environmental sociology" offers this year is obviously related to the demand to know more about climate change and society.
Anger and Hostility won't get you anywhere in sociology. Idiots need their asses kissed and other political favors. Most of the "top sociologists" enjoy getting their asses kissed and that can help you in the job market somewhat. You need to keep in email contact with as many search chairs as possible. Flatter them by saying, "Oh Professor (X), you're paper/book on (X) was a really great contribution." Sociologists wet their panties when they hear people have read their research (work that even they admit has contributed to their own mental disorders). But remember, you can't get by just knowing people. There was legacy who got his/her first job at Madison, but when the Tenure/Reappt. hearing came up, the fact that they had only one article severely screwed their career. But not too bad since they ended up with a gig at one of the state schools in NJ. Get in good as buddies with a 'legacy' family and it will bring you on the path to a tenure job in no time flat.
Has anyone experienced subtle or overt sexual harassment on the market? There's a guy in our department who is rumored to have been a little too nice with a female candidate and a rumor in the department of an impending lawsuit.
i'm being targeted by the U.S. government: my mail is regularly open and i wonder if any of my packets have made it out to the schools, i was audited by the IRS last year, my emails take forever to and from, sometimes the emails arrive and the message is blanked out, my webpage gets hits from Lockheed servers (one in Colorado, one in Georgia) ...i guess some of the gov'ts bot searching has been outsourced
i hope this is not what's messing up my job search (i have an impeccable vita)
The post by 11:09 overestimates the importance of ingratiation (a more polite term) in hiring. The more that SC member A pushes for a candidate, the more opposition that favoritism will breed in other committee members. Some departments have an informal arrangement whereby each senior member can sponsor one favorite applicant to be junior faculty every few years.
Faculty do enjoy having a new colleague who shares their own research field and theoretical stance. In my view there's nothing wrong with trying to form a research or theory focus in one's department. You'd probably do that too if you were in a tenured position and sought compatible colleagues.
To all the ABDs out there: one of the factor that you are not getting interviews or jobs is that there are already enough people with PhDs in hand in the market. I went on the market as an ABD last year and got only one interview. This year I have had 4 phone interviews and three final interviews. I already have a job offer and am expecting another one this week. Remember, PhD in hand is very important in this market, so do not let the lack of response from search committees get you down. And do not obsess over this stuff, otherwise you will get IBS. Go out for a walk or for a run.
I agree with 12:44 on the point that ABDs are competing with people who earned the doctorate years previously. There is a blurring of the traditional lines between graduate school and TT faculty status. More grad students are publishing than was true in the past when your main goal was to finish that dissertation. And new PhDs are increasingly taking post-docs or temporary teaching positions building up that publication record, getting those strong teaching recommendations, and launching "one more into the breach" of job applications.
Nothing new about this blurring of student/faculty roles: it's been that way in the natural sciences for years, mainly through research postdocs between student and faculty statuses.
I'm not going to make any assumptions concerning whether departments are currently using racial or gender bias in their hiring practices. It might be interesting to note what the diversity of top programs looks like, though. I come from a top 20 program, and here is our faculty breakdown:
white males: 61.5% white females: 28.2% minority males: 7.7% minority females: 2.6%
And here is the breakdown of our students currently on the market:
white males: 13.3% white females: 66.7% minority males: 0% minority females: 20%
Now, obviously this can reflect bias in acceptance of grad students, too, so keep that in mind. It is worth noting, however, that were our faculty and candidate pool typical, our predominantly white male faculty would be quite likely to find a white female candidate that would fit the bill, just by sheer chance, no gender bias intended. I think what is interesting is the dramatic difference in percentage of minority females in our department compared to the percentage of minority female candidates in our department. How do others compare? It might give us a feel for what's out there.
Continuing the ABD thread...As an ABD on the market with no offers and trying to think about plan B. I will certainly apply for VAPs and hopefully I will get one; however, what if I am working as an adjunct next year? I've been told you start to look undesirable if you go too long without a tt job. Am I doomed? It seems like we can't get jobs because we're inexperienced, but then we very quickly go to damaged goods. How does one avoid this? Will search committees in the future take into account how bad this market has been and that some highly qualified candidates may end up doing adjunct work for a few years?
Anyone wanna talk about departments admitting too many graduate students? When I entered grad school in 2000, my program admitted 7 of 300 applicants. Last year they admitted 45 PhD students! Glad I graduated long ago...but still watch your starting salaries decline...
I understand that for one reason or another (too many applications, not enough staff) many if not most departments will not send rejection letters. However, I was lucky enough to get two campus interviews (not lucky enough to get the jobs, however), and neither job has contacted me to let me know I didn't get it. One interview was last year, and after suspecting that some one got the job, I e-mailed them and they were like, "Oh, yeah, the position has been filled." It was like I didn't even interview. Months later I got an automated e-mail from HR saying that my "application was carefully reviewed" and that "another qualified candidate has been selected." The other position has been listed on the wiki as having confirmed a hire. WTF? I fly out to campus for 2+ days, they take me out for lunches and dinners, smchooze me, and they can't even send me a fucking e-mail letting me know I didn't get the job? How unprofessional!
Yes, I do believe departments are admitting too many students into their Ph.D. programs, including my own. Lately, I've been avoiding the new ones like the plague because they still believe faculty when they tell them they're going to not just get a job, but get jobs at top departments. Ha! I'm glad I can have some humor to make this process easier! I'm afraid if I left alone with them, my harsh dose of reality might cause some of them to drop out of the program!
indeed. It seems many universities figured out that graduate students are cheap labor, and thus dont care about placement afterwards anymore: the more the merrier, so that the tenured faculty dont have to teach intro classes anymore, and dedicate themselves to what they do best: hitting on grad students, claiming second authorship for simply giving feedback on your work, and schmoozing with other big names at the major conferences, while their students stay at hostels and eat by themselves because no one introduces them to anyone.
don't worry...a lot of the cushy careerist bastards are in for a surprise
i am a member of a crack team of quantitative ABD's and junior faculty members who have a knack for finding problems in the research of some of the biggest names in the discipline
we are currently reviewing the scholarship of various Search Committee members and other "big shots" in the discipline
We have uncovered coding errors that produced stat sig results in two ASR studies written by big name org people. We are motivated by resentment and upset by corruption.
12:24, when I applied to grad school, a certain top-ranked school never let me know whether I was accepted or rejected. I emailed at the beginning of April to ask if I was on a waiting list, and they said they'd get back to me. They didn't. In May, after the process was over, I wrote a courteous letter telling them that I had put a lot of work and money into applying and thought they should know that I had never been notified of my status. Several weeks later they sent me a rejection letter. Someone else I know got three rejection letters from the same program. I think at large universities, there are too many layers of bureaucracy for courtesy to prevail.
Some posters are citing comparisons between ethnicity/gender of faculty and ethnicity/gender of grad students. Keep in mind that the faculty composition can reflect hiring conditions of as long as 40 years ago. It doesn't prove that racism/sexism continues if old faculty and new grad student stats don't match up.
You need to compare current hiring and current grad student or ABD stats to see if there's a consistent hiring bias against minorities and women.
You'd also have to take into account variation by subfield (are minorities and women disproportionately in less sought-after subfields?), and take into account productivity (are minorities and women less employable because less productive in publications and other professional activity?)
I cannot tell you how tired I am of hating life. Anxiously waiting for word, any word, from all my applications. Trying to write that beast the dissertation. And trying to stay sane amidst the rest of life's troubles and challenges. I'm just ready to be done with all of it. I'm sure we all are.
ooohhh....i like it! i have reviewed for at least 10 different journals, organized conference sessions, and served on awards committees for ASA. i'm considering applying at Borders for next year since i have no job.
if that works out, it would be totally fun to put that in my author bio for my forthcoming article. "John Doe received his PhD from X and is currently working in the Fiction section of Borders."
I don't get it. So many people with supposedly sterling credentials not getting interviews, despite a long honking list of jobs? What the heck is going on here? Is there really such a glut of good candidates that it is a buyers market?
It's certainly a buyer's market. Doctoral programs are producing far more PhDs than are needed to staff sociology courses. Why is there no better market?
Sociology is not surging in enrollment, necessitating a spate of new hires. The end of mandatory retirement laws has kept the professor large cohort from the 1960s and 1970s in their jobs, as has the downturn in retirement prospects with the economic collapse. Sociology is not particularly fundable and is almost invisible in the public arena. How many sociologists will be in Obama's cabinet? Compare to economists and political scientists.
that is a good point, and there is a circular process going on here. the more students a program admits, the more people they have to teach classes. hence they have fewer TT positions to offer at the same time that they produce more graduates looking for TT jobs.
at the same time, sociology is unique in that sociology PhDs have fewer non-academic options that most other fields. a friend of mine has a PhD in physics and teaches at an elite private high school with about the same advantages and benefits he would have at a university: research funds, tenure, etc. few high schools teach sociology. also, unless you specialize in quantitative methods or survey research, your private sector opportunities are slim.
having said that, i think there is also a parallel between how sociology doctoral programs have adapted to market changes and the american auto industry. as we keep hearing, the auto industry ended up in a big ole mess because they didn't adapt their product to changing market conditions. likewise, some (many?) sociology departments have also failed to update their training and mentoring models to fit with the current market reality. the senior professors are familiar with a very different job market than what we currently face. anyone else have an adviser assure them that getting a job without top-3 journal publications is possible? i thought so!
so what would i like to see? i think departments need to tell students from day one that the R1 TT job market is super-competitive, and you need to either devote yourself completely to getting published early and often or select a different career path. also, the market is equally competitive for selective liberal arts schools, so students who want a teaching-focused career need to likewise teach early and often. how many departments offer actual classes on teaching? some do, but all should. i think we as a profession need to value and encourage alternative career paths in the private sector. and i think we as candidates need to take responsibility for out own career choices. if you study something obscure without practical or policy implications, accept that your job possibilities are more limited than someone who selects a more applied sub-field.
I would add to that the fact that most older sociologists devalue non-academic sociologists completely, and even non-sociology academics.
In economics and political sciences, people are able to move between private sector and academia without being tainted. In fact, it enhances their perspectives significantly. In economics applied positions are valued and valuable, be them in banks, international organizations, or so on. In political science the same.
They see the usefulness of applied knowledge, private sector networks and so on.
In sociology, working in a private company, even when its applied sociology, does nothing for you. And if you stay there too long, no more academia for you, as private research, or any type of applied research is devalued tremendously.
"I think departments need to tell students from day one that the R1 TT job market is super-competitive, and you need to either devote yourself completely to getting published early and often or select a different career path."
Well...yes. The idea that you don't learn this early in graduate school is very foreign to me. This was drilled into us (practically) from day 1.
I was feeling the same way, but now that the one school that interviewed me hasn't gotten back to me yet (they said they would get back to me last week), I've resigned myself to not getting a job this year. And suddenly I'm making great progress on my dissertation and research! (ok, it might also be because the class I teach is now over apart from some grading....)
Three comments related to recent comments by others:
1. I think this idea of sociology not adapting to changing market conditions--like the auto industry--is on the money. It's interesting that during a time when the social and behavioral sciences are expanding, sociology is declining. Programs in public health that focus on social and behavioral sciences, criminal justice, i/o psych, public policy, you name it. All of these disciplines draw on sociology to some degree. I can't help but think that sociology has lost a great deal of talent to these other professionalized disciplines. We can speculate about why that might be--sociology is not professionalized enough, it is perceived by students as being irrelevant, not enough research is policy relevant, etc. I don't know.
2. Who is getting the jobs at the lower-tier and teaching colleges? It appears that there are many applicants from top programs, with pubs, dissertation fellowships, etc. that haven't gotten any offers (I consider myself as falling into this category.) Are there really so many such applicants on the market that people from top R1s are being interviewed by and taking jobs at colleges with a 4-4 teaching loads in buttfuck? I recently interviewed for and did not get a job at such a place. There are many reasons having due with my own faults for why that could be. But, I wondered whether the person I lost the job was similar to me on paper, or whether the job was given to someone who was perceived as a "better fit"--someone who did not want to do research and/or came from a lower-tier institution. I'm wondering whether there's some sorting going on such that say the top 20 percent of candidates are only being considered by the top 20percent of jobs (which many of us cannot get because it is too competitive) and then the other 80 percent of jobs are considering the other 80 percent of candidates?
3. The other day I was thinking about my department. I suddenly realized that while most in the discipline would recognize it as a top department, I really could only think of a handful of recent, good placements of Ph.D.s in academic jobs. In fact, even when thinking about specific hot shot senior faculty members, I was hard pressed to find many instances in which their students went on to similar jobs at similar institutions. I wonder whether any one who is in, say maybe a top 20 department, finds that the placement of Ph.D.s does not equate with the reputation of the department? Or maybe it's just an issue with the discipline in general rather than with any specific departments?
What's with the apparent entitlement some people from "top tier" departments are expressing? Maybe you're not getting jobs in "butfuck" because of your attitude (homophobic and elitist)! Re-read Sociological Imagination Lazarsfelds. If you cannot compete with the best, why piss on the rest?
Well, there's a reason. The students at Top 20 programs who did and published research were feed the idea that they were among the elite of the profession.
Unfortunately for them, the dissonance is now breaking up and they are realizing that their applications are being dropped like a bad habit because their teaching experience is nil and deans are now looking to "clean up" sociology (according to administration I know at two schools, a SLAC and mid-tier R1). The lackluster grant-getting performance and the inability of sociology majors to gain "real-world" experience has been a topic of interest at several recent conferences attended by Deans, Provosts, and University Presidents. So yes, the market (or job system) has changed, which means so must we. Some of you may try law school, accounting, or market research and truth be told you can often (with a Ph.D.) find six-figure salary jobs such that you would be making more than your department head pretty quickly.
6:04. I meant read the section on Lazarsfeld. By "Lazarsfelds," I was generalized to all careerist, souless and vacuous empiricists who have ruined sociology. I thought that was clear, but I guess not. Maybe one should read Lynd's Knowledge for What? too.
Writing your marital and family status on your CV is comment practice--in fact, required--in Europe. That some do it in the US might reflect either European origin, or being a Europeanist in their field.
all the snippy comments and blaming aside, i tried my very best through grad school and worked really hard and was unsuccessful in landing a job this year.
Me too 6:30. All the positions that I applied have past me by and the few that are left don't fit me all that well. It has taken me a couples of weeks to move past the stage of denial. And although the next year will be rough (financially!), I do feel strangely engerized.
Here's a question for folks: What do people think is the most useful journal? I'm defining useful as one with interesting, thought provoking articles. For me, I find Organization Studies to be most useful. It's not the top organization journal, but it's the most interesting.
i busted my ass for my dept., took on extra work for them, helped improve the infrastructure, published my ass off, and for WHAT? to be unemployed and told to change my perceptions when market realities are about to expose my family to the harsh realities of poverty and loss of health insurance, it's time to stand up to these tenured assholes who don't publish and sit in their offices and play fucking solitaire for a six figure salary
I can't help but wonder if the people who are shocked and disappointed at the inequity of working hard and not getting a job are folks who went straight through from BA to PhD and have no experience outside of academia? I worked for several years outside of academic before going back for my PhD. The two important rules I learned from (great) bosses are that 1) people suck and 2) never expect anything from working hard. Of course, these rules are somewhat tongue in cheek, but the bottom line is to be realistic and always look out for number one. I realize that this is not helpful for current situations, but please take these rules and use them for the future.
11:10 - interesting question. Since my area of research is inherently interdisciplinary, I tend to find interesting research is a very broad selection of journals - from the so-called 'big 3' to IMR to Social Networks.
As for the critiques of the big 3 journals - what actually is the beef? Is it just boring, or do you really think that what is published in ASR, AJS, and Social Forces is bad social science compared to other sociology journals (e.g., Social Problems) or other social science journals (e.g., APSR)? Some of the articles aren't interest to me at all, but 'for the most part' they publish 'good sociology'. No?
I am in urban sociology, so it may come as no surprise that i find City and Community to be a great journal. but even beyond my own substantive interests, i think that the journal is great because it publishes on a wide range of topics using a lot of different methods. for example, there was a great article in the most recent issue of gentrification and discourse about risks to children.
i also think Gary Allen Fine has done an amazing job making Social Psychology Quarterly of interest to people outside of social psych. I don't do social psych, but i often read articles in SPQ because they are just downright interesting.
I think that the "big three" (and to be fair, i don't subscribe to AJS so i am not a regular reader unless something comes up in a search i'm doing) do publish good sociology. obvio to get anything in one of those journals it has to be sound research. i just don't often read an article in one of those journals and think "ah! this could inform my work in these ways..."
the journals i really like are the ones that do that - then i read articles outside of my sub-field and can draw connections across the discipline.
I went 7 years between undergrad and grad school, and I agree that it gives you a different view of things. While I may not like some of the ways our business operates, I can say from experience that it is no different from any other business or industry.
In my previous life as a computer programmer, I was likewise competing for jobs against 200+ qualified applicants, expected to kiss up to people in positions of power, subject to the whims and egos of the bosses, and passed over for jobs in favor of other people who were more connected.
jeez, lot of arrogance on this thread. people prefacing their posts by noting that theyre from "top R1" and have several pubs in the "big 3" and other disgusting posturing.
heres my deal. im at a "top 60" program; ive published 3 articles, 1 second author in a garbage journal, 1 first author in a mid-teir journal, and 1 first author in a half-decent specialty journal. no sole-authored stuff. ive had 2 campus interviews, 3 phone interviews, 3 requests for more materials. im ABD and i do qualitative stuff.
so whatever your perceptions, im reasonably certain that the market isnt being clogged up with advanced assistants looking to move.
maybe your cover letters suck. maybe your research is boring. i dunno. nut up and apply to some community colleges instead of all this "ive wasted the last ten years of my life, waahhhhhhh!!" bullshit..
it's getting really old reading posts by people with jobs who come onto the VENTING thread to condescendingly chastise the unfortunate among us for being frustrated and distressed.
like that post, academia is full of assholes who make their careers about pretending not to be ...fucking stupid people go into sociology and the smart ones that get in just learn how to "talk the talk"
sociology? lol, heck i majored in it b/c it is easy and the professors treat you like a genius if you throw a few original observations about weber their way in a theory course
it is not that difficult to get ridiculous research published and "rise to the top" in this discipline, any trained observer who can use logic can go far in quant sociology (i will admit that good qual. sociology is harder to do and some of it is bullshit just the same)
12:17-- I'm also taken aback by folks who are shocked at their lack of success this year. My take was that many folks come into it with a sense of entitlement: "I worked my ass off, published, taught, and damnit, I deserve a tenure-track job." It's practically seen as a birth-right.
I've always interpreted entitled attitudes like this one as a vestige of class privilege. Folks from the working class or poverty class understand that you can work hard and still come up empty handed; no one is entitled to anything. Thus, I'd bet that we're not the ones on here complaining about the economy and the lousy job market-- we're the ones humbly scrounging around for tenure track jobs and devising back-up strategies in case we can't find one. Sure, we're scared like everyone else, but the anger on this site implies that something was unjustly taken away. And, to be frank, nothing was unjust because academia didn't owe any of us anything to begin with.
Don't be taken aback. This is academia, we will have to deal with these middle-class assholes for the rest of our careers (by virtue of the fact that we any type of graduate degrees). I might just go back to fixing cars in my brother's garage. Shitty work, yes. Long hours, yes. Middle class assholes, yes (but you can always make them pay more for stuff).
For those of you with newer infants, the WIC program is decent. They will write you checks for whatever formula you need or peanut butter or juicy juice. In the northeast, they weren't too too bad. Not sure how they are in other regions.
I'm sure you are right about class entitlement, but I do think that some of this entitlement is encouraged by graduate departments. I know that when I was choosing graduate schools, all I heard about at my school was what good jobs students got after they graduated. The idea that someone wouldn't get a tt job ANYWHERE(never mind an R1 position), was never suggested as even a possibility. Even as students get close to finishing, advisors never address the possibility that a student will "fail" in the job market.
I truely wish that the state of the Sociology job market was discussed a lot more honestly and openly in my department.
entitlement? I am sure there are some people who feel entitled, but let's be real here.
Most of us are closing in on at least being 30, some are older. We've all been working extremely long hours for a stipend that in most states puts you below the poverty line while either teaching the same classes or doing the research for people with complete job security and a 6 figure salary. Academia, more than other careers, is extremely volatile in the first few years. More importantly, academia is a place that pigeonholes people fairly quickly. 2 or 3 years in the wrong position, 2 or 3 years of difficulties due to family/personal reasons and you may be stuck forever as an adjunct/part timer.
Add to that the fact that the market has become increasingly competitive, and that this is just about the worst job market year in recent memory, and it is obvious that people are going to feel let down, abused, misled and so on. Most of us here remember when 1 or 2 decent publications were enough to get you a TT job, at a good place to boot.
So enough with this "working class hero" BS. Dont like the venting thread, dont come here. People apply to positions because they think they have a shot at it, and feel frustrated when they dont get it. Enough wiht this whole entitlement BS. Its a thread about venting regarding the job market. Dont come here telling me you are oh so glad and happy that, after 4-8 years of hard work and little pay, you have nothing to show for it.
I am glad you can take it all in stride and be happy. Some of us are frustrated, and it has nothing to do with entitlement, nothing to do with middle class, and everything to do with the disappointment that comes in a lousy job market and the desperation that comes with the realization that taking side jobs, adjunct positions and jobs outside academia might hurt our chances at a tt job forever.
What is next? Are you going to move to Flint or Detroit and lecture them too on middle class entitlement?
i'm not sure what people mean by feeling "entitled", but i'm pretty sure we all went to graduate school expecting to get jobs afterward. i mean, no one devotes 5+ years to something and writes a dissertation EXPECTING to not land a job! i don't feel like anything has been "unjustly taken away" from me, but i did work my ass off in graduate school with the explicit goal being to have a job afterward. so yes, it really does suck that it has not happened. i'm not looking blame anyone for that fact, but just to point out that it does suck.
having said that...i did attend one of those oft-maligned top-5 departments and i can assure you that my department was not populated by a bunch of wealthy, arrogant, entitled kids. we have a substantial bunch of folks who, like myself, grew up in poverty and have spent most of grad school accumulating student loan debt and living in shitty apartments with lots of roommates while surviving on cheap crappy food.
i think we have ever right to feel frustrated that we don't have jobs. i'm not saying the world owed me a job, but getting one was kinda the point of this whole endeavor. anyone who can shrug off not finding a job after graduating obviously has a lot more class privilege than i'll ever have.
No, middle-class people ARE assholes (for the most part) and I put up with them everyday, and you should be smart and middle-class enough not to use an absolute poverty line to define class.
What's happening here is for the first time in your life, your middle-class privilege is not working and you are frustrated. You can't believe it. Well, it sucks and I'm venting too because my hopes of improving my situation have failed thus far (even though I've published in decent journals ON MY OWN). I don't feel "entitled", I always know the rug could be pulled from under my feet. I'm happy just to have been allowed to go college and be a lazy paper-pusher (let's face it folks, this shit is EASY work). It is not hard labor, it is easy. And the bastard professors exploit you just as any boss would (but some of their liberal beliefs stop some of them from doing it too bad).
Not sure about your situation, but I don't have parents with money to send me, so it's off to the garage (if they will even have me) or off to the stinky unemployment line and living in my car with my kids. I've seen people do it, never personally tried it.
hi, 4.59 here. the point i was trying to make is that if youre at a top 10 department, youve published good work, and youve taught, and you havent even had a phone interview, its possible that something is wrong with your application (cover letter? reference letters?), and that you should look critically at what that might be. unless, of course, these people are only applying to the yales and harvards of the world.
Ummm... I grew up middle class, and I still have to support myself and my three kids. I definitely had privileges growing up--going to museums, parents who read to me, etc. But I still graduated from college over my head in loans. And I worked and saved money for years before returning to school. My parents have not given me a dime since I graduated. Don't buy into the middle class millionaire. People who can rely on their parents to support them through grad school or after are likely RICH. And few and far between. And if I want to VENT about how upset I am about my job prospects while on the VENTING thread, I will be.
i grew up with kind loving parents who had money. they offered to give me some but i was like "fuck you, bitches of the capitalist system!"
now i let my kids live in poverty and experience malnutrition the way kids should, just like my hero Marx. i'm totally stickin' it to those middle-class bastards. they'll be sorry they had the nerve to try and give me a comfortable life. bitches.
I got two fly-outs, which, in this job market is pretty awesome.
Job A was absolutely fantastic. Great city, great people, great university, perfect.
Job B was a nightmare. Horrible location, totally dysfunctional department, massive turnover. Everyone I talked to was clearly miserable and wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible...a member of the freaking SC actually said as much.
Job A was supposed to start contacting people late last week. I've heard nothing. I shot the SC a quick email to ask about status of search and he ignored said email.
I can only assume that this means I am not first pick and probably will not get the job since the market is so shitty and top candidate(s) are unlikely to have multiple offers.
I literally am losing my mind. I don't see how I can take Job B even if I am offered it and might actually opt for another year in grad school--but another year in grad school sounds like hell. I am getting older. I feel like I have been in graduate school forever. I am in massive amounts of debt.
I wanted Job A so much, that if I don't get it, I might never be able to hear the name of the university, or even the city where it is located, spoken again without suffering a wave of nausea. I know that this is insane.
I'm waiting to hear back after two fly-outs also and feeling your pain. I can't explain how upset I will be not to get an offer, but I know there are three of us for each position. I'm sorry one of your schools sucked so badly.
The only thing I can say is that both of my universities ended up taking longer than they expected to get the decision made and approved. Maybe University A is still deciding? (or there may still be a small chance someone would turn them down).
I am not looking forward to going through Christmas not having heard from either school.
The cross-venting about social class status is fascinating. As students and proto-professors you are in Marx's scheme part of the "lumpenproletariat." So in employment you take your lumps!
The choice isn't simply: tenure-track or off to the garage. There are temporary faculty jobs, post-docs, internships, research associate positions, and additional graduate programs.
Welcome to the world that has faced graduate students in the humanities for decades. If you're at an elite university, the humanities departments are probably as highly ranked as sociology. What do their students do after the PhD?
I hope that employment-frustrated sociology students at least spent those happy graduate years studying a topic they really care about, instead of chasing a trendy, boring topic and still losing out in the job crunch anyway.
Here’s my vent about privilege. I’ve had multiple offers. Several of my colleague’s are also on the market this year. Like most everyone on the market they are extremely frustrated and anxious for all the reasons that previous posters have mentioned. So here’s the story. A colleague of mine (let’s call him Joe Blow) who is also on the market, informed me that I received multiple offers for two reasons. “First, you’re a woman. Second, you’re very good looking.” Yes, you are a hard worker, Joe Blow rationalized, with publications, grants, etc., etc., but you are a pretty woman who grew up privileged (I’ll admit I’m cute (he he) but I did NOT grow up privileged). With my mouth hanging open in shock from his blatant sexism, Joe Blow, who claims to be a passionate champion of minority rights, equal opportunity, etc. etc., proceeds to tell me that he knows he is the most qualified candidate at the places where he interviewed, and that it is not FAIR that SC’s discriminate against him because he’s a WHITE MALE!
IMHO, it is rather absurd to rally against any individual for whatever advantage they may have been born with. If you think a system that gives advantages to some people is unfair, vent against the structural inequalities. Making the political personal just divides us all.
I am always a little taken aback by the "people discriminate against me because I'm a straight white male" claim, but it is not unique to our field. In my case, I interviewed for a great job and it went to an equally-qualified minority candidate (I was told this "off the record"). Why should I blame the person who got the job? I'm sure that s/he will do a great job and be an outstanding mentor. If I think the decision was unfair (which I don't), my gripe should be with the SC and not the candidate.
Finally, I think it is really interesting how many people feel the need to emphasize that they did not grow up "privileged". As if being born to parents who had a comfortable income and some wealth is a personal failing? It reminds me of those studies finding that everyone identifies as middle class.
That being a woman is some kind of huge advantage is bullshit. If you look at the people who have gotten jobs out of my program in the past several years, the MEN have been far more successful both in terms of just getting a job and in terms of "status," pay, etc..of those jobs. Moreover, if you compare the CVs of the male and female candidates that we both place and that we hire, the women tend to have much more impressive vitas (more pubs, pubs in better journals, etc..) than the men.
I've seen a lot of men come out of, and into, our program with little more to recommend them than some nebulous sense that they have "a lot of promise" and the enthusiastic backing of their well-connected (usually male) big-shot advisors. The women who come in and successfully place out, on the other hand, have to have REALLY distinguished themselves quite early on with actual (versus potential) published work and brilliant research.
Women in my program who have good, strong CVs (but not necessarily a huge list of 'outstanding' ASR-type pubs) keep getting passed over for jobs in favor of male candidates who haven't actually done much of anything yet, but who have nonetheless impressed influential members of the good ol' boys with careful mix of ass-kissing and overconfident bluster.
It seems that young women are often at a disadvantage because people worry how childbearing will affect their productivity. This can be true even for young women who never want to have children, and doesn't seem to apply to young men, even if they have a baby or one on the way. And good-looking people have all sorts of advantages regardless of gender. I don't know that an attractive woman has an advantage so much as an UNattractive one has a disadvantage.
Attractive women do get a lot of attention; although, it is often times negative and unwanted. Nonetheless, it is an advantage and I've seen many a woman work it. However, I think the last comment nailed it, being conventionally unattractive and female is a big disadvantage. Two well know professors (yes you would know them) in my department were actually overheard mocking a job candidate because she was overweight--she did not get the job. This is just one of countless examples of extremely bad behavior by well-known, established professors that are enabled by those around them. One of those same professors was accused of inappropriate (re: sexual harassment) behavior by multiple female gruaduate students in my department and the faculty, including the large number of feminist faculty, brushed it off as socially awkward behavior. What are we going to do about it? Are we not the future of Sociology (those of us with jobs anyway--I'm not one of the lucky ones at this point)? I hope those of you with jobs are going to try to change the way things work.
I recently told a prof. in my department that I had accepted a post-doc for next year. He responded by telling me that was a good idea because "a post-doc is a great time to have a baby!"
Struck me as very odd since I have never suggested to anyone that I was looking to have a child.
I can say that I read quite a few articles when I was dissertating which found exactly what the above posters have suggested. Being unattractive or overweight is much more of a liability for women in the labor market than for men. I think I probably get away with being unattractive because I am significantly older than most people coming out of grad school, but I too have heard professors (and grad students too) make unkind remarks about how a candidate looked.
It's disturbing to see how people are turning on each other... I know this is a place to vent, and I know that there are some applicants who strike us as offensive, but isn't the problem really the larger structure? This is a very, very bad job market, but it hasn't been good for years. Who is really doing anything about these profound inequalities in higher education? Why are we blaming each other?
"Only a woman could succeed in criticising feminism; and that only women now have the power to establish equality between the sexes. It is now incumbent upon women to rise up from their privileged position and repair the inequalities of men."
534 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 534 Newer› Newest»1:14 here. in all seriousness, i don't have a problem with departments looking to diversify. my comment was more a reflection of the fact that its too late in the process for me to improve my odds by starting new articles or getting more teaching experience. my apologies if i came off sounding racist - not my intent!
while i'm sure people are trying to be helpful, telling me that i might have more luck on the job market if i had more teaching, research, and service qualifications isn't particularly helpful/encouraging/new information.
Do anything of you think your extreme arrogance that is so obvious in this forum comes off in your letters/vitae/etc., and is thus off-putting to the various search committees that are obviously beneath most of you? I mean I've read so many insults of smaller or less prestigious schools on here, of the senior faculty at these schools, and so many insults about the non-top three journals, that I would think the entire discipline sucks except for the people on the market this year.
In all seriousness, I know many of you are frustrated about how bad the market is this year, but we are in the midst of a REALLY bad time in the economy, so it is just bad luck for you that this is the case. However, people on search committees do read this stuff, and I think many of you are looking childish and petulant because of some of the postings here. Go ahead and flame on me, but just my thoughts... I do wish ALL of you luck on the market, and hope you all get jobs, even if they are not all in the top three departments in the country, where ALL of you who have posted here OBVIOUSLY deserve to land.
SC Dude, I will work anywhere. I am all set up for the "R1" school, but I decided I'd rather be both a good researcher and teacher. I'm so afraid for my child and was made to feel like shit at thanksgiving for not being a good provider by my very patriarchal Italian-American family.
I don't really care about prestige like I was told to by my mentors when I started grad school. All I care about now is good sociology and there is a lot of it in the regional journals...the stuff in the "Top 3" is so damn boring and uninformative. If the stuff in the top journals was what I was first told sociology was about, there is no way I would have went to grad school for this discipline.
i have a line on my CV "places i'd be willing to work". of course the only thing written in that section is a citation to the latest department rankings. i try and include a few lines in my cover letter letting departments not on the top-ten prestige list that i'm only applying because i ran out of articles to publish at ASR. in fact, one of my current hobbies is to write a cover letter, print out a CV, makes copies of articles, collect student evaluations and syllabi, and tweak my research and teaching statements and then send all that stuff off to places i an too good to work at. it's so freakin' fun!!
i am finding it is now much simpler to start my cover letter by saying "i am better than you in every possible way, period" because then i can point out my superiority to all people everywhere instead of having to describe how i'm better than senior faculty, liberal arts faculty, other grad students, etc. this is really why i decided to take a few months out of my social life to get a phd - it's all about the super-high status and big bucks i get in this business. arrogant? hell yea, i'm arrogant. i'm a fucking sociologist, biatch!!!
and if you don't like it, stop reading the "i need to vent" thread.
or allow people going through a really stressful experience the right to occasionally blow off steam by ranting and cursing. repression = not the best mental health strategy.
sociologists of all people should know better than to make sweeping generalizations based on anonymous blog postings. oh, and my actual list of places i'd working is very, very, VERY long!
5:42, you are probably right... but the original poster has a point too. Also, I think it was a FUNDAMENTALLY social-psychological critique, as many reveal their "true" selves when protected by the cloak of anonymity. So if you are an a**, you may kiss up in front of people, and then "act a fool" on your blog... just saying...
6:04 - a valid point, i agree. there have been times i have read some posts and thought "i sure hope you don't get a job at my department!"
but its also worth reading back through and seeing how many people say they'll be happy with any job, they don't place a high value on status, they had a great experience at a non-prestigious interview.
6:15... you are right. It is a HORRIBLE time to be out on the market, so many of you have a perfect right to be REALLY frustrated and angry. It is unlikely that you were lied to by your advisors, nor deceived by your universities, but the market has changed over time, and this year it is particularly problematic for all but the VERY top few candidates. Thus it seems to you like you got bad advice, that the system is rigged, that search committees are full of washed up hacks who like fucking around with your emotions, and that ultimately everyone is out to get you. Thus you are feeling worried, enraged, scared, hurt, etc., and perhaps catharsis via anonymous group bitching helps.
However, I (4:24) was just pointing out that some of you seem to be devolving to the point of "Lord of the Flies" behavior, and quite frankly, it is scary for someone to think of you as a potential colleague. What happens if you get denied tenure? Are you going to gripe anonymously, or go bell-tower bat shit crazy on your colleagues? All of us have inner turmoil, but some of the shit on here seemed a bit beyond the pale. Plus, there are SOME people on here who CLEARLY believe that their "top-five pedigree" has EARNED them an R1 job.
Just FYI, I was lucky to get hired last year in a "lower tier" (i.e. Masters) university, and I couldn't be happier. I graduated with several pubs, loads of teaching, and GREAT letters from really respected people. And yes, I interviewed at several R1s, losing out to postdocs and advanced assistants willing to take a step back in their "status" to take a step up in the "rankings." So remember, you are not just competing with the other newly minted and not-quite-done Ph.Ds around you. At the end of the day, I am ELATED to be where I am, and I hope that all of you find places that make you as happy. GOOD LUCK!
I kinda like the tan idea.
I think it'd be cool if sociology followed the med school's system of matching people to residency's. Just google "National Resident Matching Program" for more info. All this drama is just a bunch of bullshit that does nothing but support inequality in the discipline. If the ASA had any balls (sorry for the sexist metaphor) and were *seriously* concerned about the discipline, they would be advocating a system like this.
I'd totally go for the medical student model! 6:38, if you are right then it does make me feel a little better to know that my lack of job market success is more to do with market conditions and the presence of candidates who are long past graduate school. I think I didn't really do anything wrong, as much as I didn't understand the nature of the market (and if it has changed that much, probably few of us did).
If I did not have children and a partner to consider, I would be fine with spending the next few years as a post-doc or a VAP while building my vitae. However, I can't ethically justify asking my partner to postpone his career for several more years. I take full responsibility for my false expectations, but I assumed that I'd get a job offer from at least one of the 40+ schools where I applied. It is really scary to realize I don't know what to do now...
Don't give up hope yet... it may seem like you are out of luck this year given how screwed up the economy is right now, and how many job searches have been cancelled/postponed/whatever the word du jour is. However, you are not, as there traditionally are more jobs announced after the holidays. And don't give up on the VAP/Postdoc route. It may be difficult to match up with spousal considerations, but it can be done.
It must be that there are (a) more now PhDs on the market, (b)current assistants on the market or (c) more canceled searches than are listed because last year there are more canceled searched on the wiki than this year and last year was considered a decent year to be on the market.
yeah dude, with children, very scary, health insurance, jesus, i don't know what to do either, and the more stress on the fact that the VAP positions will not be extremely competitive
I finally have something, a phone interview. can anyone tell me what to expect? how long it will be, what kinds of questions they'll ask, etc...
Re:7:55
I think that there were a lot of searches that were never advertised. I know at my school the cuts came down over the summer--along with a hiring freeze. We never advertised for the positions we previously thought we'd get.
Re: 10:41
Phone interviews vary a lot from school to school. There is a lot of information about them on the Chronicle of Higher Ed forums. You might want to check there for info/advice.
once you leave academia (say for just a year), boy you get rusty, no library access, journal subscriptions, colleagues to talk to...hey it's like an ethnography
10:41--You might ask the dept. for more information. My invitation for a phone interview was followed up with an email detailing who I'd be speaking with and what they'd likely ask.
It was a half an hour. Fifteen minutes were devoted to questions from them (what's your dissertation about; what are your next research plans; what's your philosophy about teaching; what would you want to/be able to teach at our school; why do you want to come to our school; what would you contribute to our dept.) and I was allowed 15 minutes to ask questions of them. Given that ratio, I'm guessing that I was evaluated in no small part on the questions I asked them, so you might want to prepare some good ones. I'm not going to make suggestions, as I didn't land a campus interview out of this!
I found the experience sort of difficult because I couldn't see their reactions and they couldn't see mine--I couldn't judge whether I had made my point or if I should keep on talking, for example. Obviously I couldn't nod in response to a comment, and saying "Mmm-hmmm" a lot felt awkward, but I thought I should indicate that I was listening intently...so having a strategy to compensate for the lack of nonverbals may help you.
Good luck!
So our advisors have sold us up the river with outdated job market information. These schools are under pressure from deans, parents, etc. to hire quality teachers and not just R1 paper pushers.
While I may not have job, I rejected the paper of someone who does from one of the top3, ha hha ha ha ha!
(in all serious it was a bad paper)
would the one school that interviewed me PLEASE let me know whether or not I got the job already, so that I can get on with my life! At this point I don't care if I get the job or not, I just want to know!!
someone i know was asked inappropriate things and brushed up against during an interview, what kind of legal action should she take?
brushed up against like in a sexual manner? holy crap...I don't know what kind of legal action she should take, but I would definitely write a letter to the chair of the department and/or (if it was the chair) the dean of the school, informing them of what happened. Also I personally would post his name here and publicly out him, although that could lead to slander/libel problems...
he offered to put her coat on and kind of brushed up against her backside for about 3 seconds as he put it on
it ruined the entire campus visit (which was half over by the time this happened)
sounds pretty innocuous to me.
kept hinting that he wanted to ask her out for drinks at a local establishment (and in an email too)
i think consulting with a lawyer before anything other action is the best in this case...but at the same time, couldn't a lawsuit have future repercussions for her career in the discipline?
I don't think she should (or can) make a case out of it, but I think she can (and should) pull out of the search and let the chair know why. I can't imagine she would want to work there now with a scumbag like that in the department.
Message to SC chairs: Are departments placing less emphasis on publications and more emphasis on teaching and service than in previous years?
Is this something that Deans are encouraging?
Are the factors used to pick candidates for short list, interview, etc. changing?
It seems as if the faculty in my dept. have been saying since 2003 to just publish lots of research and that we would be superstar candidates. I did this, and am not getting any interviews.
My
In my department we have not had a single conversation about teaching.
On publishing: there is no direct correspondence between where and how much one might publish and where one is employed. My R1 dept. has never hired anyone without any publications, but most people who submit applications have publications. Some have many.
Different departments have different needs and interests. There is no way for candidates to anticipate those in advance (though it can be helpful to have a good sense of the marketability of different subfields). IMO publications merely mean that you aren't immediately thrown out of the pile.
Beyond having a good CV it is departmental proclivities that rule the day (many of which are entirely reasonable). As a result, not getting an interview is also not much of a reflection on an individual candidate.
I'm sure gonna miss this blog. Its the only thing I have left, unless some more opportunities to apply to things open up. I read posts while at work because my motivation to do my job is sinking pretty fast. What is the point anymore, I mean really.
I have taught quite a bit and have had quite good evaluations. I consider myself a pretty great teacher (sorry if that sounds arrogant). However, I have not had any sniffs (besides one phone interview- which are really tough for me as someone who tries to just read off people when I ramble). So it is not the teaching thing. It is clear to me that I either need publications and/or a more attractive area of research.
I think more places want teaching and research, not b/c they value teaching that much, but b/c they don't want new hires to drown in teaching responsibilities instead of publishing. If you've already taught your own classes, you'll be able to hit the ground running and won't "waste time" having to prep. I've been out for a few years and in visiting positions, and I've had a couple of interviews this year, and that's definitely the impression I got. My current institution is hiring (we're very teaching-intensive), and we won't consider anyone who hasn't a) taught extensively and b) taught what we're looking for.
fucking piece of shit swine, fucking pig, oh you bastards! if the sociology pigs were gathering in san francisco, i think the insurgent sociologists should be represented as well, i'd like to burn the S.O.B. who didn't hire me
So, I'm wondering how many of us and for how long will try for academic jobs before deciding to do something else with our Ph.D.s? I mean, given that next year's market is likely to be bad due to schools cutting jobs, and given the apparently large numbers of qualified applicants who didn't get jobs this year, when does one give up trying to get an academic job? I, for one, would rather start a non-academic career in market or survey research or something similar(if I can even get such a job at this point!) than put my entire life on hold to spend several years in a VAP in the middle of nowwhere making grad student wages and hoping for some job that may never materialize or not materialize for two, three, or more years.
The bottom line is that we were lied to and sold a bill of goods about the viability of an academic job in sociology. Clearly, many of us come from top departments, have numerous solo authored publications in good journals, teaching experience, etc., yet nothing. I don't think it's just a bad job market this year -- the funding for this year's jobs was largely in place before the economic crisis. Next year, we'll really see the effect. So, we were lied to. I seriously and honestly wish I had gone to law school or B-school -- where being a white male might actually do me some good instead of ruin any chance I have at getting a job. So much for fighting the good fight. Fuck 'em all -- time to use my gender and race for my benefit for once, time to get paid.
i don't have any wise advice, but my gut feeling would be that if you are inclined towards a non-academic job, it would be better to start now. i worked at a non-profit research company a little bit during grad school and my Plan B has been to go back there. they extended me an open offer to come back this summer if i needed to.
just got a call today from them telling me that their funding agencies have been cutting back significantly and they don't have the funding to bring me back after all. so i'd say that we should assume that funding for non-academic research will also feel the economic crisis. when washington starts talking about finding ways to cut the fat from the federal budget, my guess is that spending $4 million to collect data on something is high on the list of things they define as "fat".
I'm telling you. I'm on an SC, and the process is filled with so much bullshit that you wouldn't believe. You aren't just competing with the other candidates, you are competing with the egos of folks who have accrued departmental power (whether they deserve it or not). It sucks. It sucks as a job candidate. And it sucks when you are on the other side, too.
Obviously, since you are the ones looking for a job, it sucks more for you.
Sorry. I don't know what else to say.
actually, thanks for sharing that last comment. it does suck for us more, but that comment reminds me that a lot of what really gets me down about being a sociologist is that our business is as politicized and capricious as any other.
i think we tend to expect things to operate differently because we're sociologist and we should know better. the reality is that the frustrations we're experiencing with the job market are exactly the same frustrations that most other folks experience in their fields.
having said that, i'm still on the verge of a nervous breakdown because i don't have a single job prospect and no source of income past May, 2009.
To the numerous posters on this blog who think that being “white” has held them back from a sociology job this year:
Get a life. I am a Woman of Color sociologist from a kick-ass school with *numerous* nationally recognized paper awards (think ASA, SSSP, and two others) and several prestigious fellowships (think Ford and Mellon). Don’t let me forget my publications: various single-authored articles in great sociology journals. And teaching?-Three courses that I designed and introduced to the curriculum of a well-regarded SLAC. Like many of you, I filed my dissertation in June. Like many of you, I have no job offers to date. Like many of you, I watch as the wiki lists the schools that I applied to schedule interviews, or worse, make offers.
To joke about getting a “very heavy spray-on tan” or to insinuate that “being a white male” ruins your chances at a job in the academy is just down right lame. What do you think? –That all of us “diversity” applicants are taking the positions that were intended for YOU?
Puh-leeze…Amazing, how when the going gets tough, race becomes the bogey of choice…
I hope that business school and/or law school works out for you.
i am as white as they come, and i have to agree with the last post. trust me, white folks, we're not getting passed over for jobs because there is rampant "racism" against white folks in this country.
8:01 -- Must be nice to qualify for and win all of those prestigious fellowships -- some of us can't apply for them at all because of our race or gender. I guess racism only works in one direction, huh?
8:01 -- I don't think anyone insinuated that jobs were being taken from ME. I was just always under the impression that equality meant that every candidate had an equal opportunity based on merit, not skin color or gender. I was on the admissions committee for my department a few years ago. This is a very prestigious, top 10 program. All applicants of color were placed in a separate pile and evaluated differently from all other candidates. Full ride "diversity" fellowships were offered to students with B-averages, while white candidates with incredible CVs were rejected. This practic3e was probably illegal, but, hey, this is sociology, right? Bottom line, if you're a "diversity" candidate you have a massive leg up over non "diverse" candidates -- that's a fact. Moreover, it's well established that most of those "diversity" fellowships go to middle-class students from middle and upper class backgrounds. It's not like top schools are taking kids off the streets and setting them up with fellowships. I'm a white male who grew up in government subsidized housing, my family was on welfare for years, etc. Believe me, I know a LOT more about poverty and hard living than most of the "diversity" candidates who are enjoying full rides in my department right now. Sorry to burst your bubble, 8:01, but racism does exists outside of the typical black-white paradigm. Of course, I'm sure *you* came from a really tough background, right?
wow this thread just took a disturbing turn...maybe in your school, white dude, crazy advantages are giving to people of color, but in my school the department is so white it's sickening, and the only people of color are coming from foreign countries. So in the end it all balances out, no?
Either way, it'll probably do you better to focus on improving your own CV then to blame minority students for your problems getting a job or a fellowship...maybe you just suck, cause I've gotten plenty of funding and had an interview, and I'm as white as they come.
Disturbing is right. The aggrieved white male has a flexible relationship with logic. You (9:18PM) were “under the impression that equality meant that every candidate had an equal opportunity based on merit, not skin color or gender.” Because you see otherwise, then you deem the conditions to be unjust. But, for those conditions to be unjust, the playing field would have had to have been level at the outset, including the time prior to the submission of an application. If one believes that to be true, then one could argue that certain candidates getting a “leg up” is indeed unjust, and maybe one could be bitter at the fact that the institutions around them are systemically discriminating against one group of people over another. Now, take a little time to think about this.
The faulty logic shows up in the suggestion that all (or, the majority of) non-white students admitted to his department are academically inferior AND middle-class. Even if that were somehow true, does it make sense to generalize that non-white candidates who are academically weak and from the middle-class are getting a “massive leg up” in other departments or even universities across the entire country? If one is going to make an argument about a subject loaded with “race”, then one should at least make it with the clarity and logic befitting a Ph.D. in sociology. I sincerely hope you don’t study race, class, and inequality.
When I was on a search committee, applicants who seemed to be non-white were put in a different pile and judged on a curve. Just sayin...
People of color have the added stress of knowing that a fellow sociologist (WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER) is deep down, a big fat racist who becomes a raving white supremacist when his (presumably) white racial privilege does not get him a job. Like Rev. Wright's caricature of Hillary, "...But I'm white, I'm white!!!"
Here'a few readings by Joe Feagin and colleagues that might help you: White Racism: The Basics; Racist America; or Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's (2003) Racism without Racists. Your white privilege gets you health insurance, property (housing), highly funded 'white' schools, freedom from daily police harassment, get out of jail free cards, epistemological authority, and the list can go on and on.
But it is true too, that poor whites may suffer from the blowback of white supremacy. E.g., welfare policy is designed using controlling images of black women such that when whites get into the system, they suffer from the horrors of a system designed to punish poor black women
the people responsible for racism are the RICH WHITE MEN who rule america and they will still rule america even with a mixed president. Rich white men and to a lesser extent women own and inherit the wealth from the toil of dark-skinned people the world over and they have been for four centuries and they will never concede anything unless they are held accountable.
The sick thing is that there are sociologists who study "race and ethnicity" may be making some of these comments.
"When I was on a search committee, applicants who seemed to be non-white were put in a different pile and judged on a curve. Just sayin..."
You're racist.
I will take you at your word that I am racist. But I know what the search committee did.
You know, this is the same crap that started popping up on the blog last year around the same time as now. I was on the market last year, and as a privileged white male, I argued that it was racist. Still feel the same way... amazing how many sociologists can perpetuate stereotypes and buy into outright racist rhetoric that is steeped in myth and (at best) half-truths.
Are there some "lesser qualified" candidates receiving jobs? YES. Are some of these "lesser qualified" candidates members of socially disadvantaged groups? YES. On an individual level, is this unfair? PROBABLY (though some of the advantages the "more qualified" candidates have accrued probably have something to do with social forces). Does this mean that the societal playing field has been leveled, or that the "disadvantaged" groups are now "advantaged?" NO! NO! NO!
I'm a white male. I grew up working-class. My father worked on an assembly line in a factory. Several of my family members are high school dropouts. I'm the "black sheep" in my family.
I'll be the first to admit that the color of my skin has given me priveledges in life and in academia, regardless of my social class. Wanting increased racial diversity in academia is an important issue worth working towards.
However, I've also always felt that no one seems to care the I'm working-class. Academia's (and really society's) definition of "diversity" solely in terms of race (and gender) is way too narrow. The worst part of it is that elite whites in academia believe that I'm one of them based on the color of my skin. In reality, I'm not one of them and I never will be one of them. Instead, I just pretend that I am while I plot the class war.
Moreover, some in academia seem to have devolved into a state of "political correctness" where working-class white people and their culture are the butt of jokes by the white elites who run the establishment. Do you drive a pick up truck instead of a Pryus hybrid? Do you shop at Wal-Mart instead of Target? What about Whole Foods? Do you watch Fox News instead of John Stewart or the Colbert Report? Well, you must just be ignorrant white trash! The real ignorrance, ironically, is espoused by the white, elite Ph.D. holders who have never been on both sides of the tracks to understand anything about people who are different from them that they can't read in a book.
All of this is to say, and I know this will sound strange coming from a sociologist, that I wish we could be a little less hung up on putting people into socially constructed groups. Is there some black or Hispanic grad student out there who's had a much harder time than me trying to make it in life? You better believe it, and I wouldn't claim to know what it's like for one second not to be white. At the same time, is there some white grad student from the upper crust of society who's had it a lot easier then me. You also better beleive that. The point is, people are diverse, and everyone has had different experiences. Some of them are related to their race or gender, some are related to their class, maybe some are related to difficult family situations, mental illnesses, etc. I don't know. The point is that no one person's struggles should be considered more or less important than anybody else's. Sometimes I just wish we could treat people as individuals. Then maybe we wouldn't lower ourselves to these types of group-against-group arguments. But I know that's not possible, because these group inequities really do exist.
"I'm a white male."
You're racist.
Those who are complaining about the unfairness of the job market assume that there is some unitary standard of worth that is being ignored by the market or reverse racists or whatever. I can't imagine where they got this idea, I seriously doubt that any of their advisers told them there was such a thing, even if they did tell them to publish. There is basically nothing in the entire corpus of sociological literature that would suggest that such a thing actually exists.
The certainty of these people that not only does such a thing exist, but that they are more worthy than others based on their place in this figment of their imagination is simply delusional.
i would suggest that anyone who feels this way probably reflects their complete lack of sociological understanding in their work and that, perhaps, search committees can see this in their work.
I know! How can anyone even consider that non-whites can be racist! What are you delusional? Only white males can be racists. Racism ONLY occurs at the white, male level. Those who are not white males do not have racial or gender biases of any sort. As sociologists, you should this. What's wrong with you people! Sheesh.
in a non-race related rant, my adviser just sat me down and basically said that if the one school that interviewed me offers me a job, I shouldn't take it cause I can get a job at a "better school" if I stay in grad school an extra year and apply again next year. Wtf am I supposed to do with that?
i got that EXACT same advice from my adviser last year!! i turned down the job and did not, in fact, get any better offer this year.
it comes down to what you want, but you should be realistic about your prospects for next year. i wish i had been.
i had a meeting today with a professor in my department and we were talking about the job market. he told me that when he's been on search committees, they don't even look at the cover letter, recommendations, writing samples. they go right to the "publications" section of the CV and see if a candidate meets the minimum standard. if so, they skim the other stuff.
the "minimum standard" varies by year but is generally MINIMUM 2-3 publications in some combination of top-10 journals. at least one should be sole authored. and the journal you publish in does matter. anything lower than the top-25 in terms of impact score is not going to count for anything.
i don't know if that is how it works everywhere, but that was what i was told about how it works here.
It was pretty much the same in my department too. I was on a campus interview recently and was amazed at how little the faculty knew about me. Aside from the fact that I'd published a few articles. I don't even think the SC really read my application thoroughly.
For a totally different perspective--I just got back from a campus interview at a teaching school and they could really have cared less about my research. A few mentioned my dissertation but that was about it. They wanted to know what kind of teacher I was, what classes I could teach, and if I would be a good person to work with.
You will call me.
You will.
Ring phone.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
If I have gained 20 lbs, not been able to get laid in who knows how fucking long because I'm too fucking tired, exhausted, miserable to even go out trolling for it because of this goddamn brilliant choice I made to get my fucking Ph.D., I am gonna lose my fucking shit come spring should I end up unemployed.
In Race and the Invisible Hand, when working class whites are not picked for jobs, they blame affirmative action. This is also the same charming technique that Jesse Helms used in his political ads (the "White Hands" ad). There are LOTS of factors that make a school decide on a good fit. My school hired a woman of color a few years back because the dean insisted on it. He wanted to add "diversity" (though she's not from an under-represented minority), but the main reason he wanted her was that she would enter at the assistant level and therefore be cheaper. I'm sure the "better qualified" candidates could have had the position if they'd take an assistant's salary.
Also, there are few fellowships that you cannot apply for if you are white. Both the Ford and the Mellon, the only two mentioned above, are open to everyone (though the Ford does give preference to under-represented groups).
this discussion does prompt me to ask...what is the motivation behind seeking a "diversity hire"? i think that's a valid question to ask, but i wonder if departments ask it. there are a few possible answers (and when i say "diversity hire", i'm pretty much just talking about the desire to hire someone of color, because that is the most common and visible type of "diversity").
1) make up for structural disadvantage: non-white people are at a disadvantage in this country generally so it is just to afford them an advantage whenever possible. this is what i call the "balance sheet" motivation
2) add a diverse perspective: non-white people see society differently than white people so having a non-white faculty member adds a new view on things. this assumes, of course, that race determines theoretical orientation.
3) enlighten students: this is based on the contact hypothesis; being exposed to a non-white professor can reduce or eliminate racial bias in white students because they interact with and respect a skilled professor of a different color
4) i don't have a fourth explanation. do you?
without getting in to the debate over whether considering race in hiring is a good or bad thing, i do think it is important to think about what motivates such decisions and also whether such motivations are consistent. for example, to an outside observer i am "structurally advantaged" by virtue of being white and heterosexual. the reality is that i spent most of my life in abject Appalachian poverty stealing food from the trash at school to eat and trading food stamps for gas money to get me to work.
i do not question for a minute that any person in this country who is not white is at a disadvantage when it comes to employment and wealth accumulation. i just wonder why the "race vs. class" argument is even still happening.
it is interesting to me to think about how much we depend on visible signs of disadvantage to classify "diversity", and what the actual goals are behind efforts to increase "diversity" within academia.
I think for schools with diverse student bodies it is especially important to have a range of races/ethnicities represented on the faculty; IMO, having an all-white department in terms of faculty when large proportions of the students are nonwhite is problematic.
533,000 jobs lost in November, Happy Holidays :-)
Diversity can only be attained through skin color. Diversity has nothing to do with life experience, background, habitus, or anything else. It's skin color and that's it. Skin color = diversity. Period. For those whites out there who think they are somehow out of the ordinary, sorry, you're just like every other white person on earth. Your experiences are exactly the same as all other white people on the planet. You all look, talk, think, and act exactly alike. And, as sociologists, we all know that white does not equal diverse under any circumstances. To view it any other way would be racist. And and sociologists, we all know that racism can NEVER be directed towards whites and that non whites are never racist or racially biased. Anyone who questions this is a racist. All white people are racists, too. Any questions?
I see most people are venting about the SC, but what about our own schools?
It is amazing to me the lack of reflexivity many professors at my school have.
How about the head of the graduate department, who works on network ties and labor markets, and yet refuses to talk to anyone about the students on the market this year? If you are lucky enough to be fully funded to go to the ASA, good luck finding ANY professor who will take the time to introduce you to anyone, let alone put in a good word for you if you are in the market. They might nod at you if you walk past them in the hallways, but that is it.
Not to mention the new draconian methods to enforce time to completion. After 5 years you wont even get a free printjob. This from someone who herself took 10 years to graduate.
And how about when you collect the data, get the books, do part of the analysis in stata and end up as a "thank you" in an article, as opposed to a co-author?
At least one of my professors here is open about the iniquities of it all: that an additional letter of recommendation from your advisor to that old friend of his who is on the search committee matters more than any publication, that school tend to do a tit for tat and hire people from schools who are likely to hire their students, and that networks trump everything.
All this and in the end I still have to listen to some jackasses who love "public sociology" and talking about labor relations and working conditions, even as they treat their students as absolute crap, a sweatshop of researchers who get none of the credits. How about a little private sociology as well?
don't forget the professors who claim third authorship on every paper written using their data, even if they don't even read the paper before it gets published.
or the ones who won't work a single network connection on your behalf but then tell you not to take a job because it is not prestigious enough and they want to be able to tell people that their student got a job at X.
did i leave out the professors who can't bother to reply to an email question after a week but get upset when you are a day late with a paper draft?
what about the adviser who asks you when you're scheduling your qualifying exams three months after you passed them, or the dissertation committee member who wants to know when you plan to defend your proposal six weeks after you defended it - and he was there for the defense!
god, i love them all.
heh, at least yours showed up for the defense. I had to defend mine twice because one of the professors forgot about it and never showed up, but wanted to see the presentation and give comments before aproving me.
Well, I'm feeling some relief that my advisor is not a jerk and my professors are not senile. There's something to be grateful for as I look toward next year's too-terrible-to contemplate job market.
10:34, drop a hint, i'd love to out the hypocrites of sociology. THERE ARE VERY MANY IN MY DEPT. They preach and preach about inequality while drawing six-figure salaries and exploiting (sometimes humping) their graduate students.
half the members of my committee for my master's thesis defense didn't even show up.
i wish we could out them...i really do...
Glad I am not the only one who is fed up with the bs that is "public sociology."
The sociology labor market is precisely the type of labor market that "public sociologists" would be rallying against if they werent so invested in it.
Let's see: a guild-like structure where those who are at the top are virtually untouchable and those at the bottom are extremely vulnerable, subject to abuse, and have to grovel at the feet of those at the top for any sort of breadcrumbs, because, as we can see from the fear of outing the a-holes here, our careers are pretty much finished if we dont go along.
Now, Ive had a great advisor and a good graduate school experience, have a couple of interviews at good teaching places (not my ideal situation, but meh). But I know, and I think everyone here knows, students who were mishandled, abused, ignored or generally just treated link a teenager and could do nothing about it.
In my situation, though, what is worst is knowing the guild-like rigid structure of academia, and how much my decision of where to take a job will influence the rest of my life. One bad decision, one wrong moved and you are screwed for life. Very few career paths are like this. Stayed a year too long at an adjunct position? Too bad, no one will hire you because "there must be something wrong with him if he hasnt gotten a TT job so far."
Got a non academic job market for over a year? Too bad, you must not be serious about teaching.
Took a job at a teaching school? Can't work at a r1 anymore, since youll probably be teaching a 4-4 load and will be lucky if you publish anything at "teaching sociology."
Took a job at a r1 school? Can't go to a teaching school anymore, since it is obvious you dont care about teaching.
And in academia its not like you can start over (unless you go to grad school again in another area, but even then, good luck).
On the other hand, once you've made it, that is it, you can come to flip flops to school, only teach niche classes to a handful of students, and even plagiarize other people's work that the university will have to offer you a significant amount of money to get rid of you (this actually happened at a humanities dept. in my school: it was proven that the prof. plagiarized parts of his book, and to get rid of him the university had to buy him out by offering 3 years salary).
And the sad part: we all put up with it, and when we get tenure, most of us will become the same sort of jackasses, free loaders who pad their cvs with their students' work
Jeez, you had me until the cynical finish. I guess I'm an optimist. If you have gone through the process of being degraded by assholes, why would you, in turn, turn into one of the assholes?
I never sair I would. I said most of us would. After all, most of today's careerists, slave masters and people with god-complexes started out as perfectly reasonable grad students.
From an SC perspective this year, in response to various comments above:
You should have teaching experience (instructing your own class, (not just TA), provide course materials, have a statement about teaching, show some innovation in methods and content, and get strong student ratings, and if possible a teaching award. Also remind your letter-writers to mention your teaching; some go on endlessly about obscure details of your dissertation, but fail to mention (or too quickly summarize) your teaching experience.
Research publications are essential, and best if sole-authored, although later-authored is good if in a major journal. Show a research program, not just scattered topics-by-opportunity. Hide any weak publications or just never submit them; applicants can lose out if an SC reader discovers a flawed work. Don't present political rants as sociology.
Any SC has members with different goals and standards, so the finalist applicants are likely to be those who attract everyone to some degree and offend no one. Departments don't want to create new frictions or bring in a new faculty member who will already be disliked or pitied by other faculty. You the applicant can't control this political choice variable, although you can learn about each SC member and the department and college so that you don't make some fatal error.
The quality of applicants is very high and it's unlikely that most hiring departments will have made the absolutely best choice, if reviewed again in 5-10 years.
Perfect that job presentation! Rehearse, test your laptop, anticipate questions, draw connections to work of faculty in your audience, and be ready to discuss your next few research projects if stemming from the presentation project.
Does "diversity" make a difference? Yes, usually, because departments are pressured to fill race/gender categories. Universities report records kept on such background "diversity" to the feds and other inquiring sources. Other forms of diversity -- sexual orientation, religion, political viewpoint, social class -- might bring novel experiences into the classroom but are not subject to administrative pressures and are not reportable. Beware of stereotyping in diversity by assuming that someone who fits into a race/ethnicity/gender category necessarily suffered disadvantage that was overcome or has a divergent intellectual perspective that is valuable and novel for students.
The market IS really bad this year, but this has happened before in sociology. For ideas about how to adapt, look at other disciplines (humanities in particular), where scarcity of jobs has been their way of life for many decades.
what i find frustrating is that not all grad students have an equal opportunity to do those things that will help us get jobs. i think we all know that a strong record of teaching and research is important. but some advisers won't write papers with their students, and some departments don't let everyone who wants to teach do so.
if we all had the same chance to do those thing, i wouldn't mind so much being judged based on whether or not i did them.
rising up agains the rich in chicago...get ready for a repeat of the 1930s and 1960s
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28084616/
I agree with 2:57. What- part of whether we would be a good colleague is if we kissed ass enough to the right people in the department who would get us publications?? I would think SCs would look a bit more at how much a candidate is able to just work on their own, even if it doesn't mean the same publication record. If they're worried that a candidate like that doesn't play well with others then they'll find out when they bring him/her in for an interview.
on the flip side, i do a lot of collaborative research (i like to think i'm not "kissing ass") and such research funded me through grad school and i never even had the chance to teach.
i wouldn't waste time applying for a teaching-focused position unless i was very serious about wanting to teach! please don't hold it against me that i haven't done it yet. if you invite me out and let me do a teaching demonstration, i promise i'll prove that i have thought a lot about how to be a good teacher, read "teaching sociology" regularly, and will do a good job. really!
"Does "diversity" make a difference? Yes, usually, because departments are pressured to fill race/gender categories."
Interesting how all of those "concerned" about racism and sexism are strangely quiet when the racism/sexism is aimed in a different direction. It's called being a hypocrite, in case you're not familiar with the concept. Once again, show of hands to all the white males with jobs this year. (crickets chirping)
9:35
Show of hands, ANYONE with a job this year. (Crickets)
I am white, and I am male. The idea that somehow white males are disadvantaged is simply ridiculous.
Show me one department, top 50 or otherwise, where the majority of professors are NOT white males.
Who would have thought that Jesse Helms would make a come back among sociology students.
Maybe it's just your CV...
i can't speak for other departments, but at my R1 we have 6 people on the market. of the 3 white males, one has received an offer. the two who have not went on the market ABD without publications. of the 3 women on the market, all have had interviews and 1 white female has an offer. all of them went on the market with multiple publications.
so if you want to run with those statistics, you could argue that males don't publish as much as females and that explains their lower interview rate. they do have the same rate of receiving offers as the women.
point being: don't draw conclusions on anecdotal evidence!
in order to know if there really is racial bias in hiring decisions, you'd need to know who was on the market, what their qualifications were, and where they applied. it would be fun to have such data, but i doubt we could get it.
that being said, several of those EEO cards i have received have been mailed from university affirmative action departments. i'm not sure if the mission of those departments is to try and increase minority hiring or to act as a watchdog against discrimination against minorities in hiring.
show of hands of anyone with a job offer...
me.
and yes, i'm white. sorry to burst your bubble.
joe feagin told me once that of all the a.a. academics he has known, they have all been wicked over-qualified
plus, he has a co-authored book coming to press soon on academic racism
I have a job offer, quite a good one, and I am white.
Are you white MALES? Didn't think so. Enjoy your job at the good old girl's network.
The evidence that an advantage is gained by being "diverse" is that departments are told to seek such applicants, that universities compete for such applicants, that universities offer higher salaries and other inducements to such applicants, that special positions (extra hires of opportunity) are created when such applicants become available, and that accreditation and federal agencies collect data and issue warnings based on the data in the background categories. These are simple facts. Whether it is wrong or racist is a matter of judgment.
4:24 and 4:48,
perhaps we've found the reason for your lack of success:
the insistence in passing anecdotal evidence as "Fact" shows that you must surely suck as a sociologist.
If you were good at sociology, you'd still be trying to explain why females make up 64% (and growing) of PhD recipients in the discipline according the latest available data, but only 58% of all assistant professors in 2006. Or Why since 1993 females make up at least 50% of PhD recipients, but still only 46% of all faculty.
Venting is one thing, bigotry is another.
5:48... I agree wholeheartedly!
Trying to use the rumor mill to prove or disprove a point is going to be a small N problem.
That being said, I'm a white male putting my signed contract in the mail tomorrow.
10:53 here -
I'm the white person with a job offer. Yes, I'm a dude. A white dude who landed a damn good job offer.
Because I'm white? Unlikely. Did the privileges associated with being white, male, and heterosexual increase my chances of success? For sure.
4:24 - are you REALLY claiming that there is a "good old girl's" network that keeps qualified men out of jobs? Seriously??
7:25 -- Out of jobs in sociology? Absolutely.
7:59,
and the evidence for that is what?
Females are less than 1/3 of full professors, are especially underrepresented in research universities. All this in sociology.
Or do you have a new and different dataset from the one collected by the ASA that supports your claims?
"you'd still be trying to explain why females make up 64% (and growing) of PhD recipients in the discipline"
This is super easy to explain. In fact, it underscores my point that males can't even get into sociology PhD programs as easily as "diverse" candidates, including females. If this stat were reversed, you'd be screaming about discrimination. Of course, discrimination only occurs when it is aimed towards non-whites and/or females, right? Remember your sociology: white males are evil and cannot face discrimination of any sort. Non-whites and females are oppressed and never act in ways that discriminate against others.
PS -- If you can't stand the rant, stay the hell out of the "rant" section. Or go cry to your adviser about the mean white guy whose hurting your feelings. I'm sure they'll give you a job or a sweet teaching gig to make up for the horrors and oppression that you have encountered by reading the opinion of someone with whom you do not agree (a white male oppressor, naturally).
8:08
I am male.
And by the way, a rant =/= bigotry.
You sexist pig. Perhaps THAT explains your lack of success. Being a bigoted sexist who scapegoats minorities and females because of your lack of success in the worst job market of the last decades.
By the way, rejections for PhD programs are also way down, so the idea that there is a large section of males kept out of grad school is simply false. Besides, if you are here it is probably because you got in a program alright, right?
Oh, but I am sure you would just prefer if everything was done in the "neutral" ways of legacy and alumni admissions and so on, right?
Fact is, if you are in your daily life anything that resembles your anonymous online persona, you must be repugnant enough that any SC would want to stay away from you.
I mean, if as a sociologist you cant even bother to look up ASA data before making a handful of bigoted statements, I can't even imagine how your research must be like.
But hey, if you are so certain of what your are saying, gather the data, write it up and publish it.
"I am sure you would just prefer if everything was done in the "neutral" ways of legacy and alumni admissions and so on, right?"
Nope, the answer to discrimination and bigotry is not more discrimination and bigotry. That's what got us where we are today. I'm sure a lot of people who spoke up for the civil and social rights of women and minorities were called all sorts of terrible things. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Voice an unpopular (ie, non PC) opinion and get crushed by the angry mob.
The answer is actually really simple: blind admissions. No names, no schools, no race or gender info. Just the quality of your work. Period. That's the way it works for publications, should be easy to do for admissions. But the reality is that blind admissions would not allow for the sort of diversity (aka special treatment -- as already documented in these posts) that is afforded to minorities and females. (How are females "diverse" when they outnumber male PhD candidates and comprise approx 50% of the population?) If the research of females and minorities was on par with me (as I believe it is) then why the special treatment? The special treatment is racist/sexist. Basically, the idea is that women and minorities are not good enough to compete on the open market and deserve special treatment and consideration because of it. The sexist (and racist) pigs are those who don't think women and minorities have what it takes to compete solely on the value of their work.
Finally, it's amazing how close minded you sociologists become when someone states an opinion with which you do not agree. I hope you don't do this to your students in the classroom.
"Finally, it's amazing how close minded you sociologists become when someone states an opinion with which you do not agree. I hope you don't do this to your students in the classroom."
Whether or not men are being kept from jobs they are the best candidates for because or gender or race is not a matter of opinion. If you can't distinguish between falsifiable statements and opinion, that right there is another indication of why you are doing so poor in the market.
Every single piece of data that I am aware of points to females and minorities being underrepresented when we compare degrees earned vs employment.
It is that simple: if men are being held back by diversity-crazed search committees, prove it. Provide evidence for it. There is ASA data out there, and even if not, this is a data set that is easy enough to assemble.
If you can't back it up with data, then there is only one name for this: bigotry.
Re: 8:08
You are making the job search a less pleasant experience for the rest of us (I didn't know it was possible to do that).
Yes, this is the venting board. But get over yourself. Clearly you are the only one that feels beaten down by the idea that a "diversity" candidate has stolen your job.
Stop posting so much and do something useful instead. You might actually get a job eventually and the rest of us wouldn't have to read so much of your S***.
the masquerade of sexist and racist beliefs as serious sociological analysis is scary, but little surprises me in this discipline anymore
the same racist and sexist beliefs that go on in the "outside world" are internalized and embraced by the oh-so "progressive" sociologists who argue that they are "fighting the good fight" by studying sociology
if you want to "fight the good fight" i suggest a civil rights organization, they do A HELL OF A LOT MORE to fight against racist, classist, and patriarchal arrangements and actually may achieve tangible results from time to time
in the white male owned and operated universities run by the Larry Summers of the world or even the 'white' women or men or women of color they appoint as figureheads who act/make decisions in the interests of white capitalist patriarchy, we find that the entire university is a white capitalist male club where they celebrate the dead white men of sociology while ignoring the work of others
(if you get a chance, the philadelphia negro study by WEB Dubois blows Durkheim's Suicide out of the water or simple stuff like James Coleman's Foundations of Social Theory)
Well, I feel better now that we have reestablished the white male patriarchy. I hope all of you white men enjoy your jobs.
the real bastards here are Nixon, Reagan and Bush. They have actively tried to destroy the public infrastructure here and it has culminated in the current economic crisis of capitalism.
Their modus operandi was incessant tax cuts and this undermined the university job system. The damn finally broke in 2008.
You can be sure ACTA is happy..a little "shock therapy" for liberal academia and if it goes their, a return to cab drivers with PhDs in english and sociology.
Take it easy on 8:08. I agree with him. It's not that females and people of color have an advantage over white males of superior ability. I don't think that is necessarily the case (although I do think females and people of color have more advantages once they enter in graduate school in terms of having a professor take her/him under her/his wing). What I think does happen is that if there are two candidates with equal ability and one is female or a person of color then that person will be hired over the white male. That's not me being a bigot, it's just the way it is. But you just can't say that does not happen in sociology hires. I know white males have a lot of other advantages that lead to a lot of marginalizing and discriminatory outcomes, but don't prance around saying there is no race/gender bias in hiring at all in TT sociology academic jobs.
the white male subculture in sociology..ah yes
run a regression, get something worthy of asterisks and you're a scientist
unlike those "soft" people who merely socialize and interview people in the field (hey, that's not real science!)
James Coleman...now there's a conservative guy who, when kerner commission grant money was blowing in his direction) suddenly was interested in the injustices of segregation. A scientist merely responding to the events his functionalist forefathers? Not really, as all of the (yes) RACIST white men were too busy supporting segregation with their simplistic white supremacist models of "race relations."
these people still exist in sociology, they just change their wardrobes and come up with new "sociological" ideas to support white supremacy
This is a good debate about whether there is racial and gender discrimination in hiring. Such frank exchanges can only happen in a forum where posters are encouraged to vent.
As an SC member, I can say that there's little if any gender preference in hiring. Women are now the majority in undergrads and graduate students, and every trend shows a feminization of sociology. WE could discuss what feminization has meant for other disciplines and occupations, but that would be a digression.
There is bias in favor of applicants from certain few ethnic backgrounds, although this preference varies by college, by discipline and by year. One factor that hasn't been discussed here is that there are large gender and ethnic differences by sociological subfield. Macro and quantitative subfields tend to be male-dominated, but men are relatively few in micro and qualitative fields. In your own departments, look who are the number crunchers and historical economists? And who are the sociologists of culture, the ethnographers.?(These are examples, not exhaustive). When demand in the discipline is for one type of work, then there will be disparity in which groups comprise the bulk of applicants and the top applicants.
the disparity will also reflect the fact that some subfields are overcrowded. with many members of certain categories essentially competing against one another, while other subfields are almost a ticket to a TT position.
The next logical question, then, would be whether hiring demands and needs are aimed at creating ethnic and racial disparities, or instead does the flow of ideas in the discipline determine which subfields become hot or cold? Student interest in certain topics and types of analysis is also a force here, when instructional need decides what subfields are sought by departments.
"but don't prance around saying there is no race/gender bias in hiring at all in TT sociology academic jobs."
this, and the direction of this bias, are all empirically verifiable questions.
It is quite probable that among equally qualified applicants they would choose the minority/female.
But even if that is true, there are numerous competing biases that might affect things differently.
Last paper I remember was a paper by Joya Misra et al, which argued that there was still a significant but declining bias against minorities and women in sociology academia, and that minorities and women would get hired more often for newly created positions (i.e., women studies, area studies, etc) while white males still made up the majority of the hiring in the core positions.
In any case, 8:08 is still a bigot. He has presented no evidence that there is such a bias, and, more importantly, he has no idea who was hired for the positions he applied to. I am willing to bet that in a significant number of those he lost out to other white males.
That he assumes that 1) less competent people were hired because of 2)race and gender is nothing other than the delusional comments of a closet racist.
But this should be something that is easy enough to prove, so that anyone that feels strongly about it should do so. The data is available. And if not, he can always wait until the results are officially announced and then go over the people hired one by one to see if they were less qualified than him.
that's why when jobs are advertised for specific sub-fields, they are sometimes designed to attract particular candidates
If ad says "Race and Ethnicity", then they are looking, on average, for African American (men or women)
If ad says, Stratification and Quant Methods, they assume it will attract white men and some women (will also accept exceptional Asians)
If ad says, Latin American Studies, then they are interested in getting Latino/a candidates
If ad says, Asian or Asian-American studies, they are interested in hiring Asian origin candidates
If ad says, Gender Studies, they are usually looking for white women
These are not hard-and-fast rules, but I think this estimation is correct. Some ads I have seen that target strat/mobility do not specify an anti-discrimination clause at the end while the Race/Ethnicity and Gender positions usually do. The ubiquity of "environmental sociology" offers this year is obviously related to the demand to know more about climate change and society.
307 hits on the venting section, its a shitty situation!
Anger and Hostility won't get you anywhere in sociology. Idiots need their asses kissed and other political favors. Most of the "top sociologists" enjoy getting their asses kissed and that can help you in the job market somewhat. You need to keep in email contact with as many search chairs as possible. Flatter them by saying, "Oh Professor (X), you're paper/book on (X) was a really great contribution." Sociologists wet their panties when they hear people have read their research (work that even they admit has contributed to their own mental disorders). But remember, you can't get by just knowing people. There was legacy who got his/her first job at Madison, but when the Tenure/Reappt. hearing came up, the fact that they had only one article severely screwed their career. But not too bad since they ended up with a gig at one of the state schools in NJ. Get in good as buddies with a 'legacy' family and it will bring you on the path to a tenure job in no time flat.
maybe he/she made it to a school in new england on huntington ave.
Has anyone experienced subtle or overt sexual harassment on the market? There's a guy in our department who is rumored to have been a little too nice with a female candidate and a rumor in the department of an impending lawsuit.
11:09
Well, I am on a search and I can tell you that nothing would be more annoying to me than candidates bugging me with email flotsam.
i'm being targeted by the U.S. government: my mail is regularly open and i wonder if any of my packets have made it out to the schools, i was audited by the IRS last year, my emails take forever to and from, sometimes the emails arrive and the message is blanked out, my webpage gets hits from Lockheed servers (one in Colorado, one in Georgia) ...i guess some of the gov'ts bot searching has been outsourced
i hope this is not what's messing up my job search (i have an impeccable vita)
i haven't flown in a few years, i wonder if i am on the no-fly list? in know several people who are on it
The post by 11:09 overestimates the importance of ingratiation (a more polite term) in hiring. The more that SC member A pushes for a candidate, the more opposition that favoritism will breed in other committee members. Some departments have an informal arrangement whereby each senior member can sponsor one favorite applicant to be junior faculty every few years.
Faculty do enjoy having a new colleague who shares their own research field and theoretical stance. In my view there's nothing wrong with trying to form a research or theory focus in one's department. You'd probably do that too if you were in a tenured position and sought compatible colleagues.
To all the ABDs out there: one of the factor that you are not getting interviews or jobs is that there are already enough people with PhDs in hand in the market. I went on the market as an ABD last year and got only one interview. This year I have had 4 phone interviews and three final interviews. I already have a job offer and am expecting another one this week. Remember, PhD in hand is very important in this market, so do not let the lack of response from search committees get you down. And do not obsess over this stuff, otherwise you will get IBS. Go out for a walk or for a run.
Re: 12:44
"And do not obsess over this stuff, otherwise you will get IBS."
IBS?? Anyone?
I agree with 12:44 on the point that ABDs are competing with people who earned the doctorate years previously.
There is a blurring of the traditional lines between graduate school and TT faculty status. More grad students are publishing than was true in the past when your main goal was to finish that dissertation. And new PhDs are increasingly taking post-docs or temporary teaching positions building up that publication record, getting those strong teaching recommendations, and launching "one more into the breach" of job applications.
Nothing new about this blurring of student/faculty roles: it's been that way in the natural sciences for years, mainly through research postdocs between student and faculty statuses.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Except stress doesn't cause IBS, though it can make it worse.
I'm not going to make any assumptions concerning whether departments are currently using racial or gender bias in their hiring practices. It might be interesting to note what the diversity of top programs looks like, though. I come from a top 20 program, and here is our faculty breakdown:
white males: 61.5%
white females: 28.2%
minority males: 7.7%
minority females: 2.6%
And here is the breakdown of our students currently on the market:
white males: 13.3%
white females: 66.7%
minority males: 0%
minority females: 20%
Now, obviously this can reflect bias in acceptance of grad students, too, so keep that in mind. It is worth noting, however, that were our faculty and candidate pool typical, our predominantly white male faculty would be quite likely to find a white female candidate that would fit the bill, just by sheer chance, no gender bias intended. I think what is interesting is the dramatic difference in percentage of minority females in our department compared to the percentage of minority female candidates in our department. How do others compare? It might give us a feel for what's out there.
Continuing the ABD thread...As an ABD on the market with no offers and trying to think about plan B. I will certainly apply for VAPs and hopefully I will get one; however, what if I am working as an adjunct next year? I've been told you start to look undesirable if you go too long without a tt job. Am I doomed? It seems like we can't get jobs because we're inexperienced, but then we very quickly go to damaged goods. How does one avoid this? Will search committees in the future take into account how bad this market has been and that some highly qualified candidates may end up doing adjunct work for a few years?
Anyone wanna talk about departments admitting too many graduate students? When I entered grad school in 2000, my program admitted 7 of 300 applicants. Last year they admitted 45 PhD students! Glad I graduated long ago...but still watch your starting salaries decline...
these dipshit sociologists don't know anything about how job systems operate, there is no "market" you are not a carton of eggs
I understand that for one reason or another (too many applications, not enough staff) many if not most departments will not send rejection letters. However, I was lucky enough to get two campus interviews (not lucky enough to get the jobs, however), and neither job has contacted me to let me know I didn't get it. One interview was last year, and after suspecting that some one got the job, I e-mailed them and they were like, "Oh, yeah, the position has been filled." It was like I didn't even interview. Months later I got an automated e-mail from HR saying that my "application was carefully reviewed" and that "another qualified candidate has been selected." The other position has been listed on the wiki as having confirmed a hire. WTF? I fly out to campus for 2+ days, they take me out for lunches and dinners, smchooze me, and they can't even send me a fucking e-mail letting me know I didn't get the job? How unprofessional!
To follow up on 5:36
Yes, I do believe departments are admitting too many students into their Ph.D. programs, including my own. Lately, I've been avoiding the new ones like the plague because they still believe faculty when they tell them they're going to not just get a job, but get jobs at top departments. Ha! I'm glad I can have some humor to make this process easier! I'm afraid if I left alone with them, my harsh dose of reality might cause some of them to drop out of the program!
indeed. It seems many universities figured out that graduate students are cheap labor, and thus dont care about placement afterwards anymore: the more the merrier, so that the tenured faculty dont have to teach intro classes anymore, and dedicate themselves to what they do best: hitting on grad students, claiming second authorship for simply giving feedback on your work, and schmoozing with other big names at the major conferences, while their students stay at hostels and eat by themselves because no one introduces them to anyone.
don't worry...a lot of the cushy careerist bastards are in for a surprise
i am a member of a crack team of quantitative ABD's and junior faculty members who have a knack for finding problems in the research of some of the biggest names in the discipline
we are currently reviewing the scholarship of various Search Committee members and other "big shots" in the discipline
We have uncovered coding errors that produced stat sig results in two ASR studies written by big name org people. We are motivated by resentment and upset by corruption.
12:24, when I applied to grad school, a certain top-ranked school never let me know whether I was accepted or rejected. I emailed at the beginning of April to ask if I was on a waiting list, and they said they'd get back to me. They didn't. In May, after the process was over, I wrote a courteous letter telling them that I had put a lot of work and money into applying and thought they should know that I had never been notified of my status. Several weeks later they sent me a rejection letter.
Someone else I know got three rejection letters from the same program. I think at large universities, there are too many layers of bureaucracy for courtesy to prevail.
3:21 -- what's your PayPal account name? I'm ready to contribute
Some posters are citing comparisons between ethnicity/gender of faculty and ethnicity/gender of grad students. Keep in mind that the faculty composition can reflect hiring conditions of as long as 40 years ago. It doesn't prove that racism/sexism continues if old faculty and new grad student stats don't match up.
You need to compare current hiring and current grad student or ABD stats to see if there's a consistent hiring bias against minorities and women.
You'd also have to take into account variation by subfield (are minorities and women disproportionately in less sought-after subfields?), and take into account productivity (are minorities and women less employable because less productive in publications and other professional activity?)
why go into sociology when this exists...i'd rather get wasted and go to testament concerts like this (not all metal is white guys)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kuR9GjnuAc
i'm abd, good cv, can't find job, but i also reviewed for asr
if i end up working at wal-mart next year, you could wind up having your ASR submission peer reviewed by a Wal-Mart employee!
I cannot tell you how tired I am of hating life. Anxiously waiting for word, any word, from all my applications. Trying to write that beast the dissertation. And trying to stay sane amidst the rest of life's troubles and challenges. I'm just ready to be done with all of it. I'm sure we all are.
ooohhh....i like it! i have reviewed for at least 10 different journals, organized conference sessions, and served on awards committees for ASA. i'm considering applying at Borders for next year since i have no job.
if that works out, it would be totally fun to put that in my author bio for my forthcoming article. "John Doe received his PhD from X and is currently working in the Fiction section of Borders."
I don't get it. So many people with supposedly sterling credentials not getting interviews, despite a long honking list of jobs? What the heck is going on here? Is there really such a glut of good candidates that it is a buyers market?
There is a long list of jobs - easily 200 positions.
There are also 600+ new PhDs and all the post-docs, VAPs, and assistant profs. looking for a change. I think it is a buyer's market out there.
It's certainly a buyer's market. Doctoral programs are producing far more PhDs than are needed to staff sociology courses. Why is there no better market?
Sociology is not surging in enrollment, necessitating a spate of new hires. The end of mandatory retirement laws has kept the professor large cohort from the 1960s and 1970s in their jobs, as has the downturn in retirement prospects with the economic collapse. Sociology is not particularly fundable and is almost invisible in the public arena. How many sociologists will be in Obama's cabinet? Compare to economists and political scientists.
Time for another sociology of sociology?
that is a good point, and there is a circular process going on here. the more students a program admits, the more people they have to teach classes. hence they have fewer TT positions to offer at the same time that they produce more graduates looking for TT jobs.
at the same time, sociology is unique in that sociology PhDs have fewer non-academic options that most other fields. a friend of mine has a PhD in physics and teaches at an elite private high school with about the same advantages and benefits he would have at a university: research funds, tenure, etc. few high schools teach sociology. also, unless you specialize in quantitative methods or survey research, your private sector opportunities are slim.
having said that, i think there is also a parallel between how sociology doctoral programs have adapted to market changes and the american auto industry. as we keep hearing, the auto industry ended up in a big ole mess because they didn't adapt their product to changing market conditions. likewise, some (many?) sociology departments have also failed to update their training and mentoring models to fit with the current market reality. the senior professors are familiar with a very different job market than what we currently face. anyone else have an adviser assure them that getting a job without top-3 journal publications is possible? i thought so!
so what would i like to see? i think departments need to tell students from day one that the R1 TT job market is super-competitive, and you need to either devote yourself completely to getting published early and often or select a different career path. also, the market is equally competitive for selective liberal arts schools, so students who want a teaching-focused career need to likewise teach early and often. how many departments offer actual classes on teaching? some do, but all should. i think we as a profession need to value and encourage alternative career paths in the private sector. and i think we as candidates need to take responsibility for out own career choices. if you study something obscure without practical or policy implications, accept that your job possibilities are more limited than someone who selects a more applied sub-field.
and that's my rant for today.
Good points.
I would add to that the fact that most older sociologists devalue non-academic sociologists completely, and even non-sociology academics.
In economics and political sciences, people are able to move between private sector and academia without being tainted. In fact, it enhances their perspectives significantly. In economics applied positions are valued and valuable, be them in banks, international organizations, or so on. In political science the same.
They see the usefulness of applied knowledge, private sector networks and so on.
In sociology, working in a private company, even when its applied sociology, does nothing for you. And if you stay there too long, no more academia for you, as private research, or any type of applied research is devalued tremendously.
"I think departments need to tell students from day one that the R1 TT job market is super-competitive, and you need to either devote yourself completely to getting published early and often or select a different career path."
Well...yes. The idea that you don't learn this early in graduate school is very foreign to me. This was drilled into us (practically) from day 1.
1:17;
I was feeling the same way, but now that the one school that interviewed me hasn't gotten back to me yet (they said they would get back to me last week), I've resigned myself to not getting a job this year. And suddenly I'm making great progress on my dissertation and research! (ok, it might also be because the class I teach is now over apart from some grading....)
Three comments related to recent comments by others:
1. I think this idea of sociology not adapting to changing market conditions--like the auto industry--is on the money. It's interesting that during a time when the social and behavioral sciences are expanding, sociology is declining. Programs in public health that focus on social and behavioral sciences, criminal justice, i/o psych, public policy, you name it. All of these disciplines draw on sociology to some degree. I can't help but think that sociology has lost a great deal of talent to these other professionalized disciplines. We can speculate about why that might be--sociology is not professionalized enough, it is perceived by students as being irrelevant, not enough research is policy relevant, etc. I don't know.
2. Who is getting the jobs at the lower-tier and teaching colleges? It appears that there are many applicants from top programs, with pubs, dissertation fellowships, etc. that haven't gotten any offers (I consider myself as falling into this category.) Are there really so many such applicants on the market that people from top R1s are being interviewed by and taking jobs at colleges with a 4-4 teaching loads in buttfuck? I recently interviewed for and did not get a job at such a place. There are many reasons having due with my own faults for why that could be. But, I wondered whether the person I lost the job was similar to me on paper, or whether the job was given to someone who was perceived as a "better fit"--someone who did not want to do research and/or came from a lower-tier institution. I'm wondering whether there's some sorting going on such that say the top 20 percent of candidates are only being considered by the top 20percent of jobs (which many of us cannot get because it is too competitive) and then the other 80 percent of jobs are considering the other 80 percent of candidates?
3. The other day I was thinking about my department. I suddenly realized that while most in the discipline would recognize it as a top department, I really could only think of a handful of recent, good placements of Ph.D.s in academic jobs. In fact, even when thinking about specific hot shot senior faculty members, I was hard pressed to find many instances in which their students went on to similar jobs at similar institutions. I wonder whether any one who is in, say maybe a top 20 department, finds that the placement of Ph.D.s does not equate with the reputation of the department? Or maybe it's just an issue with the discipline in general rather than with any specific departments?
What's with the apparent entitlement some people from "top tier" departments are expressing? Maybe you're not getting jobs in "butfuck" because of your attitude (homophobic and elitist)! Re-read Sociological Imagination Lazarsfelds. If you cannot compete with the best, why piss on the rest?
Well, there's a reason. The students at Top 20 programs who did and published research were feed the idea that they were among the elite of the profession.
Unfortunately for them, the dissonance is now breaking up and they are realizing that their applications are being dropped like a bad habit because their teaching experience is nil and deans are now looking to "clean up" sociology (according to administration I know at two schools, a SLAC and mid-tier R1). The lackluster grant-getting performance and the inability of sociology majors to gain "real-world" experience has been a topic of interest at several recent conferences attended by Deans, Provosts, and University Presidents. So yes, the market (or job system) has changed, which means so must we. Some of you may try law school, accounting, or market research and truth be told you can often (with a Ph.D.) find six-figure salary jobs such that you would be making more than your department head pretty quickly.
"Re-read Sociological Imagination Lazarsfelds. If you cannot compete with the best, why piss on the rest?"
--- quoth the poster above.
The best would know the actual author of The Sociological Imagination, and would also get a famous methodologist's name right.
6:04. I meant read the section on Lazarsfeld. By "Lazarsfelds," I was generalized to all careerist, souless and vacuous empiricists who have ruined sociology. I thought that was clear, but I guess not. Maybe one should read Lynd's Knowledge for What? too.
re: November 11, 2008 1:36 PM
Writing your marital and family status on your CV is comment practice--in fact, required--in Europe. That some do it in the US might reflect either European origin, or being a Europeanist in their field.
all the snippy comments and blaming aside, i tried my very best through grad school and worked really hard and was unsuccessful in landing a job this year.
sigh.
Me too 6:30. All the positions that I applied have past me by and the few that are left don't fit me all that well. It has taken me a couples of weeks to move past the stage of denial. And although the next year will be rough (financially!), I do feel strangely engerized.
11:13 said "if i end up working at wal-mart next year, you could wind up having your ASR submission peer reviewed by a Wal-Mart employee!"
Given the quality of the ASR lately, I already thought this was the case.
The only reason ASR is a "top-3" journal is because they attach it to your ASA membership. it is the least-useful journal i get right now
Here's a question for folks: What do people think is the most useful journal? I'm defining useful as one with interesting, thought provoking articles. For me, I find Organization Studies to be most useful. It's not the top organization journal, but it's the most interesting.
i busted my ass for my dept., took on extra work for them, helped improve the infrastructure, published my ass off, and for WHAT? to be unemployed and told to change my perceptions when market realities are about to expose my family to the harsh realities of poverty and loss of health insurance, it's time to stand up to these tenured assholes who don't publish and sit in their offices and play fucking solitaire for a six figure salary
asa 2009 attendance is going going going...DOWN
I can't help but wonder if the people who are shocked and disappointed at the inequity of working hard and not getting a job are folks who went straight through from BA to PhD and have no experience outside of academia? I worked for several years outside of academic before going back for my PhD. The two important rules I learned from (great) bosses are that 1) people suck and 2) never expect anything from working hard. Of course, these rules are somewhat tongue in cheek, but the bottom line is to be realistic and always look out for number one. I realize that this is not helpful for current situations, but please take these rules and use them for the future.
11:10 - interesting question. Since my area of research is inherently interdisciplinary, I tend to find interesting research is a very broad selection of journals - from the so-called 'big 3' to IMR to Social Networks.
As for the critiques of the big 3 journals - what actually is the beef? Is it just boring, or do you really think that what is published in ASR, AJS, and Social Forces is bad social science compared to other sociology journals (e.g., Social Problems) or other social science journals (e.g., APSR)? Some of the articles aren't interest to me at all, but 'for the most part' they publish 'good sociology'. No?
I am in urban sociology, so it may come as no surprise that i find City and Community to be a great journal. but even beyond my own substantive interests, i think that the journal is great because it publishes on a wide range of topics using a lot of different methods. for example, there was a great article in the most recent issue of gentrification and discourse about risks to children.
i also think Gary Allen Fine has done an amazing job making Social Psychology Quarterly of interest to people outside of social psych. I don't do social psych, but i often read articles in SPQ because they are just downright interesting.
I think that the "big three" (and to be fair, i don't subscribe to AJS so i am not a regular reader unless something comes up in a search i'm doing) do publish good sociology. obvio to get anything in one of those journals it has to be sound research. i just don't often read an article in one of those journals and think "ah! this could inform my work in these ways..."
the journals i really like are the ones that do that - then i read articles outside of my sub-field and can draw connections across the discipline.
12:17 -
I went 7 years between undergrad and grad school, and I agree that it gives you a different view of things. While I may not like some of the ways our business operates, I can say from experience that it is no different from any other business or industry.
In my previous life as a computer programmer, I was likewise competing for jobs against 200+ qualified applicants, expected to kiss up to people in positions of power, subject to the whims and egos of the bosses, and passed over for jobs in favor of other people who were more connected.
jeez, lot of arrogance on this thread. people prefacing their posts by noting that theyre from "top R1" and have several pubs in the "big 3" and other disgusting posturing.
heres my deal. im at a "top 60" program; ive published 3 articles, 1 second author in a garbage journal, 1 first author in a mid-teir journal, and 1 first author in a half-decent specialty journal. no sole-authored stuff. ive had 2 campus interviews, 3 phone interviews, 3 requests for more materials. im ABD and i do qualitative stuff.
so whatever your perceptions, im reasonably certain that the market isnt being clogged up with advanced assistants looking to move.
maybe your cover letters suck. maybe your research is boring. i dunno. nut up and apply to some community colleges instead of all this "ive wasted the last ten years of my life, waahhhhhhh!!" bullshit..
4:59, hey pot, this is the kettle, you're looking rather dark.
it's getting really old reading posts by people with jobs who come onto the VENTING thread to condescendingly chastise the unfortunate among us for being frustrated and distressed.
b.i.o.y.a.
like that post, academia is full of assholes who make their careers about pretending not to be ...fucking stupid people go into sociology and the smart ones that get in just learn how to "talk the talk"
sociology? lol, heck i majored in it b/c it is easy and the professors treat you like a genius if you throw a few original observations about weber their way in a theory course
it is not that difficult to get ridiculous research published and "rise to the top" in this discipline, any trained observer who can use logic can go far in quant sociology (i will admit that good qual. sociology is harder to do and some of it is bullshit just the same)
12:17-- I'm also taken aback by folks who are shocked at their lack of success this year. My take was that many folks come into it with a sense of entitlement: "I worked my ass off, published, taught, and damnit, I deserve a tenure-track job." It's practically seen as a birth-right.
I've always interpreted entitled attitudes like this one as a vestige of class privilege. Folks from the working class or poverty class understand that you can work hard and still come up empty handed; no one is entitled to anything. Thus, I'd bet that we're not the ones on here complaining about the economy and the lousy job market-- we're the ones humbly scrounging around for tenure track jobs and devising back-up strategies in case we can't find one. Sure, we're scared like everyone else, but the anger on this site implies that something was unjustly taken away. And, to be frank, nothing was unjust because academia didn't owe any of us anything to begin with.
Don't be taken aback. This is academia, we will have to deal with these middle-class assholes for the rest of our careers (by virtue of the fact that we any type of graduate degrees). I might just go back to fixing cars in my brother's garage. Shitty work, yes. Long hours, yes. Middle class assholes, yes (but you can always make them pay more for stuff).
For those of you with newer infants, the WIC program is decent. They will write you checks for whatever formula you need or peanut butter or juicy juice. In the northeast, they weren't too too bad. Not sure how they are in other regions.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/
You can also check your eligibility for food stamps here:
http://www.snap-step1.usda.gov/fns/index.jsp
I'm sure you are right about class entitlement, but I do think that some of this entitlement is encouraged by graduate departments. I know that when I was choosing graduate schools, all I heard about at my school was what good jobs students got after they graduated. The idea that someone wouldn't get a tt job ANYWHERE(never mind an R1 position), was never suggested as even a possibility. Even as students get close to finishing, advisors never address the possibility that a student will "fail" in the job market.
I truely wish that the state of the Sociology job market was discussed a lot more honestly and openly in my department.
entitlement? I am sure there are some people who feel entitled, but let's be real here.
Most of us are closing in on at least being 30, some are older. We've all been working extremely long hours for a stipend that in most states puts you below the poverty line while either teaching the same classes or doing the research for people with complete job security and a 6 figure salary. Academia, more than other careers, is extremely volatile in the first few years. More importantly, academia is a place that pigeonholes people fairly quickly. 2 or 3 years in the wrong position, 2 or 3 years of difficulties due to family/personal reasons and you may be stuck forever as an adjunct/part timer.
Add to that the fact that the market has become increasingly competitive, and that this is just about the worst job market year in recent memory, and it is obvious that people are going to feel let down, abused, misled and so on. Most of us here remember when 1 or 2 decent publications were enough to get you a TT job, at a good place to boot.
So enough with this "working class hero" BS. Dont like the venting thread, dont come here. People apply to positions because they think they have a shot at it, and feel frustrated when they dont get it. Enough wiht this whole entitlement BS. Its a thread about venting regarding the job market. Dont come here telling me you are oh so glad and happy that, after 4-8 years of hard work and little pay, you have nothing to show for it.
I am glad you can take it all in stride and be happy. Some of us are frustrated, and it has nothing to do with entitlement, nothing to do with middle class, and everything to do with the disappointment that comes in a lousy job market and the desperation that comes with the realization that taking side jobs, adjunct positions and jobs outside academia might hurt our chances at a tt job forever.
What is next? Are you going to move to Flint or Detroit and lecture them too on middle class entitlement?
i'm not sure what people mean by feeling "entitled", but i'm pretty sure we all went to graduate school expecting to get jobs afterward. i mean, no one devotes 5+ years to something and writes a dissertation EXPECTING to not land a job! i don't feel like anything has been "unjustly taken away" from me, but i did work my ass off in graduate school with the explicit goal being to have a job afterward. so yes, it really does suck that it has not happened. i'm not looking blame anyone for that fact, but just to point out that it does suck.
having said that...i did attend one of those oft-maligned top-5 departments and i can assure you that my department was not populated by a bunch of wealthy, arrogant, entitled kids. we have a substantial bunch of folks who, like myself, grew up in poverty and have spent most of grad school accumulating student loan debt and living in shitty apartments with lots of roommates while surviving on cheap crappy food.
i think we have ever right to feel frustrated that we don't have jobs. i'm not saying the world owed me a job, but getting one was kinda the point of this whole endeavor. anyone who can shrug off not finding a job after graduating obviously has a lot more class privilege than i'll ever have.
"Middle-class assholes"? really?? so now everyone who was born to parents above the poverty line is an asshole?
you have GOT to be kidding.
No, middle-class people ARE assholes (for the most part) and I put up with them everyday, and you should be smart and middle-class enough not to use an absolute poverty line to define class.
What's happening here is for the first time in your life, your middle-class privilege is not working and you are frustrated. You can't believe it. Well, it sucks and I'm venting too because my hopes of improving my situation have failed thus far (even though I've published in decent journals ON MY OWN). I don't feel "entitled", I always know the rug could be pulled from under my feet. I'm happy just to have been allowed to go college and be a lazy paper-pusher (let's face it folks, this shit is EASY work). It is not hard labor, it is easy. And the bastard professors exploit you just as any boss would (but some of their liberal beliefs stop some of them from doing it too bad).
Not sure about your situation, but I don't have parents with money to send me, so it's off to the garage (if they will even have me) or off to the stinky unemployment line and living in my car with my kids. I've seen people do it, never personally tried it.
Have a nice day middle-class fuckos.
"middle-class people ARE assholes"
You're classist.
i know, because i just have so much power to discriminate against middle-class people by writing anonymous comments on a blog
hi, 4.59 here. the point i was trying to make is that if youre at a top 10 department, youve published good work, and youve taught, and you havent even had a phone interview, its possible that something is wrong with your application (cover letter? reference letters?), and that you should look critically at what that might be. unless, of course, these people are only applying to the yales and harvards of the world.
7:19
you dont care about being unemployed, not providing for you family, and so on and the OTHERS are privileged assholes?
Fuck off.
don't feed the trolls, friends. it only makes them talk more.
what is a "troll"?
or you just don't want people like me in your safe little world of middle-class and upper-middle class hacks
Ummm... I grew up middle class, and I still have to support myself and my three kids. I definitely had privileges growing up--going to museums, parents who read to me, etc. But I still graduated from college over my head in loans. And I worked and saved money for years before returning to school. My parents have not given me a dime since I graduated. Don't buy into the middle class millionaire. People who can rely on their parents to support them through grad school or after are likely RICH. And few and far between.
And if I want to VENT about how upset I am about my job prospects while on the VENTING thread, I will be.
Perhaps we could start a new thread for people who want to vent about the people who vent?
-Karl
The meta-venting section, I LOVE IT.
I'm sick and tired of people suggesting we start threads dedicated to venting about vents.
Sorry, I just needed to triple-vent
i grew up with kind loving parents who had money. they offered to give me some but i was like "fuck you, bitches of the capitalist system!"
now i let my kids live in poverty and experience malnutrition the way kids should, just like my hero Marx. i'm totally stickin' it to those middle-class bastards. they'll be sorry they had the nerve to try and give me a comfortable life. bitches.
yeah, because white middle-class people have always been out to help me...
Okay, here's my vent....
I got two fly-outs, which, in this job market is pretty awesome.
Job A was absolutely fantastic. Great city, great people, great university, perfect.
Job B was a nightmare. Horrible location, totally dysfunctional department, massive turnover. Everyone I talked to was clearly miserable and wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible...a member of the freaking SC actually said as much.
Job A was supposed to start contacting people late last week. I've heard nothing. I shot the SC a quick email to ask about status of search and he ignored said email.
I can only assume that this means I am not first pick and probably will not get the job since the market is so shitty and top candidate(s) are unlikely to have multiple offers.
I literally am losing my mind. I don't see how I can take Job B even if I am offered it and might actually opt for another year in grad school--but another year in grad school sounds like hell. I am getting older. I feel like I have been in graduate school forever. I am in massive amounts of debt.
I wanted Job A so much, that if I don't get it, I might never be able to hear the name of the university, or even the city where it is located, spoken again without suffering a wave of nausea. I know that this is insane.
I am losing my fucking mind.
I'm waiting to hear back after two fly-outs also and feeling your pain. I can't explain how upset I will be not to get an offer, but I know there are three of us for each position. I'm sorry one of your schools sucked so badly.
The only thing I can say is that both of my universities ended up taking longer than they expected to get the decision made and approved. Maybe University A is still deciding? (or there may still be a small chance someone would turn them down).
I am not looking forward to going through Christmas not having heard from either school.
The cross-venting about social class status is fascinating. As students and proto-professors you are in Marx's scheme part of the "lumpenproletariat." So in employment you take your lumps!
The choice isn't simply: tenure-track or off to the garage. There are temporary faculty jobs, post-docs, internships, research associate positions, and additional graduate programs.
Welcome to the world that has faced graduate students in the humanities for decades. If you're at an elite university, the humanities departments are probably as highly ranked as sociology. What do their students do after the PhD?
I hope that employment-frustrated sociology students at least spent those happy graduate years studying a topic they really care about, instead of chasing a trendy, boring topic and still losing out in the job crunch anyway.
Here’s my vent about privilege. I’ve had multiple offers. Several of my colleague’s are also on the market this year. Like most everyone on the market they are extremely frustrated and anxious for all the reasons that previous posters have mentioned. So here’s the story. A colleague of mine (let’s call him Joe Blow) who is also on the market, informed me that I received multiple offers for two reasons. “First, you’re a woman. Second, you’re very good looking.” Yes, you are a hard worker, Joe Blow rationalized, with publications, grants, etc., etc., but you are a pretty woman who grew up privileged (I’ll admit I’m cute (he he) but I did NOT grow up privileged). With my mouth hanging open in shock from his blatant sexism, Joe Blow, who claims to be a passionate champion of minority rights, equal opportunity, etc. etc., proceeds to tell me that he knows he is the most qualified candidate at the places where he interviewed, and that it is not FAIR that SC’s discriminate against him because he’s a WHITE MALE!
IMHO, it is rather absurd to rally against any individual for whatever advantage they may have been born with. If you think a system that gives advantages to some people is unfair, vent against the structural inequalities. Making the political personal just divides us all.
I am always a little taken aback by the "people discriminate against me because I'm a straight white male" claim, but it is not unique to our field. In my case, I interviewed for a great job and it went to an equally-qualified minority candidate (I was told this "off the record"). Why should I blame the person who got the job? I'm sure that s/he will do a great job and be an outstanding mentor. If I think the decision was unfair (which I don't), my gripe should be with the SC and not the candidate.
Finally, I think it is really interesting how many people feel the need to emphasize that they did not grow up "privileged". As if being born to parents who had a comfortable income and some wealth is a personal failing? It reminds me of those studies finding that everyone identifies as middle class.
if you have a PhD you're privileged, but no need to even go that far, if you have a fucking high school degree you're privileged...
All this talk reminds me of The Jerk when Steve Martin opens the second scene in the movie with the line "I was born a poor black child."
You people are like junkyard dogs fighting over scraps while the owner laughs and laughs.
We are the junkyard dogs, the wealthiest 1% are the owners. Let's get some perspective, stop bickering and start changing the world.
1:55 -- Right because being a young, attractive female never helped anyone get ahead. You're delusional.
That being a woman is some kind of huge advantage is bullshit. If you look at the people who have gotten jobs out of my program in the past several years, the MEN have been far more successful both in terms of just getting a job and in terms of "status," pay, etc..of those jobs. Moreover, if you compare the CVs of the male and female candidates that we both place and that we hire, the women tend to have much more impressive vitas (more pubs, pubs in better journals, etc..) than the men.
I've seen a lot of men come out of, and into, our program with little more to recommend them than some nebulous sense that they have "a lot of promise" and the enthusiastic backing of their well-connected (usually male) big-shot advisors. The women who come in and successfully place out, on the other hand, have to have REALLY distinguished themselves quite early on with actual (versus potential) published work and brilliant research.
Women in my program who have good, strong CVs (but not necessarily a huge list of 'outstanding' ASR-type pubs) keep getting passed over for jobs in favor of male candidates who haven't actually done much of anything yet, but who have nonetheless impressed influential members of the good ol' boys with careful mix of ass-kissing and overconfident bluster.
It seems that young women are often at a disadvantage because people worry how childbearing will affect their productivity. This can be true even for young women who never want to have children, and doesn't seem to apply to young men, even if they have a baby or one on the way. And good-looking people have all sorts of advantages regardless of gender. I don't know that an attractive woman has an advantage so much as an UNattractive one has a disadvantage.
Attractive women do get a lot of attention; although, it is often times negative and unwanted. Nonetheless, it is an advantage and I've seen many a woman work it. However, I think the last comment nailed it, being conventionally unattractive and female is a big disadvantage. Two well know professors (yes you would know them) in my department were actually overheard mocking a job candidate because she was overweight--she did not get the job. This is just one of countless examples of extremely bad behavior by well-known, established professors that are enabled by those around them. One of those same professors was accused of inappropriate (re: sexual harassment) behavior by multiple female gruaduate students in my department and the faculty, including the large number of feminist faculty, brushed it off as socially awkward behavior.
What are we going to do about it? Are we not the future of Sociology (those of us with jobs anyway--I'm not one of the lucky ones at this point)? I hope those of you with jobs are going to try to change the way things work.
I recently told a prof. in my department that I had accepted a post-doc for next year. He responded by telling me that was a good idea because "a post-doc is a great time to have a baby!"
Struck me as very odd since I have never suggested to anyone that I was looking to have a child.
I can say that I read quite a few articles when I was dissertating which found exactly what the above posters have suggested. Being unattractive or overweight is much more of a liability for women in the labor market than for men. I think I probably get away with being unattractive because I am significantly older than most people coming out of grad school, but I too have heard professors (and grad students too) make unkind remarks about how a candidate looked.
It's disturbing to see how people are turning on each other... I know this is a place to vent, and I know that there are some applicants who strike us as offensive, but isn't the problem really the larger structure?
This is a very, very bad job market, but it hasn't been good for years.
Who is really doing anything about these profound inequalities in higher education? Why are we blaming each other?
"Only a woman could succeed in criticising feminism; and that only women now have the power to establish equality between the sexes. It is now incumbent upon women to rise up from their privileged position and repair the inequalities of men."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article4448418.ece
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